Real Football

The Football season has started again. Real football, I mean! This weekend the English Premier League (EPL) held its first matches of the 2008-9 season and I entered my first season of Fantasy Football.

My “football career” spanned thirty years. Never a star, I certainly enjoyed the sport. I inherited the joy of football from my father who had played for his school in England and had medals to prove it. I have them somewhere.

Football is Africa’s sport so I was never at a loss for teammates. At Kawama Mission we had a huge front “lawn” made of wiry and tough lunkoto grass that could take a beating. Every afternoon at about four o’clock when the sun’s strength was starting to fade my African friends from the mission and nearby villages would show up for the match of the day. There was Johnny Wangobele, Bedford Kashiya, Kosam Mulenga, Katebe Kafwanka, and others. I had the ball – a stitched leather sphere into which a rubber bladder (like a strong balloon) was inserted and pumped up with a bicycle pump. When it was inflated the opening was laced shut and we were ready to go. We played our hearts out until dusk.

Occasionally Dad would join us and that was a treat. He would dazzle us with his skills and over power us with his shots from either foot. On one memorable day we had moved the pitch to the wide driveway in front of the house. Usually Dad would play with some restraint but on this day he decided to take a real shot. The ball sailed over the goalie and towards the house, coming to a sudden stop amid the shattering of glass in the living room window. My mother was preparing dinner in the house and came rushing to the broken window demanding an explanation for this destruction. All I could think was, “Glad it wasn’t me!”

In high school I played full back in the old 5-3-2 format. I did not have finesse nor was I quick but I did have strong legs. The sweeper concept was yet in the future so my job was simply to keep the ball away from the goal and get it up field. That involved intimidating the opposing forward to give up the ball and clearing it as far down the field as I could. In one memorable moment I was all that was left between the ball and the goal and I managed to kick it out before the ball went in. Afterwards the coach came up and said, “Where is my friend Kruse?”

At Carleton College I offered my skills to the coach, Mr. Dyer-Bennett whose name, I discovered, you did not shorten! I fancied that I would like to play forward although I was not quick. However it proved to work out. I had a good cross kick from the right wing and my center forward, Bill Lovell from Massachussetts, was very good at putting them in the goal. I had to give up football after my sophomore year. I had never had to train so much for a sport – three hours training and practice every day and matches twice a week, some far away, meaning that I had to skip classes. It affected my academics and I had to make a choice. It was not a hard choice but I did miss playing real football.

In those years the Carleton soccer team drew more fans that the Carleton football team. The soccer Knights made the college proud with winning season after winning season in the MIAC conference. The Football Knights usually struggled to win more than two games a season. We relished our superior record!

My final attempt to play competitively was in my thirtieth year. I saw a small article in the local community paper about a men’s league. It provided a phone number for me to call. The guy on the other end was twenty four and obviously had doubts about my abilities as an “old guy”. However he told me where and when to show up. I did and he was right. I was beyond competitive football. I would have to satisfy myself by kicking around with my children in the years to come (not all bad, by any means) and eventually being drawn into a Fantasy Football league.

© 2008 Roy Kruse

The Olympics Swimming Events

I have been mesmerized by the performance of Michael Phelps in this year’s Olympics. How could anyone be that good? I have enjoyed watching Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe win a gold medal for that embattled country. And to see Rebecca Adlington of Great Britain outpace her competitors by several seconds in the longest swimming race of the games.

I learned to swim early in my time at Sakeji School. The principal, Mr. Hess, took personal responsibility to teach every child how to swim. Lessons were held every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon in The Mud Pool (see picture), a widening and deepening of the Sakeji River after which the school is named. The incentive to learn was that once we had passed “The Test” of swimming across the river and back with Mr. Hess at our side we were free to swim anywhere in The Mud Pool and enjoy the time in the river jumping off trees and floating downstream on inner tubes.

I failed “The Test” on my first attempt. I swam all the way across in the dog paddle that Mr. Hess taught and swam all the way back. When my knees hit the ground I stood up. However Mr. Hess was not aware that I had hit bottom and had expected me to swim further – so he failed me. I passed on the second try.

During the rainy season the Sakeji River would swell and the current would pick up considerably. Only the strongest swimmers could make it across the Mud Pool but occasionally one of the weaker swimmers would lose their footing and be drawn in by the current. Drama ensued as Mr. Hess went out after them, fighting the current to save them from being washed away. Following what always seemed to be a dramatic rescue Mr. Hess would punish the child for being careless, as though the gulps of river water and almost drowning were not punishment enough. Some punishments were quite severe.

During my tenure at Sakeji Mr. Hess had a proper swimming pool built – I think his son Jim, in his late twenties and also on staff at the time, was the project director. The canal that turned the water wheel to generate electricity also fed the new pool. While it was a great addition to the school we did miss the Mud Pool and occasionally were able to go back and enjoy its natural atmosphere.

My school in England, Royal Liberty Grammar School, had its own outdoor swimming pool. A Swimming Gala (competition) was held in May and I was entered in one of the races for my age level. I finished third out of four in my race because the fourth competitor was home sick that day! I did, however, receive a certificate for third place. My stomach was very sore that spring and I attributed it to the cold water in the swimming pool – how that worked I couldn’t figure out. Later I realized it was caused by the use of muscles that had been unused for some month!


In my high school years at Luanshya our family had access to the Olympic Pool (see picture) which was part of the recreation facilities for the Roan Antelope Copper Mine employees. Many hours were spent there. The pool also sported a set of diving boards – one, three, and ten meters, the first two being springboards and the latter a platform. Some of the more daring (and stupid?) high school boys enjoyed jumping off the ten meter on to the three meter whose spring action would flip them about half way acoss the pool. Lawsuits were obviously not an issue in that place and time.

I have always taken the ability to swim for granted but when my own children came along I realized that it takes time and effort to equip them with that important ability. My wife had to sign them up for lessons and sit for hours watching them progress until they were competent. I am grateful for that Sakeji experience.

