Overseas Adventures - From Afghanistan to Zambia and Points In-Between

By Arthur E. Shears

This memoir is part travelogue, and part professional journal, interspersed with interesting historical and other facts about the sixteen different countries where the author worked during his 50-year career. If you have ever wondered about volunteering and other forms of working abroad this book provides an entertaining description of one man's journeys and experiences.  The book's introduction sets the scene followed by 16 chapters covering his adventures in Africa, the Middle East, Asia plus Central, and South America. The epilogue allows readers to catch up on events in each of the countries visited, and on the author's personal reflections on his journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: North Star Skills for Development
• Release date: May 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781778044014

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

AFRICA AWAITS NIGERIA

(1971 - 1973)

Selected Facts about Nigeria:

•Location: West Africa; adjoining countries Benin, Niger, Upper Volta, Cameroon

•Government: Federal with President as Head of State; Member of the British Commonwealth.

•Language: Official language is English, but there are dozens of regional languages, including Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa.

•Former colonial power: United Kingdom

•Gained Independence: 1960

•Population in 1971: 57,296,987 (in 2021 – 211,400,704)

•Head of state in 1971: General Yakubu Gowan, who ruled for nearly ten years after he staged a military coup in 1966.

Other facts:

•Nigeria shifted from driving on the left to driving on the right in 1971; changed their currency from pounds, shillings, and pence to Naira and Kobo in 1973; converted from imperial measures to metric in 1975.

•It belongs to numerous international organizations, including the African Union, the United Nations, the African Development Bank, the Commonwealth of Nations, and the Economic Community of West African States. It joined the Organization of Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 1971.

•Nigeria and Ghana, along with Sierra Leone and the Gambia, are founding members of the West African Examinations Council established in 1951. Liberia joined later. It develops and delivers external school examinations across all five countries.

•Nearly 3 million civilians died during the Nigerian – Biafra war, July 6, 1967 – January 15, 1970. The south-eastern part of Nigeria wanted to secede. Their attempt failed.

•The national government built a new capital city called Abuja in the central part of the country to reduce congestion in Lagos, the first capital city, and to have the capital outside the influence of the three main ethnic groups – Hausa, Igbo and, Yoruba. Abuja officially became the new capital on December 12, 1981.

•During World War II, Nigeria supplied more than half of the 90,000 West African soldiers that fought after 1943 in South East Asia.

At my university in Halifax, Nova Scotia, I was a Canadian Reserve Officer University Training Program member. It seemed that joining the military would be my career after graduation. I was also looking at medicine, though, and hoped I could combine both. Sadly, or so it seemed at the time, my academic marks were not high enough, so I searched for other alternatives. One exciting option was joining the Canadian University Services Overseas (CUSO), an entity very similar to the US Peace Corps but pre-dating it by a few months. As a child growing up in the coal-mining town of Glace Bay, I loved history and geography. I was intrigued by the big map of the world that hung in many school classrooms, especially the pink shaded parts that denoted countries in the British Empire, in what was later to become the British Commonwealth.

In those early years, I was naive and didn’t understand the complexities of colonialism. On the other hand, I was well versed in the adventures of great explorers like Stanley and Livingston, and fictionalized accounts like King Solomon’s Mines. Even as a boy, there was adventure in my head when I read the primary school book about indigenous people in Malaya, and Bunga the jungle boy. The black and white rendition of him in the jungle stayed in my mind for many years and it was why, when I did apply to become a CUSO volunteer, I mentioned Malaysia (as Malaya had become). My contact said Malaysia was closed, but there was a chance to go to Nigeria if I wanted. It took a few weeks, but eventually I learned a school near Okitipupa, in southern Nigeria, needed a science and mathematics teacher. I found this town on a library map, noting with some excitement that Okitipupa was on a river and only a short distance from the coast. In my head, I had visions of balmy weekends under the palm trees and frolicking in sand and surf.

