TEAA (Teachers for East Africa Alumni) Newsletter No. 40, January 2019. Please send any changes to your contact information and/or items for the newsletter to Ed Schmidt, 7307 Lindbergh Dr., St. Louis, MO 63117, USA, 314-647-1608,
TEAA website. New and past information can be found on the TEAA website, tea-a.org that Henry Hamburger continues to faithfully keep up to date. There you’ll find “What’s Hot?” including photos. Brooks’ book reviews, story project entries, past newsletters, and much more are also there. In this issue:
President’s Message, Brooks Goddard TEEA-UK annual meeting, by Clive Mann News from East African Head Teachers and Principals Cattle Keeping, by Mike Rainy Feeding the Basketball Gene, by Bruce Franklin Exploring a Cave in Kenya’s Meru District in 1965, by Dagmar Telfer Muthamia Culture Shock, by Joel Watne Our Best/Worst Experiences in East Africa, by Joel Reuben Your Stories We’ve Heard From You Friendship Demands: Remembering Jay Jordan, by Brooks Goddard The Unusual Story of Hal Sondrol, by Ed Schmidt Obituaries (omitted on web version) Directory Update (omitted on web version)
President’s Message, Brooks Goddard Dear Rafikis, As I follow literature about Africa written by all sorts of people, I find more and more people using such platforms as CreateSpace to draft their own reflections. I continue to have great respect for personal voice and encourage you all to write, whether or not you publish. I found satisfaction writing the description of my wave 4B, colleague, Jay Jordan. It helped me understand what it was about him that I loved, what difficulties life presented for him, and how I found humanity in both Jay’s life and my efforts to capture it. I found challenge in finding appropriate and righteous words, perhaps not perfect words. Another venture is finding homes for books and artifacts. I have found that there is no good repository for our “stuff.” Well, live long enough and maybe our grandchildren will be happy with a few books, pieces of kanga, and the odd Samburu gourd. If you have mingi books, try your local used book dealer. We in Boston have a fundi, Ken Gloss, at Brattle Street Book Shop. I have started to explore Afro-Centric schools, especially home schooling institutions. For your slides I recommend mass digitization which you may have already done. With the demise of DVDs and the emergence of “the cloud,” I am totally bewildered. My approach is two-fold: put the best into books and put everything you want to keep on big-capacity flash drives. For kitchen thrills you might consider a digital picture frame, then you can loop
TEEA-UK annual meeting, by Clive Mann On 22nd August 2018 TEAA-UK held its annual meeting at the Knights Templar pub on Chancery Lane on the western edge of the City of London. The 'Steering Committee' had selected this from a number of pubs in the City, and it was well-known to some of us. The building is a superb old bank converted very tastefully by Wetherspoon's public house chain. Not only are the surroundings splendid but the food and drink are very reasonably priced. It was not too crowded. Further east in the City the hostelries are patronised by folk in the finance industry who seem to take very long liquid lunches which can result in standing room only. Some of the group arrived before midday in order to secure a table, which as it happens, was only just big enough for our group which became eleven. Clive (TEA 1964) & Sachiko Lovelock from Japan, and Richard (TEA 1963) and Updesh Porter from Ealing, west London, attended for the first time. Jonne Robinson, Larry Woelk, Dave Marshall, Fred Nixson, Bob Gurney, Dave Smith & myself (Clive Mann) completed the party. Three sent apologies for absence, and two who suggested they would join us failed to do so. We toasted absent friends. Some of us had not met for almost fifty years. There was lots of yarning about the past, about what had happened in intervening years, and about hopes for the future. Strangely, given our age, nothing was said about NOT meeting next year. There was never a lull in the conversation, and when we dispersed at about four pm there seemed so much more still to discuss -- next time! The 2019 gathering will be in August at 'The Barrow Boy and Banker' which is on the south bank of the Thames just a short walk from London Bridge underground and mainline station. [Contact Clive for details.]
News from East African Head Teachers and Principals Okunya Milton in southwest Kenya on Nov. 14. Dear friends, We are doing well on this side of the world. It has been a while since I updated you about my going ons. You are already aware that I was transferred to take up a newly established school 35 kilometers away from Migori among the Kuria people who are known for cattle rustling and circumcision of girls who are then married off soon after. Ours is a mixed school with hardly any facilities but I am soldiering on and enjoying every bit of it. For the last week I have been putting up a gate and a temporary office in readiness for next school term. All around me are boys and girls of school- going age with either babies in their arms or heavy with babies. My crusade since I came is to seek all to come back to school even if it means having husbands and wives in class. I already have a few who are promising to come next term . This school particularly excites me because I think I have a pioneering spirit. This morning I am planting some trees in the compound. Next week I will be Nairobi for a month long grading of national exams which are currently being done. Just three weeks ago I was visiting local primary schools encouraging girls to proceed with school even after circumcised, the season for this begins next month. Exciting times we live in!