Peace Corps Director Gaddi Vasquez stopped off in Miami in August after visiting PCVs in Jamaica and the Dominican Republic. He met informally with a group of leaders from the South Florida RPCV group. As at the 40 + 1 NPCA conference, his words very eloquently conveyed great enthusiasm and a host of ideas for the organization.

Our daughter and first child, Amy Ruth, was born on April 1, 1968 at the Wusasa Missionary Hospital, a few miles from Zaria, in North Central Nigeria. We were serving as law lecturers in the Faculty of Law at Ahmadu Bello University. Nowadays, we are told, a pregnancy is an automatic one-way ticket home. There was more discretion in those days, but we did have to argue with the PC staff to be allowed to stay.

At the missionary, hospital the birth was attended by capable and caring midwives, so it was very ‘60’s. As a measure of safety, there was a Scottish surgeon, a redoubtable woman, on call in case of any complications. The birth was relatively easy and we were grateful to Amy for waiting for us to finish breakfast on a balmy Monday morning before making it clear that she was ready for her grand appearance. We even had time to take some pictures of a very pregnant Greta boarding our Jeep loaned to us for the occasion by the Peace Corps.

The hospital was a one story stucco affair, and as was often the case, the water system in Zaria was out, so Marv had to deliver home brewed boiled and filtered drinking water for the week that Greta and Amy were Wusasa residents. Greta vividly remembers that, although she wanted no pain relief, the midwives, treating her as another baturi, injected her with morphine. When Greta was told what she had been given, she was so incensed that she remained highly alert throughout the birth. The other memory is of the little old man who came into the room every morning to dust with a hand broom, probably raising as much dust as was cleaned out. Marv recalls being allowed to attend the birth, a new thing in those days. The midwives, after glancing at one another, just smiled and nodded. Thanks to the birth film ritually shown at PC training, Marv’s resolve was stiffened.

Being allowed to remain in country was a close thing. We had to plead with the Peace Corps, arguing that many English women at Ahmadu Bello gave birth locally. If they could do it, so could we! A volunteer couple, Ray and Judy McGuire (15) 65–67), who served before us had been allowed to stay through two births. Our jobs were hard to fill and so Greta taught right up to Amy’s birth. It was very edgy, because Marv was draft eligible. He had a sympathetic draft board but a sudden return to the USA before the magic age of 26 sounded like a ticket to Vietnam. One member of our training group had been drafted after only a year in service.

Transportation was a problem. As Amy grew, Greta sat further behind Marv on their 90 cc. Honda motorbike. The 60 mile trip from Zaria to Kaduna on the two wheeler to visit the PC doctor in Greta’s sixth month was the last straw. After an all-day sit-in followed by heated pleading, we received a Jeep loaner to get us through.

Then there was the concern we had about a bris - a Jewish ritual circumcision if the child was a boy. But we’ll leave that story for another time. Memories of the birth of a child are always special, but with loving attention to our son, a birth in Lansing, Michigan just does not bring back the same intense, sun drenched memories as a birth in Africa.•

“If all goes smoothly.” Can you say that about Nigeria without a smile? If all had gone smoothly, Nigeria’s local government elections would have been completed in time to install newly elected officials by May 29, the day President Olusegun Obasanjo calls “Democracy Day.” As of October, these elections had been postponed twice. By September 21, one of several stumbling blocks was to have been removed: the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was supposed to have compiled updated, comprehensive voter registration lists. The word on the ground is that local elections will probably occur in December. (The Constitution gives the three newly registered parties until then to campaign, anyway.) Since the target date for the second round —state and federal legislators, governors, the president— is still March, 2003, two possibilities arise: postponement or a short campaigning season.

Fact: Obasanjo tried unsuccessfully to change the law so that the two sets of elections would occur simultaneously in 2003. Fact: Obasanjo then tried, also unsuccessfully, to reverse the order of elections. Fact: council leaders elected in 2002 will be among the delegates who select presidential candidates in January, 2003.

