Over half a century ago, in 1964, I traveled to Tanganyika (present day Tanzania), East Africa as a peace Corps volunteer and it was the best thing I ever did. It changed my life. I was so taken with the country, it’s people, wildlife, landscapes and way of life, that I decided to stay on. Subsequently, I spent the rest of my professional career as rangeland ecologist in Tanzania, as well as two other nations in eastern Africa: Kenya and Somalia.
Why this blog?
I want to share with others what it was like to live and work in the more out of the way parts of eastern Africa during the last forty years of the twentieth century (sounds ancient, doesn’t it?).
Another objective is to establish a presence on the internet to gain attention for my book Buffaloes by My Bedroom: Tales of Tanganyika (see photo) which relates my experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer, and for another work in preparation that is based on those of my wife and I in the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania.
Finally, and almost as important, is to put to use a lot of photographs and aging slides that have been gathering dust in a closet.
Probable posting intervals: monthly.
SO, LET’S GET STARTED
From roadside motel to house with a view
When I joined the Peace Corps I was living at the Deer Lodge Motel near Albany, Oregon while taking graduate courses in forestry at Oregon State University. The overcast sky in the photo makes the motel look rather gloomy, but it actually was not a bad place for a young bachelor. The other residents were acceptably quiet, and the motel’s owners were a friendly elderly couple who, having no children of their own, informally adopted me. So, I liked it there. However the only vivid memory I retain from my time at the Deer Lodge Motel was the day I accidentally locked myself in the bathroom while taking a shower and, having left my clothes and towel in the next room (the bathroom was pretty small), had to squeeze out a rather small back window and streak, stark naked and dripping wet, around the building–in full sight of any passers-by–to the door of my unit. Thank heavens it was unlocked (those were different times, then). Fortunately, no one saw me, or at least I didn’t feature on the front page of the next day’ newspaper.
In comparison, my house on the rim of Tanganyika’s Ngorongoro Crater was twice as large as my old motel unit and had a better view, often further enhanced by passing wildlife. And, the memories! For instance, there was that time when . . . but I’m getting ahead of myself; that story comes later.
