IRREPRESSIBLE: From a Dropout to a Professor Emeritus is a nonfiction memoir and multi-cultural story of my life. How I became a dropout at 18 and ended up professor emeritus at age 65 is described in this journey. As I traversed up the muddy ruts of the dirt road on the southern slope of Mount Kilimanjaro, I could see the little school nestled in a small grove of acacia trees. The teacher and her 30 students were waving to me. “Thank you for coming,” the teacher said. “I need your help. I have nothing.” The one-room mud and wattle school had openings for windows and a larger one for a door. However, none were inserted. There were no desks, no chalkboard, no books, no paper and no pencils. “Can you help me?” Kenya had only been independent two years, and opening and equipping a school was very expensive. What could I do for her? IRREPRESSIBLE is a compilation of experiences as a USAID contract educator in developing countries during the 1960s through the 1990s in Kenya, the Kingdom of Nepal, the Yemen Arab Republic and the Baluchistan Province of western Pakistan. I was faced with impossible situations that I was expected to make “possible.” I learned never to accept “no” for an answer. I was “irrepressible.” Jim Hughes has written textbooks, co-authored 17 books on Africa, and wrote the lyrics and book for a musical play. He was a contractor for USAID educational projects in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. A tenured faculty member at Oakland University, he retired as professor emeritus in 2000. http: //sbpra.com/JimHughes