Conspiracy theories abound. As Asuquo Nya of the All People’s Party of Nigeria (APPN, formerly the APP) put it, after the first postponement: “There is this fear that the Alliance for Democracy (AD) will sweep the polls in the southwest (Obasanjo’s home region) and this would not augur well for him in his re-election bid.” Thus, he is buying time and trying to increase his popularity among his own people. As Professor Peter Lewis of American University explains, Obasanjo’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has the money and the machine, so a short run-up to the second round will benefit them. Asked about rumors that the PDP has a fifth column creating dissension within the APPN, a New-York based pro-Democracy leader laughs: “Anything is possible in Nigeria.”

Do these elections matter? To the U.S. government and press, Obasanjo is co-leader, with Mandela/Mbeki, of the fledgling democratization of Africa. Also, just as we supported General Yakubu Gowon (1966-75) because Biafra represented balkanization, we want Obasanjo to hold Nigeria together. Aside from returned PCV’s, which Americans care most about Nigeria? The oil barons.

Nigerians care a great deal. “If local elections go forward successfully, that will give you at least a respite. If they produce chaos...” These elections would represent the first time since independence (Oct 1, 1960) that a regime had used the ballot either to keep or transfer power. Given the well-known centripetal forces tearing at Nigeria, there is a desperate desire for the center to hold. The alternatives, another dictator/general or a break-up, are unthinkable.

Does it matter, then, that, to put it mildly, Obasanjo has been an imperfect democrat? Besides trying to change the election laws, he has been accused of spending too much time abroad, mismanaging the economy and ordering the massacre of civilians. On Aug 14, the House of Representatives gave the President two weeks to resign or face impeachment proceedings. This was the third such attempt since 1999. The generals, governors, and leaders of the principal opposition party, the AD, have all come out against impeachment, and, by the end of September, mediators were trying to end the imbroglio.

Anti-Obasanjo sentiment is widespread. Prior to the ultimatum, he had decreed audits of government agencies and officials, including his long-standing opponent, Speaker of the House, Alhaji Ghali Umar Na’Abba. Since both Houses are dominated by Obasanjo’s PDP, the impeachment call reflects serious intra-party rifts. The communiqué issued by the 8th annual World Igbo Conference in Houston at the end of August complained about under-representation in the regime — this, despite some fairly important cabinet portfolios— and called for an Igbo president in 2003. Several leading Igbo candidates have emerged.

Factions in the so-called pro-Democracy momement provide a good barometer of the range of attitudes towards Obasanjo. At one extreme is Chief Gani Fawehinmi, presidential aspirant, head of the small National Conscience Party, and a lawyer who is perpetually suing the government. Pro-Democrats in the Yoruba Diaspora have a more ambivalent view of the regime. Many are disciples of Chief Anthony Enahoro [see my “Champion of Democracy,” FON, Summer, 1999] and of murdered Minister of Justice, Bola Ige. (In Dec, 2001, Ige was caught in political crossfire while investigating corruption in Oshun state. In September, thirteen men were charged.)

Members of the United Committee to Save Nigeria (UCSN) seek an active role in the upcoming elections. On June 15, I attended a Queens fund-raiser for Jumoke Ogunkeyede, a businessman, leader of UCSN—NY, and one of four AD gubernatorial aspirants for Oshun State. Subsequently, I interviewed Jumoke three times. Like many of his colleagues, he has been through the political wars. In 1996, he persuaded then-Mayor Dinkins to name a street corner for Kudirat Abiola, the murdered widow of an Abacha opponent who himself died in jail. Also in 1996, shortly after he welcomed Chief Enahoro to self-imposed exile in the U.S, Jumoke’s house was firebombed. To the pro-Democrats, neither May 29 nor October 1, but June 12, the day of the Abiola murder, is the holy of holies.

Jumoke Ogunkeyede

With the PDP splintered, Obasanjo’s hopes for reelection rest more heavily on the pro-Democrats, many of whom have ties to the AD and to Afenifere, the Yoruba ethnic organization. Jumoke says the autocratic President has been ineffectual in reforming the economy and rooting out corruption. Terrible things have happened on Obasanjo’s watch: ever-growing violence, poverty and despair. On the other hand, since voter registration was incomplete, Jumoke endorsed the August 10 postponement. He also praises the reorganization and purge of the military, a leading plank in the pro-Democracy program. He is cautious about Obasanjo’s overtures toward Chief Enahoro, which have included promises to consider signally important new laws which would reverse the current flow of revenues from the center to local areas. As a second-term President, Obasanjo might complete his gutting of the military, renege on his promise to Enahoro, or do both. Regardless, Enahoro is among the mediators in the impeachment crisis.

