Truly enjoyed Dark Side of the Hut, and great closer!
Had a similar epiphany (epiphony?) in 1976. After a late afternoon of tossing frisbees on Red Square to an curious crowd, and sometimes slowing/stopping traffic, several of my buds and I were invited to ‘our place for drinks and getting to know you’ by a similarly student-aged group who had become friendly in the course of the frisbee diplomacy repartee.
We said ‘yeah’ or something equivalent - it was thirsty work.
They had or found a ride, I think, but may well have been public transport.
And during the ensuing evening numbers of their friends squeezed in and out of a cozy dorm like space until the wee hours, sharing beer and vodka and schnapps and cigarettes while we worked on our primitive Russian, and they their English, German, French or whatever lingua was common currency in the moment. Belts were exchanged, hats, shirts, blue jeans, paper money, spare passport photos, all to the tune of their one English record, played over and over: it was MY baptism in Led Zeppelin IV & Stairway to Heaven...!
We finally realized people were trying to sleep all around us, so we stumbled out of the army barracks into the quiet dark of wee hours Moscow and made our way (these were the days of Cyrillic maps on paper!) back to our hotel.
I'm glad you liked it, Mark, and thank you for your great story. I enjoyed that heart performance as well, when Led Zep got the Presidential Medal or whatever it's called. I hope you'll subscribe to Sundman figures it out! if you haven't done so already. Of the 60 or so essays I've written so far, another 4 or 5 touch in one way or another on my experiences in Senegal. I'll provide pointers if you're interested.
Thanks John, expect I may enjoy those specific pointers (and triggers for my own memories of 14 years in Zambia), but am generally happy to browse, too. Once trained as a statistician, and still lean toward a ~ random sampling / sourcing of information.
What a magnificent story. A lot had changed in the 20 years since you were in West Africa, but I was a PCV in Benin in the mid-90s. My weird-connection-back-home story took place on a long train ride, in a remote rail yard outside Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. We had traveled overnight, either heading to or coming from Victoria Falls on our "close of service" trip, before returning home. A young child was running alongside the train, waiving a newspaper at me that had written in enormous font as the headline "OJ Innocent". It took me a moment to realize this was in reference to OJ Simpson, who was on trial at the time in the US - we later determined that 19 hours had passed since the verdict was issued. The world was already getting smaller!
Thanks for your comment. Yes, I think that that glorious feeling of being totally remote and unfindable is pretty much a thing of the past. My younger daughter lived in Kigali, Rwanda 2012 - 2013 and spoke to us pretty regularly by phone. I made exactly 1 phone call during my 2 years in Peace Corps: I called home from Dakar on Christmas eve. It took about half an hour for the operator to patch through the connection, and it cost me a fortune.
Thanks, John. Don’t think we ever met, but I remember hearing your name often in pcv circles. Brings back memories of well digging projects (did some w Bob McGurn) during la secheresse. But, Pink Floyd, Far side of a the moon, in the bled?
Awesome. - cheers, Frank Donovan (aka Doudou Diallo)
My introduction to that album was a similar revelatory experience, but that was only psychedelics speaking (kidding. At a party at my girlfriend's house, I stopped everything I was doing or saying and listened intently. Her family thought I was nuts).
_Dark Side of the Moon_ was a kick in the head the first time I heard it at Frank's house. I can't imagine what it must have been like in the middle of the desert after months of withdrawal from Western media.
I don't remember anything about the experience of the music. The whole fucking trip was so otherworldly. I know that many people find my living in a mud hut in an African village for nearly 2 years kind of otherworldly, and I suppose it was, but after a while it was just where I happened to live. But that trip into the bled, and a battery-powered record player?????!!!!!!!!!! With a PINK FLOYD ALBUM??!!!!! CALLED DARK SIDE OF THE MOON!!! I kept waiting for Zeus or Apollo or something to step into the scene from a tiny fissure in the universe & explain that the prior 23 years of my life had all just been a set-up for this punchline.
