Tribute to Frank Ballance, II - Jim Blair

Today I visited the first officer of TEAA: Reunion Planner Frank Ballance, who brought off the gathering we now call DC01, an event remarkable for having taken place at all, coming as it did nine days after 9/11, 2001. There we were, 130 strong despite chaos in the airlines and there was Frank, rising to the occasion with an eloquent introduction (click for audio). There too were two ambassadors (see their photo below, with Frank), a first and fabulous memorabilia room and more.

Four years later when Brooks Goddard so ably organized for us another great event, Dar-05, it was Frank who got Tanzania's President Mkapa, his old Makerere buddy, to address us. The next morning there we all were in the Dar newspapers, in English, in Swahili, even in photos - our Warholian fifteen minutes.

Today's little reunion was not the triumph that these earlier events had been. Frank has succumbed to a stage of life one cannot but dread; he is now diagnosed with 6th-stage Alzheimer's (click for definition), which has made him a round-the-clock responsibility, one bravely assumed by his companion and law partner Sopon Geramethakul.

The old Frank is largely gone but when there was talk of eating, out popped "Chakula!" and though I could not elicit any other Swahili, he still has a bit of German - me: Habari? him: Wunderbar.

His grip is strong, but his language is muttered and mostly off-point. Still when I mentioned TEA, he said "Teachers for East Africa" and said we were wonderful people, though with little affect. There was little or no response to talk of the old days in Africa, and none to my mention of the stories written by his students that I know he was saving for a book of then-and-now stories. Sadly too he could not react to prompting about his role in the marvelous DC01.

So here's to Frank and the things he did for us. Raise a glass for him sometime soon.

Frank with the ambassadors, 2001: