V 1 N. 26 A Journey Across Tanzania 1993

     Sometimes it helps to set a scene when writing about one's travels many years in the past.  In 1993, my life was in a state of flux, not sure where or why I was doing somethings in life.  My wife and I had two children in university.  I had been recently laid off from my job coaching a track team at Wittenberg University a small college in Springfield, Ohio.  That lay off wasn't necessarily due to my incompetence, but more due to a declining enrollment at the university necessitating cutbacks in minor sports programs.  My two assistants who were also assistant football coaches were retained, but I was let go.  I also had a part time career repairing houses and doing odd jobs, while my wife was the prime earner for our family serving as a hospital chaplain.  Having lost my job at the college just before our son started his college career enabled him to qualify for a Pell Grant (based on a low family income) that would cover much of his expenses at the University of Chicago.  Our daughter was already attending a university in Montreal and Canadian costs of education were historically much more manageable than going to a school in the US.  So with that economic situation facing me, I decided to take a trip to Africa. Was I stupid, selfish, crazy?  Yes to all of the above.    It would not be a luxury trip with guides, a safari through the Serengeti, or a climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro like the travel agencies provide.  But I did have experience in this part of Africa as a former Peace Corps Volunteer and later as a teacher with a Canadian program in Zimbabwe.  This would be a bare bones trip to out of the way places from the East Coast of Tanzania into its heartland, and across the country (750 miles or 1250 Km) to the shores of Lake Tanganyika where Livingstone met Stanley on November 10, 1871.  From there I would head on down to our former job site in Zimbabwe and then fly home.  Along the way I hoped to pick up artwork that could be sold at a profit back in the US.    Public transport would be the way of getting from place to place.  The part of the trip described below is via a railway built by the Germans in the 19th century to the interior of Africa when that part of the world was called German East Africa.  That railway on its old roadbed was still running in 1993 with seventy-five year old cars and engines, wobbly bridges, and a decaying infrastructure supporting the rails along the way.  It was an every person for themself milieu.  That is not my recommendation for the inexperienced traveller, but you will certainly learn about yourself and maybe pick up a few tips on survival along the way.  When this story takes place, I had already been in East Africa travelling up and down the coast, meeting artists and witch doctors and collecting artifacts that might have some resale value back home.   Note that along this railway there are no game parks or tourist attractions until you get to Kigoma and then it is a few miles north toward the Burundi border where Jane Goodall did her research and lived with the chimpanzees for forty years.

You can see my route starting in the east at Dar es Salaam going west on the blue line, then the purple line at Tabora and on to Lake Tanganyika and Kigoma.  

On the northeast corner of Tanzania lie Burundi and Rwanda 

 During this time an event of serious consequence occurred  in Burundi where the president Melchior Ndadaye was was assassinated on October 21 by a group of army officers of the Tutsi tribe during an attempted coup d'etat.  The president was a member of the Tutsi's rival the Hutu.  This led to a mass exodus of Hutu directly south to Kigoma which was not far from the Burundi Tanzania  border.  An estimated 50,000 to 100,000 people were killed in the month after that event.  Civil war would drag on for another ten years.  This was a small event compared to the Rwandan genocide that happened the next year taking the lives of 800,000 to one million in less than three months.

Travel Journal: Tanzania Railway Journey Dar es Salaam to Kigoma on .  shores of Lake Tanganyika

Oct 27, 1993 4:39 pm Dar Es Salaam  Railway Station

I left  the Canadian Organization for Development Through Education (CODE) house at 3:15PM getting a ride from the truck taking people home. They drop me at the station, but I need to buy water for the trip, so I walk several blocks back toward the docks.  I find out my bags are much too heavy to go far. I’m sweating profusely after a block. A guy offers me a lift back for 500 Tsh (26 cents Canadian) which I gladly accept. No one checks my ticket as I go onto the platform, so there is  no way of telling how many of the masses here are boarding the train. I walk down to watch the workers assembling  the cars together. They work in “good” clothes not overalls or any kind of uniform. They are clean but a lot of hard work is being done by hand—helping the switch engine!

Urine & diesel fumes permeate the atmosphere. A roundhouse turntable is manipulated by hand—well balanced as it had the switch engine and the pullman balanced on it. Third class cars are already on line and filling—Reporting hour is 4:00 pm. No one predicts departure time. They are making up the 2nd and 1st class parts of the train last. At Tabora (midway) the train will be split. Some going north to Mwanza on Lake Victoria, some on to Kigoma on Lake Tanganyika,  and maybe some will just stay in Tabora for the return.

I see my name on the manifest, so theoretically all is well but after mistaking my bus last week in Kilwa Masoko I’ll have to be careful. It’s now 5:00 pm and my wagon #2211 hasn't made an appearance. Must still be in the sheds.

Ethnically only a few people are distinguishable to me. The big tribes like Wanyamwezis and Wasukumas I cannot recognize. A family of Somalis is nearby—the women more attractive than most. Dressed in complete matching costumes rather than a kanga over regular clothes. Their heads are covered. More roundish faces than I recall from the past. Men tall and lean. One woman enormously fat for an African woman. —A sign of wealth. 

Now they are starting to bring the 2nd & 1^st class coaches on line. Not much control of the crowd but there was an announcement warning people to be careful while shunting was going on. No one getting squashed that I can tell! Cars marked for Mwanza—some even marked for special groups—“African Inland Mission” chalked on side.

My bags are not the biggest by any means. A lot of people do business this way, carrying goods across country to sell. Zambians come up the Tazara Railway to do this. The Tazara is a more modern line built by the Chinese in the 1960’s.  An Arab in Zanzibar told me he was going out to Kigoma and then to Burundi to sell some sugar. A family of Arabs in turbans just passed by. A guy with two elevated unicycles stands waiting to board. Cars are incredibly dirty on the outside from diesel exhaust. The broken windows have been boarded up. I see my car. Get on the wrong end and have to wait for a family packing 9-10 people onto the car to say goodbye to one traveller. The fat Somali lady is not in my room. I’m in with 5 other men. It’s going to be a ripe 2 ½ days and in Kigoma there will be a refugee situation due to the unrest in nearby Burundi.

