Archive - December 22, 2011

[Thanks to Amber Davis Collins  ( Honduras 2002-04)  who forwarded me an email note that is circulating in the Honduras RPCV community. This is from Maggie McQuaid (Honduras 1976-78) who was trying to organize a reunion of Honduras  RPCVs.]  Several months I asked you all if you’d be interested in a reunion in Honduras in 2012, and I was overwhelmed with your responses.  It’s no surprise that we still love the place and dream of returning.  This makes it hard to do what I’m going to do next, which is announce that going further with any plans seems to be a very bad idea right now. As many of you are aware, Honduras now bears the terrible distinction of having the highest per-capita murder rate in the world.  In recent weeks,  a former Honduran government drug czar and a journalist for La Prensa were murdered in Tegucigalpa.  Since the beginning of December, a volunteer with . . .

You might have heard the news yesterday how the agency is pulling out of Honduras, and stopping Volunteers going to Guatemala and El Salvador all because of increasing drug and organized-crime violence. At the same time we are back in Colombia! The PCV in Honduras –158–with be leaving the country in January. Aaron Williams says, “We are going to conduct a full review of the program.” In Guatemala and El Salvador, the Peace Corps is keeping the 335 PCV in country but not sending in 78 more Volunteers. The new spokeswoman for the Peace Corps, Kristina Edmunson,  says that the decision came about because of “comprehensive safety and security concerns.” Now, Peace Corps blogs has been reporting that a PCV had been shot in an armed robbery. That I had not heard about, but it is being reported in the New York Times today, Thursday, December 22, 2011. They got . . .