February 20, 2012 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Leaving El Salvador for the First Time 9.1.79 – 3.31.1980 Part One

Feb 20 2012

When is a country too dangerous for Peace Corps Volunteers to remain? And who decides? Host Country officials? Peace Corps staff? Peace Corps Volunteers? Or, the State Department? These questions are foundational issues for Peace Corps. The collection, “El Salvador: The Making of U.S. Policy, 1977 -1984” (National Security Archive, George Washington University, Washington D. C)- includes 20 public documents in which we can see how Peace Corps answered these questions during a turbulent time in El Salvador, some 32 years ago. The website for the National Security Archive is: www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/ Please note: “These materials are reproduced from www.nsarchive.org with the permission of the National Security Archive.” The documents consist of correspondence between Peace Corps in country staff and Peace Corps Washington; between Peace Corps staff and the State Department; and, between Peace Corps Volunteers assigned to El Salvador and Peace Corps Washington. Today, Peace Corps has withdrawn programs from Honduras . . .

Don Messerschmidt (Nepal 1963-65) Wins National Award for Dog Book

Feb 20 2012

Don Messerschmidt (Nepal 1963–65), anthropologist and writer, has won national recognition for his recent non-fiction book, Big Dogs of Tibet and the Himalayas: A Personal Journey (Orchid Press). His book received the Dog Writers Association of America’s (DWAA) prestigious Maxwell Medallion for Excellence at their annual meeting in New York City in early February. Big Dogs is the result of Don’s life-long love of Tibetan mastiffs and other large canines of the Himalayan regions. He first went to Nepal as a Peace Corps Volunteer in 1963, and returned later as an anthropologist. After he encountered the big dogs of the Himalayan region he began nearly a half-century of research on their place in local cultures and as livestock (yak and sheep) guardians. The book, based on his in-depth research is part memoir, part history and cultural description, and part reference book about the Tibetan mastiffs, with sections on three . . .

Archive - February 20, 2012