The Peace Corps

And from the wreckage of world War II, we built a post-war architecture, system of alliances and institutions to underwrite freedom and oppose Soviet totalitarianism and to help poorer countries develop. American leadership across the globe wasn’t perfect. We made mistakes. At times we lost sight of our ideals. We had fierce arguments about Vietnam and we had fierce arguments about Iraq. But thanks to our leadership, a bipartisan leadership, and the efforts of diplomats and peace corps volunteers, and most of all thanks to the constant sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, we not only reduced the prospects of war between the world’s great powers, we not only won the Cold War, we helped spread a commitment to certain values and principles like the rule of law and human rights and democracy and the notion of the inherent dignity and worth of every individual.

Harris Wofford was born in Johnson City, Tenn., and raised in Scarsdale, N.Y. While still in high school, he founded and became the first president of the Student Federalist Movement, after he was inspired by Clarence Streit’s Union Now. Enrolled in the University of Chicago’s accelerated student’s plan, he took Chicago’s famed great books curriculum and received his degree in two yers, after which he became the first holder of an accelerated degree to be admitted to Yale University Law School. He also became the first White student to be admitted to Howard University Law School since suffragette days when some White women sought to dramatize their demands for the vote by enrolling there. In 1954, he received law degrees from both Yale and Howard. In 1948, the year in which he graduated from Chicago, Wofford attended a World Youth Festival in Prague which he also covered in three articles . . .

Bascom Story’s father was a Methodist minister who moved from small town to small town in Texas. Born in Rotan (Fisher County), Bascom went to 22 schools before he enrolled in North Texas State College in Denton, where he obtained a degree in political science in 1934. Barely in his twenties, he became principal of the high school in Lytie, a small town near San Antonio. He moved from there to Runge High School, also in south Texas, to superintendent of the Runge School District, finally to Deputy State Superintendent of Education, a job he held for three years while he worked on a master’s in educational administration. He got the degree in 1942 from Southwest Texas State at San Marcos. From 1942 to 1946, Story served in the Navy as a communications officer with amphibious forces in the Pacific, and he participated in the invasion of Okinawa. He returned . . .

Ethiopia’s First Peace Corps Staff On October 13, 1961, Emperor Haile Selassie informed the Peace Corps that Ethiopia would be interested in inviting Volunteers to one of the few Africans nations which remained independent throughout the era of colonialism. Harold Johnson, operations officer for East Africa, was dispatched to Addis Ababa on November 5, 1961. Johnson remained until November 29 while Ethiopian officials explained to him that the nation wanted Volunteer teachers and plenty of them. The request was impressive enough to send Harris Wofford to Addis Ababa twice in the following months, in January and April. Wofford, then adviser to the President on civil rights and Peace Corps matters, subsequently negotiated a program in Togo. In Ethiopia, Harris quickly determined that the nation wanted to expand its secondary school capacity without delay –at the start of the next school year in September 1962, if possible. Key to this expansion . . .

Photo credit to Cecil Stoughton, White House After their Peace Corps service, many volunteers go on to international careers. Although State does not track former PCVs in the department, an average of 5% of new Foreign Service Officers in the last four entering classes reported Peace Corps experience and more than 60 former volunteers have served as U.S. ambassadors. For USAID, a 2015 report to Congress pegs the percentage of former volunteers or staff in the agency at 28%. Focus on Peace Corps and Diplomatic Careers How the Peace Corps Transformed the Foreign Service by John Coyne Joining the Foreign Service: the Experiences of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers by John Coyne First Ambassador with Peace Corps Experience: Parker Borg by John Coyne Responding to the Call for Volunteers “From Every Race and Walk of Life” by John Coyne Go to: www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/      

Summertime Quiz                    Country                              Author The Measure of a Dream                                           Tunisia                         Lora Begin  (1989-91) Published by Peace Corps Writers, 2012 How to Cook a Crocodile                                            Gabon                        Bonnie Black  (1996-98) Published by Peace Corps Writers, 2010 Dusty Land: Stories of Two Teachers                     Botswana                   John Ashford  (1990-93) Published by Peace Corps Writers, . . .

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Mary-Ann Tirone Smith (Cameroon 1965-67) In South Florida, Donna Shalala (Iran 1962-64), the 77-year-old former federal health and human services secretary, won a close primary for an open House seat against a younger male state legislator who criticized her from the left.

  (Thanks to Alana deJoseph, Mali 1992-94 and Producer of The Towering Task, a Peace Corps documentary, for the information on this story) Peace Corps and Global Seed Health were in partnership for five years to train medical professionals in Africa. Peace Corps is terminating the partnership as of September 30, 2018. (See: https://peacecorpsworldwide.org/peace-corps-response-and-global-health-service-partnership-end-relationship-9-30-18/) Now comes an interview on PBS with reporter Fred de Sam Lazaro about the consequence in Africa of the end of this partnership.  Dr. Vanessa Kerry is the Director of Global Seed Health. She is attributed with the following explanation:  “Dr. Kerry blames the Peace Corps decision politics and says the resulting cutbacks will force a significant scaling back from five countries to two, including Uganda, and far fewer American medical volunteers.” Peace Corps declined to comment.  Here is the story from PBS. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/resisting-the-african-brain-drain-that-has-created-a-health-care-crisis A “brain drain” is sending many of Africa’s highly skilled workers abroad–and leaving . . .

