Miscellany

PEACE CORPS ON JEOPARDY – MARCH 11, 2011 and MARCH 16, 2011 Tune in tonight to test your Peace Corps trivia prowess on Jeopardy!  Tonight’s episode (3/11) will feature a Peace Corps category (5 questions).  ABC.  7:30 pm EST – but check your local listings. http://www.jeopardy.com/ Next week, the March 16th episode, will feature an RPCV contestant.

http://firstresponseaction.blogspot.com/2011/03/candlelight-vigil-for-kate-puzey-friday.html Candlelight Vigil for Kate Puzey on Friday, March 11 in D.C. Kate Puzey is a Volunteer who was murdered in Benin in 2009. Her story was highlighted on an episode of 20/20 in January. The Puzey family have started a new website in Kate’s memory and they are hosting a vigil this Friday in D.C. to honor her memory and service as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Here are details from the Kate’s Voice website, which the Puzey family started to honor Kate’s memory: March 11th Vigil: “Light A Candle For Kate” On Friday, March 11th – the 2nd anniversary of Kate Puzey’s death – there will be a vigil to honor Kate and the sacrifices of all other Peace Corps volunteer victims in front of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. from 6:30 – 7:30 PM. They also have a facebook page for Kate’s Voice. The Puzey family . . .

Katie Christ (Mali 1989-91) is building a school in her former village. It is a project where the International Women’s Democracy Center, in Washington D.C. and run by Barbara Ferris (Morocco 1971-73), is the fiscal agent. If you were in Mali (or if you just want to help build “Mali Kalanso”) check out www.malikalanso.org.     Katie’s organization is a non-profit providing education to children in Mali. Katie is building the school, called ‘Kalanso,’ which means schoolhouse in the local Bambara language. Mali, as you may know, is one of the poorest countries in the world, and  has one of the lowest literacy rates, especially among girls. Katie is trying to change that,  one school at a time. From time to time we will use the site to point out RPCV organizations that are working, in the U.S. and overseas, to fulfill the goals of the Peace Corps, especially the Third Goal, which this site is all about.

I’ve written about Pat Kennedy before. He was one of those early ‘Mad Men’ of the agency and in 1961 was the only agency training officer and set up the first Peace Corps training programs. Kennedy was also the escort officer for the Ghana I Volunteers. That group arrived in-country on the afternoon of August 30 (or the afternoon of  September 1, 1961,) on a  Pan American DC-7 that had painted on the fuselage, Peace Corps Clipper. John Demos, a PCV on that flight, is quoted in Come As You Are written by Coates Redmon and published in 1986 that “We were set down in Accra on the afternoon of September 1, 1961.”  It had taken the PCVs twenty-one hour to reach Africa according to Kennedy, but others on-board said it took twenty-three hours (but after all those hours who’s counting?) Gerard T. Rice in his book The Bold Experiment: JFK’s Peace Corps, published in 1985, has Ghana PCVs arriving on August 30, . . .

Robert Potter with Judy Irola, who did that wonderful Niger ’66 film, recently did a short youtube piece on Jake Feldman who says he’s the first PCV. Jake was a Volunteer in then-called-Tanganyika back in ’61. He might indeed be the first Volunteer, but so many RPCVs claim that honor I’m losing count. Anyway, it is a nice piece, take a look, and for those who missed the background on this issue, here is a short blog (reprinted)  I wrote almost a year ago on the whole issue of  “who was first.” Check out the youtube item. Jake has a lot of good things to say about being in the Peace Corps, #1 or not. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUpx8MVdOuI&feature=youtube_gdata_player Who Was The First Peace Corps Volunteer? Posted by John Coyne on Sunday, April 18th 2010      Lately there has been endless talk among RPCVs about who was the first PCV. Perhaps I’m partially to blame with my blogging about the early days of the Peace Corps. Or . . .

[This piece entitled “A climate-change activist prepares for the worst” was in the Washington Post Outlook Section on Friday, February 25, 2011. It was written by Mike Tidwell (Zaire 1985–87) who is executive director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, and author of The Ponds of Kalambayi: An African Sojourn, newly re-released. Sarge Shriver called The Ponds the best  Peace Corps memoir ever written.] • A Climate-Change Activist Prepares for the Worst Ten years ago, I put solar panels on my roof and began eating locally grown food. I bought an energy-efficient refrigerator that uses the power equivalent of a single light bulb. I started heating my home with a stove that burns organically fertilized corn kernels. I even restored a gas-free lawn mower for manual yardwork. As a longtime environmental activist, I was deeply alarmed by new studies on global warming, so I went all out. I did my part. . . .

Following a recent episode of 20/20 featuring former Peace Corps Volunteers who were sexually assaulted during their overseas service, Congress has decided to explore the issue further and has asked a group of assault survivors to provide it with additional information from former volunteers about their experiences, prevention and response efforts, and possible policy enhancements, for an upcoming hearing, most likely at the end of March.  Pursuant to that request, First Response Action is gathering stories of former volunteers who experienced sexual assault while serving in the Peace Corps.  First Response Actions has model affidavits to help survivors tell their stories, and will share those stories with Congress affording survivors whatever level of anonymity or attribution they choose.  First Response Action is also interested in the stories of other Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, including former Country Directors, who may have information regarding sexual assault prevention and response policies. If you . . .

WHYY, the NPR station in Philadelphia, had a very positive show about the Peace Corps on its Radio Times program yesterday. For the first hour, the host, Marty Moss-Coane, spoke to Stan Meisler, author of the new book, just published, When The World Calls:  The Inside Story of the Peace Corps and its First Fifty Years. The second hour had Moss-Coane interviewing three RPCVs: Julia Zagar, who served in Peru in the 1960s and now runs an art gallery in Philadelphia; Concetta Bencivenga, who served in Thailand in the early 1990s and is now directs the Please Touch Museum; and Sarah Edelman, who served in El Salvador from 2005 to 2007 and is now a Public Citizen Organizer.  There were numerous phone callers during both hours, almost all RPCVs. All in all, it was a wonderful antidote to the ABC 20/20 onslaught. You can hear the shows on the WHYY website . . .

