My Travels: October 1974

Highlights:

December 22, 1970 sworn into Peace Corps Liberia following 4 weeks of training, including one week for our "live-in" up country with a PCV couple. It took me a while to get fully acclimated to my assignment at the John F. Kennedy medical center in Monrovia. Since it would be more than six months before the hospital actually received patients, my job was "Director Purchasing & Stores". I was primarily responsible for ordering and receiving shipments of equipment, furnishings and supplies for the hospital. To run the hospital would require $3.6 million which was most of the budget of the whole Ministry of Health of the country. USAID funded the project and initially staffed the complex with 14 medical and administrative professionals and six PCV support staff.

May 4, 1971 President Tubman is elected for a 7th term. He died a couple of months later on July 23rd. His vice Prrsident William Tolbert succeeded him unitl his assassination in 1980.

May 22, 1971our Peace Corps Country Director Dale Chastain departed Liberia t staff. o take over the Peace Corps program in Ghana. The idea of the Peace Corps Liberia basketball team the "Funky Chickens" was all Dale's. The week before his departure the team travelled to Bolahun in Lofa county to play a school up there. We had a great time and even had a barbeque steak dinner on a hill overlooking the Liberia-Sierra Leone border. We even visited the popular cloth market in Koindu for Gara tie-dye cloth material.

Also in May we travelled up country to Buchanon, Jondeu, Lake Piso and Saniquelle in Nimba county. There is a Leper colony in Ganta where local people make fine wood carvings. There is also an American/Swedish mining company (LAMCO) in the area. BTW I had the best Indian chicken curry I've ever at their cafeteria.

My younger brother Chris (age 14) departed the U.S. on a cruise on board the P&O Orient line ship the SS Oronsay, with my brother Eddie in late June 1971 to London. The plan was, after a short visit in London, for Chris to fly down to Monrovia and visit me for a few weeks. Eddie planned to travel in around Europe and visit us later. Eddie never did make it.

July 26, 1971 the JFK hospital opened and admitted patients from the old government hospital.

August 26, 1971 Chris departed Monrovia after a very successful visit. Besides spending time in Lofa county with the Kennedy's Chris made some other trips in country. We visited our friend Joyce Rasmussen in Totota, Tubman Zoo and the BWI campus. We caught some movies at the Relda movie theater and ate out a lot of local chop restaurants. Chris also spent a day with Jim Heyburn (from San Jose) with his class at St. {atrick's High School.

Around the same time we received some very sad news that one of our dearest PCV friends, Marsh Ragno, was killed in a very tragic event in her village. Her passing was especially sad for Chris who had received a tye-dye shirt from Marsha. My father sent a note of condonlenses to the Ragno family.

November 15 - December 14 Plans made for a vacation trip through West Africa with David Franfort to visit Mali, Niger, Upper Volta, Ghana, Benin, Togo and Ivory Coast.