Two Years Lasts a Lifetime

Sally Cytron Gati

We teach best when we are also learning. And the teaching we do can return to us.

“Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” When I was about to graduate from UCLA in 1963, I thought about Peace Corps. My anthro professor, Council Taylor, talked about fascinating experiences in Guinea on the west coast of Africa. It was also the time of the civil rights movement, and I was ready and interested to learn more about Africa firsthand. Going straight to graduate school did not inspire me.

What did was a chance happening on campus. One of the first groups going to Ghana was training there, so I sat in on a lecture; that was the spark I needed, and I knew this was to be my next move. I filled out the extremely long application form and was invited to train for a program in Brazil. That would have been fine but, since I knew that there would be a training session for Nigeria at Columbia University, I asked to be considered for that instead.

Nothing seems to be easy; in those days, this was also true. Peace Corps Washington held me up until I had lost weight. Besides that, they didn’t let me go to Nigeria with my group because the FBI hadn’t finished my background check. I had to wait and go by myself, arriving in Nigeria about a month later.

When I finally got there, I was assigned to a high school in the capital city, Lagos; this caused raised eyebrows in my group from those who believed that the reason I came late, alone, and didn’t get a “bush” assignment was that I was really working for the CIA.

My assignment was to teach English literature, grammar, and writing in a boys’ high school—United Christian Secondary Commercial School. I was given a one-bedroom, air-conditioned apartment that had a kitchen, bathroom, and living room. It was in a six-unit building about twenty minutes walk from the school in a very nice area of Lagos called Apapa. From my front window, I could view an undeveloped field with a small community center recreation building behind which was a big Kingsway supermarket. There were shops that sold fruit and vegetables, a beauty parlor, a bakery, a butcher shop, a clothing store, and a place to buy gas containers for heating water.

Down the block from my place, separated by a parking lot, was the fancy Excelsior Hotel and the famous Moroccan Room with a band and bar and nightly dancing. I, of course, was a good girl, and only visited to see what was going on there. I lived on the corner lot. The “ashewos” (Yoruba word for prostitutes) used to stand in front of my apartment. When the headlights of cars came down the road, they’d shine on these ladies before making the turn, and I’d watch them from my third-floor balcony.

It wasn’t easy being green, never having had a class of my own. The school was organized into Five Forms, the first, corresponding to Freshman; the second, Sophomores; the third, Juniors, the fourth, Seniors, and the fifth, those who were in school for an extra year to prepare and take advanced placement tests. I was lucky in one sense, though, because another Peace Corps teacher was at my school, and he was already there when I arrived.

Duane was a math teacher from Seattle. How nice for both of us to be able to commiserate and to talk about our situation, especially when things weren’t going well. I had a shoulder to lean on when the headmaster caned my P.E. class for not coming in on time because I had not insisted that they stop their soccer game. Duane helped me when I had uncomfortable encounters with an British English teacher, who told me, “Sorry, Sally, we can’t have an American in charge of the English Department.” When my monthly allowance (about $150) was stolen by my “houseboy,” Duane was there to help me through the month. When Duane’s girlfriend came as a PCV, I was pleased to be a witness at their wedding, attended by Peace Corps Director Bill Saltonstall and his wife Kathy.

Both Duane and I were active at our school and in the community. Duane organized projects for the Lagos Work Camp, getting volunteers to build a concrete receptacle for garbage. I had a music club, in which I had students playing traditional Nigerian instruments. We met once a week, and the kids practiced and got so good, we were asked to be on Nigerian TV. I also organized a swimming club.

The one project outside of school that I feel most proud of was a sleepover camp that I organized that gave twenty-four boys from my school a chance to have a terrific “scoutlike” experience, swimming in the lagoon, canoeing, fishing, cooking, building a campfire and cutting logs for seats surrounding it. I worked with a wonderful man from the Ministry of Social Welfare, got the Chief of Police to release one policeman who was a fine swimmer to be one of my counselors, had an Olympic swimmer as swimming coach, had two PCVs help as counselors, and a Mariner Scout to do the canoeing classes. We had some publicity in Nigeria because of an article in the Nigerian Daily Times, but more fun was to hear from my mom in the States that there was a report on one of the major American TV news programs on Christmas Eve telling about my boys’ camp.

What I learned about myself was that whatever my interests, experience, and abilities were before I went to Nigeria, I expanded on. I was interested in music, folk instruments, and folk art and found Nigeria the perfect place for all of these. I collected many traditional instruments and loved to “jam” with the students. I often went highlife dancing with Nigerian friends. Having been a Scout counselor for years in California, I brought an innocence coupled with enthusiasm that helped me move forward to organize the camp in Nigeria. I was good at sports and loved the idea that when our school became co-ed, I could introduce volleyball to the girls in my P.E. class. I love Shakespeare and enjoyed the opportunity to teach some of his plays in my classes. I learned to cook Nigerian stew with cayenne peppers and okra and eat it with cassava with my fingers. I fried plantain and made it regularly. I rode on my motorized Solex bicycle with my crazy monkey Ukhekhe, and we watched the goings on from our balcony.

I saw a country in turmoil: coups, killings, corruption, cultural clashes, and political instability. I marveled at the many living languages spoken by divergent tribes, fell in love with the folk art, came away with new perspectives, and made many meaningful friendships.

When I returned from the Peace Corps, I went back to graduate school, got an M.A. in Comparative Folklore and Mythology at UCLA with an emphasis on African Studies and did a master’s thesis on Yoruba folklore. My first job was in Los Angeles as an A.B.E (adult basic education) teacher and later I began teaching ESL (English as a Second Language). When I moved with my husband and son to San Francisco, I began teaching ESL for the Community College (now City College of San Francisco), and I’m still happy in the classroom.

Besides my full-time ESL job, I also teach a Seniors’ class in World Cultures in Oakland once a week. I can immediately recognize when a Nigerian is speaking English. One day, not so long ago, as I was doing my attendance sheets at the Pleasant Valley Adult School Office in Oakland, I heard someone speaking with a distinct and recognizable Nigerian accent. It was another teacher, a new hire. When he acknowledged that he was from Nigeria, I told him that I had spent two years at UCSCS high school in Apapa, Lagos, Nigeria.

He then told me that school was where he had been a student. Now that was something! Out of 55 million people in l964 and 180 million today, how unlikely would it be to find someone who not only knew of my Nigerian high school but had been a student there?

As we talked, he started telling me about various people in his class, about his math teacher, Duane, and about other teachers and students we both knew. He asked me what my name had been when I was in Nigeria. I told him, “Sally Cytron.” He spelled my last name correctly and said, “Believe it or not, you were my English teacher.”

‘Dapo, Duane, and I got together in Oakland and had a mini-reunion in April of 2008. My Peace Corps experience came full circle.

A Yoruba proverb says, “One does not easily or casually take the child from the palm-nut.” Mr. Oyekan Omomoyela (in The Good Person: Excerpts from the Yoruba Proverb Treasury) explains: “It takes effort to accomplish a good end.” I never knew if the effort I made as a Peace Corps Volunteer really brought about anything good, but the benefits and good memories for me have definitely been long lasting and have spread over my lifetime.

Sally (Cytron) Gati was a Peace Corps high school teacher in Lagos, Nigeria, from 1964-66. She’s been teaching for over forty years and still teaches ESL at City College of San Francisco. She’s also a teacher/trainer, textbook writer, and documentary filmmaker. Her website is http://fog.ccsf.edu~sgati.