July 7, 2019 – Peace Corps Worldwide

LEGACY IN STONE: SYRIA BEFORE WAR by Kevin Bubriski (Nepal)

Jul 07 2019

Thanks to the ‘heads up’ from David Arnold (Ethiopia 1964–66) • Legacy in Stone: Syria Before War by Kevin Bubriski (Nepal 1975-78) powerHouse Books 164 pages January 2019 $50.00 (hard cover) Legacy in Stone: Syria Before War is a collection of 100 black-and-white photographs immortalizing the ancient monuments of Syria. Kevin Bubriski was on assignment in Syria in 2003, during the infancy of the U.S. war in neighboring Iraq. He was photographing the country’s ancient monuments, as well as documenting the daily lives and ordinary human stories of its citizens. Unbeknownst to him, within the decade, a war would break out in Syria, and destroy or damage much of what he had photographed. Until the Syrian civil war in 2010, the Suq in Aleppo was considered to be the longest continuously inhabited place of commerce in the world, existing for well over two millennia. Bubriski photographed the Suq . . .

Per memo dated in early April 2019, Peace Corps Guatemala apparently would not be impacted by the elimination of US foreign aid

Jul 07 2019

On March 31, 2019, President Trump announced the United States was cutting aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador because of the migrant crisis. The Peace Corps website only listed Guatemala as a current Peace Corps site in that group. On April 15, I made a FOIA request for: “the documents which describe how this decision will impact existing and future Peace Corps programs and Volunteers in Guatemala.” The FOIA was assigned 19-0065. It took an appeal before I finally received a response on June 20th. The response was an internal memo, most names appropriately redacted. The memo was in response to a serving PCV in Guatemala who had made the same request about the impact on Peace Corps Guatamala. Here is the important statement from that memo, dated, I believe, April 3, from Joel Frushone, Associate Director Office of External Affairs, RPCV Lesotho 1995-97. “Hello. Our social media team received . . .

Archive - July 7, 2019