Peace Corps Volunteers

  by Ellen Hernandez and Katie Bercegeay   Upon hearing the words “Hamdullahwainshallah,” Mark Apel is transported as if in a time capsule to the many times he and Yossef Ben-Meir, President of the High Atlas Foundation (HAF), uttered them in gratitude for the food set before them or in hope for something good to come of their efforts as Peace Corps Volunteers. “It makes you more mindful of the moment,” he remarked in a recent interview conducted by Yossef for HAF. • Mark Apel [Morocco 1982-86] was born in France, son of an airman, whose family returned to the U.S. where he grew up in a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Two months after graduation from Penn State in 1982, he joined the Peace Corps and came to Morocco. There, he was able to use his degree in environmental resource management and specialization in wildlife management as a fisheries volunteer. . . .

  Reed Hastings Had Us All Staying Home Before We Had To Netflix started with sending DVDs — remember them? — through the mail, but now the streaming pioneer sits atop a Hollywood it has thoroughly upended. By Maureen Dowd New York Times Sept. 4, 2020 Does it feel good to be the man who killed Hollywood? “No,” said Reed Hastings, who nurtured Netflix into the Godzilla of the entertainment world. “But, of course, we haven’t killed Hollywood.” At 59, the slender, gray-haired Mr. Hastings remains a mystery in the industry he dominates. “He’s a complete cipher here,” one Hollywood macher said. You won’t find Mr. Hastings hanging with the stars at the San Vicente Bungalows. He doesn’t bellow at the pool at the Hotel du Cap or swan around at premieres. He may show up in line at Sundance, but he’s not cutting the line. He started a delivery system for . . .

  Robert H. Frank (Nepal 1966–68) taught his first college course before graduating from Georgia Tech in 1966. A Cornell professor and influential teacher of economics since 1972, Frank retired from Cornell on July 1, 2020, after more than a half-century of teaching. A pioneer and champion of behavioral economics, Frank has written and spoken extensively in his many books, essays, and media interviews about moral sentiments, positional goods, expenditure cascades, the ever-widening income gap, the role of luck in our lives, and, most recently, the power of behavioral contagion. •   Bob Frank’s Legacy as a Teacher, Behavioral Economist, Economic Naturalist, and Author by Janice Endresen Ethical Systems August 25, 2020     In 1966, when Robert H. Frank arrived in Nepal to teach high-school math and science as a Peace Corps volunteer, he was surprised at how quickly he felt comfortable in his modest new home, even though conditions . . .

    The first installment of One True Podcast, produced by The Hemingway Society, features Bob Vila (Panama 1969-70) talking about his involvement in “saving” Ernest Hemingway’s home in Cuba. Having been to Cuba on a tour with the NPCA several years ago, it was a great chance for me to remember my visit, going with NPCA director Glenn Blumhorst. (If the NPCA ever gets a chance to return to Cuba, go!) Meanwhile, listen to this 50 minutes of Bob talking about his connection to Cuba, where his parents and relatives all were from, and how he was involved with the project where Ernie lived most of his life after leaving Paris. It is at: https://www.buzzsprout.com/347030/4981130 This episode was recorded on 5/27/2020.

   I’m a Mom Who Came Out to Protest for Black Lives in Portland. I Was Shot by Federal Agents   BY ELLEN URBANI  AUGUST 6, 2020 6:48 AM EDT This article appears in the August 17, 2020 issue of TIME.   Our president wants you to believe I am a terrorist, a professional agitator stalking the Pacific Northwest. Four days before federal agents shoot me in Portland, Ore., I riffle through the garage, shooing spiders from my son’s snowboarding helmet. Will it buckle beneath a steel baton? I press my daughter’s swim goggles to my face, testing the fit. Can they repel tear gas? I run my hands over my husband’s life jacket. Can it stop a bullet? I don’t yet realize how many other moms are slipping oven mitts into backpacks (to minimize burns when tossing aside flaming grenades and tear-gas canisters), how many dads are hoisting leaf blowers from . . .