Pro-Democrats in the Diaspora use all boats to navigate Nigeria’s rough political waters. They are hamstrung by the fact that there is no absentee balloting. Nevertheless, they participate by running for office, bankrolling candidates, and informing and electioneering via the Web, email, and conferences. They seek nomination to national offices from all three major parties. Predominantly Yoruba, they attempt to attract non-Yorubas. (Enahoro is from Edo; the second-in-command of UCSN-NY is an Igbo.) They are apprehensive about military strongman, Ibrahim Babangida (1985-93), whose relationship with Obasanjo has cooled since he bankrolled him in 1999, and who is himself testing the presidential waters.

It seems inaccurate to say that the pro-Democrats, who have suffered much and gained little or nothing from their years of activism, want a piece of the action. Some are now willing to relinquish good positions here for uncertain prospects at home. Jumoke says he was asked to run. The unifying thread in what the pro-Democrats do and say is respect for the democratic process, which they regard as essential to Nigeria’s survival. As Chicago-based construction magnate and APPN presidential aspirant, Harry Akande, puts it: “The only middle-class we have is in the Diaspora. We cannot continue to leave Nigeria in the hands of those who have been running it down for the last forty years. The incumbents will use all means to keep power. We must use all legal means to stop them..”•
Note:
This article stems from telephone interviews, from speeches and conversations at the June 15 fund-raiser, and from print and electronic sources, notably:West Africa,New African and The Economist.; Nigerian, American and British newspapers; and Nigerian, African, UN, BBC and People’s Republic of China Web sites.

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Nigeria 17 RPCVs Reunite in Michigan

By Michele Anderson (17) 65–67

One could call it a domino effect. A couple of emails led to a couple more until – nearly a year later – all 22 Returned Peace Corps Volunteers who set out for Nigeria in January, 1966, came together for a reunion in East Lansing, Mich., August 2-4, 2002.

Several members of Nigeria 17 appear in this photo taken in Ibadan, probably in 1966. Can you guess who is who?

The idea for the reunion came from Alan Cardwell of Comstock Park, Mich., who, after thinking about it for several years, decided in 2001 to send out some emails to people in the group, asking that they contact others. By sheer persistence and patience, he located everyone in the Nigeria 17 group who had trained together at Michigan State University in the fall of 1965. Nigeria 17 members experienced the beginnings of the Biafran War which caused a number of them to be evacuated from Nigeria a few months before the end of their two-year commitment.

“It was all worth the hours of searching when I saw Kathy and Frank (Remus), the last two, join us in front of Troppo’s Saturday night,” Cardwell said. “I knew we had all 22 then! Having a reunion was great, but to have 100% of those who went over with us show up told me what I long sensed: We had a special bond that was formed during training.”

A nostalgic return to Owen Hall on the Michigan State University campus where the group had stayed during training and two sessions of watching one another’s slides and telling stories brought back memories – humorous, surprising, happy and sad – of shared experiences, feelings and personal growth.

In fact, many of the volunteers who had been evacuated because of the war were unaware that those stationed in certain areas of northern Nigeria were not evacuated since the Peace Corps did not consider them to be in danger. Diane and Budd Hall, for example, remained in Katsina until the end of 1967. Larry Yarbrough of Evanston, Ill., who was stationed in the northern town of Keffi, said he wasn’t aware other PCVs were being evacuated.

Diane Hall, now living in Toronto, said she loved New Yorker Stefan Goodwin’s comment, “It was the best of times and it was the worst of times” in Nigeria in the ’60s.

“How amazing that we had 100% attendance!” Hall added. “Even though we hadn’t seen each other in 36 (?) years, we all felt so comfortable together again, like part of a big family. And we were having a family reunion. (Maybe that’s because we were a small group and it was the ’60s.) For me this was special.”

Goodwin, now of Baltimore, Md., found it “fantastic” that Lynne Hansen came all the way from Hawaii. Hansen welcomed each group member with a lei.

