Another Memory of Nepal—May 1963, by Sandy Houts, Comilla, 1962 - 63

Donna described beautifully the ambience of Pokara Valley, Nepal. The “airport” and it’s runway that ended on the edge of a steep canyon, Annapurna, the Tibetan refugee camp, all so memorable. I remember walking to the camp, a long hike in flip-flops, and on the return trek I stopped to dangle my feet in a pristine-appearing stream. Shortly after I got settled, a Nepalese or maybe a Tibetan man came along. He paused, looked at me, we smiled at each other, then he sat down some distance away and dangled his feet in the stream. We both laughed and smiled, then continued on our ways. I like to think that he had never done that before but maybe it was the strange sight of a woman, alone, soaking her feet that made him smile!

I was supposed to be in Nepal from Tuesday to Friday. There were 2 flights a week from Dacca—PIA one day, Royal Nepal the other. On Friday, I boarded the Royal Nepal as the only passenger on the DC-3. We were about half way to Dacca when the co-pilot came to the passenger cabin, sat down and said very seriously, “I’m sorry but we won’t be able to continue to Dacca due to very bad weather.” Since not long before I went to Nepal there had been a terrible tidal wave (nowadays called a tsunami, I believe) that hit the coast of East Pakistan, near Chittagong, I believed his tale could be true. As luck would have it, we then returned to Nepal! Lucky because I’d have to stay until Tuesday and over the weekend the first successful American Expedition to Mt. Everest was to arrive outside Katmandu. Nearly all the foreign enclave, including Nepal PCVs who were in Katmandu, had plans to drive out to the road’s end, about 15 kms as I recall, to meet the Expedition. Wasn’t Willie Unsold on Nepal’s PC staff in those days? He was one of the Expedition members, too. To make a long story short, I was able to join the crowd and gaze upon those mountain climbers as true heroes. All I remember were blue eyes with depth I can’t describe. Indeed, they looked as if they had been to the mountain top and had seen the promised land. Incredible.

Well, E. Pakistan Peace Corps staff were a little upset with me for being late on return and they found my story hard to believe, especially because there was no storm. Cooler heads prevailed, surmising that there was no ground-to-ground communication. Once in the air they could call Dacca and probably learned there were no passengers to carry back to Nepal so why not allow one Amriki woman to return to Nepal for a few more days

Memories of the Peace Corps Jeep— by Sandy Houts, Comilla, East Pakistan—1962-‘63

The Peace Corps jeep in Comilla was the property of the Peace Corps “boys” assigned to the East Pakistan Academy for Rural Development. I’ve always wondered if that was officially the case or if we all, boys and girls (in the old days, that’s how it was), just accepted it as right.

Whatever, the jeep, like all PC jeeps that I was aware of, was painted a distinctive color that became known as Peace Corps blue. Was it special issue by order of Sarge? Most likely there was an underling assigned to make such decisions and thought, maybe, that if they were easily identified there would be less likelihood of misuse? Who knows. But, that jeep in Comilla was known by all the folks in all the counties served by the Academy as the Peace Corps jeep, I have no doubt.

The boys also had a scooter which, if memory serves me well, no girl ever was allowed to drive. We girls had bicycles. I don’t recall ever seeing any of the boys on a bike! Tell me I’m wrong, please! It couldn’t have been that bad, could it have? But, I digress.

Two main memories arise when I think of that jeep. One, was of the Bengali driver—the boys’ driver, that is—who was fired frequently by one of the boys (no names from me) and almost immediately rehired. I never quite understood what that was about. Every now and then, when the Academy vehicles were not available and we girls were expected in a village we would very nicely ask the boys if we could borrow the jeep and driver. They usually kindly agreed. The driver would become very chatty, especially on trips after lunch, plus his driving seemed more erratic then. One day he explained to me that he and his friends, because alcohol was too expensive and hard to come by, would smoke hashish at lunch! Whether the hash was the cause of his chattiness and erratic driving, I’ll never know. But, it seemed that the trips were always a bit wilder after I learned that about him. He told me other things, too, that I swore never to repeat.

