I have prepared a starter’ list of ’significant events’ and ‘general topics’ that could be included.  The list is far from complete, especially since my knowledge of the past thirty years is pretty skimpy.  I’m asking for everyone’s help in coming up with a definitive list of subjects.

 The list would include both specific happenings (of all kinds) that affected the Peace Corps in a meaningful way, and also, in a separate list, subjects that don’t have a specific beginning or end, but are important to understanding the organization. 

 Read through the list below, which includes both types.  Then, using your own experience and knowledge of the Peace Corps, make additions, comments, whatever.  For example, I show in 1974 that Peace Corps began to exit countries (I recall we did leave someplace that year) but we need more specifics on this topic. 

 I will do my best to keep up with the flow and regularly post a revised list until the end has been reached.  (If anyone has a good idea of how to manage the logistics of all this let me know.)

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS IN PEACE CORPS HISTORY

1960-69

Peace Corps is conceived on a chilly night in Michigan (1960)

Peace Corps Executive Order proclaimed (1961)

The Peace Corps Act is passed (1961)

First PCVs go abroad (1961)

PC/W created and staffed (1961-63)

The Nigeria Letter Incident (196?)

Sargent Shriver leaves the Peace Corps (1966)

PCVs in the field reach 15,000 (19??)

Joseph Blatchford becomes Peace Corps Director (1969)

1970-79

‘New Directions’ becomes Peace Corps policy (1970)

Older men and women actively recruited as volunteers (1970-onward)

Peace Corps training moved to in-country (1970)

Peace Corps subsumed into ACTION (1971-72)

Families with children permitted to serve as PCVs (1971- ?)

Congressman Otto Passman tries to destroy the Peace Corps (1972)

Mike Balzano becomes ACTION Director; PC/W turmoil ensues (1973-76)

Peace Corps exits countries as they prosper, or become dangerous (1974-onward)

Peace Corps achieves limited independence within ACTION (1979)

 1980-89

RPCV’s become a ‘voice’ in the public arena (1980-onward)  

Loret Ruppe serves as Peace Corps Director for eight years (1981-89)

Peace Corps achieves independence from ACTION (1983?)

Peace Corps enters former Soviet Bloc countries (19??)

 1990-99

Peace Corps enters the fight against AIDS (19??)

Presidents promise but never deliver (1990 onwards)

First RPCV (Carol Bellamy) becomes Peace Corps Director (1993)

2000-2010

Peace Corps enters China (19??)

The Peace Corps reaches out to the Islamic world (2001 onward)

 GENERAL TOPICS DESERVING ATTENTION

Changes in PCV life styles over 50 years

Deaths, Kidnapping & Disappearances

Working relationships with USAID, NGO’s, and other organizations

Volunteer & staff relationships

Overseas posts & PC/W relationships

Partisan politics and the Peace Corps

The making of a successful Peace Corps Volunteer

 AND A FINAL TOPIC

Has it all been worthwhile?

 ACTION was designed early in Nixon’s first term to bring under one umbrella all of the federally funded volunteer programs then spread out through several federal departments, or standing on their own as independent government agencies like the Peace Corps.  ACTION was to be a showcase that would demonstrate the administration’s ability to streamline government, reduce overhead, and achieve synergies by linking ‘like’ organizations.  My guess is that the existing volunteer programs were selected for the first of several planned reorganizations because the stakes would not be very high, and in a worst case scenario nothing important would have been lost should the scheme not work out. 

 When I arrived for interviews in April 1971 Joe Blatchford, then Peace Corps Director, was so busy ‘creating’ ACTION that I only got to shake his hand in the hallway. There was a tremendous amount of energy devoted to this reorganization task since it required congressional approval, the passage of appropriate legislation, and salving the egos of all those big wigs about to lose cherished titles.  (Who would willingly accept the title ‘Associate Director, International Operations, ACTION’ in place of ‘Director, Peace Corps’?)  In the end, with widespread support from many sources, Peace Corps, VISTA, SCORE (the Service Corps of Retired Executives), ACE (the Active Corps of Executives), Foster Grandparents, and RSVP (Retired Senior Volunteer Program) became one under the ACTION umbrella.

 The disastrous results of the marriage are best demonstrated by the overwhelming sense of relief that was present when it finally ended in 1981.  People like Richard Celeste, John Dellenback, Loret Ruppe (and others with influence in the Congress and two separate administrations) had labored long and hard to regain independence for the Peace Corps.  And eventually they achieved it.  But the question remains:  Why had this seemingly good idea been so awful?

 In my mind there are two parts to the answer.  The first - and this is just possibly a bum rap - is the refusal of the Peace Corps to accept guidance from anyone.  The Peace Corps as an institution has always had a highly elevated opinion of itself.  The purity of its mission, methods and participants has been for many of us a self-evident truth.  Just ask any USAID field officer working alongside the Peace Corps and having to endure repeated snide remarks about the soft life they led in contrast to the rigors and nobility of Peace Corps life.

  When the ACTION folks, many of whom had never owned a passport, tried to put their stamp on the Peace Corps they were often simply ignored.  When that happened, ACTION responded with an even more assertive attempt to get control, and began to point out areas in which it considered Peace Corps to be deficient.  Peace Corps bashing is a favorite sport within the agency, but woe to anyone from the outside who tries to do the same.  The result was predictable:  constant bickering at all levels and a case of revolving doors at the helm.  During my five years, there were five Peace Corps directors and one acting director, although they were all encouraged by ACTION officials to use that title only outside the United States. 

 The turmoil continued during the Carter administration and the struggle between ACTION Director Sam Brown and Peace Corps Director Carolyn Payton is the stuff of legend.  Once again egos were involved, but there were also matters of substance and that leads to the second reason the marriage failed.    

 ACTION was organized around the principlef ‘volunteerism.’  The one common thread among all of the constituent parts was that each relied on volunteers to do its work.  It was assumed that this thread was sufficiently strong to achieve the benefits of consolidation that ACTION promised.  Unfortunately, the benefits were more apparent than real.  There were such major differences in the respective missions of the component parts that they eclipsed any possible merit from a consolidation.  Nowhere was this more so than in ACTION’s two largest units:  the Peace Corps and VISTA.  

The Peace Corps in the field does two things:  it provides social and economic development assistance to host countries, and creates mutual understanding and friendships between Americans and the people of the host-country.  When the work of the Peace Corps is successful, the entire community benefits from the results.  The poor in the Third World are not neglected, downtrodden, or despised; they are the vast majority.  These people often have vibrant cultures, significant levels of happiness, and admirable value systems despite their relative lack of material possessions.  The Peace Corps works in close consultation with existing institutions to set and achieve goals.  The existence of an ‘us versus them’ climate is carefully avoided.  Cooperation is emphasized; not confrontation.  Throw in differences in language, weather, health concerns, and an absence of familiar support structures and one finds the Peace Corps facing a unique challenge.    

 VISTA, on the other hand, was devoted to anti-poverty work in the United States, work done primarily among minority populations (minority in the sense of numbers, not necessarily in terms of race, gender, or ethnicity).  These segments of the American population live in a land of plenty, but don’t participate in it.  They face barriers, often invisible ones, that sentence generation after generation to the same fate.  Existing power structures are their enemy, not the ones with whom they work closely.  The poor of the VISTA world are indeed neglected, downtrodden, and despised.  A sociologist with whom I once studied tried to explain the differences she saw between ordinary Malaysians and the poor of Appalachia.  Neither had much in the way of material goods or access to adequate social services yet the Malaysians had much joy in their lives while the poor of Appalachia did not.  She explained that social, familial, and cultural factors are often more important that material ones; to have limited material goods in Malaysia is very different from being poor in America. 

 There are vast differences in the way one goes about addressing the differing needs of the Third World and the poor in America.  And, these differences showed in the way Peace Corps and VISTA went about their respective businesses.  It was not a question of one being the more important, or the more difficult, or even the more worthy; they were just different.   During the seventies days and weeks could go by without meaningful contact between Peace Corps and VISTA.  When Sam Brown tried to force his anti-poverty agenda and methodologies on the Peace Corps all hell broke loose, in the end costing Carolyn Payton her job as Peace Corps Director. 

 The challenges each organization faced were so very different that it never really entered anyone’s mind that the other had a helpful solution.  In hindsight it is astonishing that ACTION management failed to see that such a state of affairs indicated something was seriously amiss with its own organizing principle. It wasn’t until 1981 that the divorce finally came through.  Remarkably, ACTION continued on as a government agency until 1993 when it was submerged into another federal agency.   

 In summary, the forced marriage between Peace Corps and ACTION was destined to fail partly because of Peace Corps’ own rather exclusionary underpinnings, but more so because Peace Corps had very little in common with the domestic side of ACTION.  There is something unique about the Peace Corps, and it doesn’t mix well with others.  Let’s keep it that way.

The new USAID Administrator, Rajiv Shah, comes to his new position from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation where he was involved in some of the organization’s important international development efforts.  I take this previous experience as a strong endorsement of his abilities, and of his potential for reenergizing this critical arm of America’s foreign aid apparatus.  Apparently the lure of retirement has severely reduced the number of experienced staff at USAID.  The constant Congressional bickering over budgets has tended - as Peace Corps supporters will recognize - to demoralize the staff that remains, and the process of economic and social development remains as mysterious as it always has been.  Shah certainly has a big job ahead of him, which he recognizes, and I wish him well in what on my more pessimistic days, I judge to be just possibly ‘mission impossible.’

