Peace Corps News

RPCVs and Medical Marijuana

RPCV David Harde receives Prison Sentence for Medical Marijuana
With his white hair, neatly-trimmed moustache, and exemplary posture, Harde looked the part of a gentle, aging schoolteacher. But even with his shoulders straight, his words were those of a man who was spiritually downtrodden.  Shortly before sentencing, Harde himself was permitted to address the court. With a shaking voice that stifled sobs, the defendant detailed his remorse for the consequences of his actions. "I am deeply sorry that I engaged in illegal activity," the defendant proclaimed, while simultaneously regretting the unnecessary expense of his prosecution. "The awareness of my folly and its consequences never leaves me -- it tortures me by day and haunts me by night." "I had a misconception about what I could do under the law. I was trying to help people and I was misguided in how I could help them. I was imprudent and unwise," Harde continued, before summing up his address with declarations of concession. "I realize the appropriateness of our federal drug laws. I have a deepened respect for the laws of our land. I have accepted responsibility by pleading guilty humbly."

In 2005, Harde was arrested by El Dorado County law enforcement for his role in a patient cooperative. After prosecuting Harde locally for several months, District Attorney Gary Lacy turned the case over to the U.S. Attorney's office and created a change of jurisdiction that eliminated the possibility of a successful medical defense in the case. Since federal courts do not recognize state medical marijuana laws, Harde was left with little recourse once he found himself facing charges from the U.S. government. He quickly changed his plea to guilty in order to accept a negotiated deal that reduced the charges against him to one felony count of cultivation.

An activist and dedicated community leader, Harde was particularly displeased by restrictions on his voting rights. From his solar-powered natural foods store to his pioneering of official organic farming guidelines to his appointment to the El Dorado County Fair Board, Harde has been nothing short of a role model for involved citizenry. And, to ask for leniency in his case, his citizen supporters not only packed the courtroom, but also packed the mailbox with character letters on Harde's behalf. "I received 110 character letters on behalf of the defendant. He comes in with a panoply of support, and that's wonderful. Most defendants in this court come in with just themselves and a public defender," Judge Damrell observed. "But is it fair for him to get less because of this? Just because he has support, should he be treated differently from other defendants?"

Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. was at once regretful and firm in his decision. "I gotta obey the law -- how do I get around that?" the judge asked defense counsel J. David Nick, citing the sentencing requirements for a Class A felony. "You're suggesting to this roomful of people that I have the power to grant probation, and I want to dispel that. I can't go willy-nilly and do what I want to do. I have no choice in the matter." And with these claims of powerlessness, Judge Damrell proceeded to sentence Harde to two and a half years in prison.  Read more.

RPCV Sam Farr reintroduced Bill to Assure Fair Trials for Medical Marijuana Patients
In the wake of the June, 2005 Supreme Court ruling allowing federal prosecutions of medical marijuana patients even in states where medical use of marijuana is permitted, U.S. Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA) and a bipartisan group of cosponsors have re-introduced legislation to guarantee such defendants a fair trial. The measure comes one week after the release of a new national Gallup poll in which 78% of respondents supported "making marijuana legally available for doctors to prescribe in order to reduce pain and suffering."

The Steve McWilliams Truth in Trials Act would allow individuals accused of violating federal marijuana laws to introduce evidence in federal court that they followed state law for the purpose of alleviating suffering. Defendants could be found not guilty if the jury finds that they followed state medical marijuana laws. At present, medical marijuana patients are barred from telling federal jurors that their use of marijuana was for medical purposes, even when state laws explicitly permit medical use.

The bill is named for San Diego medical marijuana patient and activist Steve McWilliams, who used marijuana to relieve the severe pain he suffered from a series of auto accidents. Facing federal prosecution for growing 25 marijuana plants in his yard, forbidden from mounting a medical-necessity defense, and unable to use the one medicine that eased his suffering for fear of being jailed, McWilliams committed suicide on July 12. 

"By providing an affirmative defense for medical marijuana patients, my legislation provides a reasonable way to accommodate contradictory federal and state laws on a very important medical matter," said Rep. Farr. "I am offering a compassionate, common sense solution and I hope my colleagues in Congress will put aside their preconceptions and give it fair consideration." Read more.

Read more about RPCVs and Medical Marijuana.

Beth Ashley writes: Earlier this month I spent four days at the Festival on the Niger in Mali where I met some of the Peace Corps Volunteers who had recently been evacuated because of political unrest in Guinea

Beth Ashley writes: Earlier this month I spent four days at the Festival on the Niger in Mali where I met some of the Peace Corps Volunteers who had recently been evacuated because of political unrest in Guinea
Does the Peace Corps really help in West Africa? I asked cultural instructor, Sylvain Dabou. "A lot," he said. "They are educating the people about good health practices, and little by little they are making progress." (They have campaigned with some success, for instance, against clitoral excision, still widely practiced in West Africa.) The volunteers represent the best aspects of the American people, Dabou said. "They are not fighting Islam. They are helping us."

The Americans were half delighted to be in Segou, where Mali's most famous musicians played on the riverfront stage, and half sad at having left the villages where most had spent most of two years. When we talked to them, they didn't know whether they would be allowed back to Guinea or not: "I just want to finish my project and say goodbye to my friends," said Devon Brooks, a volunteer from New Jersey. Having seen Mali's villages, I tried to imagine what it would be like to have the Peace Corps drop you off in one of them and leave you there, alone, to work for two years. Orr lived in a village of "three mosques and one water pump" and a school with second, third and fifth grades. Like others I spoke to, he was a health educator, teaching villagers to wash their hands (with soap), eat nutritious foods and brush their teeth. He had felt lonely at times, but the villagers were "very nice people."

Volunteers spoke lovingly of their work in Guinea. One had been assigned to an area that supported the beleaguered president, so she had not been in any danger; another in their group had had "frightening experiences," she said. Both of them hoped to go back.

Talking to the girls over lunch, I couldn't help feeling emotional. I told them how difficult it had been as an American to see our country's reputation tarnished the world over - diminished by our government's go-it-alone attitude and ill-advised war in Iraq. I told them how heartening it was to see Americans doing what they were doing - showing that most of our countrymen have kind hearts, high ideals and good intentions and are trying to do good in the world.

"Thank you," I said. "You've done a lot to restore my faith." Then I left them, afraid I might burst into tears.

Read more about Peace Corps Guinea.

Read more about Peace Corps Mali.

Caption: Festival sur le Niger 2007, Segou, Mali
Photographer: Damian Rafferty Flickr Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0

Spotlight on Peace Corps Ecuador

RPCV Angela Fresne writes: My experience in Ecuador taught me not to take basic things for granted
I was "La Gringita" and I was original in my village because I was blue eyed, blonde, English speaking and American. These things gave me rock star status in my village. Children would chase me down the street, yelling my name, holding my hand and chattering away at me in fast Spanish. Generous, inquisitive people invited me to meals and shared fruits and vegetables from their gardens with me. They liked to ask me questions about life in the United States, and they were especially interested in finding out about my parents and my relationship with my family. My day to day life seemed to always circle back to the clever chicken who would manage to get in my kitchen and tear through the trash looking for something edible. This same chicken ate the worms out of my model worm-bed and tore up all my most delicate seedlings in my model-garden. My neighbors found the daily shouting and squawking match between the two of us a constant source of entertainment. I would chase the chicken around and yell I was going to eat it for dinner when I caught it. I never caught the chicken.  Read more.

A Volunteer returns to Ecuador
In 1971 I checked off the Spanish speaking region of South America on my Peace Corps application as my choice of service area, expecting this would give me the best chance of being located close to the Andes Mountains. Living in Southern California (although raised in Iowa), Spanish was my obvious language choice, and my hiking and camping trips in California's mountains attracted me to the Andes. With the luck of draw, I was assigned to Ecuador, a country that I decided, after visiting Columbia, Peru, Bolivia and Chile, has the most scenic and cultural contrasts of any in South America.

