Archive - January 2021

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Mike Wolfson (Peru 1964-66)     This picture, made as a poster courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution, was taken at President Bill Clinton’s inaugural parade on January 20, 1993. The organization was then the National Council of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, now the National Peace Corps Association. Mike borrowed the 6 x 8-foot outdoor flags and 9-foot aluminum flag poles from the U.S. Department of State.  There were, he believes, 110 flags representing all of the countries that Peace Corps volunteers had or were serving in. He had all of these flags and poles in his living room the day before the inauguration where Ken Hill (Turkey 1965-67) and he put country labels on each flag, attached them to the 110 poles, and put them in a truck that Ken stored overnight and took to the parade staging area the next morning. He did . . .

  As we approach the 60th Anniversary of the agency — which was officially born on March 1, 1961—Peace Corps Worldwide wants to capture for history the stories of as many Volunteers as possible. Your experiences need to be preserved because, thanks to your service, the Peace Corps has become the most significant and successful cross-cultural venture ever undertaken by the United States. And in today’s nationalistic world, the example of Peace Corps Volunteers is more important than ever. The Peace Corps is about service, but it is also about friendship. For 60 years, Volunteers have lived with host-country families, shared their lives and experiences, and showed our hosts that we were more like them than we were different. We were younger than many of our hosts, often less experienced in life, and sometimes needing their help to navigate their culture. But we went, and we were ready to work, . . .

Peace Corps Thailand 1972-75 Jim McCaffery (Ethiopia 1966-68) told me that this photo (below) is the real one Peter Navarro was taking out of the White House. It was (we think) hanging in the Oval Office.

  President Trump on Thursday moved to freeze $27.4 billion worth of government programs in the last week of his presidency using a budget maneuver called rescission. Under the 1974 Budget and Impoundment Control Act, the president can request that Congress rescind, or wind back budget authority over certain programs. While Congress considers the request, the programs can be frozen for up to 45 days, at which point the request expires if Congress does not act. In a letter to congressional leadership, Trump specifically requested 73 cutbacks to the 2021 federal budget. The 73 proposed rescissions largely align with the annual budget proposal Trump has set out, which proposed extreme cuts to domestic programs. Congress roundly rejected the cuts each year. The letter asked leaders in the House and Senate to impound funds from almost every Cabinet-level agency including the Environmental Protection Agency. The request also included cuts from the National Endowments for the Arts and . . .

  ConanDaily.com JANUARY 14, 2021 BY Marky O’Brien   Thomas Baranyi (Albania 2018-20) is a white man from New Jersey, United States. Here are 13 things about him: He lives in Ewing, New Jersey. (a) He graduated from The College of New Jersey in Ewing. (b) He went into basic training for the U.S. Marine Corps but he was discharged. (b) He is the eldest son of Drake Baranyi, who is from Kathmandu, Nepal. (c) On December 9, 2017, he proposed to his girlfriend Rachel Fury, according to his father. (c) From 2018 to 2020, he served in the Peace Corps in Albania. (b) On December 22, 2020, his father took to Facebook to say they have not seen each other in person since 2017. (c) Wearing a blue New York Giants sweatshirt and a navy blue baseball hat while carrying a blue backpack on January 6, 2021, he entered the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., USA on the side where scaffolding was erected for Joe Biden‘s inauguration on January 20, 2021. That . . .

  January 13, 2021 11:15 AM TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey man who said he was standing next to a woman when she was fatally shot during the U.S. Capitol riot is now charged in connection with last week’s breach. Thomas Baranyi, 28, was arrested Tuesday night by the FBI and charged with disorderly or disruptive conduct. He made his initial court appearance later that night via video conference, where bail was set at $100,000, but he was later released on an unsecured bond. Baranyi, who formerly served in the Peace Corps, gained attention on the day of the riots when he told a TV reporter that he was standing next to Ashli Babbitt when she was fatally shot inside the building, and held up his right hand to show blood that was still there. In a criminal affidavit, FBI Special Agent Cassidy Vreeland wrote that Baranyi’s identity . . .