It wasn’t always that way.  During the 1970s those of us who were optimists were sure we knew what needed to be done to solve the development problems of the Third and Fourth Worlds.  We had all sorts of respected academics and internationalists describing the ‘take-off’ point that existed just around the corner for these countries if we could only get a few things right.  First would be the creation of conditions in which the countries could become self-sufficient in terms of food production.  This would then free up people and resources for infrastructure development, entrepreneurial activity, and social and cultural enhancements.  Once the ball got rolling development was assured, so the theorists theorized.

 And somewhat surprisingly (surprisingly when looking back from today’s perspective) real development occurred in a number of countries.  Remember, Malaysia, Korea, India, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Iran, and others all were considered Third World countries fifty years ago, and large in-country Peace Corps contingents were justified for decades.  No more.  These countries more than stand on their own these days and, in fact, give American competitors a run for their money on numerous fronts. 

 But what about all the other Third and Fourth World countries?  Those we placed in the same category as Malaysia, Thailand, et al, fifty years ago?  Why haven’t they progressed?

When I left the Philippines for PC/W in 1974 I had no doubt that the Philippines was on its way to success.  USAID and PC/P had just been jointly awarded the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources’ Golden Harvest Award for their contributions to Philippine agriculture.  Progress was evident across the entire agricultural sector (or so we thought) and self-congratulations abounded.

It wasn’t until 1995 that I got my ‘reality check.’  While roaming the shortwave frequencies early one morning I heard then Philippine President Fidel Ramos address the Australian parliament while on a visit to his neighbor to the south.  In it he lamented the sorry state of his country’s development and pledged to make dramatic improvements.  His first priority was food production self-sufficiency.  Talk about ‘deja vu all over again!’  More than twenty years had passed and the first step remained to be taken.

The Philippines is just one example - and certainly not the worst - among all of those yet-to-be-developed countries around the world.  There are countries in Central America, South America, southern Asia, and Africa where conditions are every bit as bad as they were fifty years ago despite the large amounts of resources deployed and the heartfelt contributions of development experts of all stripes, many of whom are RPCVs.  What piece of magic is missing?  What else can the developed world do to ensure progress this time?

During John Dellenback’s directorship (1975-77) I was assigned the task of devising a ‘formula’ that would allow the Peace Corps to decide which host countries should receive priority access to Peace Corps resources, especially should - as appeared likely - the agency’s budget take a big hit.  The memorandum I produced has long since disappeared (unless Josie discovered it in her recent trip to PC/W) but I recall one lasting impression from the exercise.  No matter how many variables went into the formula, no matter how complex the statistical calculation, no matter what part of the world was under consideration one piece of data said it all:  infant mortality.  Where infant mortality was high, development was low; where infant mortality was high, and getting higher, the situation was desperate.

Could it be that targeting infant mortality as priority number one in development work is the answer, or at least an important part of the answer?  Doing so would obviously be multitasking at its most extreme because the causes of infant mortality are many and varied.  But targeting that statistic could, as they say, ‘wonderfully concentrate the mind.’  It would require donors to come to grips with population issues, women’s rights, family planning, rural outreach, affordable medical care, and a host of others key elements in any successful program.  Some of these issues - family planning and women’s rights come to mind - are likely to create emotional responses that are hardly constructive at home or abroad.  (I remember how shocked the participants were during a rehearsal for an upcoming Congressional session when I corrected the ACTION director’s “absolutely not” response on the question of Peace Corps involvement in family planning by saying “We did it in the Philippines.”)

Whatever the answer is - and Rajiv Shah has shown good sense by not offering one early in his tenure - it’s high time we got it right.  Tucked away in Peace Corps’ five decades of experience may well be the missing link.  Let’s hope someone over there is working on it.

 Unfortunately, there is no foolproof way of answering the question.  As my friend Joey has often pointed out on this site, the Peace Corps has done a dreadful job of evaluating itself as an institution, as well as the work of its tens of thousands of volunteers.  Still, we can make some educated guesses based on a few hard facts and, of more importance, on anecdotal evidence from the past half century.  (Remember, just because it is anecdotal does not mean it is worthless.)  Several years ago I made an effort to do such an assessment and concluded - wearing my rose-colored glasses, some will say - that indeed the effort has been worthwhile, and the country can take comfort in knowing that its money, time, and talent have been well spent.

The greatest differences the Peace Corps experience has made are in the lives of those who participated in it and, by extension, in the life of the country to which they returned.  Virtually all volunteers (92% in an early survey) said that the Peace Corps influence on their lives has been profound.  Their concept of the world and their place in it has been changed permanently for the better.  Whatever level of provincialism they began with has been replaced by recognition that we are all in this together.  

