Eastern Caribbean – Peace Corps Worldwide

John Chromy (October 11, 1942 – October 19, 2024)

Oct 22 2024

John William Chromy, age 82, of Chevy Chase, Maryland, has concluded a full life of service, countless friendships, and worldwide adventures. John was born in New Prague, Minnesota. He grew up on the family farm with his parents, Stanley W. Chromy Sr. and Mary R. (Horejsi) Chromy, and his eight siblings. He attended St. Wenceslaus Catholic School and graduated from New Prague High School in 1960. He attended St. John’s University but left in 1963, answering President Kennedy’s challenge for young Americans to serve in the newly formed Peace Corps. After two years of service in India as a Peace Corps volunteer (1963-65), he returned to St. John’s University and finished his B.A. in History in 1964. A natural leader, John shared his early adventures with his first wife, Patricia Ward Chromy (1942-1984), and their two daughters, Maureen and Caroline, serving as Peace Corps staff in India (1967-1969) and Peace . . .

“Writers from the Peace Corps” by John Coyne (Ethiopia)

May 09 2024

John writes — Since 1961, Peace Corps writers have used their volunteer service as source material for their fiction and nonfiction. Approximately 250,000 Americans have served in the Peace Corps. Of these volunteers and staff, more than 1,500 have published memoirs, novels, and poetry inspired by their experience. Many former volunteers have gone on to careers as creative writing teachers, journalists, and editors, while others have discovered a variety of jobs outside of publishing where their Peace Corps years have contributed to successful employment. A Peace Corps tour has proven to be a valuable experience — in terms of one’s craft and one’s professional career—for more than one college graduate. The first to write The first book to draw on the Peace Corps experience was written by Arnold Zeitlin (Ghana 1961–63), who had volunteered for the Peace Corps in 1961 after having been an Associated Press reporter. That book, . . .

Jamelyn Ebelacker (Eastern Caribbean) | MBA candidate: Arizona State University

Jan 19 2024

Forte: More Women Leading by Meredith Hunt Jamelyn Ebelacker MBA Candidate W. P. Carey School of Business, 2024 Jamelyn Ebelacker has taken a circuitous route to her current position as a full-time MBA student at Arizona State University’s W. P. Carey School of Business. After a childhood toggling between Eagle River, Alaska, and Santa Clara Pueblo in northern New Mexico, Jamelyn chose to study New Media Arts at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. Coming from generations of Pueblo potters who make traditional “red and black” pottery, she chose a more modern path – a decision encouraged by her elders. “They wanted me to broaden my horizons as much as possible and learn new things to be able to survive in a non-Indigenous world,” Jamelyn explains. After college, Jamelyn joined the Peace Corps. “I also come from a long line of warriors and military service people,” she . . .

7 Peace Corps Volunteers assigned to Grenada for new school year

Aug 03 2023

PCVs in the news — by Linda Straker There will be 7 Peace Corps Volunteers assigned to different primary schools in Grenada when the new school year commences in September 2023. The 7 are already on island and will officially be sworn in as Peace Corps volunteers in a Swearing-In Ceremony on Friday, 4 August 2023 from 10:30 am at the Grenada Red Cross Society, Upper Lucas Street, St George’s. They are part of the 93rd group of Peace Corps Volunteers, which includes 27 Volunteers assigned to the Eastern Caribbean. They are the second intake of Volunteers to Grenada and the rest of the Eastern Caribbean since the return to service in 2022. The program halted during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Peace Corps Volunteers returned to the Eastern Caribbean in May 2022 and have since then worked with local educators to support primary literacy. “Each of the trainees will commit . . .

Once Again: Five Great Short Stories About the Peace Corps Experience

Mar 13 2023

Five Great Short Stories About the Peace Corps Experience The Mending Fields by Bob Shacochis (Eastern Caribbean 1975–76) I WAS ASSIGNED to the Island of Saint Kit in the West Indies. Once on an inter-island plane, I sat across the aisle from one of my new colleagues, an unfriendly, overserious young woman. She was twenty-four, twenty-five . . . we were all twenty-four, twenty-five. I didn’t know her much or like her. As the plane banked over the island, she pressed against the window, staring down at the landscape. I couldn’t see much of her face, just enough really to recognize an expression of pain. Below us spread an endless manicured lawn, bright green and lush of sugarcane, the island’s main source of income. Each field planted carefully to control erosion. Until that year, Saint Kit’s precious volcanic soil had been bleeding into the sea; somehow they had resolved . . .

RPCV Doctor Michael Daignault Tells Us to Take A Walk

Oct 09 2022

Are you getting your daily steps in? Walking could save your life. Dr. Michael Daignault (Eastern Caribbeon 2003-04) USA TODAY • Did you know that getting in your daily steps could save your life? A new study of more than 2,000 adults showed that taking at least 7,000 steps a day reduced mortality by 50% to 70% compared with those who took fewer steps. The average age of study participants was 45, and they were followed over 11 years. This is the kind of evidence-based study I like to share with my patients in the ER. Although our time together is limited, I try to discuss diet and exercise with my patients as much as possible. I’ve found that most patients who don’t typically exercise find it daunting to start. They assume their only option is to transition from not exercising to joining a gym. While a lot of people can make that leap, I . . .

“Notes on the Common Practice of Rape” by Bob Schacochis (Eastern Caribbean)

Mar 14 2016

Bob Shacochis wrote this essay for Roxane Gay who is putting together a rape anthology that will be coming out next year. After reading it, I asked Bob if we might put it up on our site, as in this piece he discusses several rapes that happened to women — and almost Bob — in the Peace Corps. As we know, the issue is a serious one for PCVs women, and what is being done about it — and not being done about it — continues to be a problem for Volunteers in-country and for the Peace Corps here at home. • NOTES ON THE COMMON PRACTICE OF RAPE by Bob Shacochis (Eastern Caribbean 1975–76) A friend, an architect in Manhattan, has a default mantra, an unwanted but repeated thought that loops through his brain as he walks from his Soho loft to his downtown office or further south to Battery Park — There is something wrong with us. . . .

Bob Shacochis (Eastern Caribbean 1975-76) Wins Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Fiction

Oct 22 2014

By Ron Charles September 24 (Courtesy of Grove/Atlantic) “The Woman Who Lost Her Soul,” an epic about America’s unbridled military ambitions, has won this year’s Dayton Literary Peace Prize for fiction. In their announcement of the $10,000 award this morning, the judges said that novelist Bob Shacochis “creates an intricate portrait of the catastrophic events that have led to an endless cycle of vengeance and war between cultures.” This complex, demanding novel about a father-daughter pair of spies was a . . .