Archive - December 2022

1
First PCVs in Viet Nam Sworn In by Carol Spahn
2
Peace Corps CD Reginald E. Petty: The Pandemic Prophet
3
Honoring the Life of Harris Wofford
4
Nuclear tragedy in the Marshall Islands
5
COMING OF AGE IN THE CANNIBAL ISLANDS by Fred Bell (Fiji)
6
“Every Christmas in Ghana”
7
Advocacy Update: Peace Corps Funding Increase, But No Legislation
8
CorpsAfrica Swears-in Volunteers
9
Charlie Peters (Peace Corps staff) turns 96!
10
Between Freedom and Equality by RPCV Barbara Boyle Torrey (Tanzania)
11
“My Dona Anita” by Jerry Norris (Colombia)
12
First Peace Corps Astronaut | Mae Jemison (Liberia, Sierra Leone)
13
ONCE UPON A PENINSULA – A children’s coloring book by Tim Carroll(Nigeria)
14
“Beautiful Dysfunctionality”
15
Review — THE VEGETABLE GROWS AND THE LION ROARS by Gary R. Lindberg (Ivory Coast)

First PCVs in Viet Nam Sworn In by Carol Spahn

First-ever cohort of Peace Corps volunteers in Việt Nam sworn in 30 December 2022 The Peace Corps’ English education program in Việt Nam, officially established with the signing of an implementing agreement in July 2020, is a collaborative partnership between the Peace Corps and Việt Nam’s Ministry of Education and Training. HÀ NỘI — As part of her first official tour, Peace Corps Director Carol Spahn on Friday swore in the inaugural group of Peace Corps volunteers to serve in Việt Nam during a ceremony in Hà Nội. “As we approach the New Year, this swearing-in offers us the opportunity to take a moment from our busy lives to appreciate and recognise the power of human connection,” said Peace Corps Director Carol Spahn. “As the 143rd partner country of the Peace Corps, Việt Nam is a welcome addition to our global community, and I look forward to seeing how volunteers and . . .

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Peace Corps CD Reginald E. Petty: The Pandemic Prophet

  This is a poetic and prose praise song to Mr. Reginald E. Petty. He was from a small town in Southern Illinois called East St. Louis. It is now considered an economically deprived city, but it never stopped his drive and passion to make it better, as well as himself. The book speaks to his upbringing and what makes him a legend to not only the citizens of his hometown, but throughout the world – particularly in Africa. Mr. Petty was one of the first African American Peace Corps Country Directors. He served in South Africa, Kenya, Ghana and Seychelles from 1966-1983 and went on to receive presidential appointments from three additional U.S. Presidents. He was instrumental in the voter registration efforts in the American South in the late 1950’s, early 1960’s and was a friend and confidante to major civil rights icons like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., . . .

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Honoring the Life of Harris Wofford

Harris Wofford always had high expectations for young people. He believed in their potential, he admired their passion, and he supported the institutions that gave them opportunities to make their mark. For that reason, I hope you will support The Wofford Awards. Youth Service America, where Harris served on the Board for two decades, is celebrating America’s Semiquincentennial in 2026 with a new campaign to double the percentage of young people volunteering, voting, leading, and participating in the public square. 2026 also happens to be Harris’ 100th birthday year. With your help, we are determined to expand the opportunities for young people to make our communities cleaner, greener, safer, smarter, healthier, and stronger. We recently did a prevalence study that shows youth participation in volunteering and voting hovers around 25%, meaning that we are leaving out three out of four young people. And they are missing the opportunity to practice the skills they . . .

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Nuclear tragedy in the Marshall Islands

A Writer Writes By Sally Clark | May 25, 2022 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists     We were innocent 21-year-olds entering an organization called the Peace Corps in 1969. We came from all over the United States, some wanting to dodge the draft, but most of us were embracing a desire to help others. We were thrilled looking out the window of Micronesia Air plane peering down at a beautiful atoll, a thin necklace of green trees and white sandy beaches, floating on the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. As we approached for landing, we buzzed first over the runway to clear all the trucks, pigs, cars, chickens, and people off the landing area. Then we landed, on the rough runway, the pilot forcing the plane into reverse to come to a stop, much to our relief, at the end of the concrete road in Majuro, looking across at the . . .