© 2008 Roy Kruse

Zimbabwe "votes" (2)

RHODESIA IN 1965 WOULD PROBABLY HAVE NOT SURVIVED THE INTERNATONAL SANCTIONS brought on by UDI had it not been for the help of South Africa, also ruled by a white minority government. Nevertheless the Rhodesians proved resourceful and seemed to be able to thumb their noses at the world while they got on with life. In Zambia we felt the effect of sanctions very quickly since no other routes to the coast had been sufficiently developed. Gas was rationed severely through the allocation of coupons. My father received the initial standard allocation of four gallons for six weeks for his Ford Consul. However he was soon able to qualify for essential services as a pastor and received an additional allocation to enable him to carry out his service to the community.

With imports from the south having been halted frantic efforts were made to find alternative routes. For the immediate needs the British funded a fleet of aircraft to fly gasoline in and fly copper wire bars out, a hugely uneconomical method for these commodities. Additionally the
1,000 mile Great North Road to the Tanzanian port of Dar Es Salaam was put to the test as the government hired anyone with a truck to ferry imported goods from the coast. The road was not tarred and soon developed huge ruts and holes. The rains did not help matters and soon the route became known as the Hell Run. Trucks over turned and mired in the mud with alarming frequency and the attractive price offered by the government soon lost its appeal.

Eventually the government formed Zambia Tanzania Road Services (ZTRS) with a fleet of large green Fiat trucks and trailers, which took over from multitude of small entrepreneurs who made the hell run. The Great North Road was also eventually tarred and in the early ‘70’s the Chinese would construct the Tazara railway line from the existing railway at Kapiri Mposhi to Dar Es Salaam.

In 1972 my wife and I took a vacation to Rhodesia, entering at Kariba Dam on the Zambezi River where a friend had arranged for us to meet a friend of his working on the new hydro-electric power plant. When construction was completed in 1959 it created the largest made lake in
the world. Initially a power station was constructed only on the Rhodesian side to supply electricity to both sides of the border.

During our visit the second stage was under construction to build a power plant on the northern side and we were able to go underground to visit the construction site for the turbines and other machinery. We spent a couple of days in Kariba town at a small hotel. We took a ride on a boat, which had been used in the early ‘60’s in Operation Noah, a massive rescue effort of the animals trapped by rising waters. It had been a big news item in school and also the subject of a documentary film.

The next stop on our visit took us to Salisbury (now Harare), and then on to Fort Victoria (now Masvingo) where we stayed in a Lake Kyle National Park lodge for a couple of days. Among the many animals we saw was a male nyala, a rarely seen large antelope. As we left Fort Victoria we visited the Zimbabwe Ruins (see picture), the remnants of an ancient African empire, which gave Rhodesia its new name in 1980. Then on to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city whose streets were built to be wide enough for a team of sixteen oxen to make a u-turn. From Bulawayo we drove north to Wankie (now Hwange) National Park, which was known as one of the best in southern Africa for viewing animals. From a platform we were able to view animals coming to drink at a waterhole – giraffe, sable, roan antelope, etc. From Wankie we moved on to Victoria Falls which was not as spectacular as I had promised because we were at the end of the dry season and the Zambezi was at its lowest. (We visited again in May, at the end of the
wet season, when we had to use umbrellas in the mist)

The most harrowing part of the trip was our entry back into Zambia. We crossed the Victoria Falls Bridge and were stopped at a military checkpoint. Anyone arriving from Rhodesia was met with utmost suspicion because of the political tensions between the two countries. For an hour our car was turned inside out, as the soldiers looked for contraband. Finally we were cleared, repacked and on our way. A quarter of a mile further we reached the official customs post where the customs officers acted as though the military checkpoint did not exist and repeated the process we had completed with the military ten minutes earlier! To complain only makes matters worse so we quietly stood by as they did their thing. Our car was pretty well loaded with items we could not get in Zambia but which were available in Rhodesia despite the international economic sanctions. We did not have to give anything up nor pay duty so the cost in time was worth it.

© 2008 Roy Kruse

Zimbabwe "votes"

MORE THAN ONE BILLION DOLLARS FOR A SANDWICH reported the BBC in its recent coverage leading up to the recent Zimbabwe elections. My first visit to Zimbabwe following its independence from Britain in 1980 was in 1989 and I received just over two Zim dollars for my one US dollar. Thirteen years later as the situation in Zim started on its downward spiral I received sixty six Zim dollars for each US dollar. The current exchange rate in the hundreds of millions of Zim dollars to a US dollar tells the story of how far the country’s economy has tanked. The BBC also called Zimbabwe a country of “destitute billionaires”.

The recent sham election for president has caused me to reflect on the good old days in Zimbabwe when we, in Zambia, looked south with envy at how good they had it in Zim. It is unfortunate to see how the oppressed has again become the oppressor. From the safe haven provided by Zambia in the ‘70’s Robert Mugabe led the freedom fighters or terrorists, depending on which side you were on, to independence in April 1980. He represented those “oppressed” by white rule under Ian Smith. Now for years he has oppressing his own people with far greater tyranny than the Smith regime ever dreamed about.

In November 1965 I was a boarding student at Kabulonga School for Boys in Lusaka, one of about 50 students housed in the hostel known as Williams House. We were in the early days of integration in the schools after the segregation of British colonial days. I remember that in Williams we had Hamir, the Madagascan, and Biggie Nkumbula, the son of Harry Nkumbula, the leader of the African National Congress in Zambia, before President Kaunda banned it. We also had Indian students, like Chugani, who insisted in tuning his short-wave radio into Bombay for Hindi music every afternoon which only he appreciated.

