Colombia – Peace Corps Worldwide

“My Dona Anita” by Jerry Norris (Colombia)

Dec 21 2022

A Writer Writes My Dona Anita by Jeremiah Norris (Colombia 1963-65) • Early on in my stay in La Plata as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Colombia, an elderly woman made a habit of coming to my door late every afternoon. She appeared to be about 80 or so, was dressed in moldy, black rags with a shawl covering her head and most of her face, and she smelled heavily of urine. She had one or two badly bent front teeth, knurled hands, a deeply weathered face, walked uncertainly with a stick, hunched over and very slowly. She couldn’t have weighed more than 75 pounds. It pained her to look up at me as she was much less than 5 feet tall. She had to twist her head to one side and look up sideways when we spoke. Once, though, she had been preceded into this world by a love . . .

LETTERS FROM ALFONSO by Earl Kessler (Colombia)

Oct 20 2022

“The story of how the poor are the victims of the environment — floods, windstorms, tremors, drought — is rarely told as beautifully as by Alfonso, the community’s leader, to Earl, his Peace Corps friend and supporter.” — Pablo Gutman Senior Director Environmental Economics World Wildlife Fund ‘The lessons of Letters from Alfonso are important for anyone interested in understanding the process of development, especially those who want to get deeply and meaningfully involved in the good work of helping real people who are trying to better their lives.” — Bimal Patel Ahmedabad University • Earl Kessler has been engaged in the design and development of shelter and urban programs since 1965 when he joined the Peace Corps and was sent to Colombia. He earned a Master of Architecture degree in the Planning for Developing Countries Program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has worked on urban strategies for . . .

“In That Time of Our Life” by Jeremiah North (Colombia)

Oct 17 2022

By Jeremiah Norris (Colombia 1963-65) One night into my assignment to La Plata, Huila in 1963, I was reading in the dimness of a 40 watt light bulb a banned copy of La Violencia en Colombia. I was riveted by its 1948 description of the lunch-time assassination of Jorge Gaitan, the liberal leader, at a side-walk restaurant next to the country’s leading newspaper, El Tiempo. As its principal author, Orlando Fals Borda wrote: “it was a lone act which stripped with a single bullet the thin veneer of civility from an entire society”. La Violencia then goes on to detail a country’s descent into anarchy. By nightfall, Bogota was in flames. The country’s elite troops were standing shoulder to shoulder, rank upon rank, on the steps of the Ministry of Justice, firing volley after volley into the maddening crowd. They had long given up on shooting people in . . .

Review — ASK NOT WHAT YOUR COUNTRY CAN DO FOR YOU by Carl Stephani (Colombia)

Jul 30 2022

Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You …: Peace Corps Remembered – Bogota 1962–64 by Carl Stephani (Colombia 1962–64) Independently published June 2022 237 pages $6.95 (paperback) Reviewed by John Chromy (India 1963–65) • Our 1960s Peace Corps colleague Carl Stephani has assembled a very interesting and readable screed that for first decade PCVs will bring back many memories, and for post-1970 PCVs. Ask Not . . . provides an interesting view of Peace Corps in the “Olden Days” The days when Peace Corps training included 2-3 months at a US University, a month of outward bound hiking/mountain climbing/river swimming and a week or two in the cross-cultural setting of a poverty ridden neighborhood, be it urban slum or rural Appalachia, migrant stream camp or Native American reservation. The arrival in country and three days later delivered to the village or neighborhood of your assignment. The days . . .

16 New books by Peace Corps writers — May and June, 2022

Jul 01 2022

To purchase any of these books from Amazon.com — CLICK on the book cover, the bold book title, or the publishing format you would like — and Peace Corps Worldwide, an Amazon Associate, will receive a small remittance from your purchase that will help support the site and the annual Peace Corps Writers awards. We include a brief description for each of the books listed here in hopes of encouraging readers to order a book and/or to VOLUNTEER TO REVIEW IT. See a book you’d like to review for Peace Corps Worldwide? Send a note to Marian at marian@haleybeil.com, and she will send you a copy along with a few instructions. In addition to the books listed below, I have on my shelf a number of other books whose authors would love for you to review. Go to Books Available for Review to see what is on that shelf. Please, please join in our Third Goal . . .

