Archive - October 8, 2012

Melanie Kondrat (Morocco 2012-14) is working in Youth Development in Morocco. From Tacoma, Washington, she graduated from Gonzaga University in 2011. She blogs about her Peace Corps tour at www.postgradmel.com. Melanie gave me permission to reprint her touching account of her trip back to Ouaouizerth where Chris was a PCV. Remembering Chris Stevens: My Journey to Ouaouizerth by Malanie Kodrat (Morocco 2012-14) I like to think that if I had been a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco in the early 80’s Chris Stevens and I might have been friends. Maybe we would’ve bonded over our mutual love for the Tadla-Azilal province. For the mountains that surround us. For the red dirt that threatens to stain our clothes every day. For the generous culture of the Amazigh people who’ve inhabited this region for ages. Or maybe we would’ve bonded over a love for the West Coast (Best Coast). We might’ve compared . . .

[Ambassador Chris Stevens was a PCV in Morocco from 1983-85.  He served twice in Libya in three different Foreign Service capacities, first, as Deputy Chief of Mission from 2007-09;  then as Special Representative to Libya’s National Transitional Council from March 2011 to November 2011; and  finally as Ambassador from June 2012 until his death on September 11, 2012.] Learning of Chris Stevens’ Death While Reading The Aeneid by Tino Calabia (Peru 1963-65) What intel the White House should have known/acted upon before the 9/11 attack and killing of Ambassador Chris Stevens and his colleagues in Libya is triggering partisan arguments sullying the memory of Stevens’ sacrifice.  Or so the current gamesmanship seems to this former Peace Corps Volunteer. Lots of the 200,000 Americans who, like I, have served as Volunteers never knew, prior to the violence in Benghazi, that the Peace Corps first sent young Chris Stevens to Morocco.  Later the State . . .