I was not much attune to the politics of the day so really had no clue as to what was going on around us. However on the afternoon of November 11th one of the white boys in the senior room suddenly started run through the hostel yelling “UDI, UDI!” It took me a while to figure out what was going on but then I was told that Ian Smith, the white leader of Rhodesia, had signed a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from Britain (see picture above) after all efforts had failed by Britain to convince the white minority government to move to majority rule before Britain would grant independence to the country as it had to Malawi and Zambia in 1964. As you might gather from he story above, there was a considerable amount of sympathy for the white minority regime under Ian Smith by other white people, and some were happy to shout their sympathies from the roof tops.

Following UDI the United Nations declared economic sanctions against Rhodesia which tended to hurt Zambia more than Rhodesia since, as a landlocked country, Zambia imported almost all its goods through the Indian Ocean port of Beira, Mozambique and through Rhodesia by rail and exported its copper by the same route.

(to be continued)

A Visit to the Minnesota Zoo

A Year in England - School Days (2)

SPORTS AND ATHLETICS WERE A BIG PART of my childhood and while I was never a star I enjoyed participating. I played football (soccer) for Royal Liberty, probably on a junior team. Because I was big, the second tallest in my class, had a big kick and was quite slow, I played full back and just kept hoofing the ball to the forwards. Our colors were blue and gold.

I also went out for competitive swimming in the spring. The school had an outdoor swimming pool and the day after the first practice my stomach was very sore. The water had been very cold, lower than 60 degrees (15C), so I blamed my soreness on the cold water. Later I realized that the soreness was actually from the lack of use of those muscles as it had been months since I had last been swimming in the Sakeji pool, a semi-weekly event. The end of the competitive swimming season was marked with a swimming gala (competition) where races were held within the age groups. I swam freestyle for Form 1 and came in third out of four. The fourth place student was home sick. I received a certificate to record my excellent placement.

I did not play cricket at Royal Liberty although I did participate in the informal matches on the playground during breaks and at lunch. The wickets were drawn with chalk on the school wall and we used a tennis ball. Towards the end of my time at Royal Liberty during one of these cricket matches I got into a dispute with one of the others I was playing with. Perhaps it was over whether I was bowled out or not or maybe he was making fun of my short trousers (long pants) and suggested I put jam on my shoes and invite my trousers down to tea. (I was growing and my mother was trying not to have to buy me new “longs” which I would not need back in Africa.) Anyway he got the better of me and instead of using my weaker cricket skills I engaged my stronger football (soccer) skills and kicked him as hard as I could in his backside. This was so unlike me that I think he was caught off guard but soon recovered and taunted me with, “And you are the son of a missionary!” Ooooooh, I was struck to the core!!

I remember little of the classes I went to school to study. I really enjoyed History because of the teacher and didn’t enjoy Science for the same reason, which was to influence my decisions about classes back in Africa the next year. I did enjoy break and spending all my pocket money (two shillings and sixpence a week) on sweets (candy) at the school tuck shop until Dad found out and tried to instill some lessons about saving.

I nearly met my Maker at the end of school one day when I was heading home on my bike. Just outside the school grounds I was crossing traffic on the busy Upper Brentwood Road when the back bumper of a white Ford Thames van driving by caught my front wheel and took my bike from under me. I landed on the road and my bike was dragged for several yards under the van. The driver stopped quickly and people gathered around. I was shook up but not hurt; however my bike’s front wheel was badly bent. There was nothing I could do except walk home carrying my bike on my shoulder. One of my classmates, it may have been Copsey, kindly walked home with me and helped carry the bike. For several days, or even longer, I got to take the bus but eventually the bike was repaired and I resumed riding.

In December 1962 we were preparing to return to Northern Rhodesia. My classmates in Form 2L were very kind and wished me well. They pooled their pocket money and gave me a very nice pen and pencil set with which to remember them.

A Year in England - School Days (1)

THERE WAS NO WAY TO ADEQUATELY PREPARE for the change of culture between a mission school in the African bush and a government school in metropolitan London. On that first school day in January 1962 I rode my bike across Eastern Avenue (picture) and Main Road to my new school in my new blue and gold uniform blazer, tie, and cap, for my year in Form 1C at Royal Liberty Grammar School. I was in a class of about thirty other boys (it was a boys school) among whom were two named Copsey and Binks. They would prove to be the class clowns. Only last names were used both by the masters (teachers) and the students so I never got to know some of my classmates’ first names.

Discipline was not a hallmark of this otherwise prestigious school. When I sat down at my desk that first morning I could hardly find a spot on the wood lid that was not engraved with a swear word (the meanings of which I was yet to learn), a girlfriend’s name or a design engraved by the sharp point of a geometry compass filled in with ink with a dip pen. Writing on such a surface was quite a challenge.

When lunchtime came we all crowded into the assembly hall for a cooked lunch that cost my parents one shilling a day. The head boy, a position of honor and recognition, would first say grace, the same every day - “For what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful” – and then we would dig in. I cleaned my plate as I had been taught (mandated) at Sakeji and took my dirty plate and utensils to the designated area. I was astounded by how much food was thrown away by my fellow students into the bucket next to the dirty plates, and commented on it to some of them.

Among my classes was Music taught by none other than Mr. Alan Sharp who the students referred to as B. Flat. He had least control of any of the masters over my unruly classmates and we learned little. (My first grade teacher at Sakeji, dear old Miss Lucy Traise from Australia, had years before robbed me of any enjoyment of music I might have. She had the class of six-year olds sing the scale (do ray me fah…) and selected from the group those who sang off key and then had us all stand up front as she announced our deficiency to the rest of the class.). Back to Royal Liberty…one day some of the students, the usual culprits, got so out of hand that Mr. Sharp punished the whole class by assigning us all to write a two page essay on ‘The Evil of Drink’. I hated writing essays so this was the worst form of punishment for me. I went home and told my Dad that Copsey, Binks and others (not me!) had been misbehaving in class and now we all had to write an essay. Dad shook his head as he tut…tutted about the lack of discipline at the school as he often did because he had heard about its reputation from others than me, took pity on me, and dictated an essay for me.