I seem to have the most bags of any of my fellow travellers. One guy, Saidi, has a box of young chickens, 50 of them—going somewhere between Dodoma & Tabora—Itigi.

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Oct 28 Slept well on train from 9 pm to 1:15—At Morogoro I thought the sun was coming up but it was only the station lights. My travelling mates are kind—Saidi is bringing the day-old chicks out to Itigi. He is a med tech, but like everyone is trying to supplement his income. Another young man, whose name is not yet known, is employed in the regional government administration in Tabora.  His wife and child are in a neighboring compartment. I don’t think they mix the sexes on the train here. The third gentleman doesn’t speak English but is friendly. At one time during the evening I tried to go forward to the restaurant car (unfortunately I went the wrong way) but things came to a halt as a conservative Muslim sect occupying several compartments was praying in the aisle. The train is not in excellent shape but it runs well. I’m sure that spares are at a premium. I get a good breakfast in the dining car for Tsh 500 and when the train pulls into Dodoma at 8:15 am there are food vendors and hawkers all over the place. We have tea and traveller number 3 shares his chapati’s. I’m glad I came this way. The countryside is ruggedly beautiful—reminiscent of New Mexico - Arizona. But they do have a season of rain that enables more people to live here. Right now it is the end of the dry season. Rains were just beginning in Dar and Zanzibar. They’ve not started here yet!

In the sleepers it is hot when the train stops. All windows and doors remain open. There is enough breeze inside when we move but I haven’t experienced the heat of the day yet.

                    Riding between the cars

                    Saidi (above)

It’s now mid day—We stopped at 11:30 in Saranda—people lined both sides of the tracks selling food. I distinctly remember one seller with a tray full of ndege  'birds, birds' he was yelling.  There were at least fifty roast birds on his tray.  They were the size of sparrows.  My food back up was a stash of ramen noodles sacs I'd brought with me from home.  I could eat them raw, uncooked and keep going for days in an emergency.  I couldn't get into eating sparrows.   Travellers refer to this place as the Kilimanjaro Hotel or Sheraton—lots of kabobs, wali na nyama, (rice and goat meat) sodas... each day permitting these people to earn a living. My travelling mate the administrator in Tabora tells me that most other regions are more desirable to be stationed in as the local economies are stronger and that permited setting up a business on the side to supplement one's income.

Eyes closed one can feel the heat and dry here—the rains have not yet arrived. But fields seem to be prepared for planting. Cattle crowd around the base of a tree for shade.

I filled up on goat kabobs at Saranda but realized there were two samosas left and ate them before they spoiled. 

We expect to arrive in Tabora (half way) around 7-8 pm. The train will be divided with part going north to Mwanza and the other half on west to Kigoma arriving sometime the next morning perhaps.

4:00 pm. I’ve watched the countryside change very little for the last 4 hours. We’ve covered perhaps 150 miles. The train stops regularly to let passengers off.  At each little village there are people, mainly children, selling a few snacks. The most common thing for sale however is an Ugali spoon that travelers buy for gifts when they return. One lady had bought about twenty of them. I think of giving some kid money for nothing but decide against giving them false hopes or thinking that every white face is going to do that. Through Wagogoland another common item is a black stone to put on a snake bite. The sellers have them wrapped in long strips of plastic. They can rip them off as they sell them. Saidi tells me that you lay it onto the bite where it is bleeding and it will draw the venom out through the blood. After use, you should not scrape the stone but soak it in milk to let it clean itself. I bought 5 of them for 400 Tsh.  The Wagogo resemble the Masai, but their colors are more black than the red the Masai wear.

Saidi leaves us at Itigi. I photograph him and promise to send him a picture. I learn that my other roommate is a conductor on a dallah dallah (minibus) in Dar es Salaam. He’s going to visit his family in Tabora. Saidi was explaining an article in Swahili in a local paper using the new vernacular discussing the boys who work on the buses as having certain characteristics such as: a) Lying – telling customers there is plenty of room to lie down and sleep in the bus. b) Pride because they control the driver telling him when it is OK to take off by hitting twice on the metal roof of the bus as a signal—“Piga debe” hit the can.

8:30 PM — We’ve been in Tabora about 90 minutes. Cars have been shunted around and I think I’m in the right place headed for Kigoma — Some tracks are being replaced in the station only seven guys needed to move a spare rail about 150 yards. They slide it along the tracks at a 90° angle. All my companions are gone and only one new one comes in.

                                                (middle)   MV Liemba in Kigoma harbor

                                               boats for hire in Kigoma

    He’s pretty ripe. Reminds me of teaching at BMC (Bernard Mizeki College) in Zimbabwe where the classrooms could get pretty strong smelling in the dry season when water to wash clothes and bodies was scarce.  We start to move at 8:36 pm. VOA (Voice of America) reports 500,000 refugees have fled Burundi. It’s doubtful they’ve all come to Kigoma. I was warned not to leave sight of my bags while the train was in Tabora – a “town of thieves.” Anyway I stayed in the cabin. I’ll fix the bed soon and turn in. I’m sure I’m pretty ripe too. As we leave the Tabora station in the dark, I see what looks like a locomotive graveyard. Spare parts have probably been cannibalized for many years. 

7:00 am. People came and went in the compartment during the night. I kept an eye open much of the time especially when the train stopped to see if anyone was fooling with my bags. Apparently the tactic can be to pitch the bag through a window to a partner and then run. By 5:30 when I decided to get up there was no one left in the compartment only voices of constant chatter of people standing in the aisle looking out the windows. I spent hours myself doing this yesterday.