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COMING OF AGE IN THE CANNIBAL ISLANDS by Fred Bell (Fiji)

  In 1969, a naive young Berkeley graduate, determined to make the world a better place, joins the Peace Corps. He finds himself living in the tropical paradise of Fiji, formerly known as the “Cannibal Isles,” as a full-time forester with a hundred employees to supervise. Inexperienced, yet self-confident to the max, he embarks on a 4-year- long adventure during which he dives deeply into the culture, becoming fluent in the Fijian language, eating everything from fruit bats to raw fish, earning the nickname Vuku Levu, or spiritually inspired one, and finding that dancing with Rotumans is better than “Saturday Night Fever.”   Like most Peace Corps Volunteers, he learns that the Peace Corps is far more than sending educated and enthusiastic young Americans to use Western science and technology to help solve problems in third world countries. It is a two-way educational process where the volunteers learn about life . . .

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“Every Christmas in Ghana”

Every Christmas, all around Ghana, there are tons of these parties and they are full of everything that exists in human life in Ghana and worldwide. by Kathleen Ryan (Ghana 1969-71)   The first year I was in Ghana and Christmas was approaching I was a bit sad. It was my first Christmas away from home. The decorations from my mother helped, but I still missed being there until one night still bright in my memory drawer. I was lying in bed under my scratchy blanket. It was cold, harmattan cold. The night air was clear. The stars were so many everything seemed to shine. All of sudden I heard a boy singing We Three Kings. I didn’t know where he was. I figured he was in one of the compounds close to my school, and the night air was carrying his voice to me. He sang every stanza. He brought . . .

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Advocacy Update: Peace Corps Funding Increase, But No Legislation

This is the news from the National Peace Corps Association.  Thank you to Jonathan Pearson. “As the 117th Congress finishes its work for the year, final results for the Peace Corps are mixed.” “On Friday, the House completed work on a $1.7 trillion Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) omnibus spending package to fund the federal government through next September. The Peace Corps received a funding increase in its baseline budget. The omnibus legislation includes President Biden’s request of a $20 million, five percent increase for the agency (from $410.5 million to $430.5 million). It’s the first increase in seven years, matching the president’s request and responding as well to the House and Senate appropriations letters that 43 Senators and 146 Members of Congress sent, calling for an increased budget. This increase comes as more than 900 Volunteers and Trainees have returned to service in 45 countries. The remaining nine months of . . .

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CorpsAfrica Swears-in Volunteers

CorpsAfrica swears-in volunteers to facilitate high-impact projects in communities December 22, 2022 Swearing In Of Volunteers CorpsAfrica, a non-profit organization, has sworn-in the first cohort of volunteers in Ghana, to lead small-scale and high-impact projects identified in their host communities. At a ceremony in Accra, fifteen (15) volunteers, who have gone through five (5) weeks of Pre-Service Training (PST), took the oath of service. In her keynote address, H. E. Virginia Palmer, US Ambassador in Ghana, recalled that Ghana was the first country in 1961 to welcome Peace Corps volunteers. She said there is no question about the impact that Peace Corps volunteers have had in the country- the same spirit of volunteerism that inspired CorpsAfrica. “I have seen first-hand the transformational power of CorpsAfrica in Malawi. How exciting to know that you now have the ability to improve livelihoods in Ghana, one community at a time. CorpsAfrica is a . . .

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Charlie Peters (Peace Corps staff) turns 96!

  Charlie Peters, Washington Monthly Founder and First Peace Corps Head of Evaluation, Turns 96 by Matthew Cooper December 22, 2022 Alittle over 20 years ago, I made a short film in honor of Charlie Peters, the founding editor of the Washington Monthly. The American Society of Magazine Editors was inducting my old boss and mentor to its Hall of Fame, a kind of Cooperstown of glossies. Held at a glitzy luncheon at New York’s Waldorf Astoria hotel, the editors of venerable titles lavishly toasted themselves as the National Magazine Awards were handed out. (In retrospect, it had an end-of-an-era feeling, with 9/11 and the collapse of so many publications in the offing.) My short film was a precis to Charlie getting his Thalberg. It began with shots of the Time-Life Building, the Newsweek building, and the Condé Nast tower, followed by voiceover narration: “… and this is the Washington Monthly.” Cut to . . .

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Between Freedom and Equality by RPCV Barbara Boyle Torrey (Tanzania)

Between Freedom and Equality by Barbara Boyle Torrey (Tanzania 1963-65) & Myrick Green Georgetown University Press 279 pages $22.49 (Kindle); $25.50 (Hardcover) June 2021       An original history of six generations of an African American family living in Washington, DC Between Freedom and Equality begins with the life of Capt. George Pointer, an enslaved African who purchased his freedom in 1793 while working for George Washington’s Potomac Company. It follows the lives of six generations of his descendants as they lived and worked on the banks of the Potomac, in the port of Georgetown, and in a rural corner of the nation’s capital. By tracing the story of one family and their experiences, Between Freedom and Equality offers a moving and inspiring look at the challenges that free African Americans have faced in Washington, DC, since the district’s founding. The story begins with an 1829 letter from Pointer that is preserved . . .

