The Peace Corps

  THE PAUL COWAN NON-FICTION AWARD, first given 1990, was named to honor Paul Cowan, a Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Ecuador from 1966 to 1967. Cowan wrote ≈ about his time as a Volunteer in Latin America in the ’60s. A longtime activist and political writer for The Village Voice, Cowan died of leukemia in 1988.     Race across America: Eddie Gardner and the Great Bunion Derbies by Charles B. Kastner (Seychelles 1980-82) Syracuse University Press 360 pages December 2019 $75.00 (hard cover), $29.95 (paperback), $16.17 (Kindle)   On April 23, 1929, the second annual Transcontinental Foot Race across America, known as the Bunion Derby, was in its twenty-fifth day. Eddie “the Sheik” Gardner, an African American runner from Seattle, was leading the race across the Free Bridge over the Mississipi River. Along with the signature outfit that earned him his nick name white towel tied around his head, white shorts, and a . . .

  How Volunteers over 50 learned the news and are feeling about it now By David Jarmul (Moldova 2016-18) nextavenue.com August 14, 2020   To do something meaningful Kamana Mathur (Nepal), who’s in her early 60s, had just arrived at her Peace Corps post in Nepal shortly before the end of her training when she was told she needed to return home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For the first time in its history, the Peace Corps was evacuating its volunteers worldwide. “I was busy chatting with my host family,” Mathur recalled. “Then my colleague called and told me we had to leave. I said, ‘You know, I just sat down to lunch.’” Mathur had left her federal job in Hawaii, she said, “to reinvent myself to do something really meaningful at this point in my life.” During her Peace Corps training in the Himalayas, she’d studied the local language and culture, used . . .

  August 13, 2020 Walter Carrington, former United States Ambassador to Nigeria and Senegal, has died at the age of 90 according to a statement by his wife, Arese Carrington, “It is with a heavy and broken heart but with gratitude to God for his life of selfless humanity that I announce the passing of my beloved husband Walter Carrington, former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria and Senegal. Further announcements will be made shortly,” she said. According to her, Walter was a loving husband, father, grandfather, cousin, uncle, friend and in-law. “Ralph Waldo Emerson said . . .. It is not the length of life but the depth of life. Walter was fortunate, his life had both length and depth,” she said.   Carrington was born in 1930. He served as the US Ambassador to Senegal from 1980 to 1981. He was appointed by US President Bill Clinton in 1993 as . . .

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Steven Boyd Saum (Ukraine 1994–96)   As the senior director of product at The Atlantic, I oversee the end-to-end story experience, from authoring tools and article page templates to reader-facing touchpoints across all platforms. Previously, as the head of product at HuffPost, I led strategic planning and oversaw the development roadmap for all of HuffPost’s digital products in the U.S. I grew the product team from one to four and coordinated with leaders throughout HuffPost’s newsroom, business, engineering and design teams to launch the brand’s first membership program, HuffPost Plus, and to deliver improvements to the reader experience on all platforms. Before HuffPost, as the mobile product manager for The Wall Street Journal, I oversaw feature development for our mobile apps, including virtual reality storytelling and a significant redesign of the iOS and Android apps that introduced personalized content in a dedicated “MyWSJ” section. . . .

from the Peace Corps   The Peace Corps welcomes Dr. Darlene Grant to her new role as senior advisor to Director Jody Olsen. In this role, Dr. Grant will work with agency leadership to increase and champion a diverse staff and volunteer corps. She will make recommendations aimed at increasing inclusiveness, removing barriers for underrepresented groups, and creating a more just and equitable Peace Corps. Dr. Grant’s path to the Peace Corps began after 18 years as a professor of social work at the University of Texas at Austin. There, she taught graduate and undergraduate courses in social justice, clinical practice, research methodology, and working with at-risk youth. She directed funded research projects focusing on juvenile probation, teen pregnancy prevention, and the domestic violence experiences of incarcerated women. Dr. Grant was named 2006 Social Worker of the Year by the National Association of Social Workers. In 2009, she took a . . .

  Australia is a country of superlatives, a land of “Wows.” Journey with explorer and author Steve Kaffen “Down Under,” through vast, geographically diverse, culturally rich, and extremely scenic Australia, the only country that is also a continent. Using 500 original photos accompanied by vivid descriptions and observations, the author captures in colorful detail the country’s naturally beautiful places, energetic cities with distinct personalities, thriving animal and sea life, historical sites, and multiple cultures including Aboriginal cultures dating back thousands of years. The coverage includes Sydney’s heralded New Year’s Eve celebration, the renowned Australia Zoo and its Wildlife Hospital, the Great Barrier Reef, the interior Outback, the Great Ocean Road, Australian Open tennis, and wine-tasting in South and Western Australia near Perth. Sufficiently detailed to plan a comprehensive visit to Australia’s far corners and deep interior, and lots of fun to read and enjoy. • Australia: Adventures and Encounters (Travel . . .