We just stopped briefly at a place called “Kandaga Halt” which does not appear on my map. The conductor came by to collect my ticket and estimated our arrival at 8:30 am. I’m looking forward to a good wash in a hotel then finding out how soon the MV Liemba (a passenger ship and freighter, a remnant of WWI ) will be departing southward. The Burundi unrest may have cancelled that northern part of the circuit but will they take the time off and stay in Kigoma or go south a few days early, that is the question. Will I have time to go up to Gombe Stream to see the chimps, or will I miss that part of the trip. Already I’ve scrapped the idea of going to Bukavu because of all the unrest. Perhaps I can go in at Lubumbashi just have to wait and see. The countryside is green and hilly after such a boring landscape all day from Dodoma to Tabora.

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This part of the railway must have posed some interesting challenges to its builders the Germans a hundred years ago. According to my map, if it can be trusted, we will be approaching  Kigoma from the south at the end of our run so I’ll have a view of Lake Tanganyika from my compartment.

In Kigoma will there be some opportunity to work with a refugee organization? Should I give up my antibiotics and other prescription drugs? I certainly need to lighten my load a bit.

Another stop alongside wrecked tank cars. Builder was Charles Roberts Co. Wakefield England 1955. A butterfly of magnificent beauty flies among the tankers. I remember this orange, red, and black creature as one I tried and failed to catch in Loitokitok, Kenya almost thirty years ago now meandering between huge cars of rusting steel. Fragility, beauty, decay, mossiness, a crumbling sort of measurable impermanence but that which will still be here in some form after I have departed the planet.

Some serious construction or maintenance along the line. A Caterpillar 926 E payloader.  Every 10 miles or less there is a little cluster of  mabati tin huts for maintenance crews. Their families live there as well. Some have small shambas, gardens. Some though are in such isolated uninhabitable areas that they must occasionally be resupplied by the railway.

A worker comes in to collect blankets, sheets and pillows. Says there are a lot of Burundians in Kigoma but doesn’t think hotels will be a problem. Refugees are being kept in the stadium and in camps. They are not supposed to be on the streets and Tanzanians are not to assist them. The agencies are responsible for care. This probably is to keep people from disappearing into the society illegally.

Oct 31 – Need to recount about 3 days here. I arrived at Kigoma—a beautiful lake port at 8:00 am Friday. A huge old German railway station here. I relied on a Lonely Planet  guide book and took a taxi for the brief ride to the Kigoma Hotel—Saw that some French Canadians were registered—one was Daniel Lacoste who had lived in Temiscaming Sud about 2 years before we had arrived to teach in that small town on the Quebec/Ontario border in 1978—lots of relatives there. He is the age group of the sec. 4 and 5’s that we taught. The other, Sylvain Martel is from the Ottawa Region. They are organizing to go to Gombe Stream to see the chimps, so the 3 of us and Dave a Canadian/Czech from Westmount and 4 crazy Kiwis Jacqui, Catman, Wade and Norm hire a boat to take us up to the park. I kept my room at the hotel to leave most of my gear. The boat south doesn’t leave til Wed. I arrived on a Friday.

We were fortunate to see the chimps up close in the morning only a 15 minute walk from the lodge. Some visitors are not so lucky. Did lots of filming  and had a great time with the Kiwis—They swear like no one I’ve heard before. Wade stayed with me at the hotel when we got back—good bloke—plumber by trade—works in Austria at ski shops in winter—London at times, now on his way to Capetown to see his girlfriend. Catman works the offshore oil rigs in S.E. Asia—comes to Europe for the summer and does the circuit from Pamplona to Munich Oktoberfest. Jackie and Norm—a quiet couple who put up with everyone’s kidding.

The chimps were as amazing to us as I’m sure they are to all tourists—Families—mothers with small children. They woke up about 6 am. We heard their chatter in the forest and a ranger led us to them. We sat on a trail—one was on the trail about 30 meters in front of us. Soon another was on the trail behind us and walked right through our group. The guide told us to squat down and keep lower than the chimps and there would be no problem.  Soon others joined and went to a palm tree as we followed them. They climbed up into the tree and ate small nuts. Soon there were about 6 in the area. They can move very quietly when they choose. They moved on to another type of tree to change diet. The babies were left to climb around on their own in a tree but when trees were changed mom’s carried the babies. —The mom’s could sit balanced on a limb not using their toes to grasp. They just put weight forward of their heels. They were pretty much in charge of us. They are very powerful. The 3 Canadians went back again in the afternoon and saw a male grab a small bush pig—kill it in its jaws and literally run across the tops of several large trees til it stopped to eat the pig, high legs dangling out of the chimp’s mouth and blood running down its chin.

By 4:30 pm we’re headed back after a swim in the lake. The water temp was ideal and not cold at lower depths. Rains started that morning but let up for us. Today Sunday the 31st a longer rain hit Kigoma—most of the morning from 4 am to 10 am it came down steadily.

The MV Liemba is under repair so the MV Magorozo sails south all the way to Zambia these days.

Oct 31-    Today with the rain, we sit and write though it is clearing now as I write. The Wazungu (white) tourists have decided to make a curry dinner tonight.  We've been served a lot of rice and beans, nothing else.    I know there is other food in the market, so some of the travellers are out shopping—some will clean or cut—I’ll do the sauce. The hotel kitchen will provide rice. There is a pleasant group of people here—about 15 to 20—many have seen each other several times in different places. Several German med students who came out for a few months of volunteer work. Lots of Kiwis—The Canadians—An American woman semi-retired who worked for P&G in Cincinnati and in South America, a Danish woman who was working in Rwanda.

Curry dinner went smoothly – Sylvain and Daniel did the shopping. 4kg of good beef. Daniel didn't let them throw any bones in. Lots of potatoes and onions and curry – even a vegetarian curry for some who wanted that. Cooked on two small petrol burners that the trekkers provided. Cut up everything [with] pocket knives. First cleaned the work table with Dettol. Tried to coerce some of the women to do the cooking but they adamantly declined. Everyone had been saying how tired they were of rice + beans or beans and rice. Got huge compliments for the work. Started preparing at 2:30 and served at 5:00. It was fun. But I think people would have liked anything including a baboon or a zebra.

