2022 – Page 19 – Peace Corps Worldwide

RPCV couple and their California “Singing Frogs Farm”(Gambia)

Jun 14 2022

The founders of Singing Frogs Farm, Elizabeth and Paul Kaiser, met in the Peace Corps in Gambia, West Africa in 2003. Paul has a background in Agroforestry and Sustainable Land Management and Elizabeth in Nursing and Public Health. They’ve been farming together since 2007 in Sebastopol, CA, where they’ve been raising their two children while developing their innovative no-till soil management system for intensive vegetable production. Singing Frogs is a small farm—just three cultivated acres—but they are reaping BIG results using Regenerative Farming methods. They’ve increased the organic matter in their soil by 400% in just six years, without nutrient leaching, while almost tripling the total microbial life in the soil. They’ve also dramatically reduced their water usage per crop, starting at three hours of drip irrigation every other day and now down to about 20-30 minutes per week (when they need to irrigate at all). But . . .

RPCV Writer Tom Corbett (India)

Jun 14 2022

Tom Corbett (India 1966-68) is emeritus senior scientist and an affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he served as associate and acting director for a decade before his retirement. He received a doctorate in Social Welfare from the University of Wisconsin and taught various social policy and program evaluation courses there for many years. During his long academic and policy career he consulted with government at the local, state, and national levels including a stint in Washington D.C. where he helped develop President Clinton’s welfare reform legislation. He has written dozens of articles and reports on poverty, social policy, and human services issues and given hundreds of talks across the nation on these topics. The author lives in Madison Wisconsin. Our Grand Adventure: The trials and triumphs of India-44 is a just out, improved upon, re-release of an earlier Peace Corps work It Seemed . . .

This week in Congress

Jun 13 2022

Tuesday, June 14 House Foreign Affairs — 10 a.m. — 2172 Rayburn International Development budget State Department officials will testify on the fiscal 2023 budget request for the Peace Corps and U.S. International Development Finance Corporation.

Inside Peace Corps Issue #6

Jun 13 2022

Published May 18, 2022 Chief Executive Officer’s Message On March 15, 2022, two years after the Peace Corps’ first-ever global evacuation, our first group of Volunteers returned to service in Zambia! Since then, Volunteers and Trainees have arrived in nine countries and many more will depart for their countries of service in the coming months. This long-awaited return is about connecting across difference. It is also about taking action in the spirit of humble partnership and in the face of incredibly challenging and uncertain times. Over the past two years, we have seen staff, returned Peace Corps Volunteers, counterparts, and host families step up in so many remarkable ways to support each other, their communities, and their countries. The care and concern displayed by the Peace Corps network has so clearly demonstrated that the Peace Corps is much more than a service organization. It represents a lifetime of connection and solidarity. The . . .

Feds warn Navarro to stop making “Numerous False Statements” about his arrest

Jun 11 2022

From Daily Beast Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Marnie Mueller (Ecuador 1963-65) Trump loyalist Peter Navarro has made “numerous false statements” about his arrest, federal prosecutors wrote in a new court filing Thursday urging a judge to reject Navarro’s request for more time until his next court hearing. Navarro was arrested last week for refusing to comply with a subpoena issued by the House committee investigating the Capitol riot. He was not denied food, water or a call to a lawyer, prosecutors said in the new filing shared by Politico. In fact, “At the time of his arrest, the Defendant first requested to call the press, which was denied,” it says. The feds say Navarro’s arresting officers — who Navarro called “kind Nazis”— told him he could call an attorney, but he instead said he needed to go on live TV that night and had to call to say he wouldn’t be there. Navarro . . .

