From and To: Friends, Loves and Peace Corps

By Dolores Beasley

She's a nave, middle-class Black-American battling rats in Africa and having an affair with a cute but dumb white Peace Corps volunteer. He's a budding Minneapolis journalist with a fixation for sleazy movies and tasteless TV. Then there's Susan-an outspoken, fiercely loyal, recent college grad whose fianc is quite possibly gay. It's the mid-1980s. Reagan is still the "Teflon" president. America's watching "Dynasty," "That's Incredible," and "Falcon Crest." Everyone's dancing to Michael Jackson's "Thriller." Joan Rivers is Johnny Carson's favorite guest host and the general public is just beginning to learn of AIDS. If you're African-American, white, male, female, gay or straight, this touching, funny coming of age memoir told through highly entertaining and poignant letters from and to West Africa, Minneapolis, Chicago and Kansas City will touch your soul. "From and To" provides a candid account of Peace Corps life as it celebrates the collective experience of growing up in the eighties.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 16, 2007
• ISBN: 9780595874248

Dolores Beasley

Dolores Beasley, a former newspaper reporter for the Kansas City Star and the Hartford Courant, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in The Gambia, West Africa from 1983-85. A Kansas City, Kan., native, she has worked in public affairs for NASA and the American Bar Association and currently lives in San Jose, CA.

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Copyright © 2007 by Dolores Beasley

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ISBN: 978-0-595-43083-3 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-595-87424-8 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Preface

Part One: Training, January-March 1983

Part Two: March-December 1983

Part Three: 1984 Jan. 2, 1984 Dear Dolores,

Part Four: 1985

About the Author

To Susan and Adrian. For reasons that will be apparent.

Preface

December 1982: My going away was billed as The First Annual Kansas City Star Cucumber and Wall Punching Party.

The celebration was shared with Scott, a zone reporter for the paper’s weekly neighborhood section. The wall punching part of the title was his—two weeks earlier he’d slammed his fist in the outside wall of the Star’s Kansas City, Kan., bureau after learning he’d been turned down for a promotion to staff writer. He was leaving to join the Kansan, a much smaller newspaper located about two blocks from the bureau. This lowly news clerk was going much, much farther …

Arriving home extremely drunk at 4 a.m., I still managed to place my presents—six separately gift-wrapped boxes of zucchini and cucumbers—in the refrigerator prior to passing out in my bedroom. Later that morning I told my parents that thoughtful co-workers, knowing how much I liked green vegetables, wanted to make sure I ate plenty before heading off to live in West Africa for two years. Mom and Dad didn’t need to know that the party invitation had read, See Dolores explain how Peace Corps told her to get laid before she leaves because the jungle is a lonely place unless you grow cucumbers.

I sauteed the zucchini and made a huge bowl of cucumber and tomato salad. I tried not to think about ending what I had hoped was to be my first adult relationship with John, a former co-worker. I called my college chum Adrian in Minneapolis and made him swear he’d write the long letters I’d come to depend on whenever we were apart. When my childhood friend Susan and I weren’t talking for hours on the phone, we were at Stanford’s, our favorite Westport bar, downing far too many fruity alcoholic concoctions and prolonging our final, tearful goodbye.

My first letter was to my parents, letting them know I arrived safely. The very next letter began .

Part One: Training, January-March 1983

Jan. 26, 1983 Dear Gang,

Yesterday I would have written you about the old seminary I stayed in with the other trainees outside Banjul. Yesterday I would have written this on a beautiful, secluded beach while looking out on an unbelievably clear ocean. I would have mentioned that the seminary had running water and electricity and I loved the food.

Today, I arrived in Bwiam, the village where I am to live for the next two months, and yesterday seems like years ago.

I am writing this in a family compound. My room is a square, tiny, mud brick structure with a tin roof, two tin doors and a small tin window. I’m writing this on a thin, foam mattress. That is all the furniture for now, although Peace Corps tells me I may get a mat and a sheet. I’m sure to get a kerosene lamp, but a table will have to be made out of my backpack, I think.

The elder wife just took me to a tin shed, which is to be my wash area. I thanked her profusely because she already had the bucket full of water for me, saving me a trip to the well.