Evening we walked over to Railway Hotel well situated on the lake looking much like Kariba. Had my first Primus beer from Zaire. Quite good. — Four beers and a bit of a buzz. Kiwis in form. Interesting concept of work six months and travel. Some stay longer. One had bought a van last year with 8 others and went to Pamplona first of July then around Europe finishing off at Oktoberfest in Munich late September.

                                On the way to Gombe Stream, two crazy Kiwis, Daniel, Dave, Sylvain

                                               Lake Tanganyika shore,    two chimps in tree perch

Found out from Scott an Aussie that his reservations on boat were downgraded to 2nd class so I better go over and check. Everything was in order. Ticket was Tsh 7200 about $15 for 3 days on the boat 1st class. MV Liemba is under repair so we will be travelling on the MV Mwongozo a bit less historic.  The MV Liemba was carried out piece by piece from the coast by the Germans before WWI and assembled probably at Kigoma.  During the war, the Liemba then known as the Graf von Goetzen was cornered by a British craft that had been transported to the lake overland from South Africa.  To avoid capture it was scuttled by the Germans.  The British razed it after the war and refitted it and it is still carrying goods and passengers on Lake Tanganyika all these years.

Tomorrow I’ll try to go to Ujiji to see where Stanley found Livingstone back in 1877.  —It’s a few miles south of Kigoma.

Nov 1. Went to Ujiji by bus in a light rain at noon and it did not stop for 3 1/2 hours. We got drenched and we failed to see the place where Stanley supposedly found Livingstone. Stood under cover in the market. Thought the fish might be washed down the hill. Incredible amounts of water overflowing the open sewers in the village. Met a Rwandese speaking good French—He heard me speaking French with Daniel & Sylvain. He will try to locate an mganga (witch doctor)  with Kibuyu to sell if I return tomorrow. Need to mail some letters, perhaps to write some as well. Some of the 15 who were here yesterday left for Gombe Stream at 3. It just stopped raining for them.

After notes:   

My decision not to go up to Burundi is probably wise. The president had been murdered, October 21, by the army a week before the train trip had started,  Lots of killing going on during a ten year civil war that started with that event.   I'm unable to convey this information to Marie back home.   Knowing of the unrest, she will ask an African priest friend back home about the situation. He confides to her, that if I went up there, I'm probably dead.  She carries that counsel in her head for several weeks until getting a letter from me that I had decided not to go to Burundi.  Instead I headed south to Zimbabwe.   I will recount some of that trip in a later story.

Less than a year later the Rwandan genocide would kick off in April, 1994 when the new Burundian president and the president of Rwanda were both killed when their plane was shot down coming into the Rwandan capital of Kigali.  That event touched off the killing of 800,000 people in a three month period.  Not a great time to be travelling over there.  I would start travelling to those countries again in 2007 to train community mediators in both countries as well as the Congo.  

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                                              MV Liemba  formerley the Graf Von Goetzen

V 1 N. 25 My First Parachute Jump, 1969

 

My First Jump From an Airplane

                                                                         George Brose

            I recall that it was just after December 6, 1969 in Bad Tolz, Germany that I took my first jump from an aircraft.   I remember that date because on our way from the Black Forest  to the training site at Bad Tolz in Bavaria, we saw St. Nicholas walking the streets in the evening and stopping at each house with a light on indicating children were present.  It was the custom in Bavaria that some ogre dressed in a Middle Ages monk’s outfit would interrogate families to see if children had been good or bad.  If good they got a sweet from the lout, and if bad the guy went into Gestapo mode and gave the kids a hiding they would not soon forget. 

Five of us in a military van arrived at the old Wehrmacht military base at the foot of the Alps .  That base had an interesting history before and during WWII.   In researching this article I learned that in 1934  the first commandant of the training school in Bad Tolz called the Junker Schule was Paul Von Lettow Vorbeck, the German officer who had been in command of German forces in East Africa in WWI.  That hit home as I had been stationed in the Peace Corps in those African lands just before entering the military as a draftee.  The Junker Schule was part of the SS but not the horrific Waffen SS.

We  had come to Bad Tolz to be trained in the art of falling or being pushed out of a plane with a parachute attached to our backs and a reserve chute to our chests.    I never thought things might go wrong at first, but when the instructors explained what could go wrong, I began to think, “Oh Mama Mia why did I volunteer for this?”   “For the $55 extra each month” came the voice in the wilderness.   So in two weeks, a group of the  7^th US Special Forces taught us what  back home would have taken three weeks, divided into  ‘ground week, tower week and jump week.  We skipped ‘tower week’.    In that second week we trainees would do our five mandatory jumps from a real aircraft in the air rather than a tower.   Remember this was December, it was in the Alps, it was cold, and it was snowing.   One week less was a blessing.

 

We learned the basic Parachute Landing Fall, PLF, by jumping off a bench onto a concrete floor and rolling to one side or the other landing first on two toes, knees bent , rolling over and letting the calf muscle take the next hit and work our way up the thigh, rib cage, and shoulder.  The fun name for this type of landing was  ‘two toes and a nose’.   If we banged the ground with our helmet we immediately got ten push ups to do.  I can assure you that a PLF will give you a very tired neck which after about ten jumps from  a bench will not keep that helmet from banging the concrete.    A thousand push ups later we moved on to the swing landing trainer which was a set up about ten feet high.  You stepped off a platform and being suspended by ropes and pulleys  were gradually lowered while swinging and allowed to hit the ground fairly hard.  The rate of descent was controlled by the instructor.  Eventually they just let go of the rope and let you fall onto the frozen ground that in summer had been sawdust but was now hard as concrete and terribly rutted as well, so the landings were really bruising to the legs.  

 

During that week we did not get the usual harassment associated with parachute training, I think because the instructors just didn’t care.  They had families, it was Christmas, all the wrong reasons for going light but I consider myself very lucky to have been trained that way.  Needless to say I also didn’t mind that it was only one week and then we jumped five times in the second week. 

