India – Peace Corps Worldwide

When Small Things Make Great Things Possible, by John Chromy (India 1963-65)

Nov 25 2024

A little over a year ago, John Chromy (India 1963-65) began a project to gather narratives on at least ten programs where the cumulative efforts of Peace Corps Volunteers and their host country counterparts either initiated, expanded or laid the groundwork for future expansion of programs that over a half century have become permanent elements in improving the lives of millions of people. It was his intent to share these great narratives with a wide audience and to make these achievements a historical hallmark of the Peace Corps concept and its inherent belief in the value of “bottom-up community-based development.” I helped John identify these programs and also committed to helping disseminate the product of his work. Sadly, John passed away on October 19, 2024, just after delivering his report. Published posthumously, “When Small Things Make Great Things Possible” shares a 50-year perspective on 10 Peace Corps programs that enabled . . .

A Shrinking Population Could be a Demographic Opportunity for China

Nov 20 2024

By Lex Rieffel (India 1965-67), Founder of the From the Bridge Foundation; former U.S. Treasury Department economist and Brookings Institution scholar. Co-author: WANG Xueqing, PhD candidate at Princeton University, Office of Population Research, focused on population aging and family change. Original article: The Centre on Contemporary China and the World (CCCW) at the University of Hong Kong In early 2023, China announced its first population decline since the Cultural Revolution, marking a significant milestone in its demographic history. This decline highlights a broader global trend toward decreasing fertility rates. According to the latest UN World Population Prospects report, issued in July 2024, the world’s population is expected to peak before the end of this century. The number of countries experiencing very low fertility rates has been steadily increasing. One in four people now live in a country whose population has already peaked. This includes nations as diverse as Germany, Japan, . . .

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 . . .

RPCV Sculptor | Joel Shapiro (India)

Aug 29 2024

How Joel Shapiro ‘Retains the Intimacy’ of His Staggeringly Large Sculptures Ahead of a solo exhibition at New York’s Pace Gallery, we step inside the studio of the seasoned sculptor. by Tim Brinkhof — August 27, 2024 Share This Article Ever since he participated in the 1969 “Anti-Illusion: Procedures/Materials” exhibition at New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art, Joel Shapiro has been a fixture in the world of modern American sculpture. The 82-year-old artist traces the genesis of his career to his experience serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in India 1964 to 1966. There, in between teaching villagers to dig latrines and build smokeless ovens, he became enamored with Indian sculpture, which introduced him to the medium’s psychological dimension. “India,” he later said, “gave me a sense of… the possibility of being an artist.” Born in Queens, New York, in 1941, Shapiro studied at New York University, earning . . .

New books by Peace Corps writers | March — April 2024

May 01 2024

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 free copy along with a few instructions. P.S. 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 . . .

“Fire in the Huts!!!” by John Chromy (India)

Feb 18 2024

by John Chromy (India 1963–65) • • • Late one afternoon in November of 1964 my Peace Corps housemate, Gordon Louden and I were working at our desks in the Gramsevak Training Center, when we smelled smoke and began to hear people shouting and running toward some informal huts on the outer edge of our Training Center buildings. In India there are numerous wandering, almost gypsy-like, tribes of working people who move to locations where there is seasonal or temporary work to be had. One of those tribes, the Lombardi people had come to Gangawati to work on the construction of feeder lines of the Tungabhadra Irrigation Project. They had established a semi-formal camp of about 50 huts on government-owned land about 40 yards north of our Center. These huts were constructed of a wooden framing, walls made of sticks and shrubbery and roofs covered with straw, coconut leaves and other . . .

“And the Wall Came Tumbling Down” by John Chromy (India)

Feb 01 2024

It was in June of 1964 when the “wall came tumbling down” during a sitdown dinner for 6 people. The setting was in a private home in the town of Zaheerabad in Andhra Pradesh State. Four of us Peace Corps Volunteers had been temporarily assigned to develop and teach a pilot health/nutrition/gardening curriculum to be used in training village school teachers throughout Andhra State (population 36 million). This experimental course was conducted at the Zaheerabad Basic Training Institute (BTI), where some 160 future primary school teachers were undergoing training. Amongst the faculty and students at the BTI there was considerable excitement to have Americans teaching at their school. In the 1960s America was mostly an admired country and there was much curiosity about the American people, their way of life and the work of these four American guest instructors. In fact, one of the faculty members very cautiously and . . .

John Chromy (India) writes: “Small Things Make Great Things Possible”

Sep 03 2023

A Fifty-Year Perspective on Ten Peace Corps Programs That Enabled Their Host Country People, Communities and Institutions to Substantially Improve the Lives of Millions! • Premise From its very founding the Peace Corps believed that Americans willing to voluntarily dedicate two years of their lives to helping people and communities in countries where there existed great needs, could in multiple ways make important improvements in peoples’ daily life. Since 1961 more than 250,000 American Peace Corps Volunteers have responded to President Kennedy’s call to “serve in the huts and villages” around the world. While not all the Volunteers were successful, most experienced some modest success in their communities, a few made large impacts and in some case the cumulative efforts of many Peace Corps Volunteers, in partnership with their host country people and institutions, laid the groundwork for great achievements that have grown, blossomed withstood the test of time . . .

