Archive - June 3, 2013

Thanks to a suggestion made by Pat Wand (Colombia 1963-65) I have been in touch with a new Peace Corps Archives at American University in Washington, D.C. and made arrangements, with the cooperation of Susan McElrath and Erica Bogese of the Archives, to have the university take our’Peace Corps Memoirs.  As Susan wrote me recently, “we would be interested in receiving copies of all of the Peace Corps memoirs.” The one requirement is that the writers contact the Archives before sending anything to them. The contact is: Erica Bogese Bender Library American University 4400 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, DC 20016-8046 Erica’s contact information: Phone (202) 885-3242 Email bogese@american.edu The information you need to know about what material to send the Archives  is outlined below or you can go directly to: http://bender.library.american.edu/pcca/?page_id=16 Thank you Susan and Erica and everyone connected with this American University Peace Corps Archives project. This is a wonderful opportunity . . .

Peace Corps in Panama: Fifty Years, Many Voices Edited by Meredith W. Cornett (Panama 1991–93) Peace Corps Writers $10.00 182 pages 2013 Reviewed by Barbara E. Joe (Honduras 2000–03) This slender volume is a delight, providing stories from the earliest days of Peace Corps Panama right up to 2013. First envisioned during a reunion of Panama RPCVs during the 50th anniversary, the project grew as vignettes, poems, and letters written by those who served through the years were gathered together. They appear in chronological order, with a 20-year break beginning in 1971 when General Omar Torrijos ousted the Peace Corps amid rumors that volunteers were CIA spies.  After the signing of the treaty returning the canal to Panama, followed by Torrijos’ death in a plane crash and Manuel Noriega’s arrest, volunteers were invited back again. Editor Cornett, also a contributor, obviously undertook her task as a labor of love, offering . . .