The Peace Corps

  CLICK for full information about the Commemoration. MAY 27, 2017 @ 2:00 PM EST John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum Columbia Point, Boston, MA The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum is proud to partner with National Peace Corps Association (NPCA) and Boston Area Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (BARPCV) to host the Peace Corps community at a centennial commemoration of President Kennedy. Since President Kennedy founded the Peace Corps in 1961, over 225,000 Americans have served as Peace Corps Volunteers in 141 countries around the world. This special centennial event will celebrate the lasting legacy of President Kennedy and the enduring impact that Peace Corps Volunteers and Returned Peace Corps Volunteers continue to have at home and abroad. Details: 9:00 am – 5:00 pm: Museum open to visitors Free admission for Returned Peace Corps Volunteers and former Peace Corps staff 2:00 pm – 6:00 pm: Special Program . . .

Thanks to a “heads up” from Patricia Taylor Edmisten (Peru 1962-64) Colin Powell: American Leadership — We Can’t Do It for Free By COLIN POWELL May 24, 2017 New York Times Op-Ed At our best, being a great nation has always meant a commitment to building a better, safer world — not just for ourselves, but for our children and grandchildren. This has meant leading the world in advancing the cause of peace, responding when disease and disaster strike, lifting millions out of poverty and inspiring those yearning for freedom. This calling is under threat. The administration’s proposal, announced Tuesday, to slash approximately 30 percent from the State Department and foreign assistance budget signals an American retreat, leaving a vacuum that would make us far less safe and prosperous. While it may sound penny-wise, it is pound-foolish. This proposal would bring resources for our civilian forces to a third of what . . .

Paul Nelson (Malawi 1963-65) remembers that Paul Theroux was always writing while a PCV. As Nelson told me, “Paul on many occasions in Malawi would show up late or disappear or not show up at all because he was writing. I don’t think he let a day go by without writing—writing all sorts of things: poetry, essays, letters to the editor, short stories, novels. His discipline was remarkable. So the Peace Corps did not provide his motivation or discipline.” The Peace Corps did, however, provide him was new experiences that enhanced his writing. In the introduction of Sunrise with Seamonsters published in 1985, Paul writes about Africa and describes the moment when he realized he had a mother lode of material to write about. “I remember a particular day in Mozambique, in a terrible little country town, getting a haircut from a Portuguese barber. He had come to the African . . .

  Congressional Budget Justification: Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs   Portion of report regarding the Peace Corps: 1/ The FY 2017 Estimate reflects funding from the annualized Continuing Resolution. The FY 2018 Budget request for the Peace Corps of $398.2 million of which $5.5 million is for the Office of Inspector General, will allow the Peace Corps to meet its core goals: to help countries meet their development needs by building local capacity, to promote a better understanding of Americans around the world, and to bring the world back home by increasing Americans’ knowledge of other cultures. This request supports a cost-effective investment in strengthening the nation by advancing sustainable development and promoting a positive image of the United States. The Peace Corps also helps develop the next generation of American leaders who return home and leverage their leadership and entrepreneurial skills to shape communities across the United . . .

LEITA KALDI (Senegal 1993–96) worked at the United Nations in New York, UNESCO in Paris, at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Harvard University. She then joined Peace Corps and went to Senegal. This year she was awarded the Lillian Carter Award. At the presentation in Atlanta, Leita spoke about her experiences as an older Volunteer in the Peace Corps. •   WHEN I LEARNED that I was to receive the Lillian Carter Award, I was as overcome with emotion as on that day in 1993 when I was told that I’d been accepted into the Peace Corps.  Beside myself with joy! Thank you, President Carter,  for this wondrous award. It’s not surprising that the President would honor his mother so, as he and the Carter Center have been supporting women across the globe for decades, in their struggles not only for equality, but for survival. I also wish . . .

