Short Works about the Peace Corps Experience – Page 7

The Things I Gave Her

Oct 14 2013

by Lisa Kahn Schnell (Ghana 1998–00) The following work was first published at PeaceCorpsWriters.org in January, 2004. In 2005 it was the winner of the Moritz Thomsen Peace Corps Experience Award. • THE FIRST THING I GAVE GENVIEVE was a pile of my clothes to wash. The shirts and trousers were red with dust from day-long bus rides and bike rides, and from nine weeks of my swirl-and-rinse washing. I gave her my full attention as she showed me how to wash thoroughly, with merciless, strong arms, two basins of water and a small bar of soap. She returned my clothes to their normal color and left them smelling only of wind. Once I had more than just a mug to eat out of, once I cleaned the lizard poop off my bed and chased the scream-sized flat spiders from behind the kitchen shelves, I gave Genevieve my trust. She . . .

A Writer Writes: Teachers Room Sex Farce in Nigeria

May 01 2013

Teachers Room Sex Farce by Larry Lesser (Nigeria 1964-65) [Note: The author maintains that this is a true story except that he’s changed everybody’s names except his own and his then-wife’s. No need to change their names because they come out smelling like a rose.] • It’s January 1964 when Harriet and I arrive in newly independent Nigeria, peacefully unyoked from British rule. We’re Peace Corps Volunteers, deployed as teachers at the Government Technical Institute (GTI) in the provincial capital of Enugu. Our school is preparing young Nigerian men for careers in engineering and business. Our principal is ex-RAF wing commander Maddox, who resembles the caricature Colonel Blimp in physiognomy and demeanor. The deputy principal is a Nigerian named Otuagbo. More than half of the faculty are expatriates, representing an assortment of Anglophone nationalities … including the two American PCVs, Harriet and me. Nigeria is being hailed for its successful . . .

James Frederick Gage (Ethiopia 1963–65)

Jul 02 2011

November 22, 1988 TIME HAS NOT DULLED THE SENSE OF LOSS, nor blurred the timid, sympathetic faces asking if my family would be safe — since my President had been killed. Time has not obscured the events of that November evening so long ago or erased the pride I felt at being an American and a Peace Corps Volunteer. In retrospect, few of us realized how profoundly the events of the summer and fall of 1963 would affect us. Life magazine, in their June 21 editorial characterized the class of 1963 as “probably the best prepared, stablest, and most promising class in U.S. history . . . combining high morale, seriousness of purpose, commitment to a life of the mind and a careful balance between idealism and realism.” When faced with the choice between excellence for its own sake and the sake of humanity, between the good life and the . . .

School Garden Project, Madarounfa

Dec 25 2010

by Margot Miller (Niger 1972–74) This essay was first published on the blog of PeaceCorpsWriters.org on January 31, 2006 THE SUN SLIPS ABOVE THE HORIZON on the dot of six in Madarounfa, a mere thirteen degrees north of the equator, close enough that sunrise and sunset vary almost not at all the year ’round. The ten primary school teachers who have gathered for this late-December, weekend school-garden-project instruction are up within minutes. Once they have washed and made their separate trips to the bush, they gather for breakfast under the old baobab tree. It’s still cool and they drink hot tea, brewed very strong, with great chunks of sugar chopped out of a cone that comes wrapped in blue paper. Jon, the American who is instructing them, has made oatmeal. It’s nice of him but the teachers find it rather bland. They add sugar and salt and are polite while . . .

African Time

Jun 28 2010

by Pat Owen (Senegal 2003–05) Posted on the blog of PeaceCorpsWriters.org on October 5, 2005 • RAMADAN STARTED THIS WEEK, a holy month of fasting for over a billion Muslims around the world. Every year there is heated debate among astronomers as to exactly what day Ramadan begins, as it all depends on when the new moon of the ninth lunar month appears. Eclipses, clouds, and astronomical calculations all play a role. Religious leaders line up on opposing sides, too, albeit for different reasons. Some of them say that Muslims throughout the world should conform to an announcement coming from Saudi Arabia; others say that different regions should make their own decisions about when to begin the fast, depending on their view of the moon. If you are a Muslim living in a remote part of Africa, all this debate doesn’t matter. I know, because last year at this time . . .