Since ending my tour in 1974, the only bars to returning were money, time and resolve; however, after years of mostly talking, my wife Isabel and I finally left on May 19 for a 16 day visit to stay in Quito, the capitol of Ecuador and my Peace Corps site. Our plans were to re-explore some parts of the country, visit some Ecuadorian friends, see just how the country had changed and, hopefully, collect seeds from the little known fruits grown in Ecuador.

Today, my high opinion of the country's attractions remains the same. But, instead of "natural or scenic beauty," the current descriptive term is "biodiversity." I've seen published studies ranking Ecuador as number one in biodiversity density. Two tourists I talked with extensively said they almost passed up Ecuador after reading about its political and economic turmoil online in Quito's main newspaper "El Commercio." This caused them to look further into Ecuador's history where they discovered continuous turmoil was normal, so they made the trip anyway.

Since the 1970's, Quito has grown from what seemed like an easy going town of 600,000 persons to a bustling metropolis of over 2 million. The impression is that the oil revenues, which started upon completion of the first pipeline in 1972, fueled Quito,s development. However, some residents said that the most visible additions of new highways, overpasses and tunnels, the trolley system, and the many high-rise apartment buildings just started within the past five years.

The Peace Corps program appears to be alive and well (fluctuating between 100-200 volunteers) - the same nurse who prescribed our dysentery pills in the early 70's was still on duty. She reported that my program "small business" had come and gone over the years but was being restarted again - the current term is "microbusiness". The headquarters offices in Quite have been pushed about a dozen blocks to the north from their 70's location and now appear to actually have an organizational structure. Behind the main staff offices (a converted house) is a smaller carriage type house converted solely for volunteer use. The second floor has an extensive library, including a librarian, with two computers and e-mail access for volunteers and the ground floor has a lounge, kitchen, shower, storage and rest area for visiting volunteers. After my group went to Ponce, Puerto Rico for training, the entire program was shifted in-country; and, finally after many changes of contractors, the office decided to run their own program on a nearby hacienda. Read more.

Peace Corps Volunteer a hapy cricket writes:  You say it best…*
I finished the book about the PCV in Ecuador from the 60s. In one part that I really was glad to hear, he talked about writing up a letter in Spanish and having a native speaker check it over for him to make sure it was grammatically correct. The reviewer thought he did a good job and commented ‘I didn’t know anyone could say so much in the present tense.’ It is a interesting way to try to communicate, everything must be in the present, or the botched past tense, or the cheater method for the future. The cheater method is easy for me because in Texas we use it all the time; it’s like our “fixin’ to.” I’m fixin’ to eat. That gets you into the future tense. Only in Spanish, it’s “going to….blah blah blah.”

Last night, I had Spanish in my dream. I wouldn’t say I dreamt in Spanish. But I was definitely talking in Spanish in my dream. A fellow volunteer said it best recently when he said, “I dream in Spanish sometimes. I don’t like it though…I don’t understand what’s going on.”

In the PC office in Quito this past week, I demonstrated my Spanish prowess to my fellow volunteers by trying to get some people up and moving to go eat lunch. I was attempting to say something along the lines of “I was born ready,” which is a bit of a stretch for me to even attempt. But in this case, I used the verb “nadar” which means swim rather than the verb for born which is “nacer.” Everyone erupted in laughter. Oh well, I like to be funny. I just wish I was more in on the jokes these days. Read more.

Read more about Peace Corps Ecuador.

Spotlight on Peace Corps Kenya

Peace Corps assignment in Kenya teaches Joseph McMahan what really matters
He's embarrassed now to admit it, but Joseph McMahan had hoped, at least every now and then, a herd of elephants might step through the yard of his little house near a rainforest in western Kenya. McMahan knows the "Lion King" stereotype many Americans have of Africa isn't accurate. He knows most African people have given up traditional cultural life except for festivals. But no elephants? Not even a monkey or two? "It's completely not like that," McMahan said last week during a two-week furlough at his parents' Huntsville home. "Where I live in Kenya is fairly developed with little towns and cities all over. And the people are very well educated. They know more about American politics than I do."

The Peace Corps offered him, he said, a combination of both service and adventure. It's an adventure he very nearly didn't have. A degree from Auburn University led to a good job here in Huntsville with Adtran. Very shortly, he was paying for a car, a house, contemplating a serious romantic relationship. One day it hit him that if he didn't investigate the Peace Corps, an idea he'd had for years, he would be drawn into an inescapable orbit of job-marriage-kids. "One day I realized that if I didn't leave now, it was not going to happen," McMahan said. "In retrospect, it was probably the best decision I ever made."

His time in Africa has taught him a lot. Never again, he said, will he take clean water flowing out of a tap for granted. Never again will he take free high schools for granted or health care he can access because of insurance. And never again will he look at his own country in the same way, he said.

"When I tell my neighbors that in the United States you can live in an apartment and not know your neighbors, they say, 'How can that happen?'" McMahan said. "In Kenya, people look out for each other. It's a very community-based culture." Working with the people of the Kakamega District in Western Kenya, he said, has reminded him of what really matters. "In this country (the U.S.), we've reached the point where we define a lot of who we are through our material possessions," McMahan said. "In Kenya, they don't have so much materially, but they are very strong spiritually."  Read more.

Jonny Finity says: To see Africa, Cast aside Stereotypes
Surrounded by hundreds of beaming smiles, shining up at me as little hands flutter like butterflies, clutching and stroking and grabbing at my clothes or the hair on my arms, I can't help but smile back. Cacophonies of "How ah yooo?" and "Hallo!" pierce the air and fill my ears. My gaze sweeps over their big round, bright- moon faces, and they look away shyly, giggling. Many schoolchildren cower silently in the back of the crowd with wide anxious eyes that don't know whether to laugh or cry. Sometimes they do cry, loud wails of desperation and confusion, especially the babies, at the very sight of this strange white man on their own dark continent.

I am a Peace Corps volunteer. When someone learns that you're moving to Kenya for two years, their reaction will probably be very similar to that of my friends. They will click their tongues at you in an imitation of what they think African tribal languages sound like. They will point out all of the things you won't have: Electricity. Water. Toilets. Hamburgers. They will give you gifts of sunscreen. They will laugh at the thought of you with a 7-foot Nubian wife. They will tell you to watch out for elephants.

Africa is still an undiscovered land to most, in spite (or perhaps because) of Live8, Sallie Struthers and Nelson Mandela. People send billions in aid every year to feed naked, black, barefoot children with distended bellies who live under constant threat of death by malaria or AIDS. "Hunger porn," as Paul Theroux described it, largely defines the Western view of Africa. I have to admit, my own reaction didn't differ entirely from that of my friends. Trying to describe life here to someone without the experience is an impossibly daunting task.

It's almost as difficult trying to clarify the distorted perceptions of American culture commonly held by Kenyans. The biggest shock for most people here comes upon learning that poor people exist in the U.S. "Why don't the rich people help them," inevitably follows. I don't have an answer that satisfies them.

Just this morning I attended a meeting of several dozen HIV/AIDS counselors who promote awareness through dramas and other theatrical performances. Danson, the 23-year-old chairman, described his group to me using a biblical analogy. He told me of a woman who asked Elishah how God could use her. She had a small bottle of oil, so Elishah told her to collect pans from the neighbors. The small bottle filled all of the pans, with some left over. Then Elishah went away and did some other things too. Danson told me that his group had the oil. They were just looking for pots to fill.

Incidentally, my house does have electricity; I speak Kiswahili (not a click language), and I haven't seen an elephant. Yet.  Read more.

Caption (above right): Closing Ceremony for World Social Forum 2007 at Uhuru Park with Downtown Nairobi Photo: anna_imc  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0

Read more about Peace Corps Kenya.

