January 20, 2022 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Mother cut off from PCV daughter after Tonga volcanic eruption

Jan 20 2022

WAVERLY, Iowa (KWWL) – Eastern Iowa and the Island Kingdom of Tonga are 7,000 miles apart. This week, it feels even farther for one family. “It’s been kind of hard not having that connection right now,” Barb Corson of Waverly said. After graduating from Central College in 2016, Barb’s daughter Carolyn joined the Peace Corps and was assigned to Tonga. She began teaching at a Christian boy’s school. “She amazes me all the time,” Barb said. Carolyn stayed in Tonga until March 2020, when the Peace Corps brought all of its people back stateside because of the pandemic. However, in June 2021, she was allowed to return to Tonga because of her status as a teacher. She quarantined in New Zealand for three weeks and then rejoined her boyfriend Fine (pronounced “Fin-a”), who is from Tonga. The two got married soon after. “We were able to watch a livestream . . .

Review — HISTORY SHOCK: When History Collides with Foreign Relations by John Dickson (Gabon)

Jan 20 2022

History Shock: When History Collides with Foreign Relations by John Dickson (Gabon 1976-1979) University Press of Kansas 248 pages June 2021 $26.49 (Kindle); $34.95 (Hardcover) Review by Eric Madeen (Gabon 1981-83) • John Dickson’s recently released book History Shock: When History Collides with Foreign Relations is ambitious and makes good on its ambitions: to delineate where and when America’s foreign policy “spills across national boundaries.” Indeed: how this book spills across the world map! As he notes, recently no other country blundered as much and easily as the United States, resulting in countless faux pas, cross-cultural insensitivities, outright missteps and innumerable aggressions, all adding up to obstructions of cooperative efforts on mutual interests. There’s much ground covered with chapters on Mexico and Canada (both partly concern “Forgotten Wars” there and the shocking reminder that the United States seized half of Mexico’s territory as a result of wars instigated by . . .

RPCV Olivia Shaffer (Fiji) writes children’s book

Jan 20 2022

Olivia Shaffer (Fiji 2017-20) of Hamburg, Pennsylvania, wrote a children’s book inspired by a boy she met while a Peace Corps Volunteer in Fiji By Lisa Mitchell Berksmont News| January 19, 2022 • While living in a remote village, Shaffer became fast friends with her neighbors, a family with a 3-year-old boy nicknamed Ulu. “Ulu and I became inseparable since the day I moved in next door. We didn’t understand each other’s languages, but we still connected through music, dances and laughing,” said Shaffer. “No matter what language someone speaks, smiling and laughter is something that connects us.” After she returned home to Hamburg, she wrote a children’s book in dedication to Ulu. The book, “I am loved, I am worthy,” is written in “I am” statements meant to spark confidence and feelings of worthiness into the young reader’s mind, Shaffer said. During her time in the Peace Corps, . . .

Archive - January 20, 2022