What makes this so important for the United States - rather than just for the individuals involved - is the combined impact returned volunteers have had on the collective character of American society.  The important role former volunteers play in international affairs is well known.  USAID, the State Department, almost all NGOs, and many international philanthropic organizations - all have former Peace Corps folks on their staffs.  In 1986 the head of USAID said, “Five hundred former volunteers, me included, are on our roster.”  In 1990 the heads of all the American agencies in Nepal were former volunteers.  Two months ago in one of my blog contributions I highlighted two wonderful organizations currently ‘making a difference.’  Both were founded and are now led by former volunteers.  Surely, this situation continues. 

Beyond the international arena one can see the influence of former volunteers throughout society.  Former volunteers are serving in the Senate and House; many others are on congressional staffs; still more are in local and state governments.  Others are in every conceivable walk of life and they are often central to the lives of their communities.  Can there be even one school system in the entire country that has no former volunteer teachers, staff, and administrators?  What little research we have suggests that these folks not only are contributing members of society, but they also bring the wider world to their home places, places that otherwise might never give a thought to what lies beyond the border.  America is different - better I would say - for the presence of nearly 200,000 returned volunteers. 

 To suggest that Peace Corps bestowed its greatest gifts on those who served and the country that supported them is not a criticism, nor is it meant to lessen the contributions made to the people of the third world.  It simply reflects a universal truth in the Peace Corps: “We received more than we gave.” 

 Another arena in which volunteers clearly ‘made a difference’ is in the way people of the Third World think about Americans.  One of my favorite stories has to do with a volunteer couple stranded by floodwaters in a remote part of Malaysia while on vacation.  When a local man learned that they were Peace Corps volunteers he smiled and said, in effect, “I owe you!”  Ten years earlier he had benefited from the presence of a volunteer and was eager to repay his debt, which he did.  The Peace Corps has softened the image many have of Americans and their sometimes rough-shod ways.  Recently while in Costa Rica I asked one of our rainforest guides if he knew of the Peace Corps.  He said “Of course” and I swear he was warmer and more open upon learning that I, too, had a Peace Corps connection.  I expect that the 50^th anniversary celebration will have more than one head of state, many more ranking government officials from present and former host countries, and countless English-as-a-second-language speakers publicly (and privately) thanking Peace Corps for ‘making a difference’ in their lives.  

 The toughest arena in which to judge the Peace Corps contribution is in economic and social development.  The Peace Corps is a very small part of that apparatus.  Nobody knows how to sum up the individual experiences of tens of thousands of volunteers, let alone find the data that might assist in that project.   

 Yet I contend that there is sufficient evidence to credit Peace Corps with two important contributions at the macro level.  First, the Peace Corps has altered the theoretical underpinnings of development by emphasizing the absolute need to bring beneficial change to people where they live.  All of the hydro dams, the steel mills, the world-class hospitals are meaningless if they do not lead to better lives for the people.  There have been others involved in promoting this understanding of development - Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful, and Dr. James Yen’s insistence on development that is ’simple, economical, practical, and duplicable’ come to mind - but the Peace Corps took these ideas to the whole world.  

 Second, the Peace Corps has provided the formative experience for many of the professionals and experts currently working in the field of economic and social development.  Based on some very elementary research I did among volunteers who served in the Philippines, and projecting the results for the rest of the Peace Corps universe, something like ten thousand former volunteers are now in that broadly-defined field.  As a head of USAID once said, “[the Peace Corps approach] has dramatically affected the way development . . . has been reformulated.”

 Beyond that are the tens of thousands of individual stories - once housed in the Peace Corps library - of the hogs that went to market at 6 months, instead of 2 years; of the galvanized roofs that replace thatched roots when a vegetable marketing program succeeded; of the feeding center that restored vitality to a barrio’s youngsters; of the double-cropping permitted when USAID, Peace Corps, and local rural banks cooperated to bring small loans to subsistence farmers; and of the impact fish ponds can have on a community.  (For this last, I recommend Tidwell’s The Ponds of Kalambayi.)

 Has the Peace Corps made a difference?  I answer with a resounding ‘yes’ on three levels:  the individual, the national, and the world at large.  Long may it continue.

 As I recently learned, that is a mistake.

 It has been more than thirty years since I was last in the Philippines; hell, it’s been twenty years since I was south of Kentucky.  The memory of actually living in the tropics had long ago drifted off to some deep recess in my brain, or perhaps been transformed by those rose-colored glasses I seem to put on when I recall my Peace Corps years.  All of that changed when my wife and I spent 2+ weeks in Costa Rica in December.