One other little tidbit,  the commanding officer, an American, had the incredibly Germanic name  Lt. Colonel Ludwig Feistenhaimer.  Affectionately known as Mad Ludwig. 

 

Anyway first jump time came.  We received our briefing, selected a chute and strapped it on.  The guys who packed the parachutes were called ‘riggers’ and theirs was a very special profession.   One of their privileges was they got to wear red caps instead of the time worn olive drab.  They also did not get harassed by anyone associated with jumping, because they were they guys who packed your chute.  When officers came by before a jump to get their chute, they always chose their own.  They would never take a chute a rigger handed them.  Never know if that rigger had it in for you and gave you a badly packed chute, eh Sir?  I wasn’t worried, because I was a lowly Specialist Fifth Class, trained by the Army as a translator of Goethe’s tongue though I wasn’t trained well enough to read Goethe’s works.  Still haven’t. 

Our planes that we would jump from were WWII vintage, the old Gooney Birds or C-47’s.   Twin engine, piston driven, as reliable as any aircraft in the world.  Our briefing before our jump went over what happens in case of emergency.  The main emergency that they could think of telling us was what to do if the static line that is attached to the plane and pulls your chute out of the pack as you fall away from the aircraft fails to break and release you and you find you are being towed at ninety miles an hour (top speed) behind the aircraft.  You actually have a choice if you recall the briefing.  If you wish to be cut loose and try out your reserve chute, you need to put your hands on your head to signal to the Jump Master to cut your line. You fall and then deploy your reserve by pulling on the D ring or handle on the reserve.   There is no back up to your reserve if it does not deploy.  At that point you are FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition).   Is there a Plan B?  Yes, there is.  The Army always has a plan B.

Plan B.   The jump master then told us the details of plan B.   Initially Plan B sounds reasonable.  You do nothing, you land with the plane.  But…..you will be outside the plane being towed behind it.  No coffee, tea, or milk will be served.   The jump master says he will pull your static line in toward the plane with you attached to the end of it, but he won’t be able to get you into the plane.  On this snowy, icy day he did mention that the runway where the C-47 will be landing will have a lot of ice on it and you  will probably slide very easily behind the aircraft.  Gee, sort of like water skiing in the winter at maybe 70 mph behind an aircraft on the ground.     If it happens I think I will choose the first option.      

Any other instructions Mr. Jump Master?    Just a few, remember if you are coming down in the forests around here, keep your feet together.  You do not want a tree going up your rectum.  Yes, Mr. Jump Master.  At that point you could not have gotten a darning needle up my rectum with jar of axle grease to aide the attempt. 

So “Off we went into the wild blue yonder”  as the old song contrives to make this all seem like fun.  Really that’s an old Air Force pilots’ song.   The paratrooper’s song it “We Have a Rendezvous with Destiny”.   You are never sure what is your destiny until you land safely.   It was incredibly noisy in the plane,  we hardly had time to think before, during or after take off.   Everything in those first jumps is done by rote action that you learned during ground training.  Only after five or six jumps do you start thinking about what is going on before and during a jump.   The aircraft wound it’s way up to 1200 feet on that dark grey day over the Bavarian countryside.  I hardly had time to look out a window to see the mountains before the Jump Master signaled with his hands that we should  “Stand Up” , second signal “Hook Up”.   This meant that we should connect our static line with the clip on the end onto the cable going through the plane.   By this time fifteen or so jumpers are on their feet, trying to keep their balance, trying not to piss their pants, and looking at the open door near the tail of the plane.  The Jump Master now signals us to move toward the door.  All this time a red light has been shining until we are on the approach to the drop zone.   As we get over the drop zone, the light turns green and we are going out the door one at a time.  We have been taught to put our hands on the sides of the door and project ourselves outward.  If you don’t project yourself you will be too close to the plane and get a thumping on the fuselage as you go away.    No problem today.  I’m out that door like a bird out of cage.  It’s windy and cold, I count to three or four by thousands and look up and see a beautiful site.  My parachute is open, and I am drifting slowly toward the snow covered ground.  The silence is peaceful.  The next jumpers are too far away to talk to or yell at.  I look down, no trees to contend with, just float down to that snow covered pasture.  Wait, is there  something out of synch here?   There are three feet of snow on the ground, I know, but that snow looks very discolored.  It looks rather yellowish  brown.    WTF?   I am about to learn that the Bavarian farmers are practicing an age old tradition of spraying their fields with a mixture of cow dung and urine that is collected in the barns.  The smell wafts up as I descend closer and closer to my first landing, and suddenly I’m down on the ground with no injury hitting into those three feet of snow.  But I am covered in the spray of those German cattle droppings and kidney effluent mess on the surface of that snow.   Yuk.   But as trained, I keep my mouth shut, I don’t eat yellow brown snow, and I gather up my parachute and put it in the bag we carried with us and start hiking back to a truck waiting at the edge of the field to take us back to our barracks.  We all are smelling like the proverbial Rose of Sharon. 

The stench in our barracks is strong and there is no place to take our outerwear to be washed.  We go through the week with those ripe uniforms.  The Special Force barracks have not smelled like this ever.  We complete our five jumps and are deemed to now be paratroopers in good standing and our paychecks will reflect such.   Over the next year and a half I will have twenty-two more jumps, sometimes from helicopters, sometimes from German planes, and or one or two occasions from a KC 130 jet powered craft.  The brotherhood of paratroopers lasts for life.  Everyone else in the military is known to us as a ‘Leg’.  We know two things.  Jumping from an aircraft is the greatest thrill you can have with your pants on.  And what comes out of the sky besides bird shit is paratroopers. 

                             The author about to slide out of a CH 119 over Malmsheim, Germany

                    The guy standing above me Captain Scheer (origin Switzerland) had jumped at night into North Viet Nam and did reconnaissance and walked out to South Viet Nam.  

  Chopper coming into landing zone, Malmsheim.   German soldiers getting ready.  In 1969, some of these guys were WWII combat vets, having jumped into Crete.  