Spotlight on Peace Corps Armenia

Parents plant seeds of caring for Armenia RPCV Carrie Jane Dulin
The Dulins' daughter, Carrie Jane, died in a car crash on her 28th birthday, Aug. 5, 2003, en route to a new assignment in Nigeria. She had spent five years as a Peace Corps and World Vision worker in Armenia. A year after her death, the Dulins took a trip to Armenia to deliver money donated in their daughter's name to two orphanages in Sissian and Spitak. They purchased appliances for the kitchen in Spitak and an organ for the orphanage in Sissian. They also took part of Carrie's ashes and spread them at a deserted monastery near Sissian.

As they left the orphanages, they asked the directors what they could do to make a difference in the lives of the children there. They were told that the children at both orphanages needed warm clothing for the winter, when they are forced to bundle up in bed and stay home from school because the buildings aren't heated. Last year, the Dulins' church, Doylestown United Methodist, organized a coat campaign and collected about 30 boxes of coats that were shipped to Armenia through the United Methodist Committee on Relief, just after Hurricane Katrina. Read more.

When Merrill Peterson embarked on what he expected to be a two-year stint in Armenia, the well-known author was 79 years old
Merrill Peterson isn't a typical Peace Corps volunteer. When, in 1997, he embarked on what he expected to be a two-year stint in Armenia, the well-known author was 79 years old. An expert on American history, particularly Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, UVA professor emeritus of history Peterson expected to be posted to the National University of Armenia in Yerevan, the capital, where he hoped to create an American history and culture program. Seven weeks into his tour, however, illness forced his return to the US. But that wasn't the end of the story of his fascination with Armenia.  "I had prepared myself on Armenia before I went," Peterson says, "particularly the 1916 Armenian genocide. When I returned, I began to do more research on the implications of genocide, and I decided I wanted to write something about it."

Starving Armenians, the book that resulted from Peterson's experience, focuses on the relief efforts of a group called Near East Relief. Peterson calls the book a memoir as much as a history, since he takes the subject through the Armenian community in the US and traces their valuable contributions to American culture and society. "I wouldn't have written the book without my Peace Corps experience," Peterson says, testimony to the lasting value of the experience, despite its premature ending. Read more.

African-American Peace Corps Volunteer Nicole "Nicki" Hendrix Builds Cross-Cultural Relationships in Armenia
Hendrix set out to not only accomplish her goals as a community development volunteer, but also to help change the perception of African-Americans in Armenia by helping to eradicate the use of the racial slur. "The challenge is getting people to see things differently and to embrace the unfamiliar, instead of the familiar. I know this will not happen overnight, but I am at least planting the seed for change in the people that I meet. I believe these experiences define my minority Peace Corps volunteer experience: educating and introducing a different aspect of American culture to the people of Armenia," she said. "I use each encounter involving the word's usage as a chance to teach Armenians about African-Americans and our history, if they are not familiar with it. It also gives me the opportunity to tell those who do not already know that the U.S. is a very ethnically diverse country with people from many different nationalities and ethnic groups that live and work there," Hendrix said of her experience of dispelling stereotypes in an ethnically-homogeneous society like Armenia.

Nearly two years have passed and Hendrix's service in Armenia is almost finished. "I can honestly say that I am not the same person I was before becoming a Peace Corps volunteer. I am a better person. I am able to see all sides of an issue or situation. My views on life and people are no longer narrow — they are multifaceted and global. I am confident and self-assured in my skills and abilities, and best of all, I am a more compassionate person," Hendrix said. Serving as a minority volunteer has not been easy for Hendrix, but she has learned a great deal from the experience. "The most prominent challenge I faced upon arriving to my host country was getting the host country nationals to see me as a person instead of an object. As an African-American living in Armenia, I received a lot more attention than my fellow Caucasian Peace Corps volunteers," she said. "I find that some Armenians are still learning how to treat foreigners who look differently than them." Read more.

Caption: Nicki Hendrix (above) and the mayor of her host community in Armenia

Warm Hearth is the brainchild of a former Peace Corps volunteer, Natalie Rizzieri, who served in Armenia for two years
Warm Hearth is the brainchild of a former Peace Corps volunteer, Natalie Rizzieri, who served in Armenia for two years. She and another former volunteer, Bridget Anderson, have raised nearly $100,000 to open the group home.  One of the initial residents is Yulia, a 26-year-old woman whose parents abandoned her when she was 6 because she has autism. Yulia has since been shifted from orphanage to orphanage and was severely neglected until she was 15. As a result, she was profoundly underweight and did not speak for many years. Yulia is one of eight Armenians with disabilities who instead of being sent to a psychiatric hospital this year will move into the first Armenian group home with long-term care.  The two hope Yulia and others like her will continue the progress they have made in recent years. Yulia now speaks and is learning to write.

The project is meeting a dire need. Many countries in the former Soviet Union lack the infrastructure to adequately care for individuals with disabilities and mental illness.  The Ministry of Social Welfare and the Ministry of Education & Science Secondary Education Department are supportive of Warm Hearth due to the pressing need in Armenia.  Chief Specialist of the Secondary Education Department, Anahit Muradyan, emphasized the importance of projects such as Warm Hearth for the Education department as they face the challenge of what to do with orphans who reach the age of 18 but struggle with disabilities.  She is optimistic about collaboration and the development of this model in the future.  Read more.

Read more about Peace Corps Armenia.

Spotlight on Peace Corps Mexico

Peace Corps Volunteers have teamed up with Mexican scientists in an effort to improve water quality in central Mexico
In Matehuala, a mining and industrial center north of San Luis Potosi, a team of Mexican and U.S. specialists is completing an engineering study to help find less expensive ways of treating sewage, now being discharged into surface water, than at conventional waste treatment plants. A second Mexican-U.S. team is working with the state of Guanajuato to develop more efficient processes that can lower operating costs at 12 treatment plants. The inability of municipalities to adequately fund wastewater treatment plants throughout the country has limited their effectiveness, said team member Terry Gould. In Queretaro, another cross-border team is working on solutions to help the city sharply reduce the loss of water, now estimated at around 75 percent, in the crumbling pipes running under the city’s historic center. In León, Mexican and U.S. colleagues are assisting small companies in the shoe industry both in reducing pollution and in improving their ability to compete with cheaper products from other countries, including China and Brazil. The teams include staff members from a network of Mexican research and technical centers that specialize in transferring the latest technology to small and medium-sized businesses, government agencies and non-profit organizations. Their U.S. counterparts are the first Peace Corps volunteers to ever serve in Mexico.

“The Mexico program is the first for which the Peace Corps has recruited highly specialized, technically trained and experienced volunteers to work side by side with highly-skilled and specialized counterparts from the host country,” said Byron Battle, the country director for Mexico. “The objective is to contribute to job creation for Mexican citizens as well as to improve the country’s physical environment.”

Paul Ruesch, on leave from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regional office in Chicago, isn’t sure he’ll return to his job. In his 13 years as an environmental engineer, Ruesch said he has studied problems on all seven continents. Assigned to the CIATEC center in León, he is leading a work team that is dealing with oil spills and the contamination of irrigation water around the town of Tula, Hidalgo. “My eyes have really been opened now to what I feel are much more significant pollution problems than we face in the United States. In some regards I feel we are ‘splitting hairs’ in the United States in many facets of environmental issues. We are arguing over parts per trillion, billion and million when in many countries there are baseball size chunks of contaminants floating in rivers and visible particles of soot falling from the sky.” His experiences, Ruesch said, “have motivated me to apply my talent and experience in an international venue. I really appreciate the opportunity and platform that the Peace Corps has provided for me as a volunteer.” When asked what he thought would happen should CONACYT ask for more volunteers, Battle replied, “We believe there are tons of people in the United States who want to contribute and to use their skills working on real problems.” Read more.

Elio Henríquez writes: Five members of the Peace Corps, a U.S. government-sponsored organization accused of performing counterinsurgency activities in several countries in the past, have been incorporated as "volunteers" in strategic departments of ECOSUR
The presence of the "volunteers" has caused discontent and preoccupation among several of the 40 investigators of the scientific research center, fearing possible repercussions for the institution. Some of the investigators, who wish to remain anonymous, complained about the fact that the decision to incorporate members of the U.S. Peace Corps was taken by the ECOSUR management without previous consultation. According to their information, the five U.S.-Americans have been assigned since January 8, in the departments for informatics, networking and institutional development, which are considered "strategic".

