Peace Corps Worldwide

By David B. Levine (Ethiopia (1964-66) Ted Wells’  The Old Man in the Bag and Other True Stories of Good Intentions is a wonderful collection of reminisces from Helen and Ted Wells’ first two of their three years as Peace Corps Volunteers in Ethiopia (1968-1971). Each of the twelve chapters is preceded by a copy of a letter home from them and accompanied by extensive photographs. The letters and stories add up to an overview of what was an exciting, path-setting, exhilarating, frightening, emotionally fraught, and extraordinarily impactful two years, both atypical and unique Peace Corps experience! I knew Helen and Ted as PCV’s; in fact, I was instrumental in their receiving the assignment underlying the narrative and am actually named a time or two in the telling.  Here is that background. First, I was a PCV in Ethiopia myself, from 1964-66 (Eth IV) as a teacher in Emdeber, in . . .

  John Turnbull passed away on April 4, 2021 at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  John commented frequently on Peace Corps World Wide, about his Peace Corps experiences in Ghana and Malawi as a geologist in the early days of Peace Corps. Here is one of his commentaries in response to John Coyne’s review of Kallman’s Death of Idealism in the Peace Corps “A great commentary, John ! As you know I have been accused of over-romanticing my experiences as a geologist, in Africa. My conclusion concerning Ms. Kallman’s book, is that there is no single thing we can call “The Peace Corps Experience” There are MANY, and even in Africa, where I worked, the difference in cultural interaction between Ghana in West Africa, and then Nyasaland Protectorate in British Central Africa, was radically different. Even as early as 1967, the Peace Corps itself concluded that the experince in . . .

    Unbeknownst to Sarge Shriver, who had been tasked by JFK to establish a new agency with the tentative title of “Peace Corps” in the first days of the Kennedy Administration, there were two officials in the Far Eastern division of the International Cooperation Administration (ICA) working on their “own” Peace Corps. Warren Wiggins deputy director of Far Eastern operations in ICA, still in his 30s,  with Bill Josephson, just 26, a lawyer at ICA. The paper they prepared detailing their recommendations for the new agency they called “A Towering Task,” taking the title from the phrase Kennedy had used in his State of the Union address: “The problems . . . are towering and unprecedented — and the response must be towering and unprecedented as well.” Shriver and Harris Wofford in early February 1961 set up a temporary, two-room headquarters in the Mayflower Hotel and a steady cast . . .

  In the year 2020, Americans suffered one rude blow after another to their health, livelihoods, and collective self-esteem. A ruthless pandemic, an inept and malign government response, polarizing protests, and an election marred by conspiracy theories left many citizens in despair about their country and its democratic experiment. With pitiless precision, the year exposed the nation’s underlying conditions — discredited elites, weakened institutions, blatant inequalities — and how difficult they are to remedy. In Last Best Hope, George Packer traces the shocks back to their sources. He explores the four narratives that now dominate American life: Free America, which imagines a nation of separate individuals and serves the interests of corporations and the wealthy; Smart America, the world view of Silicon Valley and the professional elite; Real America, the white Christian nationalism of the heartland; and Just America, which sees citizens as members of identity groups that inflict or suffer . . .

  Please read the Acting Director’s Message and then the Newsletter. Acting Director’s Message “Welcome to Inside Peace Corps where we share updates and news on our work at headquarters and in the countries where our Volunteers are invited to serve. We are so fortunate to have people around the globe who are invested in the Peace Corps and our mission of world peace and friendship. The aim of this publication is to provide information on issues that our stakeholders care about most. I cannot overstate my appreciation for your ongoing support as we prepare to return Volunteers to service abroad. Thank you for stepping Inside Peace Corps to walk side-by-side with us.” Here is the Link; https://analytics.clickdimensions.com//peacecorpsgov-aflq5/pages/b056c3c9c9c7eb11813a005056af48c9.html The newsletter is wide reaching as these topics indicate: Peace Corps Response Volunteers Sworn in for Three-Month Domestic Deployment  Staff to Complete Unconscious Bias in the Workplace Training by the End of . . .

  I think that Peace Corps Worldwide will be interested to learn about our RPCV Gulf Coast Florida recent meeting with several representatives of Rotary on June 5.  We learned a lot about Rotary activities and the program of partnering with Peace Corps Volunteers and RPCVs.  Attached is a report of our exhilarating conversation. Leita Kaldi Davis (Senegal 1993-96) Recipient Lillian Carter Award 2017 • Partnering for Peace:  Peace Corps / Rotary Partnership Did you know that the U.S. Peace Corps is an official partner of Rotary International?  Most do not, which is why the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) of Gulf Coast Florida hosted a Zoom meeting on June 5, 2021 (click to view).  Rotary and Peace Corps members were present, along with board members from Partnering for Peace, an organization that emerged to find and implement projects to strengthen the partnership. Rotarians Vana Prewitt and Kelsey Mitchell, both from Rotary District 6960 in . . .