INDIA AND PEACE CORPS

Jul 06 2023

A Fortuitous Partnership that launched India’s Modern Poultry & Egg Production Industry by John Chromy (India 1963-65) INTRODUCTION Sometimes it seems the “stars align in their courses.” And so it happened in the 1960s when a series of factors came together. The Government of India was committed to improving life in its 600,000 villages through a nation-wide Community Development and Agriculture Extension program. India’s Health and Nutrition officials recognized the need to infuse protein into the diet of the majority of the people. There existed a kernel of awareness among the agricultural and animal husbandry officers that the techniques of modern poultry production (hybrid chicken strains, enclosed poultry houses, nutritious feed) might be adapted to the India setting and had the potential to produce protein rich eggs and meat on an enhanced scale. Within the Community Development and Agriculture Extension program there was a very limited number of . . .

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 . . .

Review — INDIA-40 AND THE CIRCLE OF DEMONS by Peter Adler (India)

Aug 29 2017

India-40 and the Circle of Demons: A Memoir of Death, Sickness, Love, Friendship, Corruption, Political Fanatics, Drugs, Thugs, Psychosis, and Illumination in the Us Peace Corps by Peter S. Adler (Maharashtra, India 1966–68) Xlibris June 2017 406 pages $23.99 (paperback), $3.99 (Kindle), $34.99 (hard cover) Reviewed by Richard M. Grimsrud (Bihar, India 1965–67) • THE SAGA OF A CENTRAL INDIAN PEACE CORPS GROUP This well-written, and almost perfectly presented memoir (I noticed only 2 typos in my reading of it, astounding for any book of 383 pages), was generally slow going for me at the beginning, became a page-turner largely because of its excellent irony in its extended middle section, and bogged down some at the end, perhaps, because it was a bit verbose and excessively philosophical in its conclusion. Nevertheless, India-4o . . . is certainly a good read for anyone with an interest in India and its development over the . . .

Review: HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND AVOID SACRED COWS by David Macaray (India)

Feb 22 2017

How to Win Friends & Avoid Sacred Cows: Weird Adventures in India: Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims When the Peace Corps was New by David Macaray (India 1967-68) The Ardent Writer Press (Brownsboro, Alabama) December 2016 291 pages $29.95 (hardcover), $19.95 (paperback), $2.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Kitty Thuermer (PCV/Mali 1977-79) • Every Peace Corps Volunteer has a near-death story. For David Macaray, supplementing his diet of curry and rice with a ball of opium did the trick. But not to worry. Had he died, he wrote, “Our mothers and fathers would have received the obligatory telegram from the State Department: ‘Dear Parent: [stop] Your son ate opium, passed out, and set house on fire. [stop] He is deceased. [stop] Details to follow.” Fifty years later, one wonders if Macaray, in a fit of nostalgia, ingested a bit of opium while organizing this sometimes heartbreaking, but mostly hilarious, book. Because it’s not really . . .

Review — AMERICAN SAHIB by Eddie James Girdner (India)

May 25 2016

American Sahib (novel) Eddie James Girdner (India 1968–70) CreateSpace March 2016 420 pages $14.90 (paperback) Reviewed by Tony D’Souza (Ivory Coast 2000-02, Madagascar 2002-03) • ONE OF THE GREAT liberties of the on-going tidal wave of self-publishing is that an author can go on as long as he wants. No longer do fussy editors slash and burn their way through your manuscript, no nitpicking gatekeepers naysay your style or plotting, or even the basic value of the endeavor at all. Turn the coin over, however, and the drawbacks are those same things. If engineers were allowed equal liberties, the landscape would be littered with deathtrap bridges. If ballerinas were so free, most would be falling down. In the back jacket copy to Eddie James Girdner’s overlong and plodding American Sahib, someone has lauded the book as, “The only novel ever written about the American Peace Corps experience in rural . . .

Review — Ripples in the Pond by Michael Stake (India 1966–68)

Sep 08 2015

Ripples in the Pond: Reflections of a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer from India by Michael Stake (India 1966–68) Inkwell Productions, 2014 371 pages $17.00 (paperback), $8.00 (Kindle) Reviewed by Barbara E. Joe (Honduras 2000–03) • ALL PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEERS HAVE a story to tell — a highly personal series of adventures to share. Thankfully, many are contributing to an archive about this unique historical experiment, with which fellow Volunteers can compare and contrast with their own experiences. Michael Stake has added his memoir, dating back to Peace Corps’ earliest days, a very readable book about that heady time when the agency was still feeling its way. Much has changed since, including less-ready acceptance of non-college graduates and no more assignments in India, where Stake was sent as a neophyte Agriculture Volunteer and where President Carter’s mother Lillian also served. Stake interrupts his college career to join because of uncertainty . . .

Review of Arthur J. Frankel's (India 1966-68) Indian Summer: A Love Letter to India and the Story of India 29

May 27 2014

Indian Summer: A Love Letter to India and the Story of India 29 by Arthur J. Frankel (India 1966-68) AuthorHouse $29.95 (hardback),20.66 (paperback), $7.99 (Kindle) 299 pages 2014 Reviewed by Tony D’Souza (Ivory Coast 2000-02, Madagascar 2002-03) ARTHUR J. FRANKEL’S Indian Summer: A Love Letter to India and the Story of India 29 tells the tale of the Peace Corps experience during one of its earliest periods, when the agency was just figuring out how best to prepare Americans for two years abroad, as well as place them once in country. Frankel’s group, which served in India from 1966–1968, coincidentally included my mother, then Alice Neuendorf, age 27. Though she’s never mentioned in the book, her blurry picture appears in the black and white photo section, standing in a white dress with other Volunteers in front of a Bangalore guesthouse. She’s told me stories about that guesthouse all my life, . . .