The Peace Corps coordinator in Mexico, Byron Battle, confirmed that since January 8, five "co-operators" are working in the ECOSUR. He recognized that the association, which was originally created in 1961 and has currently 8000 "volunteers" distributed in 75 countries, has been accused of performing counterinsurgency activities in the past, but assured this to be "not true". In an interview in this city he commented that "suspicions" in this respect had been raised in some of the countries where the Peace Corps had maintained a presence, but "this isn’t true, if it was, we would have already cancelled the program". As he assured, the association had no relation to the State Department, although it is financed with government ressources approved by the Congress. Read more.

Caption: Byron Battle (above), Peace Corps' country director in Mexico says "We are not about promoting U.S. foreign policy, but to offer our people a chance to get to know other countries."

Aurora Illinois Mayor Tom Weisner (RPCV Solomon Islands) and his wife, Marilyn, plan to fly to Iguala de la Independencia along with 2nd Ward Alderman Juany Garza and Greg Salgado, a Hispanic civic leader to investigate a possible sister city arrangement
The mayor and Garza will poke around the city, eyeing its potential as a sister city. "We're very much in an early stage," Weisner said Monday. "This has kind of started out very informally. We thought it would be fun to go with Juany and her husband." Aurora residents from Iguala de la Independencia, and leaders from that city, have voiced interest in being a sister city, he added. But no decisions have been made, he stressed, and he wants to investigate a possible sister city arrangement with a community in India, too. "Understanding other countries and cultures is a good thing," said Weisner, who lived in the Solomon Islands with Marilyn in the Peace Corps.  Read more.

Caption: Tom Weisner (above), Mayor of Aurora, Illinois served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Solomon Islands in the 1980's.

Read more about Peace Corps Mexico.

RPCV Congressman Tom Petri says US needs to consider Partition of Iraq

RPCV Congressman Tom Petri says US needs to consider Partition of Iraq
Republican Congressman Tom Petri voted for the resolution which expressed disapproval of President Bush's troop surge in Iraq, but he said that "Just saying 'no' is simple obstructionism. What we need is a new way forward to replace the old way that isn't getting us anywhere. " He said that the different groups in Iraq lack the trust in each other to support democratic government in a unified nation.

"We should seriously consider that we have two basic options: First, choose a faction to stabilize and rule the country through force, much as all of Iraq's previous regimes did - and that's hardly an attractive option; or, second, bring about a partition of the country to form a loose federation where the Shias, the Sunnis and the Kurds can each govern themselves while leaving the others alone," Petri said. "Our enterprise in Iraq has been carried out with the best of intentions, and our men and women in the armed forces have performed with great heroism, skill and honor - but we have to accept reality," he said.

"We have a responsibility to help stabilize the situation, and doing so is in our national interest. But I don't think it's fair to ask our sons and daughters to be policemen in a civil war. Sadly, it seems that most Iraqis do not embrace democratic government unless it is dominated exclusively by their own individual groups. The Sunni, the Shia and the Kurds are willing and able to establish law and order within their own ethnically homogeneous areas. The efforts to push out other groups currently underway in Iraq are deplorable, but it's surely not unexpected given Iraq's history and desperate situation. The sectarian militias have popular support because they have easily-understood plans to establish security within their spheres for their own people. Instead of fighting the militias, we need to co-opt them. We need to help acceptable local tribal leaders, government leaders and religious authorities establish authority over their areas. We also need to seek the positive involvement of Iraq's neighbors. Some of them may be meddling, or may be tempted to meddle, but at the end of the day, instability in Iraq means instability for everybody in the region. Let us set about the task of helping Iraq's three main groups to regroup and stabilize their own territories so that we can withdraw to our bases and ultimately get out altogether." Read more.

Petri votes against troop surge
Rep. Tom Petri has joined a small but growing number of Republican lawmakers who have broken ranks with the Bush administration by showing disapproval to escalate troop levels in Iraq. Petri’s announcement in a floor speech came with the caveat that he didn’t think the nonbonding House resolution addresses the need for a new policy. Petri suggested the United States should support the partition of the country into a confederation of regions each dominated by Shiites, Sunnis or Kurds who "can each govern themselves while leaving the others alone."

Congressman Tom Petri of Wisconsin served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Somalia in the 1960's. Read more about Congressman Thomas Petri.

RPCV Congressman Chris Shays says he would support McCain Presidential Bid

RPCV Congressman Chris Shays says he would support McCain Presidential Bid
Connecticut Rep. Chris Shays is throwing his support behind potential GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain. Shays said that he'll support the Arizona senator if McCain decides to seek the Republican presidential nomination. Shays, who represents southwestern Connecticut, was the only GOP representative in the state to keep his seat in the November election. McCain has formed an exploratory committee, but hasn't officially declared whether he'll run for the White House in 2008. Congressman Chris Shays served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Fiji in the 1960's.

Senator John McCain says: We passed up an opportunity after September 11th
"We passed up an opportunity after September 11th. I think we should have said, we're going to double the size of the Peace Corps, triple the size of Americorps, we're going to set up volunteer organizations all over America to ensure our security. ... The country was united. We should have called them to serve, not just tell them to take a trip or go shopping"

John McCain's Call to Service
Echoing John F. Kennedy's famous lines, McCain urged voters to ask not what government could do for them but what they could do for their country. In town after small town in his victorious New Hampshire primary campaign in 2000, McCain preached the virtue -- and more than that, the satisfaction -- of committing to a cause larger than oneself: to the nation, to its system of values, to common ideals of honesty and decency.

The small-government right and the big-government left are equally exhausted. The only appealing political platform is good government. This is what McCainism is about. The senator has waged lonely battles not to make government bigger or smaller, but simply to make it better. Hence his campaign against corrupt campaign dollars. Hence the pigs on his Web site that link to a case-by-case denunciation of corrupt pork-barrel spending. Hence his fury at the Bush administration's mistreatment of foreign detainees, which undermines government by destroying its moral authority.

It's tempting to say that McCainism is hopeless: that the appeal to patriotic selflessness is futile in a narcissistic culture. But Americans' impatience with conventional politics is too obvious to ignore. More identify themselves as independent than as supporters of either main party. Millions flock to maverick reformers from Ross Perot to Jesse Ventura to Arnold Schwarzenegger, tiring of them once they've been around a while and become part of the system. Only 29 percent of Americans say they trust government, down from 40 percent in 2000. McCainism -- whether practiced by the senator or by some other charismatic campaigner -- will eventually have its moment.

New Peace Corps Fellows Program in International Relations at Yale University

New Peace Corps Fellows Program in International Relations at Yale University
"A partnership between the MacMillan Center and the Peace Corps is a natural fit," said Yale Graduate School Dean Jon Butler. "Both organizations promote international understanding and appreciation. Volunteers’ real-life experiences in the field will add a new dimension to the intellectual excitement of the IR program." After completing their service, returned Peace Corps volunteers will apply to Yale Graduate School through the regular admissions process. If admitted, they will enroll as Fellows in the international relations master’s degree program. This two year program is part of Yale’s Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies. In addition to the IR program, Peace Corps Fellows at Yale may also pursue any of the multi-disciplinary degree programs available through the MacMillan Center. Options for joint degrees include forestry and environmental studies, management, law, and public health.

Yale is the alma mater of Peace Corps Founding Director Sargent Shriver.  Shriver made a speech at Yale University’s Daily News Annual Banquet in 2003 calling for a Fourth Goal for the Peace Corps
I’ve been asked a lot of critical questions about the Peace Corps in response to the horrific events of September 11. How is it possible that so many citizens of Afghanistan clearly hate Americans in spite of years of service from American Peace Corps Volunteers working side by side with them? Why would we want to send new volunteers to Pakistan or Afghanistan today, when terrorists and killers there would love to have more innocent Americans to kill? These are tough questions that raise good points. I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I can tell you this:

The Peace Corps WAS there in Afghanistan, and virtually everywhere else in the world, and some lives were changed – both the lives of American volunteers, and lives of the people they served. Is it America’s primary purpose in the world to change and improve lives, or to snuff them out? This is a question that IS relevant to the Peace Corps – but it suggests a larger, more expansive mission than the small Peace Corps our nation is financing now.

