Search Results For -Mad Woman Part two

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Mad Woman At The Peace Corps: Elizabeth Forsling Harris, Part Two
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Robin Seyfert (South Africa, Zambia) | “Handmade Hope”
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The Peace Corps On Day One: Women And The Mad Men At HQ
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Women Were (For the Most Part) Not Part of the “Mad Men” in the Early Peace Corps
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Mad Men’s First Director of Recruitment, Bob Gale
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# 2 More Mad Men of the Peace Corps
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Mad Men and Women of the New Peace Corps
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PCV Vanessa Paolella | Letter from Madagascar
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Peace Corps staff member made $258,000 after killing a woman
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Maui woman embarking on Peace Corps mission
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Two Peace Corps Legends: Moritz Thomsen and Patricia Wand
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Former Steamboat Woman among first Peace Corps Volunteers to return Overseas
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“Looking for Albert Schweitzer in Lambarene, Gabon” by Eric Madeen (Gabon)
14
Peace Corps APCD killed a woman in Africa. The U.S. helped him escape prosecution.
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Talking With Eric Madeen (Gabon)

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

Why didn’t Betty Harris become the head of the first Women’s Division in the Peace Corps? What Betty found out later was that Paul Geren, Sarge’s first and short-lived Deputy Director, killed the idea of her being in charge of women Volunteers. “I knew Paul from Dallas,” Betty recalled in Coates Redmon’s  book. “Sarge told Geren that he was thinking of bringing me up from Texas to deal with women’s issues and Geren replied–or so the story went–‘That’s like putting Marilyn Monroe in charge of the Boy Scouts!’ Apparently, Paul thought I was too wild for his type of southern Baptist upbringing, and his objection had short-circuited my appointment. But I thought the comparison to Marilyn Monroe was the best compliment I’d ever had.” When Betty did arrive in D.C. she was given a desk and told to read up on early Peace Corps documents until some job was found for . . .

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Robin Seyfert (South Africa, Zambia) | “Handmade Hope”

In the news — By Christine Spicer .Viewpoint, PLNU  ­RPCV Robin Seyfert  knows beauty can be found in people and places that are overlooked or even steeped in darkness. As the founder and managing director of Basha Enterprises Ltd., she sees women who have been trafficked or who are vulnerable to exploitation find hope and healing through dignified work in a safe environment. Basha Boutique sells jewelry, kantha blankets, accessories, and Christmas items, all handmade by women who are rebuilding their lives. The kantha is a profound symbol of Basha Boutique’s work and mission. “A kantha is a quilt made of old saris stitched into straight, even rows,” Seyfert explained. “They are all sewn freehand. We take old discarded saris and stitch them into a blanket that is really beautiful. As each artisan transforms the worn cloth, she is also rebuilding her life.” ‘Basha’ means house in Bengali, and ‘asha’ means . . .

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The Peace Corps On Day One: Women And The Mad Men At HQ

Arriving for work on or before March 1, 1961, the day President Kennedy signed the executive order establishing the Peace Corps, were a few women who were early “volunteer staffers” and who would become famous in those first years of the agency. The majority of these women were well connected by family or friends to Shriver and eager to work at the Peace Corps, the shining star of Kennedy’s administration. The Peace Corps was the ‘hot’ agency and everyone, of course, wanted to be connected to Kennedy–if they couldn’t be in the White House–they wanted to be with Shriver and the Peace Corps. The women at the time were mostly ‘second class’ citizens in the world-of-work. They were not, for example, sitting at the ‘big conference table” at Senior Staff meetings. Looking at old black-and-photos of Peace Corps HQ meetings, you might see that Elizabeth (Betty) Forsling Harris had wedged herself into . . .

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Women Were (For the Most Part) Not Part of the “Mad Men” in the Early Peace Corps

In the third year of the Peace Corps–1963–a booklet was published by the agency entitled “Who’s Who in the Peace Corps Washington.” Here is one photo of the early Staff Meetings with Shriver at the head of the table.       A list of the top 40 employees are profiled in this booklet. Only three profiles, however, were of women: Alice Gilbert (Director of the Division of United Nations and International Agency Programs); Ruth Olson (Special Assistant to the Chief of the Division of Volunteer Field Support); Dorothy Mead Jacobsen (Chief of the Division of Personnel). There was also a list of “Charter Members” of the agency. They have a photo and a paragraph. A total of 21 employees were profiled. Of them 7 were women: Jean Hundley, a secretary; Nan Tucker McEvoy, Deputy Director of Africa Programs; Sally Bowles, daughter of Ambassador Chester Bowles; Helen Farrall, receptionist; Gloria Gaston, African Region; Nancy Gore, . . .

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Mad Men’s First Director of Recruitment, Bob Gale

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 . . .