Two classmates who would become my friends were Cope, B.A. and Michel, J. Cope was a short round fellow with whom I would ride to school. He family were Salvation Army so I found a spiritual ally in an otherwise nominal environment. Our friendship was somewhat tested one day later in the year in Physical Training (Gym) class. Our PT teacher, an older gentleman, had been a championship boxer and felt we should learn to box so showed us the moves and then paired us up to box each other. He paired us by weight. Cope and I were similar in weight but he was about six inches shorter than me. How could two friends be expected to fight each other? I clearly had the advantage with my height and reach and Cope pleaded with me to be gentle on him. The dreaded day came for our match and an Ali – Frazier contest it was not. I think we both were graded with a ‘D’ and neither I nor my parents were unhappy.

Michel was far from athletic; today he would probably be called a nerd. He was the target of a lot of teasing from the other boys that caused me to have a soft spot for him. He was from a Roman Catholic family and we would occasionally talk about spiritual things, contrasting his church life with mine. I don’t remember much of our conversations but do recall that we spent a lot of time together wandering the halls during breaks.

(c) 2008 roy kruse

A Year in England - Enrolling in School

IT HAD BEEN SEVEN YEARS since I had first been to England in 1954 and I remembered little of that previous visit. I was four and Esther was two and our family had stayed in the home of Mrs. Brand at Leigh-on-Sea near Southend-on-Sea along the Thames estuary east of London. It snowed that winter and Esther and I enjoyed playing in it and getting our mittens wet and our fingers frozen.

Now I was twelve and well into my school years so of highest concern was making sure that our education did not suffer too much in the transition from Sakeji mission school to public school in England. We had just completed a school year in Northern Rhodesia, which ran on the calendar year, but in England the school year had started in September so we were a term into it. Dad and Mum had to figure out whether we jumped ahead nine months or repeated three. Dad lined up an interview with the headmaster of Royal Liberty Grammar School (picture) in Romford where we were now living in a brand new house built especially for missionaries on leave. Romford is situated in Essex on the northeast limits of greater London. The interview was necessary as I had not taken the Eleven Plus exam which determined who was academically qualified to attend a grammar school which focused more on academics as opposed, for example, to a technical school.

The day for my interview arrived and Dad and I took the number 103 red double-decker London Transport bus from the house in Rise Park to Romford Station and connected with the 66A bus to the gates of the school in Gidea Park. The headmaster was Mr. Newth and we were ushered into his office here he sat in his suit and black robe smoking a pipe. He was a short man, heading towards retirement in the near future, and had a gruff demeanor. I remember nothing about the interview except that he sought to test my French. I had already had two years of French at Sakeji and the Royal Liberty first year students had just started in September so I should have been well ahead of them. He muttered a couple of phrases through his pipe and I had no idea what he was saying. He expressed surprise at my lack of knowledge of the French language. I felt stupid but afterwards I told Dad that his pipe had caused him to slur his words and after he explained what I supposedly had not understood it was very elementary. Nevertheless he had agreed to my enrollment in the prestigious institution but suggested I brush up on my French before classes started again after Christmas.

The next step was to determine how I would get to school each day. We had no car, and public transport – two buses each way – would get expensive. So with the help of Uncle Phil Hickley or perhaps his brother David, Dad’s boyhood friends from the village of Thundersley near where Dad grew up and who owned an appliance store and service station, I received a pre-owned bicycle that would carry me across Romford and back each day. I recall that it would take me about half an hour to cycle to school. I had to cross the very busy Eastern Avenue, the main road into London and then make my way across the eastern part of the city bypassing the down town area. Crossing Eastern Avenue proved to be quite a trick in the winter when "pea-souper" fogs would settle in and I had to listen for gaps in the morning rush hour traffic to get across.

I was enrolled in Form 1C, the first year for the school and equivalent of about Grade 7. While many schools streamed students on the basis of test results where A were the brightest, Royal Liberty, being a grammar school, considered all its students bright and simply had three first year classes designated 1A, 1B, and 1C. We (1C) were, however, the best in the frequent rubber band wars between the classes. When September rolled around and I moved up to Form 2 we all had to choose a second language besides the ubiquitous French. I had previously taken Latin (the other options were German and Spanish) so I became part of Form 2L.

Public school in England held many surprises for me after the sheltered environment of a mission boarding school in the middle of Africa.

(c) 2008 roy kruse

First Flight

IN EARLY DECEMBER 1961 THE END OF TERM AT SAKEJI SCHOOL soon arrived and parents drove from considerable distances to pick up their children for the Christmas holidays. With my parents in England they obviously could not come and arrangements had been made for my siblings (Esther (10), Gordon (7)) and me (12) to be taken to Mufulira on the Copperbelt to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Barham who would put us on the plane to England. My memory of that trip to and those days in Mufulira is a blur although it could not have been long.

The day arrived to for our flight to London, the first time we had not traveled by train and ship via Cape Town. We were quite excited, as we had never before been on an aeroplane, as we spelled it. The Barhams drove us the thirty miles to Ndola and checked us in for the flight on British United Airways (BUA), the largest competitor to government-owned BOAC. It had recently upgraded its fleet with the Bristol Britannia, a four-engine turbo prop, for the London – Southern Africa routes and we boarded one for our flight to London, which would have an intermediate stop in Entebbe, Uganda. It was the latest airline marvel, known as the Whispering Giant for its quieter ride than other planes. We taxied out to the end of the runway and turned around for our first take off anticipating being in London and with Dad and Mum in about twelve hours. But rather than pick up speed as expected we taxied back to the terminal and eventually disembarked. One of the engines had experienced a problem, possibly a bird had flown into it.

Fortunately for us the Barhams had chosen to watch the take-off, as Mr. Barham had never seen a Bristol Britannia. Otherwise they would have been on their way back to Mufulira and we would have been at the mercy of the airline. It soon became evident that we would not be flying out that day and were sent home to wait for a phone call. However we were not allowed to retrieve our baggage, already cleared through customs, so all we had were the clothes we were wearing.

