Uganda – Peace Corps Worldwide

Some Early Peace Corps Books You Might Have Missed

Mar 16 2023

The Early Years of Peace Corps in Afghanistan: A Promising Time by Frances Hopkins Irwin and Will A. Irwin | Feb 13, 201 The Peace Corps: The Early Years by Charles Jones and Keith Jones | Feb 7, 2015 My Years in the Early Peace Corps: Nigeria, 1964-1965, Volume 1 by Sonja Goodwin | Sep 17, 2021 My Years in the Early Peace Corps: Ethiopia, 1965-1966, Volume 2 by Sonja Goodwin Eradicating Smallpox in Ethiopia: Peace Corps Volunteers’ Accounts of Their Adventures, Challenges and Achievements by James W. Skelton Jr. , Alan Schnur, et al. | Nov 26, 2019 I Miss the Rain in Africa: Peace Corps as a Third Act by Nancy Daniel Wesson | May 1, 2021 A Few Minor Adjustments: Two Years in Afghanistan: A Peace Corps Odyssey by Elana Hohl | May 6, 2021 Mariantonia: The Lifetime Journey of a Peace Corps Volunteer by Robert L. Forster | Sep 22, 2021 BUILDING COMMUNITY : ANSWERING KENNEDY’S CALL by HARLAN RUSSELL GREEN | May 16, 2022 Moon over Sasova: One American’s Experience Teaching in Post-Cold War . . .

“The Elephant in the Room” — Kelsey Sabo (Uganda)

Nov 10 2022

On the Pulse Johns Hopkins Nursing Magazine Kelsey Sabo (Uganda 2014-18) now a nurse in training at John Hopkins Nursing was a new PCV when she began to notice in roughly one-week, unexplained, undiscussed absences of female students and teachers each month. Of course they involved the menstrual cycle, in communities where sanitary pads were scarce and girls and women were often bullied for the sudden appearance of blood on skirts. Rather than face the shame and ridicule as well as physical discomfort, they stayed home until the period passed. This meant missed school, missed work — “about 25 percent of the year or about 9 years for the average menstruating woman’s lifetime,” explains Sabo — and missed opportunities to advance toward self-sufficiency. The answer wouldn’t be as simple as helping women and girls learn to make, and eventually sell, sustainable, reusable menstrual pads (RUMPs). But for “Teacher Ayikoru” . . .

2022 Moritz Thomsen Peace Corps Experience Award Winner — I MISS THE RAIN IN AFRICA

Aug 17 2022

by Nancy Daniel Wesson (Uganda 2011-13) At a time when her friends were planning cushy retirements, Nancy Wesson instead walked away from a comfortable life and business to head out as a Peace Corps Volunteer in post-war Northern Uganda. She embraced wholeheartedly the grand adventure of living in a radically different culture, while turning old skills into wisdom. Returning home became a surreal experience in trying to reconcile a life that no longer “fits.” This becomes the catalyst for new revelations about family wounds, mystical experiences, and personal foibles. Nancy shows us the power of stepping into the void to reconfigure life and enter the wilderness of the uncharted territory of our own memories and psyche, to mine the gems hidden therein. Funny, heartbreaking, insightful and tender, I Miss the Rain in Africa is the story of honoring the self, discovering a new lens through which to view life, and finding . . .