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African odyssey Rogue Valley teachers Darrel and Anna Marie Spores took their skills to Africa twice, buoyed by the gratitude and charity of people who find joy in simple pleasures By JOHN DARLING for the Mail Tribune For teachers Darrel and Anna Marie Spores, volunteering - whether in their own community or the wilds of Africa - isn't really volunteering; it's just using the talents they have to help people. Now in their mid-70s, Darrel and Anna for 40 years have helped with construction projects at Camp Lagawa, a Butte Creek retreat of the United Methodist Church in Medford. They pick up and haul surplus household goods three times a week for the annual sale of the Rogue Valley Manor, where they live. And for 10 years in Nigeria, in temperatures up to 130 degrees, they hand-built schools for the more gifted adolescents, taught construction skills to local workers as they went, then taught in the classrooms and trained a generation of young graduates how to teach. "The people were wonderful and life was very simple - elemental," said Darrel. "We made all the materials, including the cement blocks, by hand. From one bag of cement, we made a hundred blocks. We mixed in sand from the river, clay and decomposed granite from the earth and water from a hand-dug well, then made blocks in a hand-operated ram." The two were in the country on a mission for the United Methodist Church's global outreach effort. One of the main challenges was teaching the concept of plumb-and-level, straight lines and squares. "They only built in circles and could draw you a perfect circle of any size, just like that," Darrel said. And they were mystified by the concept of blueprints, because they'd always just put a window or door in where it felt right. For Anna and Darrel, the culture shock was not living in Africa, but returning to the United States and wandering up and down the aisles of supermarkets, marveling at the endless choices. In Africa, Anna said, the little store might have one can of beans and one of peaches and they were very expensive. In America, kids whine about not having label clothes and video games. In Nigeria, they were so happy to get schooling - only one in 1,000 went into high school - that they begged for extra classes on Saturdays, Anna said. The Sporeses came home for a 10-year stint teaching in Grants Pass schools, but the couple's longing for Africa in 1983 took them back - to Freetown, Sierra Leone, where they became business managers for a mission of the United Brethren in Christ. For more than six years, they helped oversee a hospital and a network of high schools and grade schools. Civil strife - the Biafran war in Nigeria and many coups in Sierra Leone - became just one of life's uncertainties, Anna said. The day before a third move to Africa in 1993, they received a coded phone message, "We'll be home for Christmas," clueing them that a military coup in Sierra Leone had made the country unsafe for Americans. "We miss it," said Anna, showing off her collection of African wood carvings. "It was a wonderful experience. I loved the people. They respected what we were doing and it was mutual." Home in the Rogue Valley, Anna and Darrel volunteer many hours a week at their United Methodist Church. Anna, the Southern District president of United Methodist Women, helps put on dinners to raise money for other missionaries abroad. Darrel, still strong of arm at 73, can be found repairing a masonry wall and lifting 80-pound blocks. Anna volunteers in area schools teaching a unit on African dress and culture, bringing many colorful gowns for students to try on. She is a former Phoenix High School math teacher. Before her husband got his teaching credential, Darrel worked in the lumber industry and drove trucks. The Sporeses learned the volunteer spirit growing up in Springfield. "I was raised by my aunt and uncle on a farm," said Darrel, "and all the farmers worked together and depended on each other. I learned that if the good Lord gave me the skill to do something, then I'm just glad to do it and work for the betterment of people's lives." John Darling is a free-lance writer living in Ashland. E-mail him at [email protected] . Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.