Search Results for “Mad Woman Part Six”

Mad Woman At The Peace Corps: Elizabeth Forsling Harris, Part Six

Apr 01 2010

In Come As You Are: The Peace Corps Story,Coates Redmon tells how Shriver came back from Hyannis Port that following Monday morning and charged into the Conference Room “waving the two memos” and declared, “I have talked to my wife, Eunice. I have talked to my sister-in-law, Ethel. And I have talked to General Maxwell Taylor. They all believe that married Peace Corps Volunteers should be able to have their babies overseas.” The Mad Men of the Senior Staff sat stunned and silent. The Medical Division stared at Sarge in disbelief. Betty Harris tried hard not to look smug. What had really transpired in the mythical Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port? Betty Harris would reach this conclusion: “What Sarge was revealing in all innocent candor was that the Kennedy family felt fully empowered to influence Peace Corps policy on matters of family. The Kennedy family would proclaim and decree at this level. Of course. . . .

Mad Men’s First Director of Recruitment, Bob Gale

Dec 22 2023

BOB GALE Bob Gale was six foot two, blue eyed, and owned a big personality. He was an academic coming to the Peace Corps from being the vice president for development at Carlton College in Northfield, Minnesota, and a Humphrey supporter. Gale had decided he wanted to go to Washington with the New Frontier and work for the Peace Corps and got in touch with Hubert Humphrey, who he knew, and a meeting was arranged with Bill Haddad (another early Mad Man) who was already working at the agency. William F. Haddad was the Associate Director for the Office of Planning and Evaluation. (At the age of 14 in post-Pearl Harbor, he had enlisted in the Army Air Corps pilot training program and advanced to cadet squadron commander before his true age was discovered.) Haddad (who went on to become a Congressman from New York State) had come to the Peace Corps from being . . .

Mad Men and Women of the New Peace Corps

Dec 12 2023

John writes — In this series that I published years ago and republishing for those who have come lately to the site, I will attempt, in short-hand fashion, to tell the history of the first years of the agency and the men and women who created the Peace Corps. The history begins In those early days of 1960s the agency was full of Mad Men (and a few Mad Women) who were living in a world-of-work atmosphere very much like the provocative TV AMC drama Mad Men, the program that followed a handful of ruthlessly competitive men and women in New York City who worked in advertising on Madison Avenue. They were living (in case you never saw the series) in an ego-driven world where “selling” was all that matters. That series, set in the early Sixties and has everything many of us grew up with: cigarette smoking, drinking, . . .

PCV Vanessa Paolella | Letter from Madagascar

Dec 10 2023

Sometimes, I imagine I know what it’s like to be Patrick Dempsey. Everyone stares at me when I go grocery shopping. Making small talk on the street inevitably draws a crowd. Strangers want to take photos of me. Girls giggle to each other when I say “hello,” or, too shy to approach, they instead point and call to me from yards away. The major difference in my comparison, as I’m sure you might guess, is that no one has graced me with the title of “Sexiest Man Alive.” Not yet, anyway. That, and my only claim to fame here in Madagascar is presumably being the lone white person for miles. I’m the first Peace Corps volunteer to live in this village and likely the first foreigner. Being able to hold a basic conversation in Malagasy only draws more attention. Foreigners rarely make the effort to learn Madagascar’s native language, . . .

Maui woman embarking on Peace Corps mission

Jun 11 2023

Melissa Tanji Staff Writer Wailuku resident and Seabury Hall graduate Renae “Bella” Lallo stands at El Cajas National Park in Ecuador. The 21-year-old is no stranger to visiting foreign countries and will soon embark on her Peace Corps mission in Panama later this month, making her among the first Peace Corps volunteers heading out for overseas service since the agency pulled many of its volunteers from the field at the start of the pandemic. While in college she stayed with a host family in Ecuador. — Photos courtesy Renae “Bella” Lallo For a 21-year-old, Wailuku resident Renae “Bella” Lallo has already seen more places than most would in a lifetime, traveling to Zambia and Iraq for medical missions, living with a host family in Ecuador and vacationing in countries such as Spain and Germany, to name a few.And, later this month, she will soon embark on another quest, perhaps more challenging . . .

