Peace Corps stories on a map from the Museum of Peace Corps Experience

Sep 13 2021

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from John Rude (Ethiopia 1962-64)

The Museum of Peace Corps Experience has assembled 50 short vignettes submitted by RPCVs. Readers may see the stories on a Google Earth map by clicking HERE.

Like any global adventure worth its salt, you may need a few navigational tips —

You’ll see a list on the left with a list of RPCV authors and dates of service. Click on any name to open a story.

Photos appear at the top, with the stories beneath. If there are several photos, click the left or right arrows to see them.

To see the whole globe, return to Projects/Peace Corps Stories and click the left arrow at the top. Next, click the Menu (upper left) to again click a left arrow symbol, next to Google Earth.

With the entire globe visible, you may hold the left-click button on your mouse and spin the globe in any direction.

You will see “Heart” icons across the globe next to RPCV names and service dates. Click on any of these to open a story.

As you draw closer to the RPCV’s assigned village, you may see names of countries, cities, villages, or national parks. Click on any of these sites, and you may see photos of the surrounding area

Keep this link to Google Earth, and if you want to tell your own story—send in THIS FORM to the Museum of the Peace Corp Experience. Have a great trip!

This post threw my imagination and confusion also really into sadness segued from surprise and joy. Looking back to 1961 and also the year before at WGBH THE THEN ETV an educational-TV predecessor of PBS-TV these days, I curl into a mobius strip of both memory and the swooping hopes of that time. It all seemed then to successively merge forward. Now it returns pastward with hopes and fears of our reality-life in 2021 and me on my way (still hoping) to age 85 come March 21, 2021. (I was due, mom Ruth told me, and I wrote down, March 25, 1937, following a car accident the previous Saturday on the 20th in the area below Toronto in Ontario Provence and the USA Niagara Falls NY when a teen from Toronto in his dad’s car out driving that swell day his brakes failed and slammed into mom and dad Jack disabling ‘our’ car and shaking up mom a bit. Seen from Occie Wilson driving also that day — Dad and mom’s baseball pal with his brothter Bob — got Ruth in his car while dad Jack and Bob Wilson remained and drove her back to the USA to her grandmother Rebecca Taylor in Niagara Falls, NY where I was born just about 4PM the next day Palm Sunday and the first day that year of Spring and mom said over again on the first full moon — labor pains beginning at 2AM in the morning 21st.
(I was the 2nd child as my brother David was born 17 month previously — and if he were alive today he’d be 86 come Oct 4.) There in 1961 at the end of August I was aged 24 moving from the White House to the Convair 2-engine plane up up in the sky in this beautiful memory balloon recalling all the 50 faces of my group (cohart is the term the officials used) on our way to GHANA. We stopped in the Azores first for refeuling and then onto Dakar, Senegal that seemed to jut out into the Atlantic Ocean sky and then onto Accra. John F. Kennedy and Sarge Shriver brought-out the best in we volunteers most of us my age and now still is there right now writing this. I don’t have to rerun the verse “Backward O Backward/ O time in Thy flight/ make me a child again/ just for tonight” that was said so often by my great-grandmother Jane Kennedy Delehant (who died at my age now) because I feel those years now.

4 Comments

Susan E. Greisen says:

September 13, 2021 at 3:04 pm

This is fantastic. I love the animation with Google maps. A wonderful creative creation. Thanks so John Rude and anyone else who developed this great tool of communication.

Joanne Roll says:

September 14, 2021 at 4:54 am

Susan, I echo your comments. What a great idea! Thank you, John, for posting this.

Mark Walker says:

September 14, 2021 at 11:40 am

Thanks John–an important addition to the Peace Corps experience!

Mark

EDWARD MYCUE says:

September 16, 2021 at 11:16 am

This post threw my imagination and confusion also really into sadness segued from surprise and joy. Looking back to 1961 and also the year before at WGBH THE THEN ETV an educational-TV predecessor of PBS-TV these days, I curl into a mobius strip of both memory and the swooping hopes of that time. It all seemed then to successively merge forward. Now it returns pastward with hopes and fears of our reality-life in 2021 and me on my way (still hoping) to age 85 come March 21, 2021. (I was due, mom Ruth told me, and I wrote down, March 25, 1937, following a car accident the previous Saturday on the 20th in the area below Toronto in Ontario Provence and the USA Niagara Falls NY when a teen from Toronto in his dad’s car out driving that swell day his brakes failed and slammed into mom and dad Jack disabling ‘our’ car and shaking up mom a bit. Seen from Occie Wilson driving also that day — Dad and mom’s baseball pal with his brothter Bob — got Ruth in his car while dad Jack and Bob Wilson remained and drove her back to the USA to her grandmother Rebecca Taylor in Niagara Falls, NY where I was born just about 4PM the next day Palm Sunday and the first day that year of Spring and mom said over again on the first full moon — labor pains beginning at 2AM in the morning 21st.
(I was the 2nd child as my brother David was born 17 month previously — and if he were alive today he’d be 86 come Oct 4.) There in 1961 at the end of August I was aged 24 moving from the White House to the Convair 2-engine plane up up in the sky in this beautiful memory balloon recalling all the 50 faces of my group (cohart is the term the officials used) on our way to GHANA. We stopped in the Azores first for refeuling and then onto Dakar, Senegal that seemed to jut out into the Atlantic Ocean sky and then onto Accra. John F. Kennedy and Sarge Shriver brought-out the best in we volunteers most of us my age and now still is there right now writing this. I don’t have to rerun the verse “Backward O Backward/ O time in Thy flight/ make me a child again/ just for tonight” that was said so often by my great-grandmother Jane Kennedy Delehant (who died at my age now) because I feel those years now.

4 Comments

Cancel Reply