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I taught for one year in Dolostown and
then two years in Sanniquellie. I spent 3 extra months in Monrovia
in an office job and then spent a few weeks "leaving".
They were 3+ wonderful years. I traveled to Kenya, Ethiopia,
Sudan, Egypt and Europe on the way home.
In Ethiopia I visited my oldest friend
who was a PC Volunteer there. Haile Selassi was in the middle
of being overthrown while I was there. I was glad to leave.
My friend transferred to Liberia for his second year!
Dolostown is about one mile from
Roberts Field and one mile from Harbel, where Firestone workers lived.
We walked through the rubber trees to get to the market. A
fascinating experience was to walk through that forest during the two
week dry spell in the rainy season, I think it was in July. The
pods with seeds on the trees would pop! It was like having popcorn
made all around you, not that I could see the pods or seeds falling but
you would hear this pop, pop, pop sounds all around you for a few days
or a week.
I came back to Chicago and taught math
for 3 years in a private, Catholic school. It closed and I became
an air traffic controller for 1.5 years. It was boring. I
then got into computer programming and have held various positions in
Information Systems for the last 22 years.
I married Suzanne in 1983. We
have a 12 year old son and a 15 year old daughter. I have become
very active with youth sports in Skokie, Illinois. They include
American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO) and basketball. If only
I knew as much about those sports and how to coach and referee back in
1971!
Suzanne and I traveled twice to see
her brother who works in Asia. In 1984 we visited him in
Bangladesh. We also went to Nepal and Thailand on that trip.
Last year our whole family visited him and his family in Jakarta,
Indonesia. We made it to Bali on that trip.
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