January 5, 2021 – Peace Corps Worldwide

“Return” by Kathleen Coskran (Ethiopia)

Jan 05 2021

Notes from the Editor: Kathleen Johnson Coskran (Ethiopia 1965-67) taught in Addis Ababa her first year, then transferred to Dilla, a small town in the far south of the Empire. She wrote “So This Is Paris” about Dilla, an essay Marian Beil and I published in our newsletter, RPCV Writers & Readers in 1994. For me that essay is one of the finest written about the Peace Corps experience. I republished it in a collection I edited titled, Peace Corps: The Great Adventure. In 2007 Peace Corps Writers.com publish “Second Time Around” that subsequently received the 2008 Peace Corps Writers Moritz Thomsen Peace Corps Experience Award. Kathy has continued to write and continues to win awards. This is an essay she wrote about when she and her husband Chuck returned to Ethiopia and traveled for ten hours by bus through the Rift Valley to see Dilla one last time. Here is . . .

A Writer Writes — “The Other Immigration Crisis” by Charles Fortin (Brazil)

Jan 05 2021

The Other Immigration Crisis Charles Fortin (Brazil 1968-70) “Cocaine . . . is typically available in urban, suburban, and rural drug markets throughout the United States . . . and cocaine supplies are relatively stable at levels sufficient to meet current user demand.” United States Drug Enforcement Administration, National Drug Threat Assessment The heavily-accented voice on the line said she was acting on a tip. A friend of mine with whom I had worked in Bulgaria had given her my name. She was calling to get my help with drugs in Latin American and the Caribbean. I took a deep breath. Then, I relaxed as my caller explained she wanted to hire me as a consultant to report on the drug trade, not to participate in it. In the Balkans, my friend had called on me to give a training module to doctors, nurses, and hospital administrators on . . .

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