Why look to the Peace Corps in a time of such extreme danger? I believe it’s necessary to do so, because we’re now living in a new world; and without peace, the new world will have no future, except death! Isn’t this the challenge which bin Laden and other terrorist groups have put before us? “What have you got,” they say to us, “that is truly worth defending? Your sky-scrapers; your blue chip stocks; your luxury cars; your trade agreements; your computer networks; your flashy movies; your fast food? Stack all that up against men like ours who readily give up their lives for God, and you’ve got nothing, America! Nothing!”

Maybe they’re right. Let’s suppose for a moment that they are. What have we got that’s worth defending, worth dying for? I say that peace is the answer. No matter how many bombs we drop, no matter how skillfully our soldiers fight, we are not responding to the ultimate challenge until we show the world how and why we must all learn to live in peace – until peace becomes the only permanent alternative to war.

Our present world cries out for a new Peace Corps—a vastly improved, expanded, and profoundly deeper enterprise. Why? Simply because our capacity to kill each other has far outstripped our capacity to live together. Now we live in a world of low-tech killing, where plastic knives and innocent-looking envelopes can do the job just as efficiently as nuclear bombs. There must be an alternative to this endless cycle of killing– not just for America’s sake, but for all of humanity.

Peace is much more than the mere absence of war. Peace requires the simple but powerful recognition that what we have in common as human beings is more important and crucial than what divides us.

You may think these are just the rantings of an old man defending his outdated ideas. But I’m not defending the old Peace Corps – I’m attacking it! We didn’t go far enough! Our dreams were large, but our actions were small. We never really gave the goal of “World Wide Peace” an overwhelming commitment or established a clear, inspiring vision for attaining it. If we had, the world wouldn’t be in the mess we are in. We may have only one more opportunity to get it right. Read the rest of Shriver's speech at Yale.

Read more about Peace Corps Fellows Programs.

Read more about Sargent Shriver's "Fourth Goal for the Peace Corps."

Peace Corps Volunteer Sidney Slover helped start a donut production and distribution company to raise money for youth projects in Honduras

Peace Corps Volunteer Sidney Slover helped start a donut production and distribution company to raise money for youth projects in Honduras
"My name is Sidney Slover, I am a Peace Corps volunteer in the area of business in Las Vegas, and have dedicated my service to promote income generating activities. Working with the local youth group (La Casa de la Juventud), formed to create and run projects for local youth, I was requested by the members to develop an income generating activity that would provide money for their youth projects. We knew that the project had to be something that could be made using local resources and not too complex. Hondurans have a noticeable sweet tooth and love bread products, donuts just seemed a like a logical direction, so one day, before a meeting I made a batch of glazed, yeast raised donuts. As the members of the youth group tried the finished product, a general consensus was made that donuts were the way to go to raise money."

"The first step was aesthetics and image; we needed a name and a logo. After much deliberating, we chose the name by a strange set of happenings. We had to cancel out the obvious choices (Dunkin Donuts was suggested) and go with something creative and original. We wanted something with alliteration and took Deca from decadent, wanting our name and slogan to be Deca Donas (“Que Decadente!” or, “So Decadent!”). Upon presentation the reaction by the Hondurans was clear, they were confused and did not like the name. Apparently, the common meaning here for decadent is similar to “almost rotten,” or “one foot in the grave.” Obviously, this name would not work! Just then, one of the members of the group spoke up and suggested casually “de calidad,” or “from quality. Using the first part of DE CAlidad, DECA, and using “De Calidad” as our slogan, our name was decided. Our logo came about from a similar cooperation. One of the group members is a skilled artist and created several sketches of possible logos. After a vote, one was chosen, and using a scan of the sketch as a guideline I formed the current logo with graphic designing software."

"Like in any business, the first few months were the most difficult. Tasks included getting all the necessary equipment, creating the right connections with suppliers, training the workers, setting up the books, finding the best way to sell, etc.. The first week, a group from the weekend school interned in production and sales to satisfy requirements for their class, and Deca Donas was finally producing. One of the women from this class stayed on as an employee and within two weeks we had added on two more women in production."

"In the future, we hope to expand our product line (cinnamon rolls, éclairs, banana bread, etc.) as well as integrating other small producer’s products into our distribution chain so that they have the capacity to sell their products in larger markets. For instance, there is a local jelly company that has the facilities to produce and sell their strawberry and blackberry jelly in large volumes, yet do not have the know how to reach the market efficiently. Deca Donas hopes to be a full service business resource in the community, helping develop a higher quality product, more efficiency, and better run administration for small producer groups."

"In order to achieve any of these goals, we need to expand our product to distribute on a regional level, and eventually on the national stage. Attaining the project grant listed on the Peace Corps website is the first step toward this goal. It will enable us to purchase industrial equipment so we will be set up to produce a higher volume of our product at a consistent quality. The total amount needed to fulfill this project grant and thereby receive the money is $9,650. We are hoping to rapidly fund this through donations (100% tax-deductible) by individuals and companies. This project is more than just a small business endeavor deep in the mountains of Honduras. It is a model of inspiration for the entire country and elsewhere. For everyone who do not believe the expansion of original ideas possible. We create jobs. We will be providing money to youth projects. Most importantly, this project serves as a teaching model and support for those with similar interests. This is our main goal.  Please help us in any way that you can, whether by donating at the Peace Corps website and/or by spreading the word of this project to other organizations and individuals who may find this project of interest."  Read more.

Read more about how Peace Corps Volunteers and RPCVs have raised funds for projects.

Forestry and the Peace Corps

Nepal RPCV Joe Krueger has been to Liberia four times in the past two years as part of a program that is drawing on skills from the U.S. Forest Service to restore Liberia's timber industry
The Liberian Forestry Initiative came about as a means of re-establishing a viable and responsible industry, as the country operated under a shaky interim government. While the initiative is driven by a U.S. Forest Service team, it is funded by the State Department with the cooperation of the United Nations. The program is aimed at establishing laws and regulations and a general framework for managing Liberia's forests. Krueger said he was tapped for the program because he had worked on a community forestry project in Senegal in 2004, and had served in the Peace Corps in Nepal in the early 1990s. He first went to Liberia in April 2005 and has been back three times since, most recently in December. Krueger said there has been progress in rebuilding the country's timber industry, and a big part of it is due to the relative stability that's developed since last year, when a competent, Harvard-educated president was elected, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.

"Right now, the industry is completely unregulated," he said. But many of the pieces are falling in place for an organized, regulated timber industry to start up soon. And there is pressure for Krueger and his fellow advisers to make it happen. "There is a lot of pressure on the Forest Service to get this sector back up and running," Krueger said. "People want to know, where are the logs, where is the revenue?" The old contracts have all been nullified and new ones will be issued under a system that will more closely monitor the movement of products. A "chain of custody" system is being developed to track logs from the stump all the way to their export destination. Read more.

Niger RPCV Clark Fleege helps rebuild Afghanistan's forests
Fleege, who directs the Lucky Peak Nursery for the Boise National Forest, will make his second trip to Afghanistan to continue working on a United States Department of Agriculture project to plant native tree species for reforestation, soil improvement and beautification. The country has lost a lot of its forests to a drought that has plagued the area for the past several years.

"By us going in there and helping improve their natural resources, we can help these people improve their lives and have a more stable country," Fleege said. The U.S. compound where Fleege will stay includes dorm-style housing in metal shipping crates. He will be confined to working in and around Kabul because of safety concerns, and will need an armed escort everywhere he goes. "What we do is management of natural resources, and sound natural resource management is just fundamental for anything, for life: having good water, good soil, clean air," he said.  Read more.