 Costa Rica, which still has a Peace Corps presence, lies about 9.5 degrees north of the equator so it is well within the tropics.  In fact it has about the same latitude as does the Philippines.  I was astonished to realize just how much I had forgotten about the challenges of living in a tropical setting, although I will admit that there are some blessings.  That last bit is probably due to the fact that Kentucky is now experiencing single-digit temperature readings.

 The first and worst thing (at least for me) about living in the tropics is that one is never dry.  The slightest exertion starts the sweat flowing; and hiking up a mountain, as we did, turns it into a river.  We swear that hanging clothes in a closet is like putting them in a steam room.  I know it will sound a bit dotty but we were surprised to discover that it rains in the rainforest.  (Duh!)  This meant wearing rain gear which doubled and tripled the amount of sweating going on.  All of this made me remember the volunteer couple in the Philippines who wrote home complaining about the combination of a serious moisture-caused heat rash on their bottoms and a job that required frequent long motorcycle rides. One could almost envy the folks who chose the desert for a winter break.

 I don’t know why but it seems impossible to have good roads in the tropics.  Often they are not paved and the constant humidity and rain cause uncountable potholes and frequent landslides that slow or stop all traffic.  That is probably why the people waiting at rural bus stops along the road looked as if they had been there for hours and were prepared for still more waiting.  To make matters worse - or perhaps more interesting - we had to share what road there was with people walking in the middle of it, riding

One must share the road.

bicycles, or even the occasional herd of cows.  In the Philippines volunteers would often set aside an entire day to shop in a nearby town because there was no such thing as a reliable bus schedule and Costa Rica probably demands the same. 

 Driving along roads in rural Costa Rica quickly reminds one of the immense fertility of the tropics.  Again, I had totally forgotten that fence building can be done very simply:  place a row of newly-cut branches from any kind of tree into the ground where you want the fence and sit back and wait.  Before long those bare branches will sprout new growth and in time you will have a fine hedgerow, compliments of the heat, humidity, and fertile soil.  We were told that one can virtually watch the bamboo grow from one hour to the next and the same applies to papayas.  No wonder Big Pharma continues to send their scientists to the tropics to search for what seems to be a never ending batch of promising discoveries.

 The jungle - am I supposed to avoid that word and use ‘rainforest’ instead? - is scary to say the least.  It is never sunny.  It’s always noisy but one can never see what’s making the noise.  Hear a hidden howler monkey sound off (as we did) and I guarantee you will leap a foot in the air.  And, the variety of flora is beyond belief.  We were told that there are hundreds of orchid species, fern varieties beyond count, and trees that reach far up into the sky.  Wander off the path into the unknown and it’s ‘Adiōs!’

 When midday comes things go very quiet.  What do you mean he won’t be back until 2:30?  The urgency that drives northerners to pack too much into the day is sensibly toned down and people head for home for a brief respite.  Mañana is quite soon enough in a tropical setting.  The only folks who ignore the midday sun (other than mad dogs, Englishmen and tourists like us) are the hoards of children who delight in using the roads as their playground, despite the occasional vehicle coming their way.  More that just the flora seems to be fertile in the tropics.

 Wounds heal slower in the tropics, I’m sure.  Mary suffered a bad cut to her leg when she stumbled on some slippery rocks at the bottom of a deep ravine.  The doctor in a nearby town did a fine job putting things right but for the next ten days the wound looked ugly, continued to seep fluids, and refused to get better.  All of this changed when we returned to a temperate climate, and we have stopped thinking about things like gangrene, infections, and another ER visit.  I think just about all volunteers can tell a tale of the infection, rash, ailment, whatever that just wouldn’t go away.  And that probably explains why the Peace Corps medical folks always stress ‘prevention,’ not ‘cure.’

 Now, to be sure, there are some mighty nice things that come with the tropics.  Each morning began with some of the world’s finest coffee (Costa Rica produces the best there is) and a big fruit plate.  One morning Mary counted ten different kinds of fresh fruits on the plate.  You can’t do that in Kentucky during December, or at any other time of the year, come to think of it.  Sunrises and sunsets can be magnificent!  Flora and fauna are varied, abundant, and eye-catching.  Even the rough roads have a positive side: we were forced to slow down (10 MPH was often about right) and could fully enjoy the remarkable scenery all around us.

 Would we recommend that others go to Costa Rica - or other tropical destinations?  Absolutely!  But we would remind them that the tropics can be tough!  The medical handbook we gave each volunteer in the Philippines during the 1970s began with the phrase “forewarned is forearmed” and then went on to warn against more health hazards than most of us had ever imagined.  We would take the same approach with prospective tropical travelers today as we enthusiastically sent them on their way south.

However, the story also points out one of the most eye-popping of the changes which have taken place in the Peace Corps over its nearly 50 year of existence: The change in matters sexual. 