I just had my first bucket bath. I think I’ll buy some nails so I won’t have to put my towel on the ground. I cannot urinate (or anything else) in this compound because they have not built a fence for the latrine. Peace Corps told me in about two days one will be built. I was told some volunteers have their own latrine. It looks like I’ll be sharing mine with the rest of this compound.

I was also told that soon I would be able to squat without losing my balance. The latrine hole at the training site is too small for me to fall into, and it is deep, so I am thankful for small favors.

I don’t know how large this compound is yet, but as soon as I finish this I’m going to attempt to leave my room and explore. When I see the elder wife I will give her the kola nuts I bought in the market. Next time I go to market I think I will pick up some sugar as a present.

The family name is Joof. This is a Wolof compound and no one seems to know a word of English. I’m smiling and saying jerre jef (thank you) a lot. All I know are greetings. I have five to six hours of language training a day but I’m beginning to think that’s not enough. If Isatou, a Wolof Peace Corps person, hadn’t been with me when I first came here …

Sorry, seven children from the compound bombarded my room wanting to see what I had and to laugh at my Wolof. I just shooed them out.

If you cannot tell, I am in shock. I’m laughing a lot and wondering what the hell I am doing here. I think of the Star often and hope the boat that brings the Sunday editions won’t be late. Tell the newsroom, the zone desk, and those few who like me on the copy desk that I’m nyungfa (fine). I’d better find the Peace Corps training compound before it gets dark.

Jan. 28: I’m adjusting. I have a mat, a small table, an iron cot, a sheet, and a kerosene lamp. Today I shared a bowl of rice, ground peanuts and smoked fish with four other trainees. I practiced eating with my right hand. Most Gambians use their left hand instead of toilet paper, so for me to eat left handed would be quite an insult—particularly since they don’t usually use utensils.

My mosquito netting is up around my bed. I am in better health than most of the trainees and I am learning to like it more everyday, so all is well.

I was given a new name yesterday to use for the duration. Just call me—Daba Joof P.S. Everyone else does.

Land O’Lakes Jan. 26, 1983

Dolores:

This probably will be a very disjointed letter because this is a big night for sleazy TV and my attention is split. Dynasty is on Channel Five and a super-trashy made-for-TV movie about a mother who abandons her child and then comes back to see her 12 years later is on Channel Four. Actually, Dynasty is starting to sound like it could use some new writers. Get his line from Fallon, the supposed bitch of the show: Thank you, Krystle, for making us a family again. Jeez.

Maybe Dynasty should hire some writers from Matt Houston, one of my all-time favorite shows. I tried to start a letter Sunday night during that show, but I got too wrapped up in it to do anything else. I think it was lines like this that did it: After Matt pulls C.J., his lovely female lawyer, away from a computer that is programmed to fire a machine gun at her, C.J. responds breathlessly with a witty, Thanks, Houston, that could have hurt. (My favorite part every week is at the beginning of the show where C.J. tells Matt, Better cock your pistols, cowboy.) Pure Shakespeare, let me tell you. I certainly hope you can get Dynasty and Matt Houston on your local Gambian TV stations.

To be honest, I tried to watch the local educational station in honor of you Sunday afternoon while I was cleaning the apartment. I saw all of five minutes of Masterpiece Theatre before I decided to listen to Bruce Springsteen on my Walkman. I wondered if you were able to listen to Bruce Springsteen in Gambia, but then I realized you wouldn’t even be listening to Bruce Springsteen in Kansas City, so there’s no reason to think you would be listening to him in Gambia.

It’s probably good that you’re in Gambia since a lot of things are going on in the United States that you won’t like. I watched Reagan’s State of the Union speech last night, and didn’t have any trouble with it until he got to his segment on educational priorities. There were four priorities. The first two dealt with emphasizing science and math skills among schoolchildren. The third was a tuition tax credit for parents who send their kids to private schools. But my favorite was his support of a constitutional amendment allowing prayer in public schools. Get this (a direct quote): God never should have been expelled from school in the first place. Egad.