School staff, Manuwa Memorial Grammar School – MMGS

Photo Credit: Arthur Shears

The next step was to attend the orientation program organized by CUSO for recruits at Western University in London, Ontario. The orientation was an informative and fun week with music, lectures, and language training. Those of us going to Anglophone Africa learned pidgin English—a simplified form of English that often uses abbreviations and little grammar, but can impart meaning to someone who doesn’t understand formal English. An example would be u wan chop, meaning do you want to eat? Chop being the word for food or eating. It is not the language you use when teaching in school, but it can be handy during visits to a local village market.

After the orientation, all the volunteer teachers were bussed to Toronto International Airport to board a chartered flight to Nigeria. Everyone destined for West Africa was to attend a two-week teaching orientation at a local secondary school. On the flight over, we stopped for refueling in the Azores, and it was there that I saw my first real palm tree—nothing novel for someone from Florida or Hawaii, but pretty unique for this young man from Cape Breton Island. So, I was extra excited during our landing at Lagos airport, where there were many more palm trees. As I looked down from the airplane, I noticed most roofs were constructed of sheet metal, both new and shiny, and different shades of rusty brown. As I was to find out later, here, and in many other parts of the world, sheet metal roofing panels are relatively cheap to make and easy to install. If you have ever lived under these roofs, you will surely remember the first rainstorm, when the expression the rain was pounding down really had meaning.

Apart from the clear benefit of practice teaching, I found living in a student residence and experiencing the physical environment of an African school helped prepare us for our new roles. It also gave us the chance to get used to the heat, humidity, and local wildlife. By that, I mean the myriad of flying creatures, from parrots and weaver birds, to nasty-looking mud wasps that were attracted to the fluorescent lights in our washrooms. And, of course, there were the snakes. Our instructors advised us to stay on the paths in the school, always carry a flashlight at night, and to check our footwear every morning, in case any scorpions had crawled inside.

In Nigeria, I came across two kinds of venomous snakes: the green mamba, and the spitting cobra. The former, though not as dangerous and aggressive as its black mamba cousin in Southern Africa, is still deadly. I remember coming across one traversing a recently burned-out field. It was far enough away that it couldn’t strike, and I was far enough away that I wasn’t an immediate threat. We stared at each other for a few moments, neither moving; eventually, we both backed up and headed in opposite directions. I never did go back to that field.

The spitting cobra doesn’t bite like other cobras. Instead, it shoots its venom from holes in its fangs, like a very nasty water pistol. I saw a number on the roads during my motorcycle trips. I recall passing one on the other side of the road, then looking in the mirror to see it rear up in its deadly pose. A cobra’s toxins can blind you if it gets in your eyes, or can kill you if it gets into your bloodstream. Gladly, I never came face-to-face with a cobra, although sadly, a friend’s dog lost an eye to one while playing in its back yard on the outskirts of Ibadan.

As for scorpions, all you need to know is to avoid them. Their stings are rarely fatal to adults but are incredibly painful. I never found one in my shoes but saw many on the ground as I walked around. I never ventured outside at night in sandals, or barefoot, without a light. Surprisingly, it is the smaller scorpions who have the worst sting.

After the orientation program ended, my new school’s vice principal collected me in his older model black Peugeot sedan. The trip to my school took about three hours, and I used the time to chat with my vice-principal and admire the scenery along the way. The highway from Ibadan to Iju-Ode was a good quality highway, but the road towards Benin City wasn’t in such good shape. Though two-laned, both sides of the road had edges washed away, which sometimes narrowed the road to little more than a single lane. On the way, we passed villages with the ubiquitous mud-brick construction and sheet metal roofs, though many had thatch. Some houses had been plastered with cement, and painted white or simply whitewashed. The mud-wattle construction lasts for many years but, over time, can be eaten away by rain. So those who could afford it, would have their house walls plastered. The outside appearance of the houses was a marker of the economic status of the village and its inhabitants.

