Archive - May 2014

1
The Posthumous Book of Margery Michelmore Heffron (Nigeria 1961)
2
Remembering Innocents Abroad
3
Americans Grow Weary of World Stage: Where Does That Leave The Peace Corps?
4
The Peace Corps' World Malaria Day

The Posthumous Book of Margery Michelmore Heffron (Nigeria 1961)

Thanks to a ‘heads up’ from Murray Frank (CD Nigeria 1961-63  & HQ 1963-65) I read this morning the glowing Sunday New York Times review of Margery Michelmore Heffron’s (Nigeria 1961) book Louise Catherine: The Other Mrs. Adams published by Yale University Press. As the reviewer, Virginia DeJohn Anderson, noted, “Heffron, an independent scholar, succumbed to cancer before finishing a project that engaged her imagination for more than 30 years. Readers will nonetheless be grateful for this fascinating, if partial, portrait of an exceptional woman, and regret that its talented author fell silent too soon.” On December 15, 2011, on this site, I published a blog item using the title, “In Some Ways, She is the most famous RPCV of us all.” In it, I summed up Margery early Peace Corps career: As Michelmore, Margery went to Nigeria in 1961 with the first group of PCVs, in the first year of . . .

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Remembering Innocents Abroad

[As perhaps a companion piece to my blog item on the shift in America towards involvement in the world, I’d like to re-post a brilliant book review of Innocents Abroad: Teacheres in the American Century by David Espey (Morocco 1962-64) who teaches in the English Department at the University of Pennsylvania. Dave has also been a Fulbright Lecturer in Morocco, Turkey, and Japan. The book review was brought to my attention by an email I received from Dick Joyce (Philippines 1962-64) who commented on reading Zimmerman’s book, “I’m prompted to write because I finally got around to reading Innocents Abroad and I really enjoyed it. It is great to see how things one observed and sometimes participated in on a small scale were parts of larger historic trends. I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t have known of the book if  you hadn’t recommended it on one of your websites several . . .

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Americans Grow Weary of World Stage: Where Does That Leave The Peace Corps?

Americans want to disengage from the world is the word from a new poll done by the Wall Street Journal and NBC News. Half of those surveyed want the US to be less active on the global stage. The poll also shows that approval for Obama’s handling of foreign policy sank to the lowest level of his president, with 38% approving. Well, what does that mean to the Peace Corps? Well, it means a lot. The first question we all hear: Is there still a Peace Corps? The second question: Are Volunteer women still being raped and murdered overseas? The third question: Why do we still have a Peace Corps? The tide is against Americans who thinks he or she can change the world. Of course, we all know that we can’t change the world. In fact, all we can do it change conditions at little bit in two years. . . .

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The Peace Corps' World Malaria Day

[World Malaria Day happened last Friday on April 25 and the Peace Corps is part of the effort to end the disease which kills an estimated 627,000 people every year, mainly children under 5 years of age. Matt McLaughlin (Senegal 2006-10) is the Program Manager for Stomping Out Malaria in the  Peace Corps’ Africa-wide malaria prevention program. As a PCV, Matt spent 4 years in southeastern Senegal developing a universal bed net distribution protocol which became the standard protocol for bed net distribution in the country. Prior to coming to Peace Corps, Matt worked as the Staff Development Director for the Greater Manchester Family YMCA. In an email to me he outlined what the agency did on ‘World Malaria Day.’] “We have three main activities this year for World Malaria Day: 1)      World Malaria Month Competition/Blog About Malaria Month We sponsored a competition between countries in the Africa Region to see . . .

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