Ed " Redwood" Ring writes: The best thing that ever happened to me was going to Central America to help treeplanters. I was fortunate to have a first-hand look at some of their finest work, when I went there with Stuart Conway, an EcoWorld Hero and co-founder of the reforesting group, Trees Water and People.

Stuart Conway has been living half in the U.S., half in Central America for about 25 years now. He and his wife Jennie Bramhall joined the Peace Corps, went to Guatemala for their honeymoon, and didn't come home for three years. They lived and worked in a small town just south of the beautiful highland colonial city of Antigua. Since then, they return to Central America several times a year, specializing in helping small communities grow trees and protect their watersheds.

Stuart co-founded Trees Water and People (the name grows on you) in 1998 with Richard Fox, a veteran forest arborist, who specializes in North American forest preservation and watershed protection. Both of them moved with their families to Ft. Collins, Colorado, rolled up their sleeves and got their organization up and running. They work along with a small staff in a lofty 2nd floor suite in an old brick and timber building on College Avenue between downtown and the University. Towering Plains Cottonwoods hang huge limbs overhead (Cottonwoods decorate the whole city, and why they aren't planting new ones is beyond me), and just one block north the main train line intersects the street. If you call them and hear a roar in the background, it's just a freight train about two hours on the tracks from Denver.

When the folks at Trees Water and People aren't providing funds and expert assistance growing trees and protecting watersheds in Central America, they are working closer to home, protecting watersheds in the Rocky Mountains of the U.S. This is Richard Fox's area, and he brings to his work a lifetime of experience in forests throughout America, but mostly in the Rockies. In his time, Richard has had crews of planters where, using a special planting tool, each person could plant up to 1,000 trees per day. I didn't believe him, but we timed the motions, and I did the math. I guess it's true. We could have fun with this! One thousand people could plant a million trees a day. A billion trees in less than three years!

Planting trees is only part of the solution, though, and managing a forest and a watershed is complex work that is never done. Richard's trees and watershed protection has so far enlisted the support of communities throughout Colorado and Wyoming, mostly along the "Front Range," the eastern slopes of the Rockies.  Read more.

Read more about the Peace Corps and forestry.

The "Peace Corps President" at peace with himself at Stanford

The "Peace Corps President" at peace with himself at Stanford
Some 42 years after first coming to the Bay Area, Alejandro Toledo has returned with his wife and daughter to spend at least a year at Stanford University. He is learning again how to use a computer, writing two books, lecturing worldwide and recharging his political batteries with an eye toward running for president of Peru again in 2011. Gone are the bodyguards, the chauffeurs, the bulletproof Mercedes, the presidential jet, the hounding reporters, the frenzied supporters, the merciless critics, the white-jacketed servants, the generals waiting at his beck and call, and the meetings with Presidents Bush, Chavez, Lula, et al.

Toledo came to the Bay Area in 1965 as a penniless 19-year-old student who had never left Peru or even flown on an airplane. He tripped on the first escalator he tried out, at Los Angeles International Airport. He had grown up on a dusty patch of land in a stinking slum, one of 16 children, only nine of whom survived childhood diseases. Two Peace Corps volunteers helped him win a partial scholarship to leave Peru to study at the University of San Francisco.

Toledo went on to earn two master's degrees and a doctorate from Stanford. He met his future wife, Eliane Karp, a French-Belgian graduate student, at a campus party. Along the way, he secretly nourished the outlandish dream of being elected president of Peru. After working for the World Bank and teaching at Harvard, Toledo returned to Peru. He wound up leading the opposition to President Alberto Fujimori, who bought off pliable opponents and used his secret police to intimidate and silence dissenters. When Fujimori unexpectedly resigned in 2000, elections were called. Toledo won. He stumbled badly in his first year. His $18,000 monthly salary, the largest in Latin America, infuriated Peruvians. So did well-publicized late-night jaunts to posh restaurants, his frequent tardiness and his reluctance to acknowledge a teenager born out of wedlock while he was separated from Karp. For the next three years, Toledo's approval rating languished around 10 percent, he had to be careful where he went in public to avoid being showered with eggs and rotten vegetables, and he fought off efforts to force him from office.  In time, Peru's economy boomed under his free-market and free-trade policies, and the poverty rate began to fall. Last year, during his final six months in office, while he remained unpopular, his approval rating shot up to 34 percent, according to one poll.

Today Toledo drives a used SUV that he bought, cooks for his family, pushes a shopping cart at the local Safeway, has a Blockbuster card, carries his own luggage at the airport and plays soccer on public fields in Palo Alto. When strangers recognize him, he tells them with a smile that he is actually Alejandro Toledo's twin brother. "I love the freedom that I have now," he said. Toledo's low-key manner doesn't surprise Bay Area friends who knew him before. "He's treated as an ex-president wherever else he goes," said Martin Carnoy, a Stanford professor of education. "But at Stanford, he's just one of the guys. He's an incredibly nonpretentious guy."  Read more.

Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo charged in Forgery Scheme
Mr Toledo is accused of involvement in faking thousands of signatures in order to register his Peru Possible party for elections in 2000. Mr Toledo is currently in the US, but will be barred from leaving Peru if he returns. When he left office in July, the new government opened an investigation into his alleged influence peddling, nepotism and misappropriation of funds.

Mr Toledo denies all allegations against him and says he is a victim of political persecution. Read more.

Alejandro Toledo: The Peace Corps President
Joel and Nancy Meister met Alejandro Toledo 42 years ago. Nancy Deeds and Joel Meister had come to Peru a week earlier as members of the newly formed Peace Corps. They were assigned to Chimbote, a squalid coastal city that reeked of fish meal, and were looking in a shantytown for a place where Nancy could live. Several families had already rejected them when they happened upon a humble concrete dwelling. A teenager wearing a white short-sleeve shirt and dark pants greeted them. He listened to their request and went inside to seek his mother's approval. It was a chance meeting that would change history.

Alejandro Toledo explained to his mother that the gringos had come to assist poor Peruvians like themselves. Their house already had nine people living in three rooms, he acknowledged, but Nancy could occupy "la tiendita," the tiny room fronting the street where Mrs. Toledo sold vegetables and fruits to earn a few extra dollars. Nancy could pay more in rent than Mrs. Toledo earned, Alejandro figured. She gave her assent, and then got her husband's blessing. Nancy's new home sat on a dirt street where neighborhood dogs ran wild. The home had no electricity or running water. Guinea pigs frequently occupied the kitchen. Behind the dirt backyard was an open trench that contained the neighborhood's raw sewage. Fresh water came from a well 50 yards away. The Toledos had moved to Chimbote a dozen years earlier from the mountains. Like millions of Peruvians who had moved to urban areas, they were hoping for a better future. In their new home, Mr. Toledo made bricks for a living, in the backyard. Joel found a place to live two blocks away."Maybe, hidden, I wanted to have friends to learn English," President Toledo tells Nancy, as they sit in the presidential palace and recall the day they met. He adds that he probably thought they could be the ticket out of the dead-end life that typically swallowed Chimbote's youth. Alejandro was one of 16 children, only nine of whom would survive infant sicknesses.

Nancy and Joel began assisting Alejandro with a youth group that he headed. By kerosene lamp in her tiny room, he and Nancy also had long talks about politics and society. "There's no doubt that I woke up and said, 'Maybe I can go somewhere,'" Toledo remembers. A year after arriving, Nancy and Joel got married in Chimbote. Mr. and Mrs. Toledo stood in for their parents. In June 1965, the Meisters returned to the United States for graduate studies at the University of California at Berkeley. Three months later, Toledo turned to them for help. He had won a small scholarship to study in the United States. They agreed to help after he promised that he would return to Peru some day. They got him enrolled at the University of San Francisco, lent him money and housed him until he could find his own place to live. In 1970, they attended his graduation.   Read more.

Read more about Alejandro Toledo.

Photo:  A Peace Corps Public Service Announcement that appeared in national magazines in the 1960's.