Ground treats

Out the back door of a big chopper

Two dudes on a Rendezvous with Destiny

(l )David Himmestein  (r) George Brose

V 1 N. 24 Slices of Life and Death

 Please note:  This piece is not for the squeamish.  If you have just had lunch, you may wish to refrain from reading right now.

Slices of Life and Death

George Brose

            In 1977 I was exposed to a world I could only imagine while reading Mary Shelly, crime fiction, or watching some Brit TV series about forensic pathologists.  I was a graduate student at a college in rural Indiana.  Having completed my graduate degree in exercise physiology, I was offered a one-year contract to teach anatomy, physiology, and exercise physiology to undergrad students.  I was happy to get that job even though the pay was a pittance, because it enabled my French Canadian wife  Marie-Andree a chance to complete her graduate degree before we returned to Canada.

            While living in East Central Indiana Marie-Andree had become friends with Corrine,  the only other French Canadian in town.  Her husband Billy Bob was the local pathologist for the county, and knowing my limited experience in the field of anatomy, he offered me the opportunity to assist him in doing autopsies at a nearby VA hospital. Billy Bob also offered me the princely sum of $50 to assist with each autopsy.   Not only did I get to see fresh human cadavers up close, I got to help dissect them and remove organs and look for causes of death.  Admittedly, the cause of most of the veterans’ deaths was old age and combination of heart disease, emphysema, dementia, and ….well this list goes on.  We weren’t dealing with victims of crime.  Prior to this opportunity, my experience in dissection of a mammal was with a fetal pig. 

            It was a 38 mile drive north, just beyond  Gas City, IN where the veterans hospital was located.  There had once been an oil and gas boom in that part of the country and Gas City got it’s name from what lay under the earth’s surface.  The hospital housed hundreds of old veterans who had no homes or health insurance in their last days.  Some of them had been there from the time they had left the military.  I remember reading through one old gentleman’s records and discovering that on his way home from WWI he had gotten intoxicated in the Indianapolis railway station and been arrested for drunk and disorderly.  He was headed out west to Denver perhaps but was sent to the local veterans' hospital to dry out rather than the county jail.  He never left that hospital.  No family ever asked what happened to him, never came to claim him.  He had lingered in that place for almost sixty years.  Today we talk about the homeless veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, suffering from PTSD.   Back then the story was the same, just the diagnosis was different.  It was shell shock or battle fatigue in those earlier wars.

            To dissect a member of one’s own species is something few of us will ever do.  It definitely leaves a lasting impression on one’s psyche.  Billy Bob had a defense to confront such work and that was humor.  I must admit that I rarely laughed so much on any job I performed.  Maybe it was Billy Bob’s way of protecting me as well as himself.  Our subjects had been dead only a few hours and were not in an advanced state of decomposition.  This made our task much more manageable.  It is a part of the job we never see portrayed in great detail on modern media.   However in most anatomy labs in university medical schools where doctors learn their trade, cadavers are not new and fresh.  They are usually floating in a tank of chemical preservative and fished out for a class of wannabee doctors to learn where the muscles lie in relation to connective tissue, organs, bones, and nerves.  Their color no longer resembles a human being and the smell of the chemicals often permeates one’s skin. 

            We usually began our work with a look at the thoracic and abdominal cavities.  This was accomplished by a long slice from the top of the sternum down to the top of the pubic bone.   The skin was pulled back and a rib cage exposed.  To get to the heart and lungs required removal of the front of the rib cage.  A pair of snips was used to cut through the ribs and eventually lift off a section of the chest the size of a dinner plate to expose the heart and lungs.  We would cut the aorta and  the pulmonary veins and arteries and lift the heart out of the chest.  We would then begin looking for blockages in the coronary arteries indicating that the patient had had coronary heart disease. Those arteries were on the outer surface of the heart. We could also look at the state of the heart valves  and thickness of ventricular walls to see if the heart had been under extreme stress.   From there the lungs could be removed again to look for blockages in pulmonary circulation or blood clots.   We might also look to see if there was an obstruction in the larynx and bronchial tubes for causes of a choking death. 

            I don’t recall doing a lot of searching in the abdominal cavity for causes of death as the patient  may already have been diagnosed with some type of cancer of the intestines, stomach, liver, spleen, kidneys, pancreas or adrenal glands.  But Billy Bob did give me a chance to do some exploring down there  to learn more about location and juxtaposition of the human organs. After all I was supposed to be teaching this information to undergrads.   If the patient had been diagnosed with diabetes, we often confirmed the effects which could be seen in the lower limb deterioration.  Some of the men had already had amputations of toes, feet or legs from that disease.

            Our next area of research was the head.  This may make the reader a bit queasy.   They don’t show  much about head forensics on the tv shows.  Our interest would focus on blockages in blood vessels in the brain that might be contributing to the cause of death.  First we had to get to the brain and that meant cutting through the scalp down to the skull and then removing enough of the skull to then remove the brain.  First things first, an incision needed to be made across the top if the head from top of one ear to the top of the other.  Doesn’t matter which side you begin on, but you do have to go deep enough to reach the skull on that incision.  If the person was bald, it meant a lot more work for an undertaker to cover up that incision with make up.  Once that cut was complete, the investigator must pull the front of the scalp forward over the face.  The scalp comes off quite easily and is pulled forward about to where the eyebrows are located.  Then the rear section of the scalp is pulled backwards to expose the rear portion of the skull.  The skull is now the only thing between the investigator and the brain.  But how to get through all that bone?  A saw is needed.  Today a modern cutting tool with a small circular blade is used and the top of the skull is circumnavigated until it can be lifted off the top of the head.  Once that is done the front of the brain can be lifted up and then in the back side of the head the spinal cord can be cut and the brain lifted out of the skull.  There are also a few nerves at the front underside that may have to be severed as well such as the optic nerves from the eyes so that the brain can be removed.  The pathologist in those days was required to remove the pituitary gland from the underside of the brain and send it to a lab for extracting pituitary growth hormone for treating patients with dwarfism.  Today that hormone can be synthesized.  Then the brain would be sliced like a loaf of bread from one side to the other.  Once that was done the pathologist could look for signs of deterioration from Alzheimer’s disease as well as cerebral vessel blockages.   This would pretty much be a wrap on our autopsy.   Then we had to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.   Any organ which indicated a cause of death was preserved in some kind of pickling solution to be sent to another office.  The pituitary gland was forwarded to a lab. And then all parts went back to their original resting place.  The top of the skull replaced and the skin lifted off the face and pulled back to the top of the head.  I think Billy Bob stitched it back in place.  Heart and lungs replaced, the rib cage and sternum set back in place and skin pulled over the chest cavity and stitched back.  They often show that part in the tv dramas. 