Wonderful story, John! Can’t believe I stumbled across this. Reading it made lots of Sahel memories flood back. I actually met you once in Podor in ‘75 or ‘76. I was the English teacher at the CEG and we must have met on the road as I was walking home past the post office. We were talking and you said something in Pulaar to one of the bystanders and I never heard the end of it because you spoke so well! But it was a good thing because if one American could learn Pulaar, they thought, there was hope for me. Best regards, Karen Fisher aka Coumba Thiam
I'm glad you stumbled upon my story. I do remember meeting you in Podor; you were the next PCV there after Richard Boyum. And what's more, there's a glancing (two -sentence) reference to you (or rather, to a fictional character who was a PCV in Podor) in my first novel Acts of the Apostles. I won't say anything more about that because I'm hoping that you'll read the book & find it yourself. (Send me an email if you'd like a free copy). There are a bunch of us Animateurs from '73 to '76 who get together about once a decade, and other PCVs from that time are always welcome. I believe our next get-together is scheduled for 2024. I'm jsundmanus at the gmail.
Hi John! Oh my goodness... of course now I have to get your book. No need for a free copy. I like the idea of supporting PCV authors. Your book will join the others in a special spot in my library. Would love to attend a future PCV gathering. Will contact you on the outside for info. Take care. Karen aka Coumba Thiam
As I wrote elsewhere, Yes, that was the first time I heard that album, and no, I don't remember a thing about the experience of the music. What I do remember is being so completely astounded at what I was experiencing — the extraordinary generosity in the welcome I was being given by some of the, literally, materially poorest people on Earth, the disconnect between my prior assumptions about what I would find and what I actually did find, and the astounding fact that the music of an avant-guarde British rock group would be the seal on the connection between me and the people of that obscure village of African nomads. That's what I was trying to convey. The music itself, for all its indisputable grandeur, is almost incidental to the story.
Truly enjoyed Dark Side of the Hut, and great closer!
Had a similar epiphany (epiphony?) in 1976. After a late afternoon of tossing frisbees on Red Square to an curious crowd, and sometimes slowing/stopping traffic, several of my buds and I were invited to ‘our place for drinks and getting to know you’ by a similarly student-aged group who had become friendly in the course of the frisbee diplomacy repartee.
We said ‘yeah’ or something equivalent - it was thirsty work.
They had or found a ride, I think, but may well have been public transport.
And during the ensuing evening numbers of their friends squeezed in and out of a cozy dorm like space until the wee hours, sharing beer and vodka and schnapps and cigarettes while we worked on our primitive Russian, and they their English, German, French or whatever lingua was common currency in the moment. Belts were exchanged, hats, shirts, blue jeans, paper money, spare passport photos, all to the tune of their one English record, played over and over: it was MY baptism in Led Zeppelin IV & Stairway to Heaven...!
We finally realized people were trying to sleep all around us, so we stumbled out of the army barracks into the quiet dark of wee hours Moscow and made our way (these were the days of Cyrillic maps on paper!) back to our hotel.
Still listening, 47 years later. Loved the recent tribute by Heart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUB8kBKAFcg
I'm glad you liked it, Mark, and thank you for your great story. I enjoyed that heart performance as well, when Led Zep got the Presidential Medal or whatever it's called. I hope you'll subscribe to Sundman figures it out! if you haven't done so already. Of the 60 or so essays I've written so far, another 4 or 5 touch in one way or another on my experiences in Senegal. I'll provide pointers if you're interested.
Thanks John, expect I may enjoy those specific pointers (and triggers for my own memories of 14 years in Zambia), but am generally happy to browse, too. Once trained as a statistician, and still lean toward a ~ random sampling / sourcing of information.
What a magnificent story. A lot had changed in the 20 years since you were in West Africa, but I was a PCV in Benin in the mid-90s. My weird-connection-back-home story took place on a long train ride, in a remote rail yard outside Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. We had traveled overnight, either heading to or coming from Victoria Falls on our "close of service" trip, before returning home. A young child was running alongside the train, waiving a newspaper at me that had written in enormous font as the headline "OJ Innocent". It took me a moment to realize this was in reference to OJ Simpson, who was on trial at the time in the US - we later determined that 19 hours had passed since the verdict was issued. The world was already getting smaller!