“Looking for Albert Schweitzer in Lambarene, Gabon” by Eric Madeen (Gabon)

Apr 29 2022

On Mission By Eric Madeen (Gabon 1981-83) What follows is a reconstruction of memories, which can be likened to partially developed film … at times hazy, at others gaining clarity like images in a developing tray … of one’s mind. My mind. It was first being readied for what lay ahead by intensive French instruction for six weeks, followed by six more during work on rural school construction in Peace Corps/Gabon. With two years of Spanish at university as basecamp, French came easily; classes were named not by level, but by towns in Gabon. It didn’t take me long, however, to learn that mine, Ndende, was at a lower proficiency level. Recent graduates from Ivy League schools to esteemed public ones, we numbered approximately 60 trainees in the programs of TEFL, Fisheries, Agriculture and Construction. We were lodged in a student dormitory whose Turkish shitters went down one by . . .

Tony D’Souza (Ivory Coast, Madagascar) talks with Bill Owens (Jamaica)

Jun 17 2019

Talking with Bill Owens (Jamaica 1964–65) By Tony D’Souza (Ivory Coast 2000–02, Madagascar 2002–03) Bill Owens (Jamaica 1964-1965) took iconic photos of the Hells Angels beating concertgoers with pool cue sticks at the Rolling Stones’ performance during the Altamont Speedway Free Festival four months after Woodstock on December 6, 1969. Altamont, which included violence almost all day and one stabbing death, is considered by historians as the end of the Summer of Love and the overall 1960s youth ethos. This series of photos include panoramas of the massive, unruly crowd, Grace Slick and Carlos Santana on stage with the press of humanity so close in, they’re clearly performing under duress. Of that day, Owens has written: I got a call from a friend, she said the Associated Press wanted to hire me for a day to cover a rock and roll concert. I road my motorcycle to the . . .

Talking with Madeline Uraneck (Lesotho)

May 25 2018

Madeline Uraneck (Lesotho 2007-09) is an educator and writer who has visited sixty-four countries through her role as International Education Consultant for the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, several Peace Corps assignments, and her passion for world travel. Her writing has appeared in K–12 curriculum materials, educational handbooks on culture and policy, and publications including WorldView Magazine, Hotline, Global Education, WorldWise Schools, and Isthmus, for which she received a Milwaukee Press Club award. • Madeline, tell us a little about yourself. I’m an Okie, raised by liberal parents in oil country and America’s Bible Belt. My dad said I had to go to college out of state, so I ended up at Grinnell College in Iowa, then University of Wisconsin in Madison, both bastions of the Midwest, to study Psychology then Education. I’ve been in and out of Wisconsin for 50 years now, from the campus demonstrations of the late 60s . . .

Sixth Prize Peace Corps Fund Award: Discovering Bhagawan by Sara Wagner (Nepal)

Jul 31 2017

Sara Wagner (Nepal 1996-98) left the United States for the first time on the cusp of her 24th birthday, to become a Community Health Volunteer Coordinator with the Peace Corps. Upon returning Stateside, she delved into public health on the country’s largest tribal nation, with the Navajo Area Indian Health Service. She has lived in Northern Arizona for the past 18 years yet still feels an affinity for distant Himals rising in the north, foothills and river valleys cascading down from every direction, flowing to India, to everywhere – for taking a step back in time, as if into a storybook, to a simpler time and place, awakened her heart. While it sometimes feels like this experience never happened, something, or someone, always comes along to remind her that she did not imagine it, that these people who embody love are real. Discovering Bhagawan By Sara Wagner A magnificent sunset engulfed . . .

Sixth Prize Peace Corps Fund Award: “Hyena Man” by Jeanne D’Haem (Somalia)

Jul 28 2017

Jeanne D’Haem, Ph.D. (Somalia 1968-70) is currently an associate professor of Special Education and Counselling at William Paterson University in New Jersey. She was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Somalia. She served as an English and math teacher in Arabsiyo and Hargeisa, and taught adult education classes and sponsored the first Girl Guide troop in Hargeisa. Jeanne was a director of special services and a special education teacher for over thirty years. As a writer, she has published two prize-winning books and numerous journal articles. The Last Camel, (1997) published by The Red Sea Press won the Peace Corps Paul Cowan Peace Corps Writers Award for nonfiction. Desert Dawn with Waris Dirie (2001) has been translated into more than twenty languages. It was on the best seller list in Germany for over a year where it was awarded the Corine Prize for nonfiction. Her most recent book is Inclusion: The Dream . . .