THE MIGRAINE A PUBLICATION FEATURING GENTEEL INTROSPECTION SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER, 1965 Written and published by Peace Corps/Malawi, P.O. Box 700, Blantyre, Malawi. The editors welcome correspondence arising out of articles in The Magraine. Essays, poems, etc., all given serious consideration. EDITORIAL The horrors multiply in Vietnam. The editorial staff of The Migraine openly condemns President Johnson for his recent decision to send 20,000 more troops into that country. This is a time when our vanity must be forgotten in the interests of those awaiting their own murder by United States and Chinese forces. We do not share President Johnson’s views and we earnestly hope that he will summon the courage to begin withdrawing troops. He has recognized that he can blunder–the withdrawal of the troops from the Dominican Republic was a recognition of his fecklessness in the crisis. We do not approve of totalitarianism in any of its forms, masquerading as a democrat or . . .

  From the National Peace Corps Association: Today the Trump Administration announced its proposal to cut almost $12 million from Peace Corps’ present budget, lowering it to $398 million for fiscal year 2018. This amounts to the largest proposed cut to the Peace Corps by a president in over 40 years. With these cuts,  the agency will likely be unable to increase the number of volunteers for greater impact in over 60 countries,  make programmatic improvements volunteers need to be effective, or invest in our domestic dividend through support for returned volunteers’ work in their local communities. The budget proposal also requests disproportionate 32% cuts to the topline International Affairs Budget, bringing America’s development and diplomacy programs back to 9/11 levels and hampering the ability of Peace Corps’ partners to strengthen interagency project implementation. Glenn Blumhorst, president and CEO of National Peace Corps Association, responded to the president’s proposed cuts: Considering the challenges we currently face at . . .

 …..when you were in the Peace Corps. You’re one of hundreds of RPCV’s who said that you had symptoms that you believe might have been caused by mefloquine (Lariam). Yes, it’s been a long time – we sent out that survey almost two years ago. Believe it or not, we’re just now wrapping up our project and getting close to scheduling the stories; many thanks for your help. But we have a couple quick questions again that we need you to answer please to help us fill in some blanks. Would you please send me your answers in a reply email? DZwerdling@npr.org 1)      Did any Peace Corps staff talk to you, either one-on-one or in a group meeting, about Malarone? 2)      If so, what do you remember them saying about the drug? Please tell us everything you remember, including discussions of Malarone’s pros/cons, availability to volunteers, cost, etcetcetc. 3)      And . . .

CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants to strengthen the social network’s community by connecting users to people they should know. Zuckerberg, who has been on a tour visiting every state as part of his annual personal challenge (not because he intends running for public office, as speculated), posted an update of his travels over the weekend that revealed how he’s working with developers to build artificial intelligence systems that could help people build new, valuable relationships. “We’ve built AI systems to recommend ‘People You May Know.’ But it might be just as important to also connect you with people you should know — mentors and people outside your circle who care about you and can provide a new source of support and inspiration” Zuckerberg wrote in the post. Nothing has been built yet, but Zuckerberg has already thought about different models that might work. The first is a digital Peace Corps of . . .

“Two months before I was supposed to leave the Peace Corps,” Theroux recalled in a 1971 essay published in Esquire and reprinted in Sunrise with Seamonsters, “I was charged with conspiring against the government. All I did was to help several Africans: help one’s mother, help another with his car, maybe write a few mild anti-government [U.S.] articles. But I was linked to a plot to assassinate Hastings Banda. Well, people I knew were actually trying to shoot Banda. So it was more guilt by association.” Theroux came home to be interrogated by the State Department and the Peace Corps.  Writing about this in Esquire, under the title, “The Killing of Hastings Banda,” Theroux explained how he had innocently gotten mixed up with the German equivalent of the CIA. He was writing, “background” pieces for what he understood was a German magazine, but what was actually their intelligence service. This, of . . .