Thanks for your comment. Yes, I think that that glorious feeling of being totally remote and unfindable is pretty much a thing of the past. My younger daughter lived in Kigali, Rwanda 2012 - 2013 and spoke to us pretty regularly by phone. I made exactly 1 phone call during my 2 years in Peace Corps: I called home from Dakar on Christmas eve. It took about half an hour for the operator to patch through the connection, and it cost me a fortune.
Thanks, John. Don’t think we ever met, but I remember hearing your name often in pcv circles. Brings back memories of well digging projects (did some w Bob McGurn) during la secheresse. But, Pink Floyd, Far side of a the moon, in the bled?
Awesome. - cheers, Frank Donovan (aka Doudou Diallo)
Thanks. Please see email, to follow.
My introduction to that album was a similar revelatory experience, but that was only psychedelics speaking (kidding. At a party at my girlfriend's house, I stopped everything I was doing or saying and listened intently. Her family thought I was nuts).
I loved this story. Thank you, John.
_Dark Side of the Moon_ was a kick in the head the first time I heard it at Frank's house. I can't imagine what it must have been like in the middle of the desert after months of withdrawal from Western media.
I don't remember anything about the experience of the music. The whole fucking trip was so otherworldly. I know that many people find my living in a mud hut in an African village for nearly 2 years kind of otherworldly, and I suppose it was, but after a while it was just where I happened to live. But that trip into the bled, and a battery-powered record player?????!!!!!!!!!! With a PINK FLOYD ALBUM??!!!!! CALLED DARK SIDE OF THE MOON!!! I kept waiting for Zeus or Apollo or something to step into the scene from a tiny fissure in the universe & explain that the prior 23 years of my life had all just been a set-up for this punchline.
Wonderful story, John! Can’t believe I stumbled across this. Reading it made lots of Sahel memories flood back. I actually met you once in Podor in ‘75 or ‘76. I was the English teacher at the CEG and we must have met on the road as I was walking home past the post office. We were talking and you said something in Pulaar to one of the bystanders and I never heard the end of it because you spoke so well! But it was a good thing because if one American could learn Pulaar, they thought, there was hope for me. Best regards, Karen Fisher aka Coumba Thiam
Hello Karen!
I'm glad you stumbled upon my story. I do remember meeting you in Podor; you were the next PCV there after Richard Boyum. And what's more, there's a glancing (two -sentence) reference to you (or rather, to a fictional character who was a PCV in Podor) in my first novel Acts of the Apostles. I won't say anything more about that because I'm hoping that you'll read the book & find it yourself. (Send me an email if you'd like a free copy). There are a bunch of us Animateurs from '73 to '76 who get together about once a decade, and other PCVs from that time are always welcome. I believe our next get-together is scheduled for 2024. I'm jsundmanus at the gmail.
Hi John! Oh my goodness... of course now I have to get your book. No need for a free copy. I like the idea of supporting PCV authors. Your book will join the others in a special spot in my library. Would love to attend a future PCV gathering. Will contact you on the outside for info. Take care. Karen aka Coumba Thiam
Great story!
Two typos, one in the song was / wash
And one in the before last sentence recored / record.
you are fucking kidding me...that's amazing
As I wrote elsewhere, Yes, that was the first time I heard that album, and no, I don't remember a thing about the experience of the music. What I do remember is being so completely astounded at what I was experiencing — the extraordinary generosity in the welcome I was being given by some of the, literally, materially poorest people on Earth, the disconnect between my prior assumptions about what I would find and what I actually did find, and the astounding fact that the music of an avant-guarde British rock group would be the seal on the connection between me and the people of that obscure village of African nomads. That's what I was trying to convey. The music itself, for all its indisputable grandeur, is almost incidental to the story.
Excellent truth. 👍
Also, I hope you'll share a link to the story!