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# 2 More Mad Men of the Peace Corps

John writes —   If you ever had watched the TV show Mad Men you know all about the office atmosphere and the thick layer of smoke that filled the offices. It was no better in the Peace Corps during those early years of the 1960s. Flipping through pages of old Peace Corps publications, I see half a dozen people who I knew, all with cigarettes in their hands. Al Meisel in the Training Division; Charlie Peters, head of Evaluation; Jim Gibson, head of Agricultural Affairs. He liked cigars and smoked them in the building! The wonderful Jules Pagano. Other heavy smokers: Howard Greenberg in Management; Jack Vaughn, the second director; Frank Mankiewicz; evaluator Dick Elwell, (as I recall, everyone in evaluation smoked and drank and wrote great prose). Doug Kiker and his crew in Public Affairs knew how to light up. And so did Betty Harris. When the Mad . . .

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Mad Men and Women of the New Peace Corps

 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, . . .

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PCV Vanessa Paolella | Letter from Madagascar

  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, . . .

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Peace Corps staff member made $258,000 after killing a woman

July 14, 2023 Sweeping Peace Corps legislation headed to the U.S. Senate includes a provision allowing the agency’s director to suspend without pay any employee who engages in serious misconduct. The proposal follows a USA TODAY investigation that exposed for the first time a leading Peace Corps official who remained on the payroll for 18 months after he went on a reckless drunk driving spree that left a Tanzanian mother dead. That case was one of several troubling instances behind the provision in the new bill, which was approved by the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week, according to Rep. John Garamendi (Ethiopia 1965-67), D-Calif. who introduced the bill in the House. “We noted that the director did not have sufficient administrative authority to deal with profoundly disturbing problems,” said Garamendi, a former Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia. John Peterson, now 68, received more than $250,000 in salary and . . .

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Maui woman embarking on Peace Corps mission

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 . . .

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Two Peace Corps Legends: Moritz Thomsen and Patricia Wand

Patricia Wand (Colombia 1963-65) wrote this article for our site in May 1997. Finding Moritz Thomsen (Ecuador) “THE MESSAGE FROM ECUADOR TODAY IS: NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED.” So wrote Moritz Thomsen on June 29, 1990, and what he meant was that he was angry at me. He was angry because I nominated him for the Sargent Shriver Award; because I suggested his traveling to the U.S. when I knew of his frail health; and because I described his living conditions in my letter of nomination. But this all happened after I got to know him a bit. Let’s start much earlier than that; when I read his first book. Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle spoke to me and for me. Moritz Thomsen captured the essence of Latin American village culture as I too knew it. I saw in his village the same people, the same breadth of character, the same . . .

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Former Steamboat Woman among first Peace Corps Volunteers to return Overseas

Thanks for the “heads up” from Marnie Mueller (Ecuador 1963-65)   by Spencer Powell from the Steamboat Pilot   Former Steamboat Springs resident Avalena Everard appreciates growing up in a small community, but she isn’t ready to return home yet as she embarked for Uganda as part of the Peace Corps on Friday, July 29, 2022.   In March 2020, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Peace Corps suspended global operations and removed nearly 7,000 of its volunteers in an evacuation that was unprecedented for the organization. On Friday, July 29, former Steamboat Springs resident Avalena Everard became one of the first Peace Corps volunteers to return to service overseas. Her flight departed from Seattle at 8 a.m. “I think I’d be insane not to be slightly nervous,” Everard said. “Because with Peace Corps, you’re not guaranteed running water or electricity — definitely not WiFi, cell service.” She’ll . . .

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

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 . . .

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Peace Corps APCD killed a woman in Africa. The U.S. helped him escape prosecution.

by Tricia L. Nadolny, Donovan Slack, Nick Penzenstadler and Kizito Makoye Published in USA TODAY – 12/21/21 DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania — An American Peace Corps employee in Tanzania in 2019 killed a mother of three and injured two others in a series of car crashes that began after he left a bar where he had been drinking and brought a sex worker back to his government-leased home. Witnesses pelted the man’s car with rocks and pursued on motorcycles as he fled the scenes of his crimes. The chaotic and deadly episode ended when he slammed into a pole and was detained by police. But within hours, Peace Corps and U.S. Embassy staff rushed the man onto a plane and out of the country. Tanzanian authorities were unable to charge him first, and the U.S. Department of Justice later declined to file criminal charges because of a lack of jurisdiction. The man . . .

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Talking With Eric Madeen (Gabon)

  Eric Madeen (Gabon 1981-83) is an associate professor of modern literature at Tokyo City University and an adjunct professor at Keio University. He has been published widely – in Time, Asia Week, The East, The Daily Yomiuri, Tokyo Journal, Kyoto Journal, Metropolis, Mississippi Review, ANA’s inflight magazine Wingspan, Japanophile, The Pretentious Idea, several academic journals and so on. His most recent novel Massage World is a  high-octane thriller. Note: John Coyne    Eric where are you from in the States? I’m from Elgin, Illinois, which is a suburb of Chicago. I earned my BA in Journalism from the University of Arizona and MFA in Creative Writing and Literature from San Diego State University. Why did you join the Peace Corps? I joined the Peace Corps for several reasons, foremost I wanted to see the world, get down and dirty in the outback of the “third world,” specifically Africa since . . .

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