“The memories flood in,” Dixie (Harvey) Adeniran of Ventura, Calif., said of the reunion. “One story unleashes a dozen more.”

Donna (Archer) Moore of West Jordan, Utah, said what she enjoyed most about the reunion was getting re-acquainted and, especially, hearing reports about where everyone was stationed – their work and their cultural experiences.

Said Rudy Reiblein of White Plains, N.Y., “The most remarkable thing for me was seeing the PCVs again in their present form. I still had images in my head of each person as a young man or woman. I had watched myself age over these 37 years, so I was used to that, but, when I walked into the Ramada Inn, I was unprepared for the instant transformation of each person’s image … Somehow, illogically, they had all stayed young (in my mind) while I had continued to age. Now they had all caught up. I realized how important the experiences were that we shared.”

It seemed, paradoxically, that such a long time hadn’t really passed, according to Pam (White) Ficarella of Springfield, Pa. “Here you just pick up from where you were before, even though … we’ve all gone off in different directions,” she noted.

During lunch in the Coral Gables Restaurant, where the group had spent many evenings together during training, Kevin Burke of Middleboro, Mass., and John Wilson of Edgewater, Md., each pulled out a slightly weathered Peace Corps I.D. card from 1965-67.

Said Wilson, “For me (the reunion) brings back memories of what a young, idealistic group we were when we met here in 1965. Over the years they’ve matured, but it’s good to see that they’re still exciting people and involved in all sorts of things in their maturity.”

Joe Doucet of Ridgefield, Ct., said the slide shows and seeing the MSU campus after 37 years filled in the memory gaps – from the Honda 50s to the night one volunteer’s bike fell apart after a lively evening at the Coral Gables during training.

“We are an amazing group,” Doucet said. “I’m proud to be a member of Nigeria 17.”

Noted Jean Boyd of Royal Oak, Mich., “It’s like coming full circle – from where we started and met each other to looking back at the whole experience through the slides and conversations – and finding that we still have the same camaraderie and the laughter.”

On Aug. 3, 2002, the 22 RPCVs of Nigeria 17 (1965-67) gather in front of Troppo’s Restaurant in East Lansing, Mich., before their reunion dinner, attempting to re-create a 1966 group photo taken in Ibadan. Front row, from left: Joe Doucet, Donna (Archer) Moore, Kevin Burke, John Wilson, George Petrides, Phyllis Noble, Jean Boyd (standing); second row, from left: Lynne Hansen, Pam (White) Ficarella, Michele (“Mike”) Anderson, Rudy Reiblein, Betty Petrides, Diane Hall, Kathy Remus, Lauri Anderson; back row, from left: Joe Kapostasy, Stefan Goodwin, Alan Cardwell, Budd Hall, Dixie (Harvey) Adeniran, Larry Yarbrough, Frank Remus.Photo: Irene Kapostasy

The group hopes to have a second reunion in 2004 in Washington, D.C.

Nigeria 17 was also a pilot masters degree program through Michigan State University. Although the Biafran War interrupted some projects and in-country seminars, several members of the group were able to return to MSU to complete a Masters in Secondary Education.

Alan Cardwell, who went on to a teaching career, commented, “If you include the total Peace Corps experience in that master’s program, it looms mighty big in setting the path I followed.”•

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Suzanne Wenger, Pnncess Of Osun:
Keeper Of The Beeded Comb

by Marty Wong (05) 62–64

Suzanne Wenger awoke early this morning to perform rituals to the Goddess Osun, keeper of the beaded comb. She will not today be making the trip to the Sacred Groves; she is 85 and her years have made her physically frail. She is willing, however, to hold an audience with a foreign reporter, whom she does not know because he has brought an offering to Osun.

Some of the icons designed by Suzanne Wenger for the Osogbo Sacred grove. Photo Marty Wong

She speaks to me in a reedy voice, tinged with sadness, full of the languages of German, Yoruba, and English. Peering at me with her one seeing eye, she adjusts her brimmed hat and asks if I have come to interview her as a psychological inquiry of a crazy woman or if I have come with interest in a cultural phenomenon. This tiny woman, sitting tall on the edge of her chair, flabbergasts me, yet I feel blessed. I am in the presence of a phenomenon about whom books have been written, pictures made, and love proclaimed. To many in Osogbo, this woman is “Mama”, the designer and builder of the beautiful, enigmatic, and enormously creative icons of the Osogbo Sacred Grove, a national landmark, a shrine, and a primeval forest protected for all time by the government of Nigeria. She is herself an icon.

