Archive - May 2015

Dr. Remington Lee Nevin is a consulting physician epidemiologist board certified in Public Health and General Preventive Medicine by the American Board of Preventive Medicine.  Dr. Nevin specializes in the evaluation of adverse reactions to antimalarial medications, particularly the neurotoxic quinoline derivative mefloquine (previously marketed in the United States as Lariam®). The above is from his website: http://www.remingtonnevin.com/site/home.html Dr. Nevin has written a letter to the Peace Corps Director urging that the policy regarding the use of mefloquine be changed to protect Volunteers from the medication’s adverse effects. His letter is signed by RPCVs who support the change.  Many of whom have suffered severe and potentially permanent damage from the drug. RPCV advocates, including members of “Health Justice for Volunteers, are urging RPCVs to write to Peace Corps Director Carrie Radelet-Hessler in support of Dr. Nevin’s recommendations, and also to contact their Congressional delegation with the same request.  Here is the link . . .

There was a Catholic secondary school for women a mile and a half or so from the Government teacher training college where Fanselow was teaching in 1962. Young Catholic women taught at the secondary school not as Peace Corps Volunteers, but as volunteers for a Catholic organization. John and the women would often get together on weekends after mass at the secondary school and sometimes went on walks later in the day. One afternoon they came upon the large pot used to cook stew for events in the village. John and the women teachers had food with them as well as forks, knives and spoons for their picnic, and they  thought it would be a good joke to give forks, etc. to the people in the village and hop into the pot. (John had remembered seeing an old Abbot and Costello movie with a similar scene.) Of course as soon . . .

The Peace Corps would give thousands of young Americans a chance to see at first hand the conditions in remote areas of the world. Sargent Shriver The Peace Corps is guilty of enthusiasm and a crusading spirit. But we’re not apologetic about it. Sargent Shriver Any idealist who tries to join the Peace Corps must realize he is not going to change the world overnight. Sargent Shriver In the Peace Corps, the volunteer must be a fully developed, mature person. He must not join to run abroad or escape problems. Sargent Shriver

Morris Baker’s white mule (that he named “LandRover”, because it was so sure footed) was one of several mules that he used to visit small villages in Gojjam Province while serving as a Leprosy Control PCV with the Ethiopian Ministry of Health.  This was his second year assignment in Ethiopia.  The man holding the reins is a leprosy patient. Morris Baker (Ethiopia 1966-68)

As Carrie says, “PCVs and RPVCs make friends everywhere  we go.”