September 2023 – Page 4 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Fall RPCV Writers Workshop — Sign Up!

Sep 02 2023

SPACES STILL OPEN FOR FALL RPCV WRITERS WORKSHOP; REGISTER TODAY! Fall RPCV Writers Workshop Are you writing a novel, a memoir, a scholarly essay, poems, and/or short stories? Whether what you’re working on is about the Peace Corps or not, you are invited to the Second Peace Corps Writers Workshop this October on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay, Maryland. The Workshop—open to a maximum of 15 RPCV writers—will be held from Thursday, October 5, to Sunday, October 7, at Shore Retreats on Broad Creek. The cost ranges from $100 to $500, depending on the applicant’s economic circumstances, and includes shared living quarters and most meals. If interested, please contact Matt Losak (Lesotho 1985-87) at: tokamaphepa@aol.com. The Workshop, organized by Peace Corps Worldwide and supported by the Peace Corps Fund, will be led by Mark Brazaitis (Guatemala 1991-93), an English professor at West Virginia University, where he directs the Creative . . .

Watch A TOWERING TASK this September

Sep 01 2023

A Towering Task Coming to PBS Nationwide A Towering Task: The Story of the Peace Corps is coming to PBS stations across the country. There will be a nationwide premiere of A Towering Task on the PBS World channel on Friday, September 29th at 8pm and Saturday, September 30th at 3am, 9am, and 3pm. In addition, individual stations are scheduling the film in local markets starting September 2nd. You can click this link to see the broadcasts that have been scheduled so far. And we are adding stations and dates every day. To help get the story of the Peace Corps to as many audiences as possible, you can encourage your local station to schedule broadcasts of A Towering Task for your region! Simply call your station and ask them to schedule A Towering Task. Your station’s membership services will take note! The film is available to PBS stations (through PBS distributor NETA) for the next three years – and possibly longer, if stations feel there . . .

“A Gabon Memory” by Bonnie Black

Sep 01 2023

by Bonnie Black (Gabon 1996-98) August 31,2023 • The coup that occurred in Gabon this week was a yawn to most news consumers in the West. Just another disputed election and military takeover in another African country; there have been many in recent years. So what. At the time I read about this coup in the New York Times early Wednesday morning, it had drawn only ONE comment, whereas normally by this time lead NYTimes articles garner comments in the hundreds, sometimes thousands. Who cares about Africa after all? And Gabon? Where’s Gabon? Well, I, for one, care, as do most of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers who served there decades ago, when such doors were still open to us. I was (informally) adopted by a Gabonese family in Libreville, the capital, in 1996, when I was in Peace Corps training there, and I’ve stayed in touch ever since with one special member of the family, . . .

Archive - September 2023