Clustered around her in the room and throughout the house are carvings, metalworks, sculptures of wood and of stone, and paintings. All have obviously been placed with care and have been there for some time, judging by the collection of dust they bear. She treats my unschooled questions with kindness, as though she has heard them all before yet there is still a freshness to her explanations of the truth of the Orisa to which she has devoted much of the second half of her life.

When she came to Osogbo from Austria in 1960, she was dismayed to find a culture in ruin. The traditional gods were no longer revered; newer gods, brought by the colonial organizers, had found more favor among the people. The sacred grove was in ruin, the shrines fallen into decay, desecrated by indifference and expediency.

She set about studying the Yoruba, and took part in the rites of the culture and religion and in time was initiated into the Orisa as a priestess of Osun and Obatala, two of the principal Gods. She soon became known as Adunni (adored one) by the local populace and “Mama” by those who knew her well. She had found the direction in which her life was to go. “Every Yoruba person (and by extension every person) has a spirit and a direction that may be represented by his connection to the God spirit of that inclination. All human activity is spiritual. You cannot do even an office job without itsbeing spiritual activity. The spiritual aspect of life is the net of life. Life and spirituality are one.”

Suzanne Wenger in her Osogbo home in 2000. Photo Marty Wong

She and a group of local artisans and believers built new icons in the sacred grove to celebrate and immortalize the Gods of the Orisa. “We took the essence of the Gods and made the icons from those feelings, by connecting to the soul of the materials and building the statues to the Gods from that soul. It is sacred art, built under the orders of the Gods. Every sculpture is a shrine in which the God is invited to live.”

Today, the Sacred Grove is magnificent. The large Iconic statues which sometimes rise as much as four stories in height are placed in what appear to be almost random locations around clearings in the virgin forest. The largest and most striking is Iya Mopo, a mother goddess of the hill who stands as a sentry, guarding the entrance to the Osun Grove. This mother sentry stands with pairs of outstretched arms with a beautifully intricate backdrop of webbing and a sidewall of her own. Around her with spaces of their own are the other 7 or 8 large statues.

Ms. Wenger’s sadness and dismay can hardly be disguised when she speaks of the colonialists who branded her religion as “Juju,” a name made up by the missionaries out of fear. She states that “fear cripples your intelligence”, which led the missionaries to reject the Orisa and threaten the populace with hell and heaven, despite the fact that there is little about the two religions (Christianity and Orisa) that cannot be reconciled.

“Orisa” she says, “is merely a name which represents the supernatural forces which are basic expressions of life. It doesn’t matter what you call it. It is a ‘Sacred Force’ that represents the experience of life that informs human beingness.” As with all religions, there is no true way to explain it along rational lines without leeching it of its meaning and intensely personal quality. “You are a part of it and it is a part of you. You may, as so many have done, push it aside but it remains in you,”— in all of us.•
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Does A Girl Have Right To Chose A Husband?

By Sam Omenyi

This is the second article by Sam Omenyi who has recently returned to live in Nigeria. Ed
This question may sound foolish to the Western world. But among the Igbos, and indeed, in many tribes of Nigeria, this question may not sound foolish considering their earlier history. Though it was always desirous that every girl at puberty should marry, paternal involvement was very strong. A marriage was contracted in earlier times in some Igbo areas in one of two major ways:
1. Birth of a female child could attract a young boy’s father into marriage contract for his son, with kola nuts. Such agreement however, was binding.
2. A man, mature enough to marry, could go with his father to a prospective wife’s father (his father could go alone) to declare marriage intentions. In each of these situations, the prospective wife and her mother were not involved in the negotiation.

The woman was an instrument in the hands of the man. Thus, a 60-year old man would take a 13-year old girl into marriage and no one would fault it. The girl herself might not like it but her opinion was inconsequential. There was a case in USA in the 80s of a man from the Middle East who married his 13-year old daughter to a friend. The girl ran away and reported the case; her father was arrested.