Paul Theroux lived, not only on the edge of the Rift Valley but also on the edge of the Peace Corps. He was the Volunteer who lived in the African village without servants. He drank in the shanty bars instead of with the Brits at their gymkhanas. He went out with African women and did not date the pale daughters of British settlers when they came home on holidays from their all-white Rhodesian boarding schools. He hated the PCVs who ran with the ex-pats, the “wog bashers,” as they called themselves. PCV Paul Nelson (Malawi 1963-65) remembers him from Training. “Paul was always his own person,” Nelson wrote me. “In those days of background checks and psychological interviews, Theroux did not fit the predetermined patterns. During one interview, when asked his opinion of marriage, he described it as a three-headed horse, leaving the interviewer puzzling as to what box that . . .

2016 Memoirs Nominated for The Moritz Thomsen Peace Corps Experience Award The Toughest Job: The Crossroads of One Man’s Peace Corps Experience (Second edition) Scott M. Henrickson (Cote d’Ivoire 1995–96) CreateSpace January 2016 Journey to the Heart of the Condor: Love, Loss, and Survival in a South American Dictatorship (A “parallel” memoir that relates the Peace Corps experience) Emily C. Creigh (Paraguay 1975–77) and Dr. Martín Almada Peace Corps Writers February 2016 The Emperor and the Elephants: A Peace Corps Volunteer’s Story of Life During the Late 1970s in the Central African Empire Richard W. Carroll (Central Africa Republic 1976–82) Peace Corps Writers May, 2016 The Relunctant Volunteer: My Unforgettable Journey with the Peace Corps in Brazil Peggy Constantine (Brazil 1970–71 ) BookBaby May 2016 Brooklyn, NY to Bocaiúva, Brazil: A Peace Corps Love Story Franklin D. Rothman (Brazil 1967–69) Peace Corps Writers May 2016 Hidden Places: A Journey from Kansas to Kilimanjaro (Peace Corps . . .

2016 Novels Nominated for The Maria Thomas Fiction Award The Girl in the Glyphs David C. Edmonds (Chile 1963-65) A Peace Corps Writers Book January 5, 2016 American Sahib Eddie James Girdner (India 1968–70) CreateSpace March 2016 Blood Upon The Snow  Martin R. Ganzglass (Somalia 1966–68) A Peace Corps Writers Book March, 2016 Judenstaat Simone Zelitch (Hungary 1991–93) Tor Books June 2016 Torment [historical fiction] Jack Britton Sullivan (Guatemala 1993–96) self-published September, 2o16 Bob Stevenson Richard Wiley (Korea 1967-69) Bellevue Literary Press September 2016 Road to the Sea Tim Schell (Central African Empire 1978–79) Serving House Books Two Pumps for the Body Man by B.A. East (Malawi 1996–98) New Pulp Press March 2016 KMEDJZIK: Charles & Louise, Book 2    by Woody Starkweather (Kazakhstan 2004–06) Birch Tree Books November 2016 If you have a novel published in 2016 by a PCV or Peace Corps Staff that you wish to nominate, email: jcoyneone@gmail.com   . . .

2016 Books Nominated for The Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award A Time for War: Veterans’ Stories from One American Town: Scituate, Massachusetts Ronald Wheatley (Nigeria 1963–65) Hellgate Press January 2016 African Witch: Modern Tale of Magical Harm Christopher West Davis CreateSpace January 2016 Visions of a Lost and Future World Jane Stillwater (South Africa 2007) CreateSpace May 2016 Hyena’s Tree Thomas J. Larson (Benin 1974–76) THEAQ LLC June 2016 Kingdoms in the Air: Dispatches from the Far Away by Bob Shacochis (Eastern Caribbean 1975-76) Grove Atlantic June 2016 The Embassy: A Story of War and Diplomacy Dante  Paradiso (Kenya 1993–95) Beaufort Books November 2016 Uprooting Terrorism Everywhere Charles Cox (Ecuador 1965-67; APCD/Peru, Brazil 1970-75) BookLocker.com December 2016 The Lynching: The Epic Courtroom Battle That Brought Down the Klan Laurence  Leamer (Nepal 1964–66) William Morrow June 2016 Grampa Joe: Portrait of a Quiet Hero Biography Troy D. Montes (El Salvador 2004–06), editor Patriot Media Incorporated May 2016 Letters from Susie: . . .