Meanwhile, on the private-sector, public-service front, ABC-TV wins this week’s humanitarian award by announcing it will close-caption its upcoming special, Cheryl Ladd … Scenes From A Special, for the hearing-impaired. Way to go, guys.

Also, I think your new third-world friends will be interested in the marketing of the movie Gandhi. So far this has consisted primarily of a pretty strange TV commercial that appears frequently on, of all things, Dynasty and Dallas. The guy doing the voice-over on this commercial is the same one who used to do voice-overs on ABC-TV. (You know, that’s the guy with this sort of singsong voice who used to say things like, Laverne poses as a radiator repairman to meet men on Laverne and Shirley, Tuesday at 8 Eastern Time, 7 central. He’s still the guy who rather obscenely refers it to as The Loooove Boat.)

Anyway, this commercial starts with a blank screen, and this guy, in a normal voice, says, Columbia Pictures brings you two of the most acclaimed motion pictures of the year this winter. Then, along with a scene from Gandhi and some slow, funeral-type music, this guy in a real slow, dragged-out voice goes up about three octaves, he gets real hyper and shrieks, … and Tootsie! Dustin Hoffman dons a dress in this wacky comedy! That’s Gandhi and Tootsie, at a theater near you, now, from Columbia Pictures."

I mean, jeez, Gandhi and Tootsie almost sounds like an idea for a Grant Tinker situation comedy. (Tom Selleck is the emancipated leader of a starving Asian nation. Edward Asner is a transvestite soap opera star. When the New York City housing shortage forces them to share an apartment, the results are zany!")

I went to see Best Friends and Six Weeks last weekend. Best Friends was pretty good, I thought, which surprised me since I like neither Burt Reynolds nor Goldie Hawn. Six Weeks, conversely, was utter crud. There was not one character in the entire movie a normal person could work up an ounce of empathy for. Mary Tyler Moore couldn’t decide if she wanted to play Mary Richards or Beth Jared, so she ended up alternating between the two, which was real disconcerting. One minute she was running around like something out of Mommie Dearest, and the next she was pulling out the old Are you kidding? and Oh, Mr. Grant … lines. Of course, in this case, it was Oh, Dudley … Anyway, Dudley Moore is short, unattractive, and not really very funny, and I just found him pompous and grating. Also, Mary Tyler Moore had to keep sitting down during scenes with him, or he ended up delivering lines to her bust, which was a little distracting.

Speaking of movies, the man who wore the E.T. costume in the movie E.T. died today at age 35 of a blood disease. He was a midget and was chosen during a midget talent search for the part by Steven Spielberg, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.’s nightly radio news program. Canadians love midget stories.

E.T. jokes, by the way are quickly becoming passé here in Minneapolis, as are Iowa jokes. In fact, the only new Iowa joke I’ve heard recently is this—Q: Why doesn’t Montana fall into Lake Superior? A: Because it’s 400 miles away from Lake Superior. Q: Then why doesn’t Minnesota fall into Lake Superior? A: Because (you guessed it) Iowa sucks.

(I don’t think I ever told you about the little feature that appeared in the New York Times at the height of the Iowa joke mania here. It purported to be a story about the local popularity of the jokes, but it really was just a retelling of some of the most popular jokes along with an explanation of each. For instance, for the above joke, the Times would have included a line something like, «Iowa borders Minnesota on the south, and Lake Superior borders Minnesota on the northeast. Montana borders none of the afore-mentioned entities.» The jokes really lost a lot when the droll copy elves at the Times decided to interpret them.)

Actually, American humor in general seems to be declining. I watched the «Johnny Carson Show» the other night because Joan Rivers was the guest host, and the woman was doing Helen Keller jokes—really. I mean, they weren’t terribly caustic, more along the lines of «Everyone hates me, Helen Keller told me to shut up,» but they were Helen Keller jokes just the same.

The show didn’t improve much when Joan welcomed her special guests—Angie Dickinson, Cher and Richard Simmons. Richard brought Nerf balls for everyone to squeeze, supposedly in an effort to enhance bust size. Joan slipped two of them down the front of her dress, saying that would yield faster results. Richard told her she looked «just like Evita," whatever that means.