Nominate Your Favorite RPCV Book Published in 2021

Jun 11 2022

To further fulfill its goals to encourage, recognize and promote Peace Corps writers, RPCV Writers & Readers, the newsletter that was the precursor of PeaceCorpsWriters.org and PeaceCorpsWorldwide.org, presented its first annual awards for outstanding writing in 1990. The awards are: The Award for Writer of the Year The Moritz Thomsen Peace Corps Experience Award The Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award The Maria Thomas Fiction Award The Award for Best Peace Corps Memoir The Award for Best Book of Poetry The Peace Corps Writers Publisher’s Award The Peace Corps Writers Publisher’s Special Staff Award The Award for Best Short Story Collection The Award for Best Travel Book The Rowland Scherman Award for Best Photography Book The Award for Best Children’s Book about a Peace Corps Country The Award for Best Book for Young Adults The Marian Haley Beil Award for the Best Book Review The Award for Advancing the Mission Other Awards . . .

The Volunteer Who Was Named One of Most Powerful Women on Wall Street — Patricia Cloherty (Brazil)

Jun 10 2022

by Jeremiah Norris (Colombia 1963-65) (A cautionary note to readers: a significant portion of Patricia Cloherty’s professional career involved her firm’s investments in Russia at a time when it was a viable member of the Community Nations. That status has been tabled since its February, 2022 unprovoked invasion of Ukraine). • Patricia Cloherty earned a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of San Francisco, followed by two MAs from Columbia University. After hergraduation, she became a Peace Corps Volunteer in Brazil from 1963 to 1965. She began her career in venture capital at Patricof & Co. in New York, which she joined in 1969. She was named a partner and later would become resident and co-chair of the firm, along with founder Alan Patricof. After she left the firm, Patricof & Co. (now known as Apax Partners), became one of the largest private equity firms globally. In an interview with . . .

RPCV Peter Navarro (Thailand) Net Worth: How This Person Became so Rich? Latest Update!

Jun 04 2022

by Fred Tucson June 4, 2022 Peter Kent Navarro is an American economist and author who was born on July 15, 1949. During the Trump administration, he worked as an assistant to the president, director of trade and manufacturing policy, and coordinator of policy for the National Defense Production Act. He used to be Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the White House National Trade Council, which was a newly created White House Office until it was folded into the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy in April 2017. He is also an emeritus professor of economics and public policy at the Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California, Irvine, and the author of many books, including Death by China. Five times, Navarro ran for office in San Diego, California, but he lost each time. Other economists think of Navarro as a fringe figure . . .

RPCV Peter Navarro (Thailand) arrested

Jun 04 2022

A federal grand jury indicted former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro (Thailand 1973-76) on criminal contempt of Congress charges after he refused to comply with a subpoena issued by the House Jan. 6 committee. The FBI arrested Navarro Friday morning. In his first court appearance Friday afternoon, Navarro said that he was on his way to Nashville for a television appearance Friday morning, and that an FBI team let him get to the airport and try to board a plane before putting him in handcuffs. Navarro said during his court appearance he was put in a jail cell Friday.

Peace Corps Volunteers Return to the Americas

Jun 03 2022

Peace Corps Volunteers Return to the Americas for First Time since 2020 Evacuation WASHINGTON – Today, the Peace Corps announced that Peace Corps volunteers have arrived in seven countries in North, Central, and South America. These volunteers are the first to return to the region since the agency’s unprecedented global evacuation in March 2020, when global operations were suspended and nearly 7,000 volunteers from more than 60 countries were evacuated. “Our volunteers are ready to work hand in hand with communities across the Americas to meet this moment,” said Peace Corps CEO Carol Spahn. “The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic are far-reaching and the work of our partners and volunteers is critical to response and recovery efforts across the globe.” As of May 31, Peace Corps Volunteers are serving in Belize, the Eastern Caribbean, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, and Peru, in the Americas region. Volunteers will collaborate with their host . . .