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“My Dona Anita” by Jerry Norris (Colombia)

A Writer Writes My Dona Anita by Jeremiah Norris (Colombia 1963-65) • Early on in my stay in La Plata as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Colombia, an elderly woman made a habit of coming to my door late every afternoon. She appeared to be about 80 or so, was dressed in moldy, black rags with a shawl covering her head and most of her face, and she smelled heavily of urine. She had one or two badly bent front teeth, knurled hands, a deeply weathered face, walked uncertainly with a stick, hunched over and very slowly. She couldn’t have weighed more than 75 pounds. It pained her to look up at me as she was much less than 5 feet tall. She had to twist her head to one side and look up sideways when we spoke. Once, though, she had been preceded into this world by a love . . .

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First Peace Corps Astronaut | Mae Jemison (Liberia, Sierra Leone)

  In tributes unique among NASA’s field centers, the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex preserves the feats of the nation’s astronauts. The U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame is part of the Legends and Heroes exhibit. In addition, a vast collection of astronaut memorabilia and the stunning black granite Space Mirror Memorial honor their service and sacrifices. The premier spaceport has memorialized astronauts’ bravery, accomplishments and wisdom over the decades for the world’s inspiration and hope. In their own words, astronauts share insights from exploring space. The Peace Corps’ Mae Jemison As mission specialist in 1992, Mae Jemison works at an experiment rack inside the Spacelab module installed in Endeavour’s cargo bay.ae Jemison, an engineer and physician for the Peace Corps in (Liberia & Sierra Leone 1983-85), became the first African American woman to fly in space on the shuttle Endeavour Spacelab on Sept. 12, 1992. She served as a science mission . . .

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ONCE UPON A PENINSULA – A children’s coloring book by Tim Carroll(Nigeria)

‘I just had to live a long time:’ Beloved Old Mission memories turned into children’s coloring book by Jessie Williams Special to the Record-Eagle June 29, 2022 MAPLETON MI — As a fifth-generation Old Mission Peninsula resident, Tim Carroll (Nigeria 1963-65) has an abundance of stories about his home. “I’ve always been interested in the history of this place, and I love my roots,” Carroll said. Carroll, 83, is sharing his perspective on the Peninsula’s history in a new coloring book, Once Upon A Peninsula, which features stories from his boyhood on the Peninsula. The book, which includes coloring and other activities, features stories and pictures from the Old Mission Peninsula during Carroll’s youth. Once Upon A Peninsula was illustrated by local artist Yvette Haberlein, who previously illustrated “The Traverse City Coloring Book” project. Carroll is a regular presenter at Peninsula Community Library, hosting the monthly history-focused “Talk with Tim” . . .

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“Beautiful Dysfunctionality”

by Haley McLeod “The Cloudy Knight” (Cameroon 2013-15) • We call it “falling in love” for a reason. “Falling” because it is unexpected, perhaps with an entity previously unknown. “In” because you were previously “out.” The majority of us speak of “falling in love” within the context of loving a person, usually with a romantic, mushy-gushy sort of undertone. But let us focus less on the love, and more on the process of “falling in.”  Have you ever encountered a place, a person, a culture – any entity, really – that is so foreign, so odd, that you could never imagine liking it, much less loving it?  It is a journey of transformation: from unknowing, to knowing but hating, to accepting, to liking, to loving.  And finally, you finish by embracing this entity in its entirety, with all of its flaws, and all of its beauty.   This story is . . .

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Review — THE VEGETABLE GROWS AND THE LION ROARS by Gary R. Lindberg (Ivory Coast)

  The Vegetable Grows and the Lion Roars: My Peace Corps Service by Gary R. Lindberg (Ivory Coast 1966-68) Self-Published 214 pages March 2022 $ 7.49 (Kindle); $15.67 (Paperback)   Reviewed by D.W. Jefferson (El Salvador (1974-76) & Costa Rica (1976-77) • Peace Corps memoirs of 1960s-era volunteers are like precious gems that become more and more valuable as more of those folks pass on. Gary Lindberg wrote this memoir about his Peace Corps service in Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) from 1965-68. Lindberg taught primary school students and teachers various gardening techniques as part of a school gardens program. The memoir includes how he decided to apply for Peace Corps, how he trained, his project, his daily activities, and the friends he made while he was there. He also shares highlights from the travels he took when on vacation breaks, such as his experience on a safari and his visit . . .

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