About 6 months ago Marian Beil, the publisher of this site,  met with one of the top organizers at the Peace Corps for the 50th celebration to share some ideas on how the Peace Corps might mark the occasion. One of Marian’s suggestions was to have an evening of dancing for PCVs and RPCVs to music played by bands from around the world — the kind of music that gets us up out of our seats — with a partner or not — to bask in the joy of having been able to embrace the world through our Peace Corps service. The response from the non-RPCV Peace Corps employee was 1) Peace Corps was being looked at closely by the GAO about expenditures from the Chicago 45th and they needed to be very careful [as far as I know the NPCA paid for that event in Chicago, not the Peace Corps]; 2) . . .

I got an interesting email over the weekend from a woman friend who was an early PCV. She was responding to the posted I put up about the two events on March 17 that profiles the ‘founders’ of the agency. She made a valid point, speaking about the Peace Corps HQ panel discussion, saying: “With all due respect to these folks, do you find it as perplexing as I do that none of these  panels ever includes early Volunteers–there are some fairly accomplished people around town who were part of Ghana 1 or Chile 1 or Colombia 1 or even Philippines 1! “I would think that audiences may want to know what it was like from the perspective of the Volunteer.  These guys–and you do notice that  with the exception of Mary Ann, they are all guys (shades of 1961) –provided lots of vision but they had little idea of the realities faced by the . . .

[Republican Congressman Ted Poe of Texas later this month, or early next month, will begin a series of Hearings on the Hill about PCVs being attacked and raped. Here is the speech he gave today, February 9, 2011, on the Hill.] ROLL CALL OF THE PEACE CORPS VICTIMS Washington, Feb 9 – Mr. Speaker, I want to address an important issue that has come to light recently. It has to do with the wonderful group of volunteers that serve in the United States Peace Corps. The Peace Corps was the idea of John F. Kennedy. He went to the University of Michigan way back in 1960, and he started encouraging those college students to get involved in other countries and helping those countries in their social development and their cultural development in the name of peace. A wonderful idea. When he became President in 1961, President Kennedy signed an Executive order establishing the . . .

Last month, in our January listings of new books by RPCVs, we listed the 2nd edition of  Dillon Banerjee (Cameroon 1994-96) book: The Insider’s Guide to the Peace Corps: What to Know Before You Go, published by Ten Speed Press. Then yesterday in the mail I got a copy of  The Complete Guide to Joining the Peace Corps: What you need to know explained simply. (Real simply!) It was complied by someone named Sharlee DiMenichi, who wasn’t a PCV, though she taught in China, and it has a short foreword by Shannon Heintz (Kenya 2005-07). On the back of the book, Jennifer Zweigbau (Mauritania 1989-90) writes, “Had this book been around in 1988 when I first joined the Peace Corps, it would have alleviated a lot of the guess-work.” (I don’t think so, Jen.) This ‘complete guide book’ was mailed to me with a scrap of paper that said it was published by . . .

BACK IN 1965-67, the Peace Corps had the idea of letting two RPCVs make a film about being in the Peace Corps. I’m not quite sure how it all came about, but I’m guessing the idea had the encouragement of Harris Wofford, then an Associate Director of the agency, and the film was made by two Nigeria One RPCVs: Roger Landrum (Nigeria 1961–63) and David Schickele (Nigeria 1961–63). The film was called Give Me a Riddle. The Peace Corps was planning to use it for recruitment. Well, when RPCVs make a movie of their experiences, let me tell you, the agency is never going to use it for recruitment. Give Me a Riddle was too honest a representation of Peace Corps Volunteers life overseas; the agency couldn’t handle it. I was thinking about Give Me a Riddle last  night as I watched Niger’66: A Peace Corps Diary. It was done by two Niger Volunteers, . . .

Charlie Putnam’s (Ecuador 1979-82) daughter went  into the Peace Corps this week. Charlie wrote to say that his daughter calls herself a “Peace Corps Brat.” Charlie met his wife in Ecuador in 1980. This “Peace Corps Putnam Brat went to stating in D.C. this last Monday.  The 20/20 stories on the murder of Kate Puzey, the sexual assaults of female volunteers and the interview of Chuck Ludlam and Paula Hirschoff have all aired as she, and her group, got ready to leave the U.S. Charlie wrote me, “a number of her friends called her before she left for Staging to ask if she had seen the 20/20 series. In a phone conversation with her mom and me last night our daughter reported that Aaron Williams had attended the Staging and met with the Trainees as part of their security briefing. My daughter didn’t remember exactly what Mr. Williams said, but reported that she was favorably impressed by him. . . .

On July 24, 2009, Chuck Ludlam (Nepal 1968–70; Senegal 2005–07) and Paula Hirschoff (Senegal 2005-07) sent then Peace Corps Director-Designate Aaron Williams a “Plan to Strengthen and Expand the Peace Corps: Priorities for President Obama’s First Term.” Chuck and Paula wrote in their introduction: This Twenty Point Plan to strengthen and expand the Peace Corps — drafted over four years by a couple of two-time Volunteers and circulated widely for comment within the Returned PCV community — proposes an ambitious road map for President Obama and Peace Corps Director-Designate Aaron Williams and his leadership team. The Ludlam/Hirschoff Plan is attached as a PDF file for those of you who have not seen it or heard about it. Photo: Paula Hirschoff and Chuck Ludlam on 20/20