#26 Mad Men At The Peace Corps: Sally Bowles (Washington, D.C.)

Nov 25 2016

The most famous recruitment trip of them all was in early October 1963. It was the one that gave rise to the term, Blitz Recruiting. Gale put together five advance teams and five follow-up teams. Each team spent a week in southern California and then a week in northern California, visiting every major campus in both areas. Coates Redmon sums up the ‘teams’ in her book. “One advance team consisting of Nan McEvoy, then deputy director of the Africa Regional Office, and Frank Erwin, then deputy director of Selection, were assigned first to Los Angeles Sate University (where there was only modest interest in the Peace Corps) and next to San Francisco State University (where there was considerable interests). Bob Gale, Linda Lyle (his secretary) and Doug Kiker took on the University of Southern California in the south and then the University of California at Berkeley in the north. Gale had friends at both.” . . .

Review of Jackie Zollo Brooks (Madagascar 1997-99)The Ravenala

Nov 11 2013

The Ravenala by Jackie Zollo Brooks (Madagascar 1997-99) A Peace Corps Writers Book $16.00 (paperback) 286 pages 2013 Review by Leita Kaldi Davis (Senegal 1993-96) The Ravenala is a palm tree found in Madagascar, whose fanning branches point east and west, so it is also called the “travelers’ tree.” It serves as a metaphor for the novel, especially its main character, Vivian, who seeks direction and freedom as a Peace Corps Volunteer in her early sixties. The Malagasy people who are her English students, and those who work for her domestically teach her lessons in humility, goodness and courage. When her gas stove blows up in the face of Merlah, her warrior guard, she takes care of him, treating his burns, and realizes how deeply she cares about him, his family and the brave island people. Vivian walks past prisoners of a crumbling fort who are free to go have . . .

My Menorca, Part One

Jul 16 2012

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. The Go-Between L. P. Hartley Pity this busy monster, manunkind, Not. Progress is a comfortable disease: e.e. cummings In the fall of ’67 I arrived on the tiny island of Menorca, the most easterly of the Balearic Islands. I arrived from the highlands of Ethiopia after finishing up two-years as an APCD. I arrived on a DC-3 in the last year before the island’s new airport opened for jets and package tours from England, Germany and the Low Countries. I arrived in Menorca before the way of life on that tiny island changed forever. It was a golden time and I thought it might last forever, this quiet eye in the hurricane rush of summer tourism to the Mediterranean. I remember how on the first evening in Mahon I walked from my hotel through the tight, winding streets of . . .

Mad Man # 8

Jul 20 2010

“What do you mean, Sarge?” Bob Gale asked, alone in the conference room with Shriver. “The school year is over. It’s the end of April. The students spend May studying for finals. It’s a tense time on campus. I don’t think we should impose ourselves. We hit Wisconsin at a perfect time. But there won’t be another perfect time until next fall.” Shriver wasn’t having any of that. “What’s the nearest equivalent of a school like Wisconsin?” Shriver wanted to know, disregarding Gale’s protests. “We need a big, liberal-learning place where you have contacts?” Shriver was on one side of the long conference table, leaning back in his chair, asking questions. Gale was on the other side, keeping his distance, pacing back and forth. A moving target was harder to hit, he kept thinking. “Michigan,” Gale finally answered, sighing. He had to say something. There was no turning back. Haddad had abandoned . . .

Review | THE LAST BIRD OF PARADISE by Clifford Garstang (Korea)

Feb 22 2024

The Last Bird of Paradise by Clifford Garstang (Korea 1976-77) Black Rose Writing 340 pages February 2024 $6.99 (Kindle) $23.95 (paperback) Reviewed by Bill Preston (Thailand 1977-80) • • • Reading the Author’s Note following this remarkable novel, I was struck by several ways Clifford Garstang’s experience has resembled mine. He first visited Singapore, the setting of the novel, in 1978, “as a young backpacker, touring Asia after spending two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in South Korea.” I also traveled to Singapore in 1978–from Thailand, between Peace Corps teaching assignments. I too was fascinated by the emerging city-state, an oasis of calm and order compared to bustling, chaotic Bangkok or Jakarta. Six years later, he returned to Singapore, first as an associate and later as a partner of a U.S. law firm. Some years prior to Peace Corps, while working with Legal Aid attorneys as a VISTA volunteer, I . . .

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