            Did  I mention earlier that I laughed a lot during these sessions?  “How could he possibly laugh?” you must be thinking.  What is the old saying? “Laughter is the best medicine?”  Well the initiate and the expert often need some humor to get over what they have been doing, especially knowing that someday they may be the one lying on that table being dissected by a medical student or a crime scene investigator, or just a regular old pathologist looking for answers to supply to statistical research files.   I remember Billy Bob sometimes singing a parody of the old song Y.M.C.A.    “Young man are you looking for a home.  I said young man,   Y.M.C.A."   He would change some of the song to "----- VA"  instead of "YMCA".  He would regale me with stories from pathology journals about bizarre cases.  He did confess that a pathologist cannot work on someone he knows.   He told me that once he pulled back the sheet from a cadaver, and it turned out to be one of his former high school teachers.  He completely broke down and had to leave the job to someone else.  Once too he had been called in to do an autopsy on a victim of a mob execution.  The guy had been floating in a pond for several days and was very ‘ripe’ to put it mildly.  They had to work outside in an open garage and everyone there was given a strong cigar to smoke to overcome the smell they were enduring.

            Ten years later on our way to a job assignment in China, we stopped to see Billy Bob and Corrine where they were then living in northern New England.  When we arrived Billy asked me if I would like to do an autopsy with him for old times sake.  Especially as the client was Chinese and we were heading to China.  Well, how could I resist?  When we got to the clinic,  we learned that the deceased had swum out to a boat at the marina and had a few beers and attempted to swim back but didn’t make it.  He had drowned apparently.   There was the guy on the slab.  Billy found that the clinic scale was not functioning.  He asked me how much I thought the man weighed.  I said I had no idea.  Billy Bob replied, “Well pick him up.”  I complied.  I said, “about 140 pounds.”   That weight went into the official records.  We completed the autopsy.  The lungs were full of water.  It was clearly a death by drowning.   No other signs of trauma.  A blood sample was taken to be analyzed for alcohol content.  Our work was observed by a deputy sheriff who was himself a case for another story.  All I care to say at this time was he was not a person who should have been on a police force.  He had recently taken the job in northern New England after years work in an Ivy League town in the East.  He said he just got tired of busting heads.   We now refer to  him as Deputy Kowalski. with no intent to stigmatize the Polish culture.   Then Deputy Kowalski went on to tell us his worldview.  He said that he for a long time thought Koreans were the dumbest people in the world until he moved to his current town on the Quebec border.  Now he was certain that French Canadians were the dumbest people.  Billy Bob and  I told him that was an interesting viewpoint as we were both married to French Canadians.  Years later in a correspondence with Billy Bob I asked him if he had had any later encounters with Deputy Kowalski.  He said the deputy wasn’t in the department anymore.  Apparently he had stopped someone for speeding out in the county and left his squad car parked on some railway tracks.   While he was writing a ticket, the 8:15 came by and wiped out his cruiser.  The sheriff decided that Deputy Kowalski’s services were no longer needed in Northern New England.

Comments:   Sometimes they are better than the text.

First, Billy Bob, really?  No one is named Billy Bob that isn't a character in a TV series set in rural Alabama.

Before reading this my day was planned around an afternoon delight session with Molly.  Provocative videos that will provide incentive to travel the path I've selected are set.  Two full length mirrors are stationed next to the bed to reinforce her recent discovery that "I like to look at myself having sex". Her arrival in six hours was greatly anticipated.

After reading this, I am curled up in a ball, sucking my thumb and rocking back and forth. Jesus H. Christ, you did this and are comfortable sharing the details?  Do you have any idea how difficult it is to type while rocking back and forth?  The first couple sentences of your next offering will be read slowly and carefully, a sort of sticking my toe in the water before jumping in maneuver, and then only after I have repeated the "You can do this, you can do this, you can do this" mantra.

Anonymous

V 1 N. 22 How I Became a Mediator

 

How I Became a Mediator

George Brose

            This story begins in May, 1988, shortly before our family was scheduled to leave Canada for a year of teaching in Beijing, China.  My wife Marie had been hired by a Canadian organization to upgrade the English capabilities of Chinese graduate students before their departure to study in Canada.  It was hoped that they would then return to China with a favorable outlook toward Canada in their future jobs back in China.  After all, if every Chinese bought a pencil made in Canada it could denude the forests of British Columbia, or so it was hypothesized.

            A month or two before we were due to leave Canada, my father, living in Ohio, had a stroke and was left in a vegetative state in a veterans’ hospital in Dayton.  My mother, in her late 70’s was now alone to look after the family homestead, and I was divided on whether to stay with her or go to China with Marie and our two teenage children, Dominique and Jacques.   After a quick visit to Dayton, my mother gave her blessing to us to go on our way to China.  And we did.  By November, my father had died and I came home for the funeral and knowing our contract would end on the following August, I told her we would come back to Ohio to live and look after my mom.  It didn’t quite work out that way.