During the 1960s the Peace Corps, as John mentioned, prohibited cohabitation; refused to supply condoms, birth control pills, or other contraceptive devices; placed brothels off-limits; and announced that sexual indiscretion was a cause for instant dismissal.  (I can imagine that PC/W, satisfied that it had taken decisive action on a matter of grave concern, then returned to sweeping back the sea.)

 In the early 1970s there was still some residual adherence in the Peace Corps to the organization’s original sex/morality standards, especially among those Americans who had spent most of the previous decade beyond the borders of the United States, as had many ‘official’ Americans.  On one of his regular consultation trips to the Philippines from his headquarters in Bangkok, the Regional Peace Corps physician was asked by our rather straitlaced American ambassador what the Peace Corps’s major medical problem was.  When the physician replied, “Venereal disease,” the ambassador frowned and changed the subject.  But, for a large part, the Peace Corps was ready in 1971 to accept sexual conduct as a private matter - as long as it did not lead to public outrage - and to treat venereal disease as a medical matter, not a moral one. 

In many Peace Corps countries during the 70s (and, I’m guessing, still today) sexual outlets were readily available for male volunteers through normal romantic liaisons or, as in the Philippines, through commercialized sex that was widespread, inexpensive, and dangerous.  With some difficulty we made the transition from seeing sex as a moral issue to seeing it as a health issue, although it would be wrong to give the impression that the transition was easy for everyone.  

Some of us were pushed in that direction by the women of Group 53, who in November 1972 wrote me:  “After reading the [medical] handbook, hearing Dr. Agbayani, . . . and [knowing that] the men of the Peace Corps are provided with prophylactics and because this provides them with a measure of birth control protection in addition to protecting from venereal disease, . . . [we feel] that in the interest of equality for the sexes the needs of women in this area should also be considered. . . .  Therefore, we are requesting Peace Corps to provide some type of birth control measure for unmarried women.  Pills or the IUD are preferable.”  Although the use of the word ‘prophylatics’ sounds quaint to today’s ears, the letter landed with a thud.

When Dr. Agbayani made the mistake of addressing his conciliatory letter of reply to “the Girls of Group 53,” all hell broke loose.  He never did really understand why the use of the word girls caused so much trouble, but he was willing to accept it as some strange American quirk and make amends.  In the end, we apologized to the women of Group 53, established a no-questions-asked policy with respect to condoms, pills, and IUDs, and included women in the previously male-only lectures on the hazards of venereal disease.

One can debate the merits of any given change, but one cannot debate the fact that change happens.  And, nothing else in all of Peace Corps’ history shows how dramatic change can be as does the change in the ‘official’ attitude towards human sexuality.

In July of that year the five of us — me, plus my wife Mary and three children aged 16, 15, and 12 — returned home to the United States from the Philippines following a three year stint with the Peace Corps there as country director.  As is often the case with Peace Corps folks we decided to take the long way home. That meant instead of taking the direct route east across the Pacific Ocean we headed west planning to go through central and southwestern Asia, Istanbul, Rome, Paris and London before flying the Atlantic to JFK.

Parenthetically, I might add that I have always thought volunteers having a borderline experience in the Peace Corps often stayed the course until COS in order to have the opportunity to ‘take the long way home.’  As some might remember, an early termination meant a ticket home by the shortest possible route.  Some volunteers, including my daughter, took as long as a year to finally make it back to the United States, and then only after parental pleas became too loud to ignore.

Anyway, back to the Searles family trip home.  Well into our itinerary, which by design was very flexible, I read about a local bus route that went from the exotic Pakistani city of Peshawar, along the same age-old route that had long been used by explorers, traders, and was now used by the ‘world travelers’ of the hippie age, to Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. We quickly decided it was our kind of trip.

Early one morning we joined a busload of ordinary Pakistanis and Afghanis, their assorted children and packages for the seven hour trip through the Khyber Pass, the Kabul Gorge, and the desolate, arid wastes of the southwest Asian landscape. Our traveling companions were clearly curious about the strange family of five that shared their bus, but they were gracious and friendly. We had no doubt that this would be the high point of our extended trip back to the United States.

The supposed high point of our trip became the low point three hours later.  We had surrendered our Pakistani visas when we passed over the small river which marked the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, not knowing that we would desperately need them again within minutes.  The officials at the small shed on the Afghani side of the river became very agitated when inspected our passports and saw no Afghani visas.  They did not seem to understand that they were to issue visas on the spot.

I reached for my trusty travel guide which was the source of my information.  Surely once they saw the printed word they would perform their duty and issue the visas.  It was then that I re-read the words “tourist visas are easily obtained at the international airport in Kabul.”  Suddenly, with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I understood the obvious: “international airport” meant “international airport,” not some remote frontier post where American tourists were few and far between.

