Archive - June 2018

  Border Penance (short stories) Lawrence F. Lihosit ( (Honduras 1975–77) CreateSpace February 2018 (originally published in 2009) 128 pages $10.95 (paperback) Reviewed by David H. Greegor (Mexico 2007–11) • Earlier this year I reviewed Mr. Lihosit’s book, Americruise, which I found to be a fun and eventually engaging read once I came to understand his wacky humor.  Border Penance, a set of six serious short stories set in Mexico and Central America, was intended to be suspense-filled. I found them mildly interesting, but not suspenseful. Furthermore, the stories varied considerably in their coherence and quality. The first story, Holiday Obituary, was so confusing I had to read it twice and even then it didn’t seem to match the synopsis that Mr. Lihosit included. One of the problems that the author has is that he puts too much extraneous, unrelated detail into his stories so that the reader can’t follow the thread. . . .

  Peace Corps Office of Inspector General — Semi-annual Report to Congress The Investigation Unit is authorized to investigate waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in both domestic and international Peace Corps programs and operations. OIG investigators have full law enforcement authority including the authority, upon probable cause, to seek and execute warrants for arrest, search premises, and seize evidence. They are authorized to make arrests without a warrant while engaged in official duties and to carry firearms. The unit investigates allegations of both criminal wrongdoing and administrative misconduct involving Peace Corps staff, contractors, Volunteers, and other individuals conducting transactions with the Peace Corps. Allegations are made by Peace Corps stakeholders such as Volunteers, trainees, staff, contractors, other federal entities, and the general public. OIG receives these allegations through audits, evaluations, hotline complaints, and other means. In addition, OIG relies upon the investigative support of the U.S. Department of State Diplomatic Security Service (DSS). Criminal and Misconduct Related Investigations In 2009, Peace . . .

  Legislative Update June 8, 2018 Nancy E. Tongue, Sara T. Thompson, Jennifer Mamola • BOTH THE HOUSE AND THE SENATE legislation have been written, reviewed and revised by Congress and we expect that both will go to the House of Representatives for a final vote by the Chamber in the very near future. We will make an announcement when that occurs. Sadly, neither the House nor the Senate pending legislation has included what we have fought so hard for. Many may see the legislation as a step forward, regardless. However, those of us who have invested our lives in obtaining appropriate legislation for those who return sick and injured are crushed that the key reforms that we at Health Justice for Peace Corps Volunteers, and all Volunteers, desperately need have been eliminated or not included. We recognize that gaining any legislation in this political climate is an accomplishment. We . . .

  The Office of the Inspector General of the Peace Corps is mandated to report to Congress on a semi-annual basis. Here is the report for the period,October 1, 2017  to March 31, 2018. https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.peacecorps.gov/documents/inspector-general/SARC_OCT17-MAR18_for_web.pdf It is not our task to summarize the report.  We would like to call attention to  some sections of the Report which may be of special interest to the RPCV community. The Inspector General continues its Review of the Peace Corps Information Security Program.  This statement  is from that Review: “We contracted with accounting and management consulting firm Williams, Adley & Company-DC to assess the Peace Corps’ compliance with the provisions of FISMA. The objective of this review was to perform an independent assessment of the Peace Corps’ information security program, including testing the effectiveness of security controls for a subset of systems as required, for FY 2017. The review found that the Peace Corps . . .

  Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from  Patricia Taylor Edmisten (Peru 1962-64) • The energy within undereducated girls must be unleashed by Lia Einstein (Guinea) From Scientific American May 1, 2018   The question on the physics quiz seemed simple enough: “What is the smallest piece of matter that makes up everything in the universe?” Binta’s response: “Binta.” I laughed out loud. You would too if you saw tiny Binta, who is one of my smartest seventh graders. Surely she knew the correct answer is “atom.” Yet, I mused, a famous equation governing atoms could also apply to her. E = mc2. The equation says that under the right conditions, mass can become energy, and vice versa. Because light moves so fast, an atom at rest—even with a small mass—contains a great deal of energy. A walnut has enough energy locked in it to power a small city. Mass from the sun radiates . . .

  Peace Corps World Wide has received the following official announcement from the Peace Corps Response Office for the Global Health Service. “The Global Health Service Partnership (GHSP), a collaboration between the Peace Corps, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and Seed Global Health, will end in September 2018 for operational reasons. We have appreciated our strategic partnership and the opportunity to provide highly skilled physician and nurse educators to build health care capacity and strengthen health professional education.” On its site, Peace Corps described the program: “The Global Health Service Partnership (GHSP) helps address critical global shortages of health care professionals by sending physicians and nurses to work alongside local faculty to build institutional capacity and help strengthen the quality of medical education.” Peace Corps World Wide posted this link to the concept paper in 2012: https://peacecorpsworldwide.org/the-partnership-between-global-health-and-peace-corps-response/ The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) . . .

  Discovering the Peace Corps … and Myself by Dennis Lloyd Kuklok (Bolivia 1968-70) • It was October, 1967. I had just dropped out of the University of Minnesota, where I was beginning my third year in the School of Architecture. I knew that I would now be drafted, since I would lose my student deferment. So, I volunteered. I wanted to get my military service over as quickly as possible. Then I would be free to do whatever I wanted. At that time, if you volunteered for the draft, you could complete your two years in the army in just 18 months. My university education had made me see how immature, how unworldly I was. It had become painfully apparent how little I really knew about the world in which I was expected to design places for people. I had grown up in a large Catholic midwestern farm family, . . .