January 22, 2020 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Peace Corps’ China withdrawal highlights fight for independence

Jan 22 2020

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Glenn Blumhorst (Guatemala 1988-91) Peace Corps’ China withdrawal highlights fight for independence By Michael Igoe from Devex News 22 January 2020 WASHINGTON — On Friday, U.S. Peace Corps volunteers in China awoke to learn that their country program will be closing, after the agency made a formal notification to Congress that it would begin withdrawing volunteers in June. “We are ending a program that provides an essential human link between these two countries and offers a unique space for mutual understanding and positive cooperation.” — Steve Hess (China 2006-08) Among the first to break the news was Republican Sen. Marco Rubio from Florida, who voiced his support for the decision in a statement. “Today’s decision by the Peace Corps to withdraw its volunteers from China confirms what we all know — China is no longer a developing country,” Rubio wrote Thursday, adding that “Beijing has fooled organizations such as the World . . .

Review — IT ATE ONE HUNDRED by Bill Sugrue (Ethiopia )

Jan 22 2020

It Ate One Hundred By Bill Sugrue (Ethiopia 1969-73) Self-Published 223 pages May 2019 $8.99 (paperback) Reviewed by Phillip LeBel (Ethiopia 1965-67) • Bill Sugrue, a career Foreign Service Officer with USAID, has written a memoir of his four-year experience as a Peace Corps volunteer in the village of Wajifo, in southern Ethiopia. Covering the 1969-1973 years, his account displays the enthusiasm and frustrations of rural life in Ethiopia at a time when elsewhere in the U.S. the Vietnam war and racial conflicts were dividing the country. His account evokes the emotional attachment that so many experienced when confronting their sense of personal identity in a developing country context. It is an engaging account, full of humor, sadness, and joy that unfold through a series of events that are recounted in discrete anecdotes. The title itself suggests the humor found in a cross-cultural experience. Local villagers, whose farming . . .

Archive - January 22, 2020