11 new Peace Corps Volunteers take their oath in the Dominican Republic

Jun 03 2022

Santo Domingo .- The Chargé d’Affaires of the Embassy of the United States in the Dominican Republic, Robert Thomas, swore in 11 new Peace Corps volunteer technicians, the first new group to start their work after the pause caused by the pandemic of the COVID-19. The volunteers will be sent to different communities in Azua, Monte Plata and Peravia, to work on community development and education projects, respectively. Thomas commended the volunteers for their dedication, level of commitment, and willingness to share their knowledge and American culture with the Dominican people. In addition, he recognized the hospitality of the Dominicans who receive the volunteers. “On behalf of the United States, I extend my gratitude and appreciation to the Dominican people who have opened their arms to receive our volunteers and have allowed our collective friendship to grow through exchange, placed in strategic places.” The first PCVs went to . . .

Talking with Tim Suchsland (Kazakhstan)

Jun 02 2022

Where and when did you serve in the Peace Corps, and what was your Peace Corp project assignment? Kazakhstan, 2007-09 — I was a TEFL teacher in a village near the Russian border called Yavlenka. Tell us about where you lived and worked. Yavlenka is in northern Kazakhstan about 50 miles from the Russian border and 1.5 hours from a city called Petropavl. The village was a regional center so it had quite a bit of activity and business for rural Kazakhstan. It was also a big agricultural area so lots of farming in the area. The landscape was fairly flat where the Kazakh steppe met the West Siberian Plains. I lived with host families my entire time in the PC. During training, I lived with a Kazakh family. My first year in Yavlenka I also lived with a Kazakh family of 5. In my last year, I lived with . . .

CHALLENGING PREGNANCY by Genevieve Grabman (Kyrgyz Republic)

Jun 02 2022

In Challenging Pregnancy, Genevieve Grabman recounts being pregnant with identical twins whose circulatory systems were connected in a rare condition called twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome. Doctors couldn’t “unfuse” the fetuses because one twin also had several other confounding problems: selective intrauterine growth restriction, a two-vessel umbilical cord, a marginal cord insertion, and, possibly, a parasitic triplet. Ultimately, national anti-abortion politics — not medicine or her own choices — determined the outcome of Grabman’s pregnancy. At every juncture, anti-abortion politics limited the care available to her, the doctors and hospitals willing to treat her, the tools doctors could use, and the words her doctors could say. Although she asked for aggressive treatment to save at least one baby, hospital ethics boards blocked all able doctors from helping her. Challenging Pregnancy is about Grabman’s harrowing pregnancy and the science and politics of maternal healthcare in the United States, where every person must self-advocate for . . .

RPCV Susan L Carpenter (Ethiopia): Mediator, Trainer, Writer

May 31 2022

Susan L. Carpenter (Ethiopia 1968-70) is a writer and mediator, trainer in private practice. She has spent the past thirty years developing and managing programs to reach consensus on public issues, resolve public controversies and develop common goals and visions at the local, state and national level. She was the founding director of the Program for Community Problem Solving in Washington, D.C. Prior to that she spent ten years as the associate director of ACCORD Associates in Boulder, Colorado mediating complex public disputes and training others to handle conflict productively. She currently works with organizations and groups to build capacity for collaboration and conflict resolution. Ms. Carpenter holds a Master’s Degree in International Education and a Doctorate in Future Studies both from the University of Massachusetts. She was a Visiting Fellow at the Program on Negotiation at the Harvard Law School. She taught for two years in Ethiopia as a . . .

MY SADDEST PLEASURES: 50 Years on the Road by Mark D. Walker (Guatemala)

May 30 2022

In his new book, Mark Walker reflects on his fifty years of travel miscalculations and disasters and how and why he travels changed over the years, as has who he traveled with. As a young Peace Corps Volunteer with no overseas travel experience, the world was his oyster, and he figured he could go anywhere if he set his mind to it—with little or no money. Then he married a Guatemalan lady and had to think more about “our” needs; then, three children meant additional requirements and responsibilities. And later, as a professional fundraiser, he would set up donor visits to program areas where the organizations he represented needed funds, which meant considering the needs of up to fifteen individuals of all ages, including children and some donors in their 70s and 80s. He’s become a savvier trekker, although he was still prone to the occasional snafu. This book . . .

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