In the end I climbed atop the bus, retrieved our luggage, endured the puzzled looks of our erstwhile companions and with a distraught wife and three worried children began the long, lonely walk back across the bridge to Pakistan, a country we were no longer eligible to visit. We were stranded in what we thought was one of the most remote parts of the earth. We had no valid visas, no local money, no language capability, no friends who could help, and no prospects for deliverance other than a very long walk back to Peshawar.

Obviously, Dad, the great trip planner, had failed; and he and everyone else knew it.

My wife and I have very different recollections as to how we got out of this fix. I recall that after we walked back unchallenged into the small town on the Pakistani side of the river, I left the family in a secure place and went searching for assistance. When I saw a vehicle with a UNDP (United Nations Development Program) insignia on it I approached the occupants, who turned out to be Americans. Flashing my Peace Corps credentials and pointing to my forlorn family, I talked them into letting us accompany them when they drove back to Peshawar.

My wife remembers it differently. She says that I panicked after we crossed the bridge and was totally at a loss as to what to do. It was SHE who saw the UNDP vehicle, SHE who told me how to handle the situation, and SHE who saved the day. The children claim hardly to remember the incident and can not, or will not, help determine whose memory is correct.

Once back in Peshawar we called on the Afghani consulate, where my ‘Official’ passport received a very friendly reception from a ‘fellow’ civil servant and we quickly got proper visas and then booked a flight to Kabul.  (As government employees Peace Corps staff members are issued an ‘Official’ passport with its red cover - unlike the blue cover of regular passports or the black cover of ‘Diplomatic’ passports - and inevitably we were treated as kindred souls by civil servants from other countries whenever we encountered them.)

As things turned out we had a marvelous ten-day excursion through Afghanistan, one of the most ‘foreign,’ yet interesting, countries on earth. But that is another story.

Following their Peace Corps service the Lilienthals had full and demanding lives: Phil in the law, Lynn in raising a family and founding a daycare center, and both of them in running one of the finest boys’ summer camps in Maine.

But always in the background was the desire to one day return to a life of service. About eight years ago the Lilienthals marshaled their Peace Corps experience, their camp management skills, their international travel and connections, and the host of admirers they had amassed over the years to start Global Camps Africa.

Camp Sizanani, one of Global Camps’ major activities, provides HIV/AIDS affected children with education, recreation, and life skills lessons all in a spirit of fun and camaraderie. Three to six 9-day residential camps are held each year, bringing together up to 300 children and 30–35 counselors. In just five years, more than 3,700 children have had been able to attend camp.

Another major activity is the Kids Clubs established in the campers’ hometowns that provide ongoing and year-round mentoring, tutoring and counseling, all designed to reinforce lessons learned at camp.

The children served by Global Camps Africa are poor, orphaned and abused, often with just the clothes on their backs. As a result of their Camp Sizanani and Kids Clubs experiences the youngsters not only have a wonderful time (perhaps for the first time in their lives) but also gain the confidence and knowledge they need to deal with the hand life has dealt them.

As I mentioned in my last post about Pat and Joe Richters efforts in FARMS International, most of us can’t aspire to do the kind of heroic work they and the Lilienthals are doing, and will continue to do as long as they receive the support needed from the rest of us. Go to the website of Global Camps Africa to read the accounts written by campers, to learn more about the work and how it is done, and to join me in giving generously to Global Camps Africa.

However, two of my colleagues from those years have accomplished, and continue to accomplish, remarkable feats that go well beyond what most of us could even think about, let alone do. Joe and Pat Richter, volunteers in the Philippines during the seventies, and Phil and Lynn Lilienthal, Ethiopia volunteers during the sixties and staff members in the Philippines and Thailand during the seventies, are engaged in international activities that draw admiration and support from literally thousands of people around the world.

I’ll save the Lilienthals’ Global Camps Africa for my next posting and today concentrate on the Richters’ FARMS International.

For over 45 years FARMS International, a faith-based program out of Knife River, Minnesota, has provided initial leadership, funding, and ongoing support to an ever growing list of countries to help the poor out of poverty while preserving their individual dignity and avoiding dependence. FARMS works through often-struggling Christian churches to provide seed money to members with small business aspirations, but no capital. Some projects and their outcomes in Rwanda are described in a pdf document that can be downloaded using Adobe Acrobat.

Typically, FARMS loans a small amount of money, often less than two hundred dollars, to finance the purchase of a piece of equipment, some inventory, an animal, some seed and fertilizer, and the like to begin a small business. FARMS relies on local church leadership to select the recipients and to provide ongoing program support.  The repaid loans, the rate of which approaches 100%, are then recycled, and the process begins anew.

The amazing thing is that the big, important development agencies in recent years have discovered the magic of ‘micro’ loans. FARMS has been doing it for decades!

