February 2011 – Page 3 – Peace Corps Worldwide

And the Oscar for the Best Peace Corps Film goes to…..

Feb 06 2011

BACK IN 1965-67, the Peace Corps had the idea of letting two RPCVs make a film about being in the Peace Corps. I’m not quite sure how it all came about, but I’m guessing the idea had the encouragement of Harris Wofford, then an Associate Director of the agency, and the film was made by two Nigeria One RPCVs: Roger Landrum (Nigeria 1961–63) and David Schickele (Nigeria 1961–63). The film was called Give Me a Riddle. The Peace Corps was planning to use it for recruitment. Well, when RPCVs make a movie of their experiences, let me tell you, the agency is never going to use it for recruitment. Give Me a Riddle was too honest a representation of Peace Corps Volunteers life overseas; the agency couldn’t handle it. I was thinking about Give Me a Riddle last night as I watched Niger’66: A Peace Corps Diary. It was done by two Niger Volunteers, . . .

“In, Up, and Out” – Then and Now

Feb 05 2011

What if returning Peace Corps Volunteers had run the agency from the earliest days? Would it have made a good and great difference? I say, “Absolutely!” What do you think? Read what the author of the original “In, Up, and Out” wrote in 1961 and says now. Dr. Robert Textor, Editor of “Cultural Frontiers of the Peace Corps“, was a young anthropologist when Peace Corps hired him in the Spring of 1961. During his tenure, he helped design the training programs for Malaya One and other Far East operations. He also worked on the Talent Search to find talented Americans to become country “Representatives.” Almost as a “participant observer” of the emerging Peace Corps culture, he turned his trained eye on its developing programs. And from that perspective, he wrote the original memo advocating an “In, Up, and Out” policy for the Peace Corps, which became the basis for the . . .

Review of Robert Klein's Being First

Feb 02 2011

Being First: An Informal History of the Early Peace Corps by Robert Klein (Ghana 1961–63) Wheatmark, Inc $19.95 182 pages 2010 Reviewed by Kevin Lowther (Sierra Leone 1963–65) GHANA I — Peace Corps groups were Roman-numeraled in the early years — began with 58 trainees at the University of California at Berkeley. It was July 1961, four months after President John F. Kennedy asked R. Sargent Shriver to establish the Peace Corps. The 58 guinea pigs and their trainers were all too aware that the experiment could rise or fall on the basis of their performance. “That challenge,” Robert Klein writes in Being First, “created a sense of uniqueness which has lasted through the years.” Fifty years, of course, and counting. Klein was a 32-year-old teacher in Harlem when he volunteered. Kennedy’s summons “added a moral dimension” to Klein’s “restless romanticized adventurism.” The group supposedly had been sifted through a . . .

Father of the PCV

Feb 02 2011

Charlie Putnam’s (Ecuador 1979-82) daughter went into the Peace Corps this week. Charlie wrote to say that his daughter calls herself a “Peace Corps Brat.” Charlie met his wife in Ecuador in 1980. This “Peace Corps Putnam Brat went to stating in D.C. this last Monday. The 20/20 stories on the murder of Kate Puzey, the sexual assaults of female volunteers and the interview of Chuck Ludlam and Paula Hirschoff have all aired as she, and her group, got ready to leave the U.S. Charlie wrote me, “a number of her friends called her before she left for Staging to ask if she had seen the 20/20 series. In a phone conversation with her mom and me last night our daughter reported that Aaron Williams had attended the Staging and met with the Trainees as part of their security briefing. My daughter didn’t remember exactly what Mr. Williams said, but reported that she was favorably impressed by him. . . .

Peace Corps Poets at AWP Conference

Feb 02 2011

A group of RPCV poets, gathered by Virginia Gilbert (Korea 1971-73), will have a panel discussion entitled,” Broadening the Poet’s Vision Through the Peace Corps Experience” at the 2011 Annual Conference of the Assocation of Writers & Writing Programs on February 2-5, 2011. The panel is scheduled (subject to changes, of course) on Thursday from 1:30-2:45 in the Harding Room of the Marriott Wardman Park, (Mezzanine Level). Here are the details, if you are attending the conference: R167. Broadening the Poet’s Vision Through the Peace Corps Experience. (Virginia Gilbert (Korea 1971-73); Sandra Meek (Botswana 1989-91); John Isles (Estonia 1992-94); Ann Neelon (Senagal 1978-79); Derick Burleson (Rwanda 1991-93). “How does a stint in the Peace Corps influence a writing life? This panel investigates the question of how living in a developing country as a volunteer contributes to the growth of a poetic voice. Five award-winning poets who served in Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe discuss . . .

