'U' alumnus remembers days in Peace Corps

By Gary Marsh
Special to the Daily

There it was, spelled right out on the radio: "The Peace Corps: a two-year adventure to some remote, exotic place in the world compliments of Uncle Sam. You don't have to carry a gun (a very big deal in 1961) ... and you are going to love it." But there was no mention of snakes, intestinal parasites, skin fungus, malaria, mud houses, civil revolts and 130 inches of rain.

Marsh

When the telegram arrived inviting me to training, few of my friends could pronounce my destination and nobody knew for certain where it was. But 12 weeks after dropping out of school, quitting my job and selling my car, I arrived in Gabon - 104,000 square miles of tropical rain forest on the west coast of Africa - ready to build a school in every jungle clearing. Thirty-seven other guys from as many campuses across the country had the same idea. Together, we were Peace Corps Project Gabon I. (Tanganyika I, a group of surveyors, preceded us in east Africa by a few months.) There was no limit to our enthusiasm and idealism.

In the first month, fungus grew on the roofs of our tents, and they leaked. By the second month, our tents had thatched roofs. By the third month, we abandoned the tents to live in mud wattle houses. This was our first great lesson: Civilizations are varied and unique. They evolve over time to precisely meet the demands of their environment. No matter how educated you are, there is always something to be learned from unexpected sources. We had a lot to learn.

Our project was to build 28 rural, elementary schools with accompanying houses for teachers. There would be no plumbing or electricity but the buildings would be permanent structures built with cement block and have cement floors. The buildings were to be bright, cheerful and appealing to young school children. Bureaucracy threatened to stall the project when supplies were slow to arrive. But sand was plentiful at the river beds during the dry season and rocks were scattered across the fields, needing only a wheelbarrow, truck, or strong arms to collect them. So, natural, native building materials became second-choice building components and they looked great. Frank Lloyd Wright would have been proud. This was our second great lesson: Leave a little room in your life for flexibility. Things might turn out better than you planned, and necessity is still the mother of invention.

Each member of Gabon I was proficient in a building skill - carpentry, stone masonry, cement finishing, etc. - that we taught to teams of our native co-workers. We all lived and worked toward a common goal and shared the joy of accomplishment and the bonds of friendship. We were each other's dinner guests and experienced applesauce or monkey and manioc for the first time. We celebrated the birth and mourned the death of the same child in our village and learned our third great lesson: Everyone laughs, sweats and cries in the same language. There is dignity in every human life.

Finally, we realized there was as much to learn as there was to teach, and we became eager students. One day I followed a man and two boys carrying hatchets into the jungle. Two days later, they carried out a pirogue (canoe). Lesson four: Everything you really need and the means to obtain it have been provided.

At the end of 26 months, I metamorphosed into a dedicated, inquisitive student ready to learn more about everything. So I returned to Ann Arbor and became a student of zoology. And, with the exception of Calculus 115, was a much better student than I was before learning the lessons of the jungle.

- Gary Marsh is a 1969 University graduate.

09-10-97