Pat and Joe joined FARMS when it was little more than an idea and have played major roles in its development over the years from that initial embryonic stage to having a dynamic presence in twelve countries, the Philippines, appropriately, being one of them. Joe is the Executive Director of FARMS International and Pat handles administrative matters. Having following him and his work for a number of years leads me to think that he has probably logged more miles in the developing world that most of us have taken breaths.

Most of us can’t aspire to be doing the work the Richters do, but we can support them in theirs. Please think about joining me in doing so by googling FARMS International and following the directions.

So, a day or two after all of the other participants left Chiang-Mai, Mary and I flew from Chiang-Mai to Vientiane, the capital of Laos.  Laos at that time was enjoying one of its rare moments of peace - really a truce in its civil war, as it soon turned out, not a real peace - and we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to visit.  We were surprised to discover that Vientiane retained a very distinct French colonial atmosphere even some years after the French had been forced out of their former Asian colonies.  The restaurants were great, the wine not too bad, and the city orderly and manageable.  Vientiane turned out to be a fine place to visit except for one thing: we were looking for adventure and there was none to be had in this cosmopolitan city.

Some folks we met told us about a town in the far north of the country called Louangprabang that had become a favorite destination for the hoards of ‘world travelers’ then circling the globe.  The term ‘world traveler’ was the polite name given to the vagabonds produced by the turmoil of the 1960s who were bringing ‘drugs, sex and rock ‘n roll’ to the unsuspecting citizens of many third-world countries where the living was cheap and anti-drug laws non-existent or very forgiving.  We learned that Louangprabang was the traditional home of the Laotian royal family and a place where old ways continued to be honored, meaning no French influence.  The town sat on a quiet stretch of the Mekong River and was the stepping off point for some truly remarkable one-day trips to nearby points of interest.  A week in Luoangprabang was just what we needed.

Early one morning we joined a motley collection of other folks and boarded an old DC-3 flown by Laotian Airlines to make the short trip to the former capital.  One of our fellow travelers was an attractive young woman who had made the trip several times.  She helped us plan our stay and was full of good suggestions, many of which we followed in the days to come.  In the midst of talking with us she made an offhand comment concerning the local outdoor market - a ‘must-see’ place in her opinion - to the effect that the law was so loosely applied in Louangprabang that market vendors openly sold marijuana to one and all.

Now, to people under the age of thirty during the 1970s such a comment would have been immediately recognized as information of the most important kind.  It would have been stored safely away and acted upon as soon as they reached the market.  We were the products of an earlier generation and, in fact, quite against the use of marijuana or any other kind of drug.  (Of course it was a matter of common knowledge among our kind that gin, wine, and beer were not drugs to be confused with those other ‘controlled substances.’)   Little did we know that the devil, himself, had arranged to teach us a couple of lessons.

As we thought about this exotic market we began to see a risk free opportunity to sample this new craze among the young.  Surely, we told ourselves, we would be better able to teach our children about the dangers of marijuana if we had some first hand experience on which to base our certain-to-be-wise counsel.  And, how could we understand the younger generation if we could not ’speak’ its language.  Within a couple of days we had made the decision to ’sacrifice’ ourselves in the interest of the greater good.

All Asian markets are large, nearly chaotic, dusty (or damp in the rainy season), filled with goods for which we outsiders have no names and places of immense fascination for those who can conquer their unease in such a foreign environment.  After a bit of looking we found the marijuana sellers section of the market.  As is the custom sellers of like goods tend to concentrate in the same location and here we found row after row of neatly rolled and stacked individual ‘joints,’ although we could not really say ‘joint’ with anything like the authority someone half our age would have.  Nevertheless, using universally understood non-verbal symbols of communication I managed to buy six of the most expensive of the items on sale.  (This was no time for economizing; nothing but the best for our educational experiment.)

We walked to the nearby banks of the slow moving Mekong River, found a bench with a fine water view, and settled down.  Mary had decided to ’stand watch’ during the first event so I proceeded to light up.  I inhaled carefully and not too deeply at first.  This proved to be a good thing because the smoke was pretty harsh.  But I was no wimp!  I took deeper and deeper drags waiting for the magic moment when the promised ‘high’ would descend.  Minutes passed.  I took more drags.  Nothing happened, except I got a bit dizzy from the unaccustomed smoke in my lungs.  Then I remembered hearing that often first time users get no ‘kick’ because they are too tense.  OK, we’ll try again this evening, I said to Mary.

Damn!  The same thing happened that night in our hotel room.  My conclusion was that this marijuana stuff would never pose a commercial threat to those old standbys one bought at the local package store.

The next morning when we met a young fellow from the plane I described my experiences with marijuana.  “Let me see that stuff,” he said.  I handed my remaining four ‘joints’ to him.  After a quick look he said, having no regard for my being many years his senior, “You idiot.  That’s tobacco!”