(This letter must leave you with the impression that my TV viewing habits are really low-class—»Dynasty,» CBS movies of the week, Joan Rivers. Well, they are. What can I say? I come from common stock.)

My cultural life recently has also been bleak, with the most exciting event of recent times a trip last weekend to International Falls to Ice Fox Days. That’s an annual event where people stand around outside in 31 below weather digging through snowdrifts looking for a buried medallion, have ice-skating races, and do other snow-related things.

This weekend, the St. Paul Winter Carnival starts. That’s a whole fun-filled week of digging in snowdrifts for a buried medallion, having ice-skating races, etc. There is a certain degree of monotony in the Minnesota winter festivals, as you may have noticed. Probably I’ll make a rare trip over to St. Paul for the festivities. As we say here in Minneapolis, you have to see the hole to appreciate the doughnut.

Speaking of exciting, I’ve enclosed an advertisement for E.T. Shoes. That should serve to keep you in touch with your native American culture for the time being, at least. Adrian

Jan. 31, 1983 Dear Family,

They are keeping us extremely busy here. My days are filled with three to four hours of language training. I’m learning Wolof, which means I will probably be placed in an urban area; Mandinkas are primarily in rural areas. I also have technical (health) training and cultural training. All my weekday meals are at the Peace Corps training site, so I don’t stay at my compound (home) very much.

I’m drifting in and out of culture shock. If you could see me now! Now, instead of straining my orange juice (which you all used to constantly tease me about …), I peel the orange with my Swiss army knife (the skin is green and very thick) and I suck the juice out of it.

I don’t miss electricity that much. I use a flashlight to read by and I also have a kerosene lamp. I live in a renter’s compound as opposed to a family compound, where most of the other trainees live. I think the woman I live with, Daba Joof, is the manager (compounds are kind of like neighborhoods). Her three grandchildren (ages four, five and eight) also live with her. It is a four-room, mud-brick house. There is a small sitting area, a storage room and two bedrooms. The latrine is one of my hardest adjustments. The trick is to squat in the right place. I keep missing, but I have learned to correct my aim quickly. There is a small tin shed when I take bucket baths. It is so hot and dusty here I usually take two a day, as do most people. I have learned to draw water out of the well.

We’re getting shots on average of two a week. Name it—rabies, cholera, typhoid—I’ve been vaccinated against it. I give my arm willingly each time because I figure it beats getting the disease.

Some things are easier for me to adjust to than others. I am going through telephone withdrawal and am finding it difficult to eat with my right hand. The only time I absolutely have to eat with my right is during lunch when we eat Gambian style (on mats, with about five people to a big bowl, with our hands). Since there is a lot of rice, the trick is to squeeze the rice into a ball so you can eat it without making a mess. Today I got fed up and used a spoon, but I will get better.

The best thing about this place is the people. They are so friendly; they will do anything to help you. It is also very peaceful and the pace is slow (with the exception of training). I am still well. Only a few of the trainees can still say that, so I’ve been lucky.

I hope all is well at home. Everyday I think of things I should have done before I left or things I should have brought. Please send packets of Kool-Aid—any flavor, the address of Stanford & Sons restaurant on Westport Road, and pictures. I have the family photo on my wall and it has become a terrific conversation piece and icebreaker. I’ve yet to hear from you, but mail should be delivered tomorrow. I love and miss you all.

Write soon and tell me all the news. Mail comes about every two weeks. Dolores (Daba)

Feb. 18, 1983 Dear Everyone,

Happy Independence Day! The Gambia has now been free of England for 18 years. Of course trainees didn’t participate in any of the celebrations; we had classes instead.

One of the training coordinators went into Banjul last week and came across a couple who said they were looking for the daughter of someone from Kansas City. Dad, one of your contacts paid off. The couple is a friend of someone you know—the training coordinator couldn’t remember the name, but she said they would get in touch with me.

Mom, your third letter arrived last week. I’ve yet to receive letter #1. Dad, I received the Newsweek magazines in the same bundle—thanks. When I’m sworn-in I’ll receive Newsweek regularly, so please send letters and newspaper clippings instead. The children I live with love to look at the pictures in Newsweek and are teaching me the Wolof names for the things we see in the ads. In return I have taught them to recognize Ronald Reagan on sight—they shriek, Reagan, la tuda! whenever they come across his picture.

