I met Jadyne in a Peace Corps training session in 1969. We were part of Tonga V, fifty-five young men and women who had signed up to spend two years of our lives as English teachers on one of the one hundred and seventy islands that comprised the Kingdom of Tonga, a Pacific archipelago somewhere between Hawaii and Australia. To become familiar with Tongan customs and to learn the language we were sent to Ho'olehua, a remote community several miles inland on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. Our small propeller driven plane almost crashed upon landing, after which the directors of the camp said, "We thought we might be having to wait for Tonga VI".
During those three months of training we spent approximately six hours a day learning the Tongan language. You learn conversational Tongan quickly speaking it six hours a day. The Polynesian words themselves, chockablock full of vowels, reflected both the Tongan culture and the advent of western civilization. "Vacapuna", for example, means "airplane." In Tongan "vaca" means "flying", and "puna" means "boat", so when Tongans first saw airplanes they connected what they saw to what they knew.
The remainder of our days was spent tending our gardens, raising chickens, and spending time with both the Tongans who had come to Hawaii to teach us the language and the customs of their native country, and the volunteers who were extending their service by three months to show us the ropes.
In October of 1969 Nixon was president, and the war in Vietnam was raging. Even though Peace Corps service was supposed to give us a temporary deferment, Bob Nyland had to be in Pittsburgh for a physical exam the day after we arrived; others left because the training wasn't what they expected, or the prospect of living alone on one of the forty-seven inhabited islands didn't agree with them. We were told that before we went to sleep we were to put tiny bowls of food at our feet so we could hear the rats before they found us. I loved it all. That is, all except for cauterizing the chickens' beaks so they couldn't peck each other.
And I loved the Tongan people, too. They were handsome, physically fit, and were able to adapt easily to life in Hawaii, which was probably not too different from life in Tonga. I learned to love rice. I ate spam. I went spear-fishing with one of the Tongan men, who caught a fish, broke it in half on the spot, and handed me half. I ate it. My first sushi. No wasabi.
There were two psychologists in the group, the Tongan men and women, and the returned PC volunteers. When I met with one of the psychologists she referred to me as a "Supervol", meaning that I was adapting well, had learned the language, and was well-liked by the Tongans.
Everyone but Dennis Barloga. Dennis was a returned Peace Corps volunteer, and he didn't like me. I didn't know that. I didn't spend much time talking to Dennis during training (nor the other returned volunteers), choosing instead to spend time with the trainees and the Tongans. But Dennis was watching me, watching, but not saying anything.
One of the the jobs of the returned volunteers, the Tongans, and the psychologists, was to weed out the people that they thought wouldn't be a good fit for Tonga. Each of them had "black ball" privileges, meaning that if any one of them decided that you must leave, then you must leave. By mid-January Dennis had had enough of me. He said, 'David, you're not going." It was the first time that Dennis had ever talked to me. He had never given any kind of warning. "David, you're leaving." No appeal. A plane reservation had already been made for me to fly from Molokai to Honolulu, then back to SF. I was surprised and devastated.
I turned to my best friend among the trainees, Jadyne. The night before my plane left we walked the dusty two-lane roads of Molokai. In the morning she rode with Jack, the head of the program, to the airport, and I said "goodbye" to both of them, boarded the plane, and tried to figure out what I was going to do next. I knew I would be 1-A, draft bait, and I knew that I would never serve in a military that was fighting an unjust war.
I returned home, applied for a passport, and thought to leave for Rome, where a friend was teaching English. Meanwhile, my thoughts turned back to Jadyne, and the support and friendship she gave me that one very unhappy night. I wished her well and invited her to return to the US and go with me to Rome. Short story. She did. We decided to marry. We prepared to go to Rome afterwards, but I was so in love with photography that I thought about trying to go to the Rhode Island School of Design, get an advanced degree, and make a living as an art photographer. That didn't work. We both got Master's degrees in Ohio where we taught for some years before returning to California.
Fast Forward five years. One day we strolled down Pier 39 near Fisherman's Wharf and found a touristy photo shop owned by Dennis Barloga. I didn't realize it in PC training, but Dennis was a photographer, too. Now he was selling San Francisco scenes from one of the most visited sites in one of the most visited cities in America. I recognized Dennis. He didn't see me.
Years went by. I was reluctant to tell people that I'd been "kicked out of the Peace Corps", and those who knew invariably responded, "How in the world can you get kicked out of the Peace Corps?" At some point I stopped being embarrassed. I was comfortable with myself, my life. I had enough good points to counter the bad. I recognized that David Buchholz wasn't defined by this one experience. I was at peace.
In 2000 Jason was living in Berkeley near a tony neighborhood called Rockridge a chi-chi kind of Carmel North. One of the stores, "Barloga et Fils", sold framed art photographs. Recognizing the name, Jason walked in and the bearded middle-aged owner said, "Can I help you?" Jason walked around the store, looking at the images, and returned to the man behind the counter. "Can I help you?" he repeated. "You already have," Jason said, walking out.