My other memory concerning the jeep was the one time I was actually allowed to drive it. Two friends and I were planning to drive through Europe en route back to the U.S. One had ordered a car with a standard transmission. I was the only one who had ever driven a stick shift and thought it would be a good idea to have a little practice with the clutch as it had been a few years. One day one of the boys—one temporarily assigned to the Academy as it were—and I were going to the new Campus. He very nicely allowed me to drive the jeep. Along the way, as was the custom, I stopped to pick up Bengalis who were going our way. In the rear view mirror I could see the looks of horror on their faces when they realized a female was driving! I’ve never seen people leave a vehicle as fast as those hitchhikers when we arrived at the destination!

Memories of East Pakistan by Mark Hotchkiss (Son of Ken and Joy Hotchkiss)

I am going to join the conversation in bits and pieces from my memory,

a little at a time. I have a lot of both and so does my family.

My father and mother are Kenneth W. and Joy R. Hotchkiss. I am Mark. I

was six years-old when I arrived in Dacca, I think in the fall of

1963. In the first photo, I am the blond kid in the front. I always

drew a crowd wherever I went while there. My brother David (now

deceased), my sister Deb, and my brother Bob round out the crew

roster. It was a blistering hot and humid day. I remember it and the

jeep ride to Dhanmondi.

We left Dacca in the fall of 1965. I remember crying for a long time

when the plane took off. I loved living there, but I was only eight.

Now that I am older, I understand why my mom was relieved we were on

our way back to Minnesota.

Ken and Joy are still active, but slowing up a bit, and they will be

in touch through me. I will try to contribute a photo or two and a

memory now and again.

I can see Road 22, Dhanmondi and my ride to the Dacca American Society

School, both old and new sites, in my head pretty well. For some

reason, the experience is still very vivid to me.

I have to comment on Donna J. Moore’s piece from Nepal: One of the

greatest vacations my family had while in East Pakistan, was to the

Pokhara Valley:

We took a DC-3 from Kathmandu to the valley and landed on a grass

runway. We stayed in an open air hostel with a small courtyard in the

middle with the Annapoorna range. While there, my whole family hiked

about 13 miles, I was told, into a Tibetan refugee camp. Attached are

just some of photos. You can see my brother David sipping some tea,

Deb in the green wrap and red socks, me in the gray jacket, and Bob in

the foreground looking back. I remember playing “secret agent” with my

brother on some rocks near the grass runway for the DC-3. What an

adventure.

Here is a picture of Ken and Joy relaxing at home in Hotchkiss, Colorado during May 2011.  The town's name is genuinely coincidental to where they settled.  (Picture taken by Mark Hotchkiss.)

Bio for Frank Reidy (Pak 8)

I served with Pak 8 - 1963 to 1965. After leaving the University of Minnesota, where it was 20 below zero, I was stationed to the Island of Sandwip ten miles off the coast of Chittagong where it was 110 degrees in the shade.  My offside was Md. Saddique, who still lives in the city of Chittagong with four daughters and one son. I worked on the "Handbook of Construction" and started three cyclone shelters on the island a few bridges and school buildings. I have copies of the three handbooks of Construction, Building Design and the Manual of Standard Bridge Design if any one wants them.

You never understand at the moment how an event or person changes your life forever. The good Peace Corps doctor in Dhaka said I had Sprue and my teeth were in terrible condition. He sent me to Bangkok to recover before returning me to my parents and friends in Philadelphia. Wow! A paid vacation in heaven. Dino's the Peace Corps bar on the corner on Soi 27 and Sukimvit was well stocked with pretty girls, cheap beer and Kao Pad [Thai fried rice]. I asked my dentist to spread my appointments out as far as possible. Three months later I left a happy and healthy man.

The Pan Am office in Dacca was kind enough to let me plan my return ticket with 17 stops be tween Dacca and home. I wanted to see it all; India, Burma, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore with the next stop Vietnam??? President Johnson announced that he was sending 125,000 solders to Vietnam to stop the dominoes from falling.