Christopher Hill announces Draft Accord reached in North Korea Nuclear Talks

Christopher Hill announces Draft Accord reached in North Korea Nuclear Talks
The American envoy, Christopher R. Hill, said diplomatic teams from the United States, North Korea and the other four participating countries — China, Japan, South Korea and Russia — pushed negotiations past a self-imposed Monday deadline into early Tuesday before finally agreeing on a final text. The six chief envoys are scheduled to reconvene at 10:30 a.m. in Beijing (9:30 p.m. Eastern time on Monday) to learn if each nation has approved the deal. The agreement is expected to include some significant concessions by the North Koreans, although they did not agree to give up their existing nuclear weapons.

Mr. Hill declined to offer any specifics about the new accord until approval was assured. But he suggested that the pending agreement was essentially the same as the draft proposal that has been under discussion for the past five days — except for revisions in a single paragraph. That paragraph presumably has focused on the question of energy assistance for North Korea. The North Koreans’ demand for huge, upfront shipments of fuel oil and electricity had threatened to scuttle the talks. “Everybody had to make some changes to try to narrow the differences,” Mr. Hill told reporters as he returned to his hotel at 2:41 a.m. local time on Tuesday. He added: “One would hope that we can all agree on this.”   Read more.

Caption: U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill  in Beijing, China. Photo: Elizabeth Dalziel/Associated Press

Christopher Hill is a Celebrity In China
Little known in his home country, the boyish-looking U.S. assistant secretary of state has become a celebrity in China's capital and not just for his role as Washington's chief envoy in talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons program. His easygoing manner has also won over the media, in comparison to the stonewall public relations efforts put forward by some of the other countries in the talks. And with the negotiations taking place for hours on end behind closed doors, the idle time fuels speculation and jokes about Hill. Hill, who is on the evening television news every day he is in Beijing, has been mobbed at the Beijing airport with Chinese travelers rushing over to have their picture taken with him, said one of Hill's security officials, who asked not to be named.

The interest in Hill may also stem from the fact that he speaks every morning and evening to the media, while his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye Gwan, gives only the occasional chaotic news conference. Hill, a Boston Red Sox fan, also won over the Japanese media by turning up for meetings in Tokyo wearing a Seibu Lions baseball cap — the Red Sox had just signed pitching star Daisuke Matsuzaka from the Lions. Read more.

Hill learned first lessons in Diplomacy as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon
Assistant Secretary of State Christopher R. Hill, who reached a tentative agreement with North Korea on ending its nuclear programs, was a fresh-faced 21-year-old Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon when he learned his first lesson in diplomacy.

Hill's job in 1973 was to ride around on a Suzuki dirt bike and audit the books of credit unions in 28 villages and plantations. He discovered one board of directors had taken 60 percent of the money, so he gave an impassioned speech denouncing the malfeasance to hundreds of villagers sitting on a mountainside. His presentation was met with applause and gratitude -- and then the assembled group immediately reelected everyone he had just condemned.

"I realized I didn't know beans about what was going on in this tea plantation," Hill recalled over breakfast recently. It turned out the board reflected a careful amalgam of tribal interests, and it didn't matter whether it ran a good credit union or not.

The lesson, according to Hill: "When something's happened, it's happened for a reason and you do your best to understand that reason. But don't necessarily think you can change it." Read more.

Read more about Christopher Hill.

Peace Corps Hippies

Poland RPCV Troy Headrick writes: Peace Corps Volunteers have historically been viewed as eccentrics or idealistic, hippie types who were out to save the world
I call myself a freak because that's what I am. According to Dictionary.com, a "freak" is "a person or animal on exhibition as an example of a strange deviation from nature." Lots of people who know me and are familiar with my way of living would argue that my lifestyle is certainly unnatural (to say the very least).

Here's the deal: Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV) have historically been viewed as eccentrics or worse by far too many Americans. This is perhaps due to the fact that the organization, early on, was made up of idealistic, hippie types who were out to save the world, and thus they were seen to epitomize the sort of bleeding heart liberals that your average Joe and Jane American Citizen, with their tendency to be fairly conservative and isolationist, find so repulsive.

This general attitude about Peace Corps Volunteers still exists and has been made clear to me on any number of occasions, but never so blatantly as the time Mike Wilson's parents came to visit him in Poland. Mike was my closest PCV buddy during those two glorious years of service. He was stationed in a town not too far away from Tarnów, the city where I was living. During our second summer as volunteers, his parents flew over from Kansas to visit him and have a look at his adopted home. As might be expected, my best friend was keen for me to meet his folks; thus, on a warm afternoon in August, I hopped on a train and traveled to Krakow where the three of them were sightseeing. After disembarking, I met Mike and his parents in the main market square in the city center and then we all went out for dinner.

Suddenly, in the middle of a wonderful meal of traditional Polish food, Mike's mother, a nice woman in every respect, turned to me and said, "You Peace Corps people are just a little different, aren't you? I mean, it takes a very unusual kind of person to live like this, all the way over here, in these conditions. Let's be honest, it's just not as modern here as it is back home. I mean, there are easier and more lucrative things you could be doing in America. Know what I mean?"

I certainly did understand what she was saying. There was nothing ambiguous about her message. And she was right. There were other easier and more lucrative things that Mike and I could have been doing, but neither one of us wanted easier and lucrative.

What we wanted, on the other hand, was the struggle, the sense of mission, the feeling of being personally and professionally fulfilled, and the authenticity of the experience of building bridges across national and cultural divides. And, on top of all that, we felt wonderfully purified by our simple (i.e., materially poor) lifestyles. Mike's parents -- though I have to give them credit for honestly listening to me that evening -- just found it impossible to get their minds fully around all that I was saying.

It was partly because while I was speaking they were thinking that you can't put self-fulfillment in the bank and partly because the vast majority of mainstream, middle-class Americans believe in something called "the American Dream," which teaches all good boys and girls that they should clamor after all the things that Mike and I seemed to have rejected, thus making us first-class weirdoes.  Read more.

Judy Henry moved from New York City to Rowe, New Mexico in 1970 to become a hippie on the advice of her friend, Helen Thompson, with whom she had been in the Peace Corps in Ecuador
Caption: Judy Henry sings with friends Kate Moses, right, of Santa Fe, and Bee Zollo, left, of Eldorado at a hippie reunion at Henry’s home in Rowe. The event marked the 34th anniversary of the arrival of hippies in the community southeast of Santa Fe.

Judy Henry moved from New York City to Rowe, New Mexico in 1970 on the advice of her friend, Helen Thompson, with whom she had been in the Peace Corps. “She said, ‘Come to Rowe. It’s just like Ecuador but there is running water in the house,’ ” Henry remembered. So she came, driving a mail truck across the country with her then husband, getting hassled by the cops in every state along the way. She was 25 years old. “They called us hippies, but I never called myself a hippie,” Henry said. “We were just trying to get away from a crazy world. I was sick of what was going on. Like I am now, but I’m older now.”

She’s since learned to embrace the term. Saturday — on her 60th birthday — she threw a party. The flier said: “celebrating 34 years of hippies in Rowe.” It had all the markings of a hippie celebration. Bumpy dirt road to funky adobe house? Check. Potluck spread? Check. Peace, love and hot tubbing with your friends? Check. Many of the women wore their “hippie costumes:” denim cutoffs, braids, flowers in their hair. “I saved this dress from 1976,” one said. “I saved this body since 1976 and I’m still wearing it,” joked another. “My breasts too, nothing added, nothing taken away.”

“It was hard when I moved to Boston. There was a whole hippie fad and it was all based on what you where wearing,” she said. “I used to get really aggravated because I knew being a hippie was about living on the land and living simply, not jumping out of your Range Rover with your handmade clothes and your patchouli.” Henry is a Hospice nurse. She lives part time in Santa Fe, but still cooks on her wood stove when in Rowe. She doesn’t have any regrets about being a New Mexico hippie. Like many of the people at the party, Henry sees parallels between the political climate of the late 1960s and the political climate now. “If I was the same age now as I was then, I would do the same thing,” she said. “ I would drop out. Take myself away from the mainstream. I don’t like it. I don’t approve of it. I don’t want to be part of a war machine.” Read more.