President Duque granted Colombian citizenship to journalist Maureen Orth

May 01 2022

From Bogotá, President Iván Duque swore in as a new Colombian to the American journalist and philanthropist, citizenship that was granted to her for her contributions to the country. Maureen Orth (Colombia 1964-66) is a journalist, writer, and special correspondent for Vanity Fair magazine. She also founded the organization Marina Orth Foundation with which she established a model of technology-based education, English learning and leadership in Colombia. The now Colombian has a school in Medellín from which she teaches thousands of children in 22 schools concepts related to technology and English.

An Orange for Christmas (Colombia)

Dec 23 2021

By Jeremiah Norris (Colombia 1963-65) In December 1963, I was the only Volunteer in La Plata, a small village of some 3,000 residents, located in the foothills of the Andean mountains. Volunteers from an earlier group had all rotated home in November. Just a few days before Christmas, I came down with a gastrointestinal infection that laid me so low I could hardly get out of bed and stumble into the bathroom. I was also taking an eight-count, feeling sorry for myself as I had not developed a single project in my first five months. I was too weak even to leave the house and seek medical attention. Then, mysteriously, bowls of hot soup began appearing at my front door. When I opened it to see who was there, no one appeared! Somehow, a woman of very limited means who lived just down the street from my house, the mother . . .

11/22/63 — Ask not . . . by Jerry Norris (Colombia)

Nov 17 2021

As a Peace Corps Volunteer, I was assigned to La Plata, a difficult to find village on any map, set in the foothills of Colombia’s Andean mountains. On this soon to be fateful morning of November 22, 1963 I had taken a bus into Neiva, the Departmental capital, to obtain some governmental authorizations for Community Development Funds for one of our projects. Like most every bus in our area, firmly set above the driver’s head were three pictures with Christmas tree lights around them: Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and President John F. Kennedy. Later that afternoon, about 3:30 PM or so, before boarding the bus for the trip back, I stopped at a newsstand next to the Hotel Neiva to see if it had a recent copy of Time Magazine. There was one copy left! In my excitement to read while paying for it, I paid little attention to . . .

How narco movie BIRDS OF PASSAGE “tramples the truth” (Colombia)

Feb 14 2019

How Narco Movie BIRDS OF PASSAGE “tramples the truth” (Guest Column) The Hollywood Reporter 2/14/2019 by Maureen Orth (Colombia 1964–66), Abby Wasserman (Colombia 1963–65) and Arleen Chesto (Colombia 1964–66) The critically lauded film falsely accuses the Peace Corps for starting the drug trade in Colombia and misappropriates a long suffering indigenous tribe, write three former Peace Corp Volunteers. Birds of Passage, Colombia’s short listed entry for best foreign film in the upcoming Academy Awards that received a U.S. release on Feb. 13, has garnered praise for its truth and beauty. In reality, it is a movie that distorts history, truth and honesty in storytelling. It’s one thing to enhance history, exaggerate the facts and take artistic license for cinematic effect while honoring the essential spirit of a story. It’s quite another to trample the truth. Birds of Passage falsely accuses the Peace Corps for starting the drug trade in Colombia in 1968, and aggressively . . .

“Is It Folly to Be Wise” by Janet Mulgannon Del Castillo (Colombia)

Dec 18 2016

IS IT FOLLY TO BE WISE? by Janet Mulgannon Del Castillo (Colombia 1964–66) A GREAT ADVANTAGE OF BEING YOUNG is that one has no fear. Young adults are so devoid of knowledge and life experience that they have no concept of failure. I was 19 years old when I went to Colombia, South America, to save the world. I was in the Peace Corps and President Kennedy’s words rang in my ears. “Ask not what your country can do for you — but what you can do for your country!” There I was, in the tiny town of Buena Vista, enlightening the villagers on what latrines were for, how to construct them, and how to use them. The irony was that I had had little knowledge of where water came from or how toilets even flushed before I arrived. But I sure knew how to build a latrine! One sweltering morning . . .