On arrival in Saigon I only had money to stay a few days. The rest of Asia would have to wait. As a Catholic I had been putting money into the collection box for years, it was now time to get something in return. I went to the Queen of Peace Church and asked Father Crawford, a missionary priest, if he could put me up for a few days and I would be moving on to Philadelphia. As it happened he was born in North Philly three miles from my house but a generation ahead of me. Father knew that the engineering companies in Saigon were manning up to work for the incoming army. He arranged an introduction and I was working for Pacific Architects and Engineers [PA&E] on Monday morning at $2000 dollars a month. That collection money was the best investment that I ever made.

My first job was to work with the US Forces to master plan their base structure. I got a top secret security clearance, a helicopter and free access to fly almost anywhere in South Vietnam. I met my future partners Tom Henry and Charlie Kirkwood in other divisions of PA&E. We believed if this company could make it so could we. We set up a company, Applied Technical Services [ATS] and signed on with the US Navy to repair their river boats. These were 30 foot high speed patrol boats that got shot up on a regular basis. In two years we had 200 people, two dry docks and a marine railway working 24/7.  

I shared a few beers with Dale Evens from Pak 8 who was working with another engineering company in Saigon. Tom Henry and I settled into the top floor of an apartment house next to the Saigon Central Market; maids, cooks, drivers — life was good. The only real problem was that the Viet Cong were using our tall apartment building as an aiming point to fire their rockets at the Central Palace a few blocks behind us. Our dining table was on the roof patio. We watched the nightly fireworks with the Jolly Green Giant, a C130 airplane with Gatling Guns firing 3000 rounds a minute at the Viet Cong who were firing their rockets over our building at the city. We survived and sold ATS in 1972 to move on to Singapore.

In 1973 the Army I helped move into Vietnam was now leaving. Nixon had made peace with China who then cut the rail lines from Russia to Hanoi leaving the North with little to fight with. As the US Army pulled out Tom, Charlie and I set up a business to purchase surplus equipment the army was leaving behind. As each base was evacuated the US Government Disposal Office would auction off everything left on the base. This included Caterpillar bulldozers, trucks, electric power generators, air compressors, tools and misc equipment. We bought 3500 tons over two years moving it to Singapore and reselling it to the South East Asian construction companies. The income from this business funded our next business General Diesel Supplies, a franchise from General Motors for all of their diesel products.

As luck would have it, the price of oil jumped from $1.25 a barrel to $30 dollars a barrel. All the oil exploration companies were moving to Singapore at the same time as our surplus equipment was arriving. We set up a shop we called "Max Factor" after the famous Hollywood makeup man to clean up and sell the equipment. What we bought for .05 cents on the dollar was now selling for $1.10. If an oil company ordered new equipment it would take six months to deliver. We had it available on the spot. We sold those companies in the early 80's.

We had learned enough from the oil companies to move up stream into oil exploration, drilling and production. Tom, Charlie and I started Pennsylvania General Energy in 1980 in Warren, PA. We now have 130 people and 1100 wells in the area. [www.penngeneralenergy.com]

The three of us started in Asia forty-five years ago and continue to work together, a rare partnership.

I serve as a Director of Operation Smile, a nonprofit volunteer group that performs free cleft lip and palate surgery for children in forty countries. Last year we helped 14,000 children with a staff of 130 people. [www.operationsmile.org]

I also serve as a Director of the Research Center for Bioelectrics at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. We study the effects of high energy electric fields on cell function with a staff forty professors and students. The center has completed work on melanoma tumors and are now working on liver tumors. We have Department of Defense contracts to study wound cleaning and healing and pain control. [www.odu.edu/engr/bioelectrics]

Juliette and I were married in 1972 in Saigon. We moved to the USA in 1986 settling in Virginia Beach, VA. She worked as a translator for Operation Smile in the 90's and is now a Director of "The Children's House" a Montessori school in Saigon run by the Daughters of Charity. We have three sons, James [38] is a lawyer in Portland Oregon, Michael [35] is a nightclub owner in San Diego,CA and Pieter [32] is in the real estate business in Norfolk Virginia.