How could all these have happened? A girl’s ‘thought life’ and family roles were moulded by proximity with her mother in a world dominated by men. She kept a good distance away from her father, who was seen as a demi-god. Igboland has witnessed a change as people have become more educated and the economy has improved. An undergraduate lady lamented sometime in 1971 that a suitor sought her parent’s approval first. This established the man’s unsuitability for her. There was an opposite case of a secondary-school age only son, whose parents married him to a mature girl. He drove the first one away but they married him to another with whom he now lives.

Marriage consists of rules and regulations that govern the relationships between spouses. Such rules define how the relationship shall be established or terminated, the expectations and obligations it entails, and who are eligible to enter into it (Berardo, Emerging Conceptual Frameworks in Family Analysis, 1981). Most girls are now aware of this and make their choices only to inform their parents later. Many older men blame the rising state of divorce on such awareness. But as one lady succinctly put it, “this is no more the man’s world where he has both the knife and the yam”.•
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Senate Approves “New Mandate” Legislation For Peace Corps

The Senate has approved legislation designed to expand the Peace Corps, protect the agency’s independence, and provide increased roles for RPCVs.

The Peace Corps Charter for the 21st Century Act was passed without opposition on Oct. 16 and sent to the House for its approval. At press time, the House Committee on International Relations was considering the measure, SB 266, introduced in June by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. (RPCV Dominican Republic). If approved by the House, the measure would be sent to President Bush for his signature. The bill has the full support of Peace Corps and is endorsed by the National Peace Corps Association, according to Ed Crane, the NPCA’s advocacy director. Several RPCV Congressmen, including Rep. Sam Farr, D-Calif., were instrumental in developing the language that was approved by the Senate. Other RPCV congress members have provided instrumental support.

The measure recommends a doubling of the Peace Corps budget to $560 million for the fiscal year 2006. President Bush called for the expansion in his State of the Union message last January. The bill would create a $10 million annual fund for RPCVs to draw on to undertake community-based projects, provide greater involvement in the fight against AIDS, and set up an RPCV advisory council.

To encourage volunteer diversity, the measure would reexamine student loan forgiveness and increase the readjustment allowance. The measure also reaffirms the Peace Corps’ independence in recruiting activities from other federal agencies.

Crane said the NPCA continues to work on a nonpartisan basis to assure bipartisan support for the best possible legislation. For more NPCA information on the legislation and how to become involved, visit the NPCA website at www.rpcv.org.

For information on the bills, including current co-sponsors, go to www.thomas.loc.gov. For contact information for individual senators and representatives, go to www.senate.gov and www.house.gov.
President Bush earlier this year called for a doubling of the Peace Corps budget over five years. While there appeared to be broad, bipartisan Congressional support for the increased funding, support for broader changes called for under a proposed “New Mandate” seemed more in doubt until the recent Senate action.

FON contacts for the 21st Century Charter include Roger Landrum (02) 61-63, who co-chairs an RPCV advisory committee on the Charter at YSINTL@aol.com. The committee co-chair, Dave Hibbard (01) 61-63, may be reached at cdhibbard@indra.com. FON’s advocacy coordinator, Mike Goodkind, can be contacted at mgoodkind@earthlink.net.•
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New 2002-03 FONCharity:
Books for Africa–Nigeria Program

By Greg Zell, President FON (06) 62–64

At the 40 + 1 meeting in June, the Board completed our Ashoka fund raising goal of $7000.00 and began the search for another charitable opportunity. Director Peter Hansen suggested Books for Africa - Nigeria Program. Some of our members may have seen their booth at recent conferences. Successive boards have addressed accountability: will funds sent to Nigeria be swallowed up into a morass. The Board, therefore, has chosen to work with organizations having track records. In the case of Books for Africa, our cash donation never leaves the US.

No one questions the need for textbooks in classrooms and reading material in libraries. The poorly distributed and sometime mishandled Nigerian economy, however, often sees supplies of books alternate with bare shelves. By working with Books for Africa, we are taking a direct approach to a resolution of needs.

