Christmas Greetings To All RPCVs — Thank you for reading our website — Marian, Joanne and John
Marnie, Absolutey, Thank you, again.
The First Christmas Card, 1843
Marnie, Absolutey, Thank you, again.
The First Christmas Card, 1843
Copyright © 2022. Peace Corps Worldwide.
To Marian, Joann & John, THANKS for the website! Its a jewel for our community. Superbly done! We’re very grateful!! Ken & Winnie Hill.
Marian, Joanne and John,
Here’s wishing all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year too! Thank you so much for making and keeping this website so relevant and interesting for the RPCVs. We depend on it, and you folks do us a great service by maintaining the high quality of the website’s contents. I don’t know how you do it, but I’m extremely grateful and thankful for all you do.
Best wishes,
Jim Skelton
Dear John, Marian, and Joanne,
Very best wishes to you. Thank you for your extraordinary work in keeping us informed of the publications of RPCVs. You are motivating many of us to continue sharing our Peace Corps experiences in a multitude of ways…day by day.
May the New Year be kind to all our extended Peace Corps family.
Geri Marr Burdman (RPCV Bolivia 1962-64)
To John, Marian, and Joanne,
It is we who need to thank you for such a wonderful website that keeps all of us RPCVs connected with such interesting content! Every day I wake up looking forward to seeing what you have posted. Thank you for all the time and effort you put into this website. May the season bring you joy and peace. Here’s to new beginnings in 2021!
Many thanks John, Marian and Joanne, I appreciate all you do and best wishes for the New Year!
Dan Campbell, El Salvador, 1974-1977
Were the people in the Christmas Card Peace Corps Volunteers? If so, I didn’t recognize any of them.
In any case, my thanks, appreciation and Holiday Wishes to John, Marian and Joanne.
Allen Mondell, Sierra Leone, 1963-65
Allen, actually they all were in Sierra Leone, but after you. Merry Christmas and a great new year without Trump! John
Thank you, John, Marian and Joanne, for keeping us together and creative and for providing this ideal venue for sharing the Peace Corps experience.
I second the praise by Ken and Winnie Hill. An invaluable community and historical resource, which I check daily with morning coffee. Kudos to John, Marian, and Joanne !!
Robert C. Terry, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) 1961-63
John, Marian and Joanne
En nombre de todos los miembros de Colombia Uno, les deseo un muy feliz y saludable Año Nuevo.
I was about to write a comment on January 6th, Three King’s Day, which calls an end to the holiday season, and which speaks to gifts from afar, but then a little matter happened in DC and I was distracted.
John and Marian, and now Joanne have been bringing gifts from afar to all of us, readers and writers alike. As a writer I can’t even begin to describe how grateful I am to them, primarily for providing a venue to freely express my opinions, even more negative ones about the Peace Corps. But what is of even greater value to me, is that through the years, reading of other RPCVs experiences on this blog, I’ve had to alter my own and gradually come to a place where I can proudly say I was a Peace Corps Volunteer. There has been astounding work done by volunteers during their service and afterward, efforts and successes I wouldn’t have known about without the commitment of these three to build an historical record of our efforts.
Thank you!
Just acknowledging and affirming Marnie’s powerful statement that John and Marian and Joanne have provided us with a learning and growing, as well as a sharing and interacting, opportunity.
Marnie,
Without John and Marian, there would be no Peace Corps history. I don’t think there would even be a recognizable RPCV Community without the work done in organizing the early committees into the National Peace Corps Association. The 25th Anniversary and the Journals of Peace as well as the Peace Corps Collection at the JFK Library are a result of their efforts. I count myself very lucky.
I want to thank you, also, for “Green Fires.” You autographed my copy. I know it was fiction, but your description of the main character’s experiences with CD in a barrio in Guayaquil was so authentic. It mirrored what I had experienced in a small town in the foothills of the Colombian Andes, at almost the exact time as the time in the book. Once I read the book, I just gained such a perspective, decades after I had come home and was still trying to understand what happened. It meant a lot I am forever grateful. to you, to Marian and John, and to all the RPCVs who work so hard, and so independently to make Peace Corps live.
Dear Joanne, Thank you for your comments about “Green Fires.” I’m really happy that it helped you work through your understanding of what occurred during your time in Columbia. Not that I would ever compare myself to her, but reading the work of “Maria Thomas” helped me inordinately in perhaps a comparable way, as I was grappling with resolving my own trauma, as well as a feeling of loneliness, given that most of my contemporaries had no understanding or curiosity about what it had been like living, deeply embedded, for almost two years in a culture very different than my own. Reading Thomas was like having an understanding friend, who allowed all sorts of feelings to emerge, the good, the bad, the anger, the black humor, and the joy. I hope I offered to you as a reader, a similar feeling of acceptance.
Marnie, Absolutey, Thank you, again.