US Peace Corps volunteers removed from SVG August 28, 2018 The United States Embassy in Barbados has confirmed that U.S. Peace Corps volunteers have been removed from St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The embassy, however, told iWitness News on Tuesday that the development is not linked to crime in SVG. “They were not relocated because of the perceived ‘crime situation’,” Gaïna Dávila, acting public affairs officer at the U.S. Embassy to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, told iWitness News via email on Tuesday. “They were relocated because of a potential specific safety concern,” Dávila said. There have been claims on social media that the Peace Corps volunteers were removed from SVG because of the crime situation.

Thanks to Leita Kaldi Davis (Senegal 1993-96) who suggested, “How about listing titles and we guess the country and author?” Great idea, Leita! Everyone Play the Summertime Quiz! Country                                      Author The Measure of a Dream How to Cook a Crocodile Dusty Land: Stories of Two Teachers Roller Skating in the Desert Those Were the Days First Come Love, Then Comes Malaria Heart of Palms Leopards at My Door Tales from a Muzungu One of Us: Sex, Violence, Injustice Glimpses through the Forest Peace Corps Epiphanies Dodging Machetes Never Gonna Cease My Wanderin Different Latitudes Just Say Yes The Empire and the Elephant The Vodka Diaries                                       .

#1. They took us in the Land Rover, Mike and me, with Kim Buck driving. We had planned to leave that morning, as it was a good four hours’ drive, although it was only about sixty miles from Mbeya. An African Season by Leonard Levitt (Tanzania 1963-65)       #2. I got my Peace Corps application at the post office in Red Bluff, California, put it on the table in the kitchen, and walked around it for ten days without touching it, as though it were primed to detonate—as indeed it was—trying to convince myself that for a forty-eight-year-old farmer the idea of Peace Corps service was impractical and foolhardy. Living Poor by Moritz Thomsen (Ecuador 1965-67)       #3. The widow opens my door without knocking. A trail of Flying Horse-brand cigarette smoke enters behind her. An old cotton cap hides coarse, mortar-colored hair, brushed back from . . .

Director Olsen with Peace Corps volunteers in China. WASHINGTON – Today, Peace Corps Director Jody Olsen joined U.S. Consul General Jim Mullinax in Chengdu at the swearing in ceremony of China’s 24th cohort of volunteers. The event marks the 25th anniversary of the Peace Corps program in China, where over 1,235 volunteers have served since 1993. The program is formally known as the United States-China Friendship Volunteer program. “At its heart, this program brings together people to share knowledge, world views, cultural riches and the values and shared aspirations of the American and Chinese peoples,” said Olsen. “We could not be prouder of our shared legacy, or more grateful for the friendship and collaboration of our Chinese partners.” The new group of 79 volunteers were sworn into service by Olsen after successfully completing 10 weeks of training. Their training included Mandarin language instruction and sessions on Chinese culture to better . . .

  Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet Volume III is now available for pre-order. Like the earlier volumes, this book includes 20 short stories, by 20 writers, set in 20 countries. • Mark Jacobs’s story in Everywhere Stories III, “Getting Out, ” is set in Côte d’Ivoire. Mark comments on “Getting Out”: During several visits to Africa, I ran into Lebanese who were living and working in countries that were and were not their own. In some cases, they were born in Africa, like the principal characters in “Getting Out,” who were born in Côte d’Ivoire. But they retained their Arabic, their French, even if they learned indigenous languages. And they retained their cultural identity as Lebanese. It struck me as a condition of permanent exile. Their experience was quite different from that of my father’s family, who emigrated to the United States in the early years of the twentieth . . .

To further fulfill its goals to encourage, recognize and promote Peace Corps writers, RPCV Writers & Readers, the newsletter that was the precursor of PeaceCorpsWriters.org and PeaceCorpsWorldwide.org, presented its first annual awards for outstanding writing in 1990. A total of 143 awards have been given since that time. Winner of the 2017 Award for Best Book of Photography   A Silhouette of Liberia — Photographs: 1974-1977 by Michael H.  Lee (Liberia 1974–76) Michael H. Lee August 2017 136 pages $59.99 (hardcover) Reviewed by: Danielle Yoder (Panama 2012-2014) A Silhouette of Liberia Photographs: 1974–1977 exhibits beautiful photography of Liberia’s landscape, architecture and people from a time when very little has been preserved. Mr. Lee walks us through his experience living, serving and working in Liberia. Through his lens he is able to capture what one might see in an ordinary day in Liberia, as well as intimate settings such as illusive secret societies . . .

To further fulfill its goals to encourage, recognize and promote Peace Corps writers, RPCV Writers & Readers, the newsletter that was the precursor of PeaceCorpsWriters.org and PeaceCorpsWorldwide.org, presented its first annual awards for outstanding writing in 1990. A total of 143 awards have been given since that time. Winner of the 2017 Award for Best Travel Book Writing Abroad: A Guide for Travelers By Peter Chilson (Niger (1985-87) & Joanne B. Mulcahy The University of Chicago Press 224 pages $22.50 (paperback), $67.50 (cloth), $13.50 (Kindle) Reviewed by David Arnold (Ethiopia 1964-66) EDITING THE WORK of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, I have learned that travel writing seems at first to be the easiest form of written narrative. That may be true if only you and your grandchildren are going to read it, but publishable travel writing is hard work. Most readers of a travel story in a magazine, a book or on . . .