Peace Corps News

The Peace Corps Lottery

Amy Potthast writes: "The reason getting an invitation to Peace Corps becomes such a problem now is the way the nomination process works. If you aren’t familiar, it may help to know that after you apply and interview, you can get nominated to join the Peace Corps from your local recruiting office. Then your application travels to the headquarters office in Washington, D.C., where your placement officer considers whether you are a good program fit for a specific country assignment, and invites you. (In the mean time you undergo a medical and dental examination to be deemed physically fit to serve in a developing country where medical care isn’t always on par with that of the United States.) Sounds easy, right? Well the problem is that Peace Corps regional recruitment offices throughout the country race against each other once, quarterly to get all their applicants nominated through an online system—and because the number of applicants has far outnumbered the openings, within 15 minutes of opening the online process, one day every three months, the generalist slots all get taken up. If generalist positions made a small percentage of Peace Corps openings, the problem wouldn’t be so dire. But generalist positions make up about half of openings. Not only that, but the generalist contribution to Peace Corps is important. The power of the Peace Corps is that it not only provides needed technical assistance to developing countries, but it also transforms people who don’t necessary have a lot of prior international or development experience, who may otherwise never have the opportunity to live oversesas for that length of time, and to learn another language. "

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Paul Theroux writes: Obama, the Peace Corps, and the Lesson of My Life

"I became a teacher in Africa and my whole life changed. I was happier, I had a purpose, and no one ever asked me, "What are you going to do with your life?" I had left home. I was becoming the person I wanted to be, not just a young man with a job but someone developing a sensibility. I had volunteered because I wanted to know the world and myself better. The route from New York to my destination, Nyasaland, took in Rome, Ben-ghazi (Libya), Nairobi, Salisbury (Rhodesia), and finally the tiny aerodrome at Blantyre. Flying low into that last stop, I could see tiny thatched-roof mud huts surrounded by banana groves and maize fields. This sight lifted my spirits. The thrill was intensely