As it turned out the Britannia would not be repaired very quickly and BUA would have to arrange to get another aircraft to Ndola. This would take a couple of days. The Barhams borrowed clothes for us from another missionary family staying in Mufulira at the time – the Greenhows. I was given a shirt and pair of long pants from Tim, who although about my age was shorter than me. The pants reached only two thirds of the way down my calves, but we made do in typical the missionary fashion when unexpected events occurred.

Eventually the call came – the replacement plane had arrived in Ndola. When we got there we discovered that it was an older Douglas DC-6. We boarded it fifty-six hours after our intended departure time (Mr. Barham had worked it out) and the flight to England would take twice as long as originally planned because the DC-6 did not have the range of the Britannia, requiring two additional refueling stops. Although I don’t remember, we must have taken off for Entebbe fairly late in the day and flown through the night. Between Entebbe and Khartoum, Sudan I remember the flight attendant offering breakfast but none of us felt like food. The plane seemed to feel every bump in the sky and after the long delay the experience of our first flight had us all feeling a bit woozy. We refueled in Khartoum amidst the sand and in a hot desert wind. We then headed for the tiny island of Malta in he Mediterranean where we landed after dark.

It must have been nearly midnight when we finally touched down at London’s Gatwick airport and the journey was not yet over. I had never had to negotiate customs and immigration on my own let alone for three of us. We did not have passports like everyone else because we had been listed on our parents’ passports. Instead I had been given special papers prepared by the British embassy in Lusaka but I hate being different in situations like this. The officials looked so stern and it didn’t help that passengers ahead of us were being asked questions and having their suitcases searched. I did not have any confidence that we would see our parents again. I shed some tears and maybe that helped. We eventually emerged from that very scary gauntlet to see Dad’s familiar smiling face alongside Uncle John (my mother’s older brother) who had driven Dad to the airport to meet us. Dad looked fine but only later would I understand that, while physically well, he had suffered considerably emotionally but would make an amazing recovery and in just over a year we would be back in Northern Rhodesia for perhaps his most fruitul years of ministry.

Our next adjustment would be to British culture. Neither Esther nor I recalled in a meaningful way our visit to England seven years earlier and anyway the country had changed a lot. And after spending all our school years at a small mission school in Central Africa we would have to adjust to British public schools, a significant adjustment in itself.

(c) 2008 roy kruse

Caught in the Political Storm

THE END OF MY YEARS at Sakeji School came quite suddenly six years after they began. In October 1961 Northern Rhodesia was in turmoil as nationalistic fervor was being stoked by various political leaders against the British colonial government, and anyone thought to be associated with it were subject to increasing pressure. Kawama Mission, where we had lived for ten years, is an isolated mission outpost in a long line of African villages that stretch along 80 miles of the Luapula River Valley. Through the years under the leadership of my father it had provided medical care and a primary school education for thousands of families in the surrounding villages. The mission church had provided a strong spiritual community when at the peal of the mission bell many would gather for daily early morning prayer meetings and hundreds would gather in the mission church each Sunday for worship and learning from the Word of God. Additionally my parents ministered with another dozen or more churches in villages up and down the Luapula River Valley and my father helped with the supervision of other primary schools. At no cost to the government he served as Manager of Schools and was thus also able to determine the religious instruction education in the schools.

Despite all that the mission had done for the surrounding communities local political agitators threatened my father, trying to intimidate him to throw his support to them and accusing him of being an enemy of the people if he didn't. Dad was never active in politics in his homeland so was not about to get caught up in a situation that would compromise the neutrality of the mission in local African politics. In his mind this would compromise his calling to serve all people. Threats were made to burn down our thatched roof house and the local police, based about twenty miles away at Mwense, did provide protection for several months. Dad was taken ill by the cumulative stress of running the mission, protecting single lady missionaries who were nurses at the hospital and who would also be harassed, and taking care of our mother and youngest sister who was just six months old. The three older ones of us were across the other side of the country at Sakeji School and had little idea of what was happening at home.

One October evening after dinner on that other side of the country the headmaster, Mr. Hess, called me over to take a walk with him to visit the building where the diesel engines that supplied power to the school were housed, normally out of bounds. It was not usually a pleasant experience to be called out by him - I had had my share of stripes for misdemeanors. But he was not upset, he just wanted to have a chat. He had received the news and needed to tell me that my father was quite ill and had had to leave Kawama Mission and had been advised to go back to England for medical help. The decision had also been made that the three of us would finish out the term at Sakeji which would end in early December. We would then be looked after by friends and put on a flight to London to be reunited with our parents and younger sister in England.

Later I was to learn that my father's condition had deteriorated to a point that he was bedridden and needed medical care. The political trouble had escalated over the weeks and wooden bridges on the main road along the valley were being burnt down, threatening to trap our family and others at the mission. The government had foreseen that possibility and had built a 'security' route with few bridges needed and all built with concrete. Adding to the agony of the time the mission church, a large mud brick and thatched roof structure that seated several hundred people, went up in flames after embers from a nearby bush fire on the grassy river plain were blown on to the dry grass of the roof. Dad received the news while in bed.

That October my mother, a strong lady, put her ailing husband and six-month old daughter into the family's 1956 black and white Ford Consul and drove the 130 miles (see picture) to Fort Rosebery (now Mansa) where I had been born twelve years earlier, where there was a doctor and hospital, and also caring friends at Mansa Mission. The doctor took one look at Dad and sedated him for almost three days. A few days later the trio moved on to Mufulira on the Copperbelt to stay with Mr and Mrs. Barham, very good family friends for many years. Arrangements were made for flights from nearby Ndola to London, the first time any of our family were to travel by air. Before they left arrangements were made for flights and immigration papers for our travel two months later.

Confirming the volatility of the times, a month earlier (September 18, 1961) Ndola airport had been the destination for United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld for meetings to try and negotiate peace for neighboring Congo when his plane crashed short of the airport under suspicious and never resolved circumstances. Hammarskjöld was killed in the crash and a memorial stands at the site. Roberta and I returned to Zambia from the United States in July 1971 just before the tenth anniversary of that crash and we attended a ceremony remembering Dag Hammarskjöld led by Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda.

