November 29, 2010 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Fast Company Magazine salutes the Peace Corps this month with Facts & Figures

Nov 29 2010

The 50th Anniversary of the Peace Corps Infographic: Peace Be With You Typography by Julie Teninbaum By: Jeninne Lee St. John, FastCompany.com November 1, 2010 Fifty years ago this month, President John F. Kennedy gave a name to his idea to send Americans abroad “to encourage mutual understanding between Americans and other cultures of the world.” A look at the numbers behind the venerable Peace Corps. The FIRST group of volunteers, 51 strong, arrived in Ghana on August 30, 1961. Since 1961, more than 200,000 Americans have served in the Peace Corps. 7,671 volunteers now serve in the Corps. In 1966, there were more than 15,000 in the field. The Peace Corps’ operating budget this fiscal year is $400 MILLION, about 1% of the federal government’s foreign-operations budget. Peace Corps volunteers here been trained in more than 250 local languages. 60% of ACTIVE Corps members are women. Today, the Corps . . .

Review of RJ Huddy’s Learn Thai With Me

Nov 29 2010

Learn Thai With Me by RJ Huddy (Morocco 1981–82) XPat Fiction $12.00 (free to read online) 224 pages 2010 Reviewed by Thomas Coyne (Morocco 1981–82) SAUDI ARABIA IS A HARD PLACE TO WRITE ABOUT. The western mind gets easily distracted by such cultural flash points as hijabs and theocracies. The Saudi sensibility seems clannish; not so interested in advertising its lifestyle to the rest of the world. So surprise, Learn Thai With Me, the second novel from RJ Huddy, (a nom de plume of a Moroccan RPCV) is a rare example evoking the Saudi Arabia of the 1980’s. Of course, this is really a book about Americans — Degenerates Abroad perhaps — and not so much about Saudis or Thais. There are some other caveats. For one thing, Learn Thai With Me will not teach you much — if any — Thai. In fact, we are given not a single . . .

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