Keep Cool

Jun 22 2010

by Jennifer B-C Seaver (Iran 1966–68) This essay was first published December 6, 2005 on the blog of PeaceCorpsWriters.org • DURING THE TWO YEARS THAT I SERVED in Iran as an English teacher in the 1960s, travel was strenuous, most routes, unpaved, and communications, almost impossible. People often showed up — or didn’t, even when they had written ahead to say they were coming. So, in September 1966, when Tom Dawson and David Osterberg failed to arrive in Rasht, Gilan, as planned, I was not particularly concerned. Tom had written that they planned to spend a night in Ardabil, then catch another bus down the scenic Astara road, which drops thousands of feet to the shores of the Caspian Sea and, if all went well, they’d arrive in Rasht by nightfall. The next day, we’d go on to our workshop in Isfahan. I had traveled that road earlier in the . . .

Peace Corps Was

Jun 12 2010

by Peg Clement (Tunisia 1975–77) This essay was first published in the November 2003 issue of PeaceCorpsWriters.org, and won Peace Corps Writers’ 2004 Moritz Thomsen Peace Corps Experience Award. • PEACE CORPS WAS two years of my young life, half my life ago. A time of long blonde braids, still-chubby cheeks, a hardy body withstanding weeks of tummy rumbles, pinkened skin before sunscreen became de rigueur. Quick reflexes, and a back hardened to floor sleeping. Easy laughs. Peace Corps was unexpected, and unplanned for, fun. Many times, it just happened — someone arrives descending feet-first from the louage, at the doorstep, or someone shows up at a beach disco. Instant friends, mix and stir. A prepackaged community, insurance premium against the loneliness of the Sahelian plains. Peace Corps was earnestness. Adults used the word altruistic. We tried to do good, and reached for change, big change — winds of change, . . .

The Rainy Season in Guatemala

Jun 06 2010

by Jason Boog (Guatemala 2000–02) This essay was first published on PeaceCorpsWriters.org in the May 2005 issue, and received the Peace Corps Writers 2006 Moritz Thompsen Experience Award. • How to Make Recycled Paper I shredded paper snowflakes into a bucket of water: Guatemalan newspapers, Peace Corps newsletters, embassy safety bulletins and the Catholic magazines that my mother mailed me each month in care packages. Then I stuck a bean grinder into the word-soup, twisting the plastic knob until the bucket filled up with purplish pulp. I was all alone outside a church in Guatemala. It was May 2001, midway through my first year in Peace Corps. I had walked two hours to get to a wood-shack village called Buena Vista, planning to teach a youth group how to make recycled paper. The project looked so sensible in the “Youth Training Manual” they gave me, just memorize the script in . . .

Moon Rocket

May 30 2010

by Robert E. Gribbin (Kenya 1968–70) First published on the blog of PeaceCorpsWriters.org on February 13, 2007 • I SEE IT NOW IN MY MIND’S EYE — from my house in Songhor — wind blown tufts of light green sugar cane surging like a great sea on Kenya’s Kanu Plains to wash gently against the thousand foot heights of the Nandi Escarpment. Some thirty miles distant, Lake Victoria Nyanza glimmered in the late afternoon sun. The image is clear, yet complicated by the rush of other images, faces, smells, sounds – by the sheer exuberance of memories that so indelibly marked this time in my life. I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Central Nyanza charged with supervising the construction of a rural water system designed to pipe potable water to 1200 farms on three government sponsored Settlement Sugar Schemes. I worked most closely with a group of eight men . . .

Telling Time

May 29 2010

by Katherine Jamieson (Guyana 1996–98) This essay was published in the newsletter Peace Corps Writers in 2000, and won the Peace Corps Writers’ 2001 Moritz Thomsen Peace Corps Experience Award • FOR TWO YEARS I LIVED in a country with no seasons. We measured time by other means than falling leaves or snow, new buds on trees. There was a fresh breeze in the air, the ash of burned sugar cane floating in the window. There were times to go to work, times to stay home, an election, an eclipse; all of these differentiated the rising and setting of the same hot sun, and the appearance of a glowing moon and full set of stars. Rain would break the swelter like the fever of a child dissolves into sweat, and the whole city would breathe differently that day. Then the sun would come again and dry what had fallen, and . . .