(c) 2008 Roy Kruse

Off to School...for eighteen weeks!

IN JANUARY 1956 at the tender age of 6 1/2 years I left home for boarding school where I would spend more time than at home for the next six years. For a year my mother had been home schooling me with the help of the Federal Broadcasting Corporation (Federation of Rhodesia and Nysasland) and its weekly 'School On The Air" program. Now I was to travel to the other side of Northern Rhodesia to attend a real school. Sakeji School had been started by Mr. and Mrs. Walter Fisher in 1925 as a school for the children of missionaries. My parents had decided to enroll me to enable me to receive a comptetive education which I would not receive at the local mission school with its limited resources. It would also provide a safe and healthy spiritual environment for the care of my soul.

For weeks leading up to my departure my mother was getting things ready for my new adventure. Every piece of clothing (the school had sent a precise list of how many of what items I needed to have) had to be labeled with my name. Mum had ordered small cloth name tags and hand sewed one on each item - an endless task it seemed. Everything was packed into a metal trunk and the day arrived for Dad and me to depart.

We traveled, probably in our family's Bedford Dormobile, to Elizabethville in the southwestern part of neighboring Belgian Congo where we were to meet up with several other families and as a group take the train across southern Congo to Mutshatsha where a vehicle from the school would meet us for the final 50 miles or so of the journey.

In Elizabethville (now Lubumbashi) we stayed at Rest-a-While, a missionary guest house run by Mr. and Mrs. Rew. I recall on that evening that before tucking me into bed my father read to me Psalm 46 which begins:

1God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. 2Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; 3Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Selah.

and ends:

10Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. 11The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

While those might seem rather weighty words for a six-year-old they have stayed with me all these years.

The next day we boarded the train with all the other children and a few parents for the day and night journey across southern Congo. There were six bunks in each cabin - three on either side. The middle bunk was not for claustrophobes - there was hardly enough space to turn over. We arrived in the copper mining city of Kolwezi during the middle of the night where a different engine was hitched to the train as the train was split in two parts, ours to keep moving west and the other to head north (Congo is the twelfth largest country in the world by area). There was great excitement as we felt the bumps of being shunted around.

Arriving in Mutshatsha in the early morning we were met by local missionaries who advised that the Sakeji diesel lorry (truck) was not able to meet us because a major bridge along the road had been washed out by heavy rains. The missionaries took us to the washed out bridge over the Mukolwezi River where a very rickety walking bridge had been constructed across the rapidly flowing river. I took my father's hand as he guided me across to safety on the other side and we climbed into the back of the Sakeji diesel for the rest of the journey.

The time soon came for Dad to head home. He told me later that I simply said goodbye and went off to admire Mr. Searle's red Chevy pick-up truck. I don't believe I had any idea what I was in for. In August it was my mother's turn to take me for my second term. We followed the same route, this time riding to Elizabethville with Jenny Mottram of Cibambo Mission in her Willys Jeep. I was stuck in the back where I froze in the early morning hours of that cold season day; I eventually convinced my mother to let me squeeze in the cab with her. When we eventually got to Sakeji I was well aware of what the next eighteen weeks entailed and I cried my heart out when my mother was to leave, making quite a scene for her in front of the other students and parents just as we were sitting down for dinner. But I eventually adjusted and made it through the next five-and-a-half years.

(c)2008 roy kruse

Coming To America Part 4

AFTER TRAVELING FOR FOUR DAYS FROM LUSAKA, ZAMBIA TO HARTFORD CONNECTICUT my four-year adventure in America started in Brattleboro, Vermont at the School for International Learning as I participated in their program Experiment in International Living. This involved a week of orientation at the school to the American way of life and then living with an American family nearer to the college I was going to attend. When our bus arrived from Hartford, Connecticut that late August night I was assigned to a room with participants in a similar scholarship program from Latin America. I only remember one guy in the room, if indeed there had been more, because he noticed me reading my Bible and sought spiritual counseling from me far above anything I felt capable to handle. He appeared to be very troubled in spirit but because his English was marginal and my Spanish was non-existent we struggled to communicate.

The school administration took note of my clothes-less plight and set about working with who knows who to locate my lost suitcase. They gave me some dollars and someone took me into the city to purchase some clothing. I bought a couple of permanent press shirts finding it hard to believe that they didn't need to be ironed. I don't remember much of the week except that I was probably one of the more experienced members of the group in things American because of my boarding school experience and some connection with American missionaries. I also remember a couple of cute girls from the Seychelle Islands of Africa's east coast!

Each morning I would check with the administration office about my suitcase and each morning there would be no new information. The lady working in the office could not understand how I could be so calm about it. I couldn't either but there was not much that I could do. The day before I was to leave for Minnesota the news came through that my suitcase would be in Boston that evening. However I had to be there to open it for customs before I could take possession. That evening one of the school staff drove me to Boston's airport and I was reconnected with my worldly possessions. I remember that it was very late when we drove back to Brattleboro because there as hardly any traffic on the roads and we drove through red lights.

The next morning I boarded a chartered bus to Chicago with a bunch of other students headed west. In Chicago I and a student from Kenya were to board a regular Greyhound bus for Mankato, Minnesota where our host families would meet us. As I remember we drove all day and through the night and I remember stopping in Cleveland for a break. As the night progressed fog set in and our bus was slowed. We arrived in Chicago too late to make our connection to Mankato although it seemed that most of the rest of the group made their connections. One of the SIL staff had traveled with us and this was fortunate as she booked us into a hotel and rebooked our Greyhound ticket for the next day.

My Kenyan colleague and I were assigned to a double room but after dinner he took off for the evening and didn't show up until about 3:00 a.m. He had me quite worried and I was not sure how I was going to let the SIL lady know that he had disappeared. I discovered that he had gone out to explore and ended up in Chinatown. He was really pleased with his experience but I thought he had taken quite a risk to go out on his own in a strange city.

