Amoebas and Me

I was sitting in the hospital waiting room for my follow-up physical at Camp Darvey in Livornio, northern Italy, in the summer of 1967. I and a number of other Peace Corps volunteers from East Africa were scheduled to be examined to determine whether we could be more suitably deployed to a war in Southeast Asia. I was 25 and my draft board back in Maine was aware that if I continued for another year teaching geography in Ethiopia I would inevitably become 26, a major coming of age at that time in our nation's history. However, there was a problem for my draft board, one unrelated to the merit of my current service which they had summarily dismissed six months before. I had somehow managed to contract Amoebic Dysentery and was still undergoing treatment.

I was duly ushered into another room, provided a cup and small flat stick and was instructed to produce a stool specimen which I was willing and able to do. Then there was more waiting, while they analyzed the results. Finally I was called into a doctor's office and the young man there smiled and told me I was perfectly healthy, which was a surprise to me given that I had confirmed my amoebas' vitality with the Peace Corps medical people before leaving Addis Abeba. I showed him their medical report and he decided to take another look. This time he came back looking sad and said that my amoebas could well be chronic and he would defer me for another six months.

Now I still don't know if he actually found any amoebas in the sample but I am grateful that he was willing to take a second look. And I'd love to thank him but I haven't got a clue what his name is.

The subsequent events added the comic relief that is important to recovery after stressful episodes. I reunited with my other Peace Corps Volunteers and while we were waiting for bus transport back to the barracks, this big American car pulls up and the lady inside asks us if we want a lift back to the base and we all piled in. As she drove along she told us how pleased she was that young American boys like us were volunteering for the service, and we lost little time in dissuading her from that illusion. Well, she got all huffy and the next thing we knew we were delivered to the military police barracks where the gentlemen there were told by the Commandant's wife to take proper care of us, which they promised to do. After she spun off they delivered us back to the barracks where we'd spent the previous night. TheMP's did look somewhat embarrassed and so were some of the other folks in the barracks whom we'd been singing protests songs with the previous night. Anyway, the barracks crew snook us out that night for a compensatory night on the town, and years later I must confess that I still get occasional flashes of bar scenes and that restaurant where we were delivered an octopus nestled on top of the pasta in a pool of tomato sauce.

What joy!

Charley Noble, who lived to tell the tale