There were colorful items on the road too. Bedford trucks with wooden frames built on their steel undercarriage, brightly painted with folk art and catchy mottos like GOD’s TIME IS BEST. These vehicles, called mame wagons or tro-tros in Nigeria, carried freight and passengers. Often, vehicles carrying bags of maize or vegetables would stop and collect passengers, along with their goats, sheep, or chickens, and transport them to the next village. It was a way to make a little extra money and made for a lively trip if you happened to catch a lift, as I sometimes did later when my motorcycle was out of service.

The Bedford trucks, and Morris passenger cars, were left over from colonial times. A flood of Japanese-made vehicles from Toyota, Nissan, and other manufacturers soon eclipsed the import of European vehicles. Those Bedford trucks were still operating many years later, though, and you would often see clusters of them parked side by side with drivers between jobs, chatting, and maybe exchanging advice on how to keep their old vehicles running.

Manuwa Memorial Grammar School (MMGS) was in the small village of Iju-Odo on a side loop road from the main Lagos-Benin highway. The village was small with just a few hundred people and was about sixteen kilometers from the town of Okitipupa, where there was a score of small shops selling everything from shoelaces to soap, and corn flakes to coffee. MMGS was associated with the Anglican church and named after a prominent Nigerian physician, Dr. Samuel Manuwa, who established a major teaching hospital in Ibadan. The Roman Catholic Church, the Methodists, and the Baptists managed other schools in the vicinity. The school day in all these institutions started with a morning assembly, the national anthem, and a prayer or hymn.

School Sports Day

Photo Credit: Arthur Shears

Our school comprised a series of teaching and laboratory blocks, a tennis court, a football pitch, and an office block that housed the teacher staff room. There were also several staff houses and separate residences for both males and females. The village did not have an electrical grid, but the school had a generator, run from dusk until 9 pm. After that, everyone used kerosene lanterns, or what we called storm lanterns in Canada.

A CUSO requirement for schools was that volunteers had suitable accommodation. In my case, that was a furnished two-bedroom bungalow, with a sitting-dining room, kitchen, and separate bathroom. The house was connected to the school generator for evening lighting, when there was fuel for the generator, and water from an underground tank fed with run-off from the sheet metal roof. During the dry season, when there was no rain, students were tasked by the principal to carry buckets from a nearby stream to fill the underground tank.

My bed had a mosquito net hanging over a square wooden frame. This precaution was just as well as the fly screens in the house windows had torn in several places, and I regularly had flying visitors of all sorts, especially at night when the lights were on. While working at my desk in the months ahead, I was to share the space with a constant stream of insects coming and going, with wall geckos feasting on any that came within reach. Moths occasionally landed, but they were more interested in flying into, and bouncing off, the outside porch light. One evening, a giant female praying mantis consumed its smaller male partner as they mated—what a way to go! Maybe that’s the origin of the expression; she’s a man-eater.

Weekdays at school were busy with lesson preparation, teaching, and assignment marking. The school was at the secondary level and had Forms 1 to 5, the equivalent of Grades 8 to 12 in North America. I taught O Level Mathematics and Chemistry as well as General Science in the lower forms. One of the most enjoyable aspects of the job was setting up and running the Chemistry lab classes. The smell of reagents in the lab and the sight of Bunsen burners, test tubes, and flasks remain fresh in my memory. So too, is an occasion when there was an unusual odor in the lab. It turned out to be the smell of a rhinoceros beetle being grilled over one of the burners by two students who fancied it as a snack. These beetles were the size of a credit card and were frequently found in the area. I told them that was not the purpose of the lab and dismissed them with some sharp words. I don’t remember what they did with the beetle—whether cooked or half-cooked.