We boarded the Greyhound bus the next morning and traveled for several hours through Wisconsin farmland and into southern Minnesota. We stopped in Rochester where I first became aware of the Mayo Clinic and pulled into Mankato mid-afternoon where my host family from the small town of Amboy were there to meet me.

For the next three weeks and during school vacations this very generous and kind family would acquaint me with American life. I would learn about Lutherans, ice skating, wing tip shoes, winter coats, potluck dinners, blind dates, American football, cheap gas, pig farming, corn fields and so much more. Some time in September they drove me to Northfield and I moved into Burton Hall at Carleton College, assigned to a room with a missionary kid from Latin America. Despite that common descriptor we couldn't have been more different from each other. I'll pick up on college days at some later date. And so endeth my tale of Coming to America.

(c) 2008 roy kruse

Coming To America Part 3

IN AUGUST 1967 I HAD EMBARKED ON THE BIGGEST ADVENTURE OF MY YOUNG LIFE - headed from Africa to America. The five fortunate ASPAU scholarship recipients from Zambia were coming from the furtherest south of any scholarship recipients since the nations south of us, Rhodesia and South Africa, did not qualify for the program by virtue of their globally unpopular minority-led governments. We had a full day to enjoy in Nairobi about which I have already written in my posting "Kenya Votes". The Zambian five were joined in Nairobi by scholarship participants from East Africa so the ASPAU group increased considerably in size. Early in the morning we boarded an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 720 (a variant of the 707) for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where we transferred to another 720 for our flight to Rome. (Ethiopian Airlines was established by Emperor Haile Selassie in 1946 and for many years run by TWA; it is still one of Africa's premier airlines).

The flight to Rome included intermediate stops in Cairo, Egypt and Athens, Greece. In Cairo the airport windows were covered with black material, a remnant of the blackout which has been imposed during the Six-Day War in June between Israel and its Arab neighbors, which redrew the map of the area to what appears in atlases today. After a short stop in Athens we arrived in the late afternoon. By then I was pretty tired but still had one leg to go. Our group next boarded an Air France Caravelle twinjet for Orly Airport in Paris. There I learned one of the hard lessons of airline travel, that while I had made all my connections my Samsonite suitcase, a kind gift from American missionary friends in the Congo, had not. So, all I had to wear were the clothes I had on. African-American Institute representatives met us on arrival and ferried us by bus to a hotel somewhere in the heart of Paris where the rest of our group of over 80 scholarship recipients had already arrived from West Africa. I remained the sole white person in the group.

After what must have been rather a short night and real croissants for breakfast we were all loaded on buses for Le Bourget Airport, where Charles Lindbergh, a Minnesotan, had landed on his historic transatlantic flight in May 1927. On the way we did get a view of the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe. Awaiting us at the airport was a Lockheed Electra four engine turbo-prop aircraft chartered from American Flyers Airlines of Dallas, Texas (see above). (Don't knock it - the Beatles had earlier come to America on American Flyers!) Before boarding we all had to weigh in on a large dial scale along with our luggage. I had no luggage so I stood on the scale alone; being Paris the weight was in kilograms.

Sometime soon after noon we took off on the final leg to America. After a couple of hours or less we landed at Shannon on Ireland's west coast for refueling (we needed full tanks to successfully span the expanse of water ahead of us) and then took off again for the longest leg of the trip. As I recall there were two American stewardesses taking care of over eighty African novice flyers. The call bells went off with regularity and I remember the Kenyan next to me ringing his bell to ask the rather harried stewardess how one feels when they are airsick. Her response, "Believe me, you'll know". The question put me on the alert for any strange activity from his direction! During the flight an information sheet was passed through the cabin informing us that we were flying at 225 miles per hour at 18,000 feet, less than half the speed and half the altitude that modern jets fly across the Atlantic.

After an eternity and just before sunset we landed in Gander, Newfoundland, which in those days was a very busy airport for flights crossing the Atlantic, and more recently was again made famous when many westbound flights were grounded there on September 11, 2001. We refueled and took off again headed for, of all places, Hartford, Connecticut...and there my feet first touched American soil.

Immediately I was introduced to a British/American idiosyncracy. Although I had received a student visa in my Zambian passport I had to renew it every year so that the U.S. Immigration service could ensure that I was still in school. The immigration officer stamped my passport with an entry stamp and wrote 8/5/68 on the "valid until" line. I read that, as I had always read it, to mean May 8th, 1968 which meant that I had to renew the visa in just a few months. Only later did I realize that it was in fact good until August 5th, 1968 since the visa had been issued on August 5th, 1967.

In Hartford we were met by representatives of a program called Experiment in International Living (EIL) of Brattleboro, Vermont where we were to spend the next week at their campus, the School for International Learning, receiving orientation to our life in America. I was also to spend the week wearing the same clothes again and again (washing them each evening) and trying to recover my suitcase from somewhere in Europe before I headed further west for Minnesota in a week. Watch for "Coming To America Part 4".

(c) 2008 roy kruse

Coming to America Part 2

SO NOW I HAD BEEN ACCEPTED TO A COLLEGE IN AMERICA. I eventually received instructions from the AAI for planning my adventure. I had been selected as one of five students from that group of nineteen who had been interviewed a few weeks earlier and we would be traveling together, eventually to meet up in Paris with about eighty other students from across sub-Saharan, independent Africa for studies in the United States. Since the program was part of U.S. foreign aid to Africa we were under contract to return to our countries of origin after graduation to serve for at least as many years as we had been studying. Since Zambia was the only home I had known that seemed to be no problem to me.

Having never heard of Minnesota I would sometimes get it confused with Massachussetts, prompting one person to ask,"Do you know where you are going?" I had been to boarding school with a number of Americans and had studied the U.S.A. in geography at that school, learning about New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, the Great Plains, and how to pronounce Arkansas...from a British teacher, no less. But Minnesota never made it into the discussion...if it had I'm sure I would have remembered because geography was my favorite subject.

