Post date: Aug 10, 2014 10:52:23 PM
24 August 1964
Ah, Calabar. All the European firms have moved out since independence (when Cameroon went its separate way). These firms had all built spacious quarters for their European employees. Also this was a big gov’t center, with many gov’t houses and offices. The European sections are spacious, with large two-story houses, trees, and spreading lawns overlooking the river. The Efik sections are crowded, dirty, and even the “big men” who have built 3- and 4-story mansions, build in the crowded part of town. Igbos live in a section of town and there are some areas strictly forbidden to Igbo people. A great deal of discrimination between tribes and colors here. Many mulattos and a few permanent white residents. One third or fourth generation Lebanese.
I visited the Dunlop rubber plantation on the way down here last week—very plush. One or two houses per hilltop, a club with tennis and swimming, hospital, electricity, nice houses.
The bush mechanics in this country are terrible, absolutely unbelievable. One man came (with a sheaf of references) to work on the organ. He was taken into the organ and he asked, “OK, now where’s the organ?” I have had to rebuild a large part of the pedal section that was ripped out and discarded by one of these thieves. I farmed out some cabinetry and had to do it all over myself. Fearless and incompetent. The only really good mechanic I’ve met here is a genius. He repairs pianos, etc.
By golly, it is getting along here, almost September! I’ve been in Calabar a week now and altho I’ve worked sixty hours on that organ I’ve not started to put it back together. Lots to be done.
I’ve considered asking Peace Corps for a transfer to organ repairing for my last term in Nigeria; I now know of eight organs in the Eastern Region. I have been asked to tune one in Enugu and repair another in Calabar (installed 1917, still going strong). In order to finish the Duke Town Church organ and install the blower they wish, I will have to return later anyway. I played the organ in Enugu for about an hour while I was there. It is small—one keyboard and six stops—but has the nicest sound of them all. It must have been built in about 1895 in London and moved here two years ago.
Ach, “Prof” Ita, who bought the latest organ, a long time ago started a sawmill and bought all the equipment to produce paper. Alas, he hired no engineer and all the equipment has rusted away. He’d be a millionaire now if he had only completed his vision. Many things are done like that here, but on a smaller scale. A man will spend $5,000 to $10,000 building a house of very poor design, made of inferior materials and poorly finished—where a good foreman would save him much. Most of the foremen were missionaries and with all the African ministers, the foremen have gone home.
I’ve been reading Sandburg’s biography of Abe Lincoln. Great. Half through.