Our modest goal is $5000.00 to be reached by August 1, 2003, the date of our next Annual General Meeting in Portland, Oregon. You can begin your end-of-the year tax planning by sending your deductible donation payable to FON now to Treasurer Peter Hansen. Mark “Books for Africa” in the memo space. For more information, you can go to the booksforafrica.org website. Your generosity will be an indication of how you like the Board’s decision to rotate charitable work in Nigeria through established organizations.•

Books For Africa
Since our founding in 1988, Books For Africa (BFA) has sent over 7.5 million text, library and reference books to 22 African countries. We partner with registered non-governmental organizations that have the capacity to receive and distribute each 20-foot sea container of approximately 25,000 books. To date, we have sent nearly a half a million books to Nigeria. Some of the NGO partners we have collaborated with include The University of Jos, The Rotary Club of Opebi, Chevron Nigeria, and the Catholic Diocese of Umuahia. At this writing, we are researching funding to send a container of books to the International Women Communication Center (IWCC) in Ilorin. IWCC is an NGO offering programs in women and governance, conflict resolution, micro-economic enterprise, and girls’ education.

In Nigeria, we typically ship directly to Lagos. Our partner NGO is responsible to clear all paperwork and customs forms with the government prior to the arrival of the shipment. They receive the books and accompany them to their district, assure safe storage and monitor distribution. BFA receives written documentation of the date of arrival and condition of the books, as well as feedback from the recipient schools and libraries. Our partner NGOs are invested in their communities and have a keen interest in assuring book delivery.

In partnering with BFA, Friends of Nigeria honors the memory of Stanley Kowalczyk, cousin of BFA executive director Robert Kowalczyk. Stanley served the Peace Corps in Aguata via Awka, Nigeria from 1964-1965, and was killed in a motorcycle accident there in April of 1965. At his funeral in rural Wisconsin, a delegation of Nigerian officials attended–wearing traditional robes–to pay their respects. The ceremony impacted Stanley’s brother Joe so much that he enrolled in the Peace Corps, and went on to finish Stanley’s project during his service in Nigeria.•
Suzanne Koepplinger
651-602-9844
Development Director
Books for Africa
www.booksforafrica.org

Ashoka
Dear Friends of Nigeria,
On behalf of Ashoka, and particularly the Ashoka Fellows in Nigeria, we’d like to thank you for your fundraising efforts to support our work. Your commitment to the people of Nigeria, even many years after your experiences there, is inspiring. We are grateful that you chose to channel some of that commitment through us and hope that our partnership has allowed you to connect to some of the innovative ideas taking root at this exciting time in Nigeria’s history.

With the support of people like you, social entrepreneurs are a driving force for progress in Nigeria’s burgeoning democracy, and we invite you to stay involved in our work of launching these entrepreneurs and helping them succeed. Because you remain in contact with Nigerians, please let us know when you come across a creative, entrepreneurial, ethical individual with a pattern-changing new idea. We rely on nominations by people like yourselves to find the world’s leading social entrepreneurs. You can keep up to date on Ashoka’s activities by visiting our website (www.ashoka.org) or through our e-newsletter. If you’d like to receive the newsletter, send us an email or sign the guestbook on our website.
Many thanks for your support. We look forward to a continued relationship.
With gratitude,
ChiChi Aniagolu
Ashoka Nigeria Representative
Danielle Goldstone
Nigeria Africa Desk Officer

ChiChi and Danielle directed their letter to the 75 individuals who contributed $4,427.50 to Ashoka as well as to the Board of Directors of FON who added member funds from the September reunion and from the reserves to make a total of $7,000 for Ashoka/Nigeria Fellows.

Late in l999 the Board voted to experiment with sponsoring and soliciting funds for a major organization serving Nigerians instead of allocating surplus funds in small amounts. With the enthusiastic efforts of Bob Cohen, Jim Garofalo and Frieda Fairburn and several volunteers, the campaign was launched and continued until the end of June 2002. ChiChi and Danielle met with several members last December and ChiChi’s energy and descriptions of Fellows’ activities were indicators of the high quality of the program in Nigeria. While FON will go on to other worthy causes, our members may wish to continue to support Ashoka.•