    National Agent Orange Day is August 10. While COVID-19 races through the U.S. population, another invisible killer continues to rage among our already endangered population. Agent Orange continues to contaminate and kill civilians and veterans more than 50 years after spraying. Two Marines, Brent MacKinnon and Sandy Scull, have published a personal account detailing damage done to both body and soul: Agent Orange Roundup: Living with a Foot in Two Worlds. This tells of the loss of innocence, betrayal and final acceptance of Stage 4 cancer 50 years after their tour of duty. The Department of Veteran Affairs estimates over 300,000 Vietnam Veterans have died from the herbicidal defoliant known as Agent Orange; The Vietnamese casualties are in the millions. This collection of powerful art, prose and poetry captures their journey from the home front, into the meat grinder and the long struggle for recovery. Lt. Charles “Sandy” . . .

  It’s 1909, and Teddy Roosevelt is not only hunting in Africa, he’s being hunted. The safari is a time of discovery, both personal and political. In Africa, Roosevelt encounters Sudanese slave traders, Belgian colonial atrocities, and German preparations for war. He reconnects with a childhood sweetheart, Maggie, now a globe-trotting newspaper reporter sent by William Randolph Hearst to chronicle safari adventures and uncover the former president’s future political plans. But James Pierpont Morgan, the most powerful private citizen of his era, wants Roosevelt out of politics permanently. Afraid that the trust-busting president’s return to power will be disastrous for American business, he plants a killer on the safari staff to arrange a fatal accident. Roosevelt narrowly escapes the killer’s traps while leading two hundred and sixty-four men on foot through the savannas, jungles, and semi-deserts of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Congo, and Sudan.   Jimmy, quit telling tall tales!” was my . . .

  In Yogurt Culture: A Global Look at How to Make, Bake, Sip, and Chill the World’s Creamiest, Healthiest Food, award-winning food writer Cheryl Sternman Rule presents 115 flavorful recipes, taking yogurt farther than the breakfast table, lunchbox, or gym bag. Rule strips yogurt of its premixed accessories and brings it back to its pure, wholesome essence. In chapters like Flavor, Slurp, Dine, and Lick, she pairs yogurt not just with fruit but with meat, not just with sugar but with salt, not just with herbs but with fragrant spices whose provenance spans the globe. She provides foolproof, step-by-step instructions for how to make yogurt, Greek yogurt, and labneh at home, though all of her recipes can also be prepared with commercial yogurt. Rule explores yogurt from every angle, explaining how to read a label, visiting producers large and small, and gaining entry to the kitchens of cooks from around the . . .

  A Timeless Reminder by Jeremiah Norris (Colombia 1963-65) • As I was watching the Memorial Services for John Lewis in Ebenezer Baptist Church, it reminded me of an April day in 1968 when Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated. I was on PC/W staff and Director, Jack Vaughn called me into his office. He nominated me to form a Committee and raise funds for, at the time, an indeterminate Memorial in Dr. King’s honor. While time now masks the amount of funds our Committee succeeded in raising, I do recall that we wanted the Memorial to represent something that was timeless in Dr. King’s life. That led us to purchase a Gold Brick and present it to Officials at the Ebenezer Baptist Church.  They assured us that they would find a suitable site near the Podium for its placement. After that brief conversation, we lost personal contact with . . .

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Steven Saum (Ukraine 1994-96) by Reed Piercey (China 2019-2020) July 23, 2020 12:00 AM This month’s proposed State Department funding bill devotes less than two of its 326 pages to the Peace Corps. It does, however, contain a brief but significant provision: “None of the funds made available by this Act or prior Acts under this heading may be used to permanently close the United States-China Friendship Volunteer Program.” Never mind that the U.S.-China Friendship Volunteers, another name for the Peace Corps’s China program, has already been closed down. To anyone reading Tom Rogan’s recent opinion piece in the Washington Examiner, this sentence is made out to be an attempt by House Democrats to weaken American national security. In fact, the Peace Corps’s presence there advanced our country’s interests, values, and security in a number of crucial ways. As Peace Corps staff and volunteers have long known, . . .