Return of the (Non) Native

May 28 2010

by Paul Paquette (Thailand 1974–78) First published on the blog of PeaceCorpsWriters.org on June 11, 2007 • JULY 2005 I left Thailand in 1980 after spending four years as a Peace Corps English teacher in a secondary school and three more working in refugee camps. I really don’t know why it took me so long to finally make that journey back to Thailand. I guess part of it was the fear of facing the changes that I would possibly find hard to accept after all those years. The tsunami finally washed all that away, and I found myself needing to return to be reassured that all was well there. The changes in Bangkok seemed profound to me at first. It was so strange to see tall buildings, a subway and a monorail! In many ways, I felt like Rip Van Winkle waking up from a long sleep to find a . . .

Christmas with Eva

May 25 2010

by Peggy Raggio (Poland 1991–92) First published on the blog of PeaceCorpsWriters.org on February 14, 2006 • ON DECEMBER 22, 1991, we took a smelly bus from Suwalki to Warsaw. Marzena, another teacher and I chatted and snacked on sandwiches and hot tea as we rode south for seven hours, through the chill and snowy countryside of Northern Poland. We saw farmers guiding their furry plow horses and wagons through the streets, loaded with silver milk jugs, cabbages and crates of chickens. A long-legged stork landed on her nest on the roof of a farmhouse. After a booster shot at the Peace Corps office in Warsaw, I rode a streetcar to the Marriott Hotel in the center of town for coffee (kawa pronounced “kava”). Violins and a grand piano played on a balcony over the lobby that gleamed festively with bird of paradise in blue and gold jardinières, plush oriental . . .

Aïssa

May 24 2010

by Margot Miller (Niger 1972–74) First published on the blog of PeaceCorpsWriters.org on October 12, 2005 • UNDER MY MOSQUITO NET, I’d barely slept an hour when I stirred awake. I heard soft footsteps and the sound of scraping near the wall. I pulled the mosquito net up and looked around, disoriented. My clock was gone. I took myself indoors where it was too hot to sleep. The next night I moved back outdoors, locking the front door and putting the key under my pillow. Perhaps I should report the incident to the police. I remembered that I had been told something about the Chief of Police living across the street. When I found the time to go across the street, at the doorway, I clapped to signal my presence. A tall, slim young woman came to the door. She had warm brown eyes and beautiful, straight white teeth that . . .

Martha Dunlop Peterson (Sierra Leone 1982-84)

Apr 06 2010

Monday, November 21 4:39 pm Martha Dunlop Peterson and her husband, John, served in Bo and Freetown, Sierra Leone, both were music teachers. They also taught in the School for the Blind, teaching all subjects, as well as taught at the Milton Margai Teachers College. She read from a letter home to her father dated February 6, 1984. It is excerpted here. Dear Pa, I’ve met a missionary who has a library so I’m plowing through her books. I feel like a slouch after reading about David Livingstone in Africa – missionary, discoverer, geologist, botanist and surgeon. In my small way I’m throwing out some good vibrations. I’m feeling OK. Despite sore throat, sore feet, stiff arm, sore stomach, I just “keep on truckin’” as this too shall pass. I’m coaching a lovely school teacher in advanced piano. She’d like a scholarship to study in America so I wrote . . .

A. Radlott (Dominican Republic 1963-65)

Apr 06 2010

Monday, November 21 4:42 pm In the spring of 1963 while a senior at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, I joined the Peace Corps. Your vision of the future, words of encouragement and faith in the ability of volunteers like myself presented too great a challenge to pass up. I was part of D.R. VII, the first Urban Community Development group in the Dominican Republic. Training, which began in July, was to end in October, but was extended until mid-November due to a military coup and resultant uncertainty about that country’s readiness for a seventh volunteer group. On the Friday of the first week home between training and leaving the United States I head: “President Kennedy has just been shot in Dallas,” as I prepared to shop for things I was told I’d need in Santo Domingo. In retrospect, the shock and national tragedy of that fatal event underscored . . .