As a CUSO volunteer, I was paid the same as a locally recruited teacher. I received the princely sum of sixty Nigeria pounds (about one hundred dollars) a month. From this, I paid my home help twelve pounds a month. Olu was the local barber, but he had enough free time to do my shopping in the village market, cook meals, and tidy the house. He introduced me to local dishes such as pounded yam, boiled cassava, and fried plantain, often served with a stew made of palm oil, onion, tomato, hot pepper, and meat or fish. Of course, bananas were plentiful and, depending on the time of year, other fruits such as pineapples, papaya, and mangos were abundant. Notably, there was a huge mango tree outside our teacher staff room with branches that swept right over its roof. When the mangos were in season, you could hear them drop and roll down the sheet metal roof. Teachers in the staff room would rush out laughing and try to be the first to catch them before they hit the ground. If you weren’t quick enough, no worries. They were available in the market for pennies apiece.

On some weekends, I traveled to neighboring cities to visit other volunteers and enjoy another part of the country. My trips to places like Ibadan, Ondo, and Benin took some planning and advance notice, in order to make sure the person you wanted to visit would be home. Ibadan had several attractions, including friends at the university and a swimming pool with a cafeteria that sold real French fries. The local markets had women selling gorgeous Africa cloth, and men peddling handicrafts—ebony masks, leather bags, and carved gourds. Benin City was famous for its caste-bronze figurines. I purchased several items there, including a Queen Mother head made by the traditional lost-wax method.

Exploring the river near Okitipupa

Photo Credit: Arthur Shears

In Ondo, two hours north from my school by road, I shared an engaging meal with several teachers at the principal’s house. It was chicken stew. The host stirred the stew in a tureen, and I watched with horror as I saw first the chicken head, and then a claw, rise to the surface. Both items, and the rest of the chicken, were well cooked, and at least the eyes in the head were closed, so I enjoyed other bits of the bird and the conversation with a variety of guests from Poland, England, Canada, and Nigeria.

The school year had three terms, and that provided an opportunity for more extended periods of travel. Taking advantage, I jumped on my motorcycle and visited Northern Nigeria as far as Kaduna and Kano. I passed through Eastern Nigeria, and into Cameroon to visit the black, volcanic sand beaches near Victoria, and the breath-taking scenery of the Bamenda highlands. It was a motorcyclist’s dream. On another road trip, David, a friend of mine, and I traveled in the opposite direction into Dahomey (now renamed Benin), Togo, and Ghana. Both Dahomey and Togo were former French colonies. Their lingua franca was still French, so my high school lessons in that language proved helpful. We ordered freshly made baguettes and strong coffee at local cafes and bought imported apples and cheese from France at a supermarket. French wine was very cheap, and David and I enjoyed a glass or two on our way to Ghana.

Lomé, Togo’s capital city, is on the Atlantic coast, and we were able to find a reasonably priced hotel near the beach. One day we had just finished lunch and planned to go to the beach on David’s Honda 90 motorcycle. The bike was parked in the sand, and when David tried to get moving, the engine stalled. He gunned it and we did a wheelie. I lost my grip on the seat and slid off the back. Not so bad, right? Yes, there was sand underneath, but on the back of the bike there was a sharp-edged, homemade license plate made from thin sheet metal. I immediately felt blood oozing down my leg. Later, looking at my backside in my room mirror, I saw a nasty gash at the top of my leg. I needed stitches.

Directions from the hotel manager led us to a nearby medical clinic, run by a German doctor. After paying a consultation fee in advance, a receptionist led me into the surgery, where the doctor had a quick look. He was close enough to smell wine on my breath, so he asked how much I had at lunch. A few glasses, I replied. I was on vacation after all. He said: In that case, you won’t need an anesthetic before I clean the wound and stitch you up. Well, that was a misdiagnosis because I still squirm when I think of the pain caused by his swabbing and stitching. Each time he inserted the needle and pulled the suture tighter, I jerked a few inches further up the table; by the time he had finished six stitches, I was hanging halfway off. I guess I looked pretty pale on leaving the doctor’s office.

How was it? David asked me.

No anesthetic. I think that doctor was Dr. Josef Mengele’s nephew!

In reality, maybe he just believed I had drunk more wine than I admitted and wanted to save me the extra cost of an anesthetic. Maybe?

The unfortunate result of this mishap was that I couldn’t go