  Two videos that aim to highlight human connectedness and Get Out the Vote have been produced by two RPCVs for East Village Magazine (EVM) in Flint, Michigan, and are available for viewing online now at the magazine’s website, eastvillagemagazine.org. The videos, both titled “Faces of Flint:  A message from the anvil of America’s democracy,”  feature 130 Flint residents photographed by Flint native, Kansas City photographer Dan White, in three days of shooting last November at the Flint Farmers’ Market and Berston Field House. Flint filmmaker Justin Brown was the editor for both videos.The narration for both videos was written by  Ted Nelson (Turkey 1964-67) EVM editor at large and a participant in civil rights actions in Washington D.C in the Sixties.  Nelson’s co-producer on the project was RPCV Jan Worth-Nelson (Tonga 1976-78). Asked about the significance of the “anvil” as a symbol of Flint, Nelson said, “We have been pounded on, and our . . .

  By Benjamin Cox on July 28, 2020 WLDS.com Audra Elam with her dog, Socrates, on her porch in western Africa before attending a local festival in 2019. (Ian Fingado) A Beardstown woman reunited with her dog today after a fight with the federal government over pet importation rules at the CDC. 27 year old Audra Elam (Togo 2019-20) of Beardstown reunited with Socrates after a month-long quarantine at The ARK at JFK Airport in New York. Elam’s journey with Socrates stirred public concern about how the government handles the importation of pets and possible policy changes on the issue with the CDC. The story of Elam and Socrates began in 2018 when Elam arrived in Togo, Africa, as a Peace Corps volunteer. A common practice in the Peace Corps program is that volunteers will inherit the house, furniture and even pets from previous volunteers in their host country. Such . . .

  Peace Corps Volunteer fights government’s efforts to deport her dog to Africa Audra Elam said the CDC denied her dog entry into the United States after the pair were initially separated in Africa. by John Henry, USA9, July 1 • WASHINGTON — An American Peace Corps member is working to fight the deportation of her dog to Ghana. In March, Audra Elam, of Illinois, evacuated her post in Togo after the Peace Corps directed its members to return to the United States due to the coronavirus’ spread. In Togo, Elam inherited a 5-year-old dog named Socrates. Elam said Socrates, who had previously been cared for by several other members of the Peace Corps, would go on to become her best friend. “He’s become very Americanized,” she laughed. Elam eventually made plans to bring Socrates to the United States following their separation in Togo. She said she worked with a . . .

  Clifford Garstang is the author of the novel in stories, What the Zhang Boys Know, winner of the Library of Virginia Literary Award for Fiction, and the short story collection In an Uncharted Country. He is also the editor of Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet, a three-volume anthology of stories set around the world. A former Peace Corps volunteer in South Korea (1976-77) and an international lawyer, Garstang lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Nobody’s perfect, but some of us — mostly men —are blinded by our hubris and baser urges. Judgment is impeded. Mistakes are made. The stories in House of the Ancients and Other Stories, many of them set outside the U.S., explore some of the consequences of these common failings.   House of the Ancients & Other Stories by Clifford Garstang (Korea 1976-77) Press 53 Publisher 172 pages May 2020 $17.95 (paperback)   . . .

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Steven Boyd Saum (Ukraine 1994-96)   David Wertime is POLITICO’s inaugural Editorial Director for China, and the author of China Watcher, its newsletter about the U.S.-China relationship. He is an honors graduate of Harvard Law School and Yale College who speaks and reads advanced Chinese (Mandarin) and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in China from 2001-03. Co-founder of Tea Leaf Nation, a website that tracked Chinese social media, David served as Senior Editor for China at Foreign Policy magazine, where he launched the first Chinese-language articles in the publication’s history. He was also Entrepreneur in Residence at the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, which owns the Philadelphia Inquirer. In 2019, David joined POLITICO’s parent company to launch its China service. David’s work has appeared in the Financial Times, the Washington Post, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy, POLITICO, and Slate.  

The NYTIMES headline in the Business Section of Saturday, January 16, 2016, got my attention. “Goodbye, Golf Clubs. Hello, Hiking Boots and Kayak.” What? That would upset a hacker like me. And the first two paragraph read: They call him “Elusive,” at least on the hiking trails. And that’s pretty much where Dave Roberts spends his time these days, crisscrossing the country by foot, bike, even by kayak.” Mr. Roberts, a retired teacher and software engineer, is on a mission to navigate the United States powered only by his two legs and two arms. Hotels and lodges are out of the question; he camps out aat night and lugs 25 pounds of equipment –including his tent, sleeping bag and food–on his back. The article is focused on what people are doing in retirement, and Roberts is the first one profiled. He had first been a PCV in Liberia in the . . .