Daba Joof is acting more like a mother everyday. The first time she did my laundry I asked her not to iron because coal is difficult to get for heat, the iron is extremely heavy and the weather is very hot. She didn’t iron, but the next day when I came out in a wrinkled dress she made a motion as if to say I should have let her iron it. I explained in my best Wolof that the dress was fine, but she made it known I should not leave her house looking like that.

Yesterday we came to an agreement. I will give her my laundry and will ask her not to iron and she will do it anyway … sound familiar?

Next week the trainees are going to visit different volunteers to see how they live. After that they will announce our postings, so soon I’ll know where I’ll be for the next two years. I am 90 percent sure it will be a city or large village because the nurse here said it would be best for my anemia to be in a place with a good market so I can get plenty of the foods I need. It may be Ferafenni, a village of about 12,000, or Serekunda, which I hear is the equivalent of living in the poorest section in the Bronx. Oh well, all will be revealed soon. Love, Dolores

Feb. 21, 1983 Dolores:

Today is an official bank holiday, which makes it an official company day off. Naturally this means I am in the office catching up on stuff. So far I’ve done a lot of fun stuff here, including changing paper on the Teletype machines (I think I screwed them up badly—I always do) and talking to Terri in Dallas.

I called Terri because she called me last night at home and asked me to please, please call her from the office in the morning because she had been in the house all week and weekend waiting for someone to offer her a job. So far, no dice. It sounds like she’s really desperate. Actually, you may be seeing Terri sooner than you think because she is sending a resume to the CIA this afternoon. The CIA had an ad in the Dallas newspaper recruiting agents, and Terri thought spying might be her calling. Perhaps she’ll end up being your local operative.

Terri, I’m afraid, is beginning to show classic signs of unemployment. She had to end our conversation, for example, because her daily reruns of Different Strokes and Facts of Life were about to begin. She also is talking about moving back to Emporia to live with her parents. Also, she was talking about capturing one of the ducks in the little park outside her apartment and pulling all its feathers off one by one. (Just kidding there.)

Terri and I had a long discussion about personal ads. Terri thinks she would like to start answering them to see what kinds of people place them and to put some excitement in my life. I suspect there are no personal ads in Gambia. Toilet facilities with running water probably precede personal ads in the order of societal development.

Speaking of which, I was pleased to get your letter last week, although you sounded pretty downtrodden. I hope living conditions have improved for you a little since then. Actually, your letter did make me feel much better about living in Minneapolis on a day when I was real frustrated with urban life. I had to drive to the bank in rush hour, and people continually drive the wrong way on the oneway streets in my neighborhood and act like you’re in the wrong (that makes me real, real mad. I am ashamed to admit I was so angered by an old man doing that last December, right after it had snowed 17 inches and the city had only cleared a path big enough for a single car, and the guy trapped me in the middle of the street and wouldn’t move his car, and I had three cars—going the correct way—behind me, that I grabbed him out of his car and buried his head in a snow bank. It was kind of like something from The World According to Garp-Don’t you know there could be little children driving on this street!!!).

Not much else had been going on here lately. All the big media types are in town because Walter Mondale (yawn) is announcing his candidacy for the presidency today. Your favorite Star/Tribune columnist Barbara Flanagan is ecstatic, although for the rest of this city, this pseudo-event carries about as much excitement as an afternoon at a suburban K-Mart.

I’ve seen a lot of movies lately; however few of them have been good. Friday night I literally was dragged to see Frances, a true-story-type film in which Jessica Lange stars as Frances Farmer, a movie star from the 1930s who suffers a nervous breakdown and is subjected to the whole gamut of 1930s psychological treatments—insulin shock, electroshock, lobotomy, gang rape by soldiers, you name it.

Now, Jessica Lange, who supposedly grew up in north-central Minnesota, near Brainerd, has become Minnesota’s new little darling. She has become known in the movie reviews of the Strib as Minnesota’s own Jessica Lange, and Barbara Flanagan gushes unashamedly and incessantly over her.