Yeganeh Torbati, The Washington Post Jan. 12, 2021 • WASHINGTON – An outgoing Trump administration political appointee at the nation’s leading foreign aid agency told staff on Tuesday that the deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol was the work of “a few violent people,” and added that “several million” others there were protesting peacefully for electoral reform, according to audio recordings of a staff meeting obtained by The Washington Post. Tim Meisburger (Lesotho 1988-90) is a Trump appointee and an outgoing deputy assistant administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development’s bureau for development, democracy and innovation. Meisburger made the comments on a video call with approximately 70 to 80 USAID workers, according to one USAID official who was granted anonymity to describe internal communications at the agency. “What I saw was several million people demonstrating in the Capitol, peaceful protesters in the Capitol,” said Meisburger, according to an audio recording . . .

  Update January 22, 2021:  Peace Corps reports that Carol Spahn has been appointed Acting Peace Corps Director by President Biden. Editors note: Before her recent years with the Peace Corps in DC and Malawi, Carol Spahn was Executive Director of Accordia Global Health Foundation (Accordia) responsible for implementing new strategies and forging new partnerships to expand the impact of healthcare capacity building efforts in Africa undertaken by the organization. Carol previously served Accordia as its Director of Finance and Administration. Prior to joining Accordia, she was Vice-President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of Small Enterprise Assistance Funds, a non-profit private equity fund manager that invests in small and medium-sized companies in developing countries. Carol was a PCV as a Small Business Advisor in Romania shortly after the fall of communism and has also held several positions with financial service institutions, including GE Capital and KPMG Peat Marwick. She holds . . .

Updated January 22, 2021: Peace Corps reports that President Biden has appointed Carol Spahn as Acting Peace Corps Director. I wrote to Director Olsen about the transition planning and who would be “in charge” at Peace Corps until the new Director is confirmed.  Here is her response: Thank you for reaching out. The transition from one Executive branch administration to the next is a hallmark of our constitutional democracy. We have a succession plan in place to ensure a smooth and effective transition for the incoming administration. Our plan was shared previously with the General Services Administration (GSA), in accordance with government-wide guidance, and members of our Agency Review Team (ART). I can now share with you the name of the staff member who will be stepping in as our Acting Director pending an appointment by the new Administration. I am pleased to say that our ART members have been . . .

Note from the editor: At this time of year, The New York Times’ Travel desk usually publishes its lavish 52 Places to Go list, a compendium of suggestions for the destinations that are especially worth visiting in the coming year, accompanied by show-stopping photography. But this year, that was out of the question. Instead of its traditional list of destinations, the Travel desk asked readers about locales with special meaning to them. This is what Teresa Gotlin-Sheehan (Burkina Faso 2012-14) had to say.     Burkina Faso is a West African country of desert and baobab trees, where more than 60 languages are spoken. I had heard rumors of an abandoned cliff village, like Mesa Verde in the United States, not far from my host community. When a friend came to visit, we set off on a three-day bike tour to visit and view the Niansogoni Cliffs and the Sindou . . .

  Please read the entire E-Newsletter, published Thursday, January 7, 2021. This violence cannot stand. Yesterday was a horrific day for our country. A violent mob stormed the United States Capitol, smashing windows and looting offices. They sent members of Congress and their staffs scrambling for their lives, barricading into offices and chambers, and huddling beneath chairs. Explosive devices were found. One of the extremists who stormed the building was fatally shot. Three other people died in related incidents. And today a Capitol Hill police officer who was assaulted by extremists died. We condemn these acts of violence and chaos in the strongest possible terms. The Peace Corps community is committed to building peace and friendship. When we are sworn in as Volunteers, we take an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. This was an attempted coup by domestic terrorists. Symbolically . . .