            Our year in China only lasted ten months and was cut short by the Tiananmen student uprising that left us in evacuation mode about four days after the massacre of the Beijing students.  The kids and I  had been on the streets that night and had witnessed some of the violence.  It left us scarred in ways we didn’t comprehend at the time.  Nevertheless, we came back to Ohio, and Marie, a Canadian, applied to renew her Green card in the US.   Then she headed up to Canada for a visit with her family but was denied re-entry to the States, because the law stated that you had to remain in the US while the Green card application was being processed.  It forced us into a separation for a year that we had not planned on.  My son and I stayed in Dayton to look after my mother, and Marie and our daughter Dominique stayed in Quebec. 

            During that separation, we did see each other once when I went up to Montreal and then once again when Marie entered illegally for a quick visit in upstate New York.  It seems that back then it was the license plate number that set off the immigration red lights and she was driving a different car from the one she had been in at the first refusal of entry.  That first refusal co-incidentally was the day the Berlin Wall came down.  Freedom was proclaimed by the West.   It made cynics of all of us.

            By June, 1990 Marie’s Green card had been approved and she prepared to move back to the US.  Dominique would remain to attend college and university in the French schools.  Unfortunately in early June, my mother was killed crossing a major street near her home while going to see a sick friend.  I had offered to walk with her to see her friend.  She said she would be fine and went on her own.  That's the last time I saw her alive.   This really upset the family apple cart.  I had not been able to find full time work in the teaching or coaching field and had begun working in construction and house painting under the tutelage of my old high school track coach, Ed Jones.  I did have a part time job at Wittenberg University as a track and cross country coach but the pay was a pittance.

            One Sunday afternoon, Marie and I and my 80 year old Aunt Adele were taking a walk on the bikeway that runs off Irving Ave. near the University of Dayton.  We had my parents’ dog with us, a Schnauzer named Fritz.  I had let Fritz off the leash for a bit, when a jogger came by all fired up on his adrenaline and endorphins and told me if I didn’t put the dog on a leash he would kill it.  That threat to my deceased parents’ dog was the spark that sent me off the rails, and I replied that the only thing going on a leash would be the jogger.  This led to a physical confrontation while Marie and my Aunt looked on rather horrified to put it mildly.  At one point I was on top of the individual and was holding a grapefruit sized rock.  I could have inflicted some serious damage, but somehow I held back.   We were on the boundary of the municipalities of Dayton and Oakwood, and since it must have been a slow Sunday afternoon for the police, a total of five squad cars from both towns showed up. They separated us and no charges were filed.  A lawyer later told me, I could have been charged for failure to control the dog.  Failure to control myself would probably have been more appropriate.  I encountered that jogger one more time a year or so later.  He was in line ahead of me at the Post Office.  I chose not to say anything to him.  Not sure how it might have ended.  

            A couple days after the fight while reading a free community paper I saw an ad for a course called Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) taught by the Quakers.  At my age of almost fifty, I didn’t see a long future with my anger management issues, so I decided to take the course. I'm not sure what stage of the grief process I was in at the time, but I was ready to look for some way of dealing with my anger.   The course lasted twenty-four hours and was spread over three days.  I found it helped me a lot and decided to take the next two levels of the training which would be taught at the Dayton Correctional Institution (prison) by Quakers alongside prisoners who would also be teaching.   After completing those three courses I was a qualified trainer or facilitator of AVP.   As a volunteer, I taught over forty of those courses over the next five years.  I moved up the ranks a bit in AVP and attended several national level meetings and workshops.  I also taught some courses in other prisons in Ohio and even in Greenhaven prison in New York.    While attending one of those national meetings, in Plainfield, NJ,  I took a twelve hour course in Mediation.   I thought this was a cool thing and with my twelve hours of training, I offered my services as a volunteer in the mediation program in Greene County, Xenia, OH courts.  I did three cases under a bit of supervision with the professional mediator in Xenia, and suddenly found myself with a full time job offer in the Springfield, OH juvenile and domestic relations court.  At that time I was now working at the University of Dayton as the women’s cross country coach and assistant track coach.   The pay was a little better than Wittenberg U., but still not enough to support a family of four.   The mediation job along with the coaching made everything possible.

            Initially my mediation work was with the city and county schools regarding truancy and behavior by juveniles that would prevent court involvement.  At that time truancy was a crime that could result in  incarceration of children.  In cases where parents contributed to the truancy, that too could result in incarceration of the parent. That could snowball into removal of the child from the parent’s care.   There were lots of mediation trainings offered by the Ohio Supreme Court in those days and I eventually had over 400 hours of additional training including a week at the National Judicial College in Reno, NV.   I eventually got into mediation of more and more serious criminal cases where victims and offenders were brought together to talk about what happened and how it affected the victim or the survivors of the victim.    I also thought this might be a good skill to transfer to Africa where I had worked in several countries in the past.  I got connected with the Quakers in Africa and went there four times for training mediators in conflict zones including Rwanda, Burundi, the Dem. Rep. of Congo, Kenya, and Tanzania.  By that time, back home I had also moved into other types of mediation in the Domestic Relations and Civil Courts in Springfield. While in that capacity I mediated thirteen cases involving homicides.   I worked there fifteen years until I retired in 2013.  We subsequently moved to British Columbia and I took up the profession again on a part time basis only retiring this year after approximately 3,500 cases.  I have no degrees in mediation; I never wanted to be a mediator, it just happened as a result of life experiences.

       I can also say that I never joined the Quaker church although I've worked with them extensively in the US and Africa.  Were I to join a church it would be theirs.  They saved my life and enabled me to find a profession when I needed one.  

      

Comments:

Most of us have had moments where odd circumstances have given us another direction.  As Yogi Berra said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it".  Had you not been confronted about the dog, especially so soon after losing your parents, you might have had a lengthy career as an elevator operator or a mixed martial arts instructor.  As it turned out you had a positive effect on many people through your mediation, coaching, parenting and just being George.  I remember spectating at one mediation.  Forgot how you introduced me to the client but it was something more than "my buddy from California".   Roy M.

Really enjoyed the piece, George.  A well written account of life‘s unpredictability.

If you’d been a responsible dog owner and hadn’t let your mutt run loose, no telling where you might have ended up. 

Dave H.