Review — TIME PASSAGES by Jay Hersch (Colombia)

Feb 18 2016

Time Passages (Peace Corps memoir) Jay Hersch (Colombia 1964–66) A Peace Corps Writers Book October 2015 102 pages $7.99 (paperback), $2.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Ralph Bates (Colombia 1964–66) . This review was first published in the Winter 2016 issue of Friends of Colombia: Newsletter of the Colombia RPCVs • It isn’t often that a person gets to see paths in his or her life intimately interwoven in the journey of another — in my case it is the journey of a dear friend. The author of that journey is Jay Hersch and his story is told in his entertaining book Time Passages. Jay and I go back to dormitory days at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1960. We didn’t know each other well, but Jay told me a few years later that he voted for me for Student Senate. Probably that revelation when we met, quite by surprise and . . .

Maureen Orth (Colombia 1964-66) Writes About the Virgin Mary in National Geographic Magazine

Nov 09 2015

In its December 2015 issue National Geographic carries a cover story by Maureen Orth (Colombia 1964-66) that calls the Virgin Mary, “the most powerful woman in the world”. Award-winning journalist Orth, also a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, has been wandering the world and telling unexpected stories since her days as a PCV. In this article, she has taken a journey through some of the most famous Marian apparitions (including the alleged apparitions of Medjugorje) while mixing the stories of those who benefit from such intercession of the Virgin Mary as well as the process followed by the Church to recognize the supernatural occurrences or not. At one point in the article, Orth also includes a brief reference to the role of Mary in Islam because, although it is little known in the Muslim world, there is also a reverence for whom they also considered the holiest woman: Mary. You can read the whole story here: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/12/virgin-mary-text

Return to Piojo by Dana Dahl Seton (Colombia 1963–65)

Nov 09 2015

Dana was one of the first RPCVs to donate her Peace Corps papers to the Friends of Colombia Peace Corps Archive at American University. When she returned to Piojo in 2008, she wrote the following essay about her experience. It, too was donated to FOC Archives at AU. We print it here through the courtesy of American University. Dana sadly lost her courageous battle with cancer last week. • Return to Piojo by Dana Dahl Seton (Colombia 1963–65) Two events in 2007 conspired to help me realize a 43-year old dream of returning to my beloved Peace Corps site of Piojo, Colombia, in the department of Atlantico on the northwest coast. The first was finding an envelope on my hallway floor postmarked 1973 and bearing the return address of a Colombian family with whom I had lost contact later in the decade. The second was receiving news from the organization . . .

What program was the first Peace Corps project?

Sep 21 2015

If you ever run into any RPCV from Colombia One, the first thing he’ll say (they were all guys) before giving you their name is: “We were first.” Colombia One PCVs are obsessed with this fact and that they are not given their proper pecking order. Recently my friend Ron Schwarz (Colombia 1961-63), wrote this piece on why THEY were the first PCVs, not Ghana. I asked the Director of the Peace Corps to check on this obscure (but important) fact. She was nice enough to come back with this information and statement from the agency’s General Counsel Office and the Office of Strategic Information, Research and Planning. Start dates for the early programs of the Peace Corps were corroborated and/or updated based on detailed research and analysis conducted by our Office of Strategic Information, Research and Planning on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps. . . .

¿hablas español? If so watch (and listen) to Maureen Orth (Colombia 1964-66)

Jun 02 2015

Maureen Orth (Colombia 1964-66) was featured on Colombia’s version of Sixty Minutes on June 1st. Congressman Sam Farr (Colombia 1964-66) is also on the segment as well as images of other early PCVs in country. Here is the link to the program: http://losinformantes.noticiascaracol.com/ As a PCV, Maureen, with the help from coffee growers, established a school in Medellin, Colombia. A decade or so ago, she returned to Colombia and created the Marina Orth Foundation which has established a model education program emphasizing Technology, English and leadership in Colombia. Today, Maureen is a Special Correspondent for Vanity Fair magazine. She is also the author of Vulgar Favors: Andrew Cunanan, Gianni Versace and the Largest Failed Manhunt in U.S. History and The Importance of Being Famous, a collection of her pieces from Vanity Fair articles with updates and commentary.