Help! Our son wants to join the Peace Corps! As we recall from the 1960s, that's mostly a bunch of hippies or druggies wasting time instead of working.
Wow, it sounds as though your son was born about 30 years too late, for when the Peace Corps was first on the scene, it was thought of as a terribly important and generous way to help less fortunate people while at the same time seeing the world -- or at least an unfamiliar and interesting community. Now, in the face of a greedier time, we are expected to gravitate toward the higher-paying, prestige-loaded job at the expense of doing good.

I think it would be very big of you to support your son's decision. Remember, the Peace Corps is a limited assignment, and it might help him clarify his life's path, as there are valuable lessons to be learned in this type of foreign affair. After his service is done, there is plenty of time for him to go the corporate route, if that is the right one for him. I think you should be proud of your son for his independent thinking and altruistic spirit. Regardless of what first job he chooses, it will be a time of learning and self-discovery, as well as a period of forming values. He obviously doesn't care much for yours. And perhaps you should take a look at why not.  Read more.

Maryland Returned Volunteers to screen "American Idealist" at UMBC on March 3

Maryland Returned Volunteers to screen "American Idealist" at UMBC on March 3
Maryland Returned Volunteers invites you to a special advance screening of the inspiring documentary American Idealist: The Story of Sargent Shriver on Saturday, March 3 at 7:00 p.m. at The Shriver Center, UMBC.

Discussion and social will follow the film. Outgoing Peace Corps Volunteers will be honored. This event is free, however, your donation will benefit a local service project. The Shriver Center is located on the first floor of UMBC’s Public Policy Building. For directions and parking please visit: www.umbc.edu. Parking is open on streets and lots during this event. For more information contact: Joby Taylor at 410-455-6398 or joby.taylor@umbc.edu

American Idealist tells the story of Sargent Shriver
Sargent Shriver has arguably touched more lives than any American since Franklin Roosevelt. Television journalist and former LBJ aide Bill Moyers calls him “the best all-around politician I’ve ever seen.” Yet, Shriver remains unknown to most Americans today.

During his tenure in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, Shriver created the Peace Corps, directed the War on Poverty, and served as U.S. ambassador to France. The programs he created—including the Peace Corps, Head Start, Legal Services for the Poor, VISTA, Job Corps, Foster Grandparents, and Special Olympics—have improved the lives of millions. Sarge’s story offers both a guiding paradigm and a source of inspiration for those who wish to serve.

Learn more about Sargent Shriver, founding Director of the Peace Corps.

Renewed Violence in Guinea, Volunteers consolidated in Mali

At least eight people have been shot dead by the security forces in the West African state of Guinea during protests against the newly-named prime minister
Caption: Guinea residents walk past closed shops in Conakry February 10, 2007. Protests erupted in towns across Guinea on Saturday, killing at least five people. as union leaders vowed to resume a crippling general strike after President Lansana Conte named an old ally as prime minister. REUTERS/Saliou Samb (Guinea)

At least eight people have been shot dead by the security forces in the West African state of Guinea during protests against the newly-named prime minister. Dozens more were seriously injured in the violence in the capital Conakry and several towns across the country. President Lansana Conte named Eugene Camara as prime minister on Friday, meeting a deadline to avoid strikes. However, the demonstrators say Mr Camara is too close to the president and are demanding a leadership change.

Mr Conte had agreed to hand over the running of the government by Sunday in order to avoid the resumption of an 18-day strike which unions ended last month. But people are angry that Mr Conte has chosen a close ally for the post of prime minister. "We cannot go against the will of the people. The president has made a choice which suits him but does not suit the people," said union negotiator Boubacar Biro Barry, the Reuters news agency reported.

Guinea Peace Corps Volunteer Cami writes: Looks like we're not going back to Guinea, where things seem to be getting worse before they get better
Things finally seem to have come to a point of no return. I'm hoping that the conflict resolves itsef sooner rather than later in Guinea, mostly as I'm worried about the security of all the people I met throughout my seven months in Guinea. That being said, the people of Guinea could only live under a regime which oversaw 250% inflation, making it nearly impossible for some to buy rice, medication, and other necessary goods. Teachers weren't being paid, schools were closed, and corruption was rampant. A country can only function for so long under those conditions.

Guinea Peace Corps Volunteer Jen writes: Time in Mali is coming to an end. Political unrest in Guinea is not.
We spent 14 days on standfast in Guinea.
We have spent 14 days consolidated for training in Mali.

Aaron Kase writes: Moon over Africa

Burkina Faso Peace Corps Volunteer Aaron Kase writes: Moon over Africa
Night falls around 6 p.m. throughout the year but the noise continues for several hours. Radios come on, animals grow restless, conversation, maybe over a beer or two, grows more animated. It isn't until later, 10 or 11 p.m., when the people and animals start falling asleep, when things start getting almost eerily quiet, broken only by the odd lovestruck cricket or dog whose sleep has been disturbed.

Nightfall, as well, brings a whole new visual perspective, or rather a lack thereof. The red of the day is replaced by pure black. When the moon is up one can still see surprisingly well even without a flashlight, but during the new moon even the best lights fail to penetrate more than a few feet into the night. The stars are visible, with an incredible clarity and depth rarely found in more developed countries, but terrestrially speaking almost nothing can be seen at all. Once familiar and distinct paths take on a sameness and for one not used to the dark and the terrain it becomes quite easy to lose the trail.

That is how this new Peace Corps Volunteer got lost at eight o'clock trying to find my way home my first week in village. Following paths I thought I knew well but at a loss without the familiar landmarks of visible trees and houses, I became entirely disoriented until I was forced to ask a pair of girls walking by if they could help me find the way. I didn't understand why they were laughing at me until they pointed out that we were standing mere yards from my own house.

I've got to learn to use my other senses. I should have recognized the agonized braying of the neighbor's donkey.

Read more about Peace Corps Burkina Faso.

Photo: Flickr: icopythat Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0

Returned Peace Corps Volunteers and Popular Music

Lesotho RPCV Jason Wilder Evans' song, Come Home Soon, has attracted lots of attention on Neil Young's Web site
Evans spent almost two years in Lesotho, an enclave of South Africa that is slightly smaller than Maryland. "My job title was environmental engineer, but I was working as a beekeeper,” explained Evans. "I also was involved in HIV education and teaching secondary school students, ages 12 to 18 or 20.” Evans was in a remote area of Lesotho. "Many times I was the only Westerner within an hour's drive,” he said. "But my time there really flew by.”

It was in Africa that his penchant for writing and singing really developed. His song "My Given Love” was featured in the independent film, "Trust Fall.” Evans' sometimes dark lyrics are not always in the stereotypical country music vein, which he attributes in part due to the physical isolation of his Peace Corps experience. "During that time, my writing process was so introverted, the things that I saw and the life that I lived, not that different from Jack Kerouac or Ernest Hemingway,” he said. "I wrote from what I knew and looked inward for strength, ideas and turned them into somewhat autobiographical fiction.” Read more.

Paraguay RPCV Rich Hopkins leads the Luminarios, one of Tucson's biggest desert rock bands
"I started when I was in the Peace Corps in 1981 in Paraguay, South America. It was just something fun to do. Everyone played music down there. I had always wanted to play music, but it took me until I got out of college and had time. I always wanted to play music as a kid, but my parents didn't really encourage me to do that so it took me a long time to get around to doing what I really always dreamed of doing."

"I would love to basically get back to a point where I really could open for bands like Tom Petty and Neil Young because that's kind of where I see myself, and I think I'm really good enough and the band is good enough. But I think it's a combination of what length are you willing to go to to get there and try to 'make it again' and also the right timing. Life is a combination of work and timing."  Read more.

Mauritania RPCV Shauna Wells performs lyrical, acoustic pop music with a folk bent and a contemporary style
Wells is a charismatic singer-s