I do remember studying about Russia and how cold the winters were in Moscow. I am not sure when I realized that the climate in Minnesota was similar to Moscow (inland continental, without any moderating ocean influence). We had studied weather patterns but putting a minus in front of any tempertaure, whether fahrenheit or centigrade, seemed to me like science fiction.

One scholarship condition was that all recipients had to be citizens of the country from which they had applied. Having been born of British parents in a British colony I was obviously British. However in the early 1960's British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan's "wind of change" began to blow across Central Africa and in October 1964 the colony of Northern Rhodesia had become the Republic of Zambia, named after the Zambezi River which originates as a spring a few miles from the boarding school I attended and several hundred miles later crashes over the Victoria Falls in vast volume on the southern border. The Union Jack had come down and the new Zambian flag had been raised (see above); for a couple of weeks the new national anthem 'Stand and Sing of Zambia, Proud and Free.." had been the regimen in morning assembly at Luanshya High School to replace 'God Save Our Gracious Queen'; and several of us had represented the school in the parade past a local official on Independence Day.

On that day I received a new citizenship - by virtue of having been born in Northern Rhodesia I was now a Zambian and entitled to a Zambian passport. However I did not have to choose one or the other until I reached age 21. Up until I received the scholarship to America there really was no need for me to apply for a Zambian passport but now the Americans insisted that my student visa could not be placed in a British passport. No problem, I could lawfully have both, and so I applied and received a passport of the Republic of Zambia.

The day for my departure soon came, in early August. I was to join the other four scholarship recipients in Lusaka for a reception at the U.S. Embassy. As I recall my mother and siblings drove me from Luanshya to Lusaka in the yellow family Ford Consul. We were not used to mingling with foreign diplomats but somehow made it through the reception and speeches. On learning afterwards, I think from me, that the ambassador and his wife were of the Mormon faith my mother had wished that she had known earlier so that she could have had a little chat with them about the Gospel. I think I was relieved that she hadn't known.

Departure to America was from the brand new terminal at Lusaka Airport, opened only about a month. I recall nothing about the event except that I boarded an East African Airways Comet 4 for Nairobi. We made a stop in Ndola, only twenty miles from our home, and Dad was there to meet me and say goodbye. For a reason which I do not recall, he was not able to travel to Lusaka with us.

Despite having lived in Africa all my life I had seen very little of it. We had rarely left Zambia so even traveling to Nairobi was a great adventure. And we had not flown much so every plane trip was a charge.

(c) 2008 roy kruse

Coming to America Part 1

I CAME TO AMERICA JUST OVER FORTY YEARS AGO in August 1967. It all started with a telegram from the Government of the Republic of Zambia (GRZ) that showed up at my parents' home in Luanshya advising me that I had been selected to apply for a scholarship to university in the United States. A few months earlier, in December 1966, I had completed my secondary schooling with what was known as GCE 'A' level exams, a requirement for entry into British universities. I had not done particularly well and thus was not a prospect for university in the United Kingdom. Other options had not opened up and my parents, being missionaries serving God completely on faith, did not have great resources for me to draw upon. So I had given up on a university education and with my father's help applied to the Luanshya branch of Standard Bank (now Standard and Chartered) for a job (see picture above). The Chief Accountant, Mr. Tresize, hired me as a General Ledger Clerk and I enrolled in a correspondence course with the Chartered Institute of Secretaries (CIS) in London, which would eventually give me qualifications to help my career in banking.

But the telegram changed all my plans.

Before leaving Kabulonga School for Boys (formerly Gilbert Rennie) in Lusaka I had joined others in my class in filling out a GRZ application form for scholarships which might be come available for studies overseas. This telegram had been generated when such an opportunity arose through the African Scholarship Program for American Universities (ASPAU) sponsored by the African-American Institute (AAI) in New York.

I think my parents were in two minds about this possibility. It looked to be an answer to all our prayers for a post-secondary education but America was not part of our imaginings. Anyway, we decided to pursue the invitation and see where it led. I had always had an adventurous spirit and the prospect of going to America rather appealed to me. I took a few days off work and Dad drove me the twenty miles to Ndola to board the overnight train for the two hundred miles to Lusaka, as I had done each term for the final two years of high school. In Lusaka I joined twenty four other high school graduates to sit a test which would qualify us for university entrance in the United States. I assume now that the test was either ACT or SAT. I was the only white applicant although I was told others white students from my class had been invited to sit the test.

The next day, after the tests had been graded, nineteen of us were chosen to be interviewed by a committee of five people representing the African-American Institute and the GRZ. I had already indicated my interest in studying geology because I had enjoyed geography so much in school, I was aware of the need for geologists in Zambia's copper mining industry, and I knew that the young University of Zambia did not yet offer degrees in sciences so that was not an option. I do not remember many of the questions I was asked except whether I would enjoy interacting with American students at the university I would attend and what kind of books I enjoyed reading. I do recall the GRZ representative telling those of us interviewed that if we were not selected for a scholarship to America we would probably get a chance to apply for one to the Soviet Union in the weeks ahead.

The interview over, I decided to hitchhike home rather than wait for the overnight train back. I got myself to the northern edge of the city of Lusaka and managed to get a ride all the way to Ndola and then a couple more to Luanshya, arriving home by evening. I went back to work at the bank and never really gave much further thought to the pospect of heading to the US of A.

A few weeks later I received a letter from a college I had never heard of in a state I had never heard of - Carleton College in Minnesota. The letter welcomed me to the college for the 1967-68 year. Since I had heard nothing from the AAI representative in Lusaka I as not sure what to think. A friend advised me not to get my hopes up until I had confirmed it through the appropriate channels as "you can get some strange letters from America". I phoned the AAI lady in Lusaka and she confirmed the letter. So now I had to start really thinking about what this all would mean.

(c) 2008 roy kruse