[e-mail frank@bioelectrics.net]

Gene Dashiel (Pak 7) - Letter to Jennice Marks Fishburn on his experience at home in Hawaii with the recent tsunami

Hi Jennice,

We are fine.  We evacuated, just as we did in Feb of last year with a Chilean? earthquake which badly damaged Samoa.  Then there were really no effects in Hawaii.

But, this time, we received 6 to 8 ft waves in many locations, the major damages seem to be to small boats, their berths and piers, and moorages.  Maybe some other isolated and minor damage.  I have not heard of any injuries/lose of life.

For us, with two vans, we load them up with my most needed stuff (computers, active project files, tax records, gps field equipment, ham radio stuff, insurance, bank info, a few clothes) and Charlene's most needed stuff (computers, back up drives, project files, clothes, mementos), maybe some blankets and pillows.

All on the assumption that the house will be destroyed, nothing left, and we have to move into a hotel or friend's house, or leave depending on just how bad it is. 

Because I am fixing up the house in preparation to selling it, and we have a lot of stuff we need to rid ourselves of, each of us had a secret thought, which we eventually shared, that wow, we might just get rid of the nagging problem of fixing the house and getting rid of our stuff if a tsunami wiped us out!!!!! how simple!!! Sit back in a hotel, all wiped off the face of the earth, collect the insurance, and party on!!!

We heard the news around 10:30PM, just as we were getting ready for bed (we were tired, we usually get up by 5AM), so started packing up the cars.  We left the house at midnight and at that time the estimated arrival of the tsunami was 3AM.  Charlene wanted to head for high ground, overlooks, so we could see the waves come and destroy everything.  I wanted to go to Kailua District Park where we could park our cars, have a bathroom handy, and sleep. So first we went to the overlooks, and it was very dark, no moon, I don't think you could see the ocean, but you could see the lights along the ocean and I guess if the tsunami had put all those out you would have seen the lights go out!  We ended up in the park and sleep in my Astro van, I in the middle seat, Charlene in the back seat, pretty comfortable actually, it rained off and on and was cool and pleasant, except for the constant noise of sirens and loudspeakers issuing warnings to evacuate!!!

At 3:30AM, I was asleep, maybe we both were,finally so when the tsunami hit us I never knew it.  I think I woke around 4:30AM, listed to the radio a little and was not hearing major damages to Hawaii or any of the Pacific islands, only Japan.  I went back to sleep and we both slept hard until around 6:30AM, woke up, and all the cars which had shared the parking lot at Kailua District Park were gone!!  We had slept through the whole event!!

As a treat, before heading home, we went to McDonalds for breakfast where we watched television and begin to see images of and hear words about what had been going on.  Nothing too bad, so we headed home and unloaded some of our things from the cars, then went to the ocean near us, around 8:30 or 9AM, and at that time the ocean would rise up about 1 foot then recede, then rise up again, these were not waves, but sort of swellings/upliftings of the water and this went on for an hour or so which was as long as we stayed at the shore.  We watched some boaters retrieve two overturned small boats which had grounded on the reef at the location we call "turtle beach" (a place where we often see green sea turtles).

So, I have been through two tsunami evacuations in this last year, the only ones since I moved here in 1968.

I have been through two major hurricanes here and several in the Marianas.

I have been through shipping strikes.

I have been through power outages and earthquakes, no power for several days.

I believe that these events, which have impacted all others living in these places as well as myself, have instilled a willingness to live together is reasonably good humor and with mutual respect, without the vituperation and hatred that we seem to experience via the news.

I have a better life here than I would have had elsewhere, and my dear wife and my family are the best!!!

Thus I celebrate this March 11, 2011, my 69th birthday, my father's death anniversary, and my 43rd year in Hawaii.

Gene