Ludlam/Hirschoff Plan to Save the Peace Corps

Feb 02 2011

On July 24, 2009, Chuck Ludlam (Nepal 1968–70; Senegal 2005–07) and Paula Hirschoff (Senegal 2005-07) sent then Peace Corps Director-Designate Aaron Williams a “Plan to Strengthen and Expand the Peace Corps: Priorities for President Obama’s First Term.” Chuck and Paula wrote in their introduction: This Twenty Point Plan to strengthen and expand the Peace Corps — drafted over four years by a couple of two-time Volunteers and circulated widely for comment within the Returned PCV community — proposes an ambitious road map for President Obama and Peace Corps Director-Designate Aaron Williams and his leadership team. The Ludlam/Hirschoff Plan is attached as a PDF file for those of you who have not seen it or heard about it. Photo: Paula Hirschoff and Chuck Ludlam on 20/20

January 2011 Peace Corps Books

Feb 02 2011

Exploring Hong Kong: A Visitor’s Guide to Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories by Steven K. Bailey (Poland 1993–95) ThingsAsian Press $14.95 289 pages 2009 • The Insider’s Guide to the Peace Corps: What to Know Before You Go (2nd edition of So, You Want to Join the Peace Corps) by Dillon Banerjee (Cameroon 1994–96) Ten Speed Press $14.95 192 pages 2009 • One World:A Global Anthology of Short Stories Skye Brannon (Samoa 2004–06), contributor New Internationalist $16.95 192 pages 2009 • The Man Who Caught No Birds by Thomas Burns (Marshall Island 1976–78) CreateSpace $15.00 206 pages 2010 • Roman Proud, Wayward Widower by Tino Calabia (Peru 1963–65) AuthorHouse $15.49 360 pages December 2010 • Soldiers of God (graphic novel) by Kelly Clancy (Turkmenistan 2004-06) www.thedivinebanquet.com Sixta Comics $15.00 256 pages 2010 • A Year on the Bus by Dan Close (Ethiopia 1964–66) The Tamarac Press $15.00 . . .

Being Roger Rosenblatt

Feb 01 2011

I’m a big fan of Roger Rosenblatt. I love his essays on PBS News Hour. I love his soft voice, quiet demeanor, the gentleness of this gentleman. When I grow up, I want to be just like him. I love the way he writes, the smooth elegance of his prose. He is like that polished English butler of English movies who has everything under control and quietly, unobtrusively, brings the dinner party to the dining room table and serves them roast duck under candle light. Besides everything else that Roger Rosenblatt does, he writes books. Unless It Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing, just published by Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins, is his latest. He is also professor of English and writing at SUNY Stony Brook. He teaches students how to write. Though, as he says in his essay, “Can I teach them to become professional . . .

How PCVs Make a Difference….

Feb 01 2011

My friend Jocelyn Zuckerman (Kenya 1991-93 ) who happens to be in Haiti right now writing about their situation (on a grant from the Carter Center) sent me this ‘heads up’ in the NYTIMES. You can read it at: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/when-microcredit-wont-do/ Entitled, “When Microcredit Won’t Do” is written by Tina Rosenberg. Here are a few excerpts that show how the “peace corps connection’ pays off. Greg Van Kirk was a Peace Corps volunteer in Nebaj, Guatemala, a town of about 10,000 people in a mountainous Mayan region. He was an unusual Peace Corps volunteer, having already had one career as an investment banker. He had worked in structured finance for UBS, helping companies do complex deals to buy, sell or lease airplanes and power plants…. Van Kirk worked with a local mason named Augustín Corrio to build a better stove. Corrio took a standard stove design and rejiggered it in various ways. The best . . .

Chuck Ludlam Blasts Coyne….But I Don't Know Why!

Feb 01 2011

Chuck Ludlam (Nepal 1968-70 & Senegal 2005-07) sent me this email from Patagonia. He is traveling there with his wife, Paula Hirshoff ( Senegal 2005-07), and he asked me to post his comment as his internet connections are chancy. He did write as the end of his blast at me, “Please post this as a response to your post.” So here’s what Chucky had to say about me from sunny Patagonia! It’s too bad that John Coyne didn’t bother to read our 150 page report on Peace Corps reform — posted since July 2009 on PeaceCorps Wiki. It would help the readers to see it posted on Coyne’s website. John would find there that we oppose the 5-year rule, which has given political appointees entirely too much power at the agency and destroyed its capacity for institutional memory. He’s also find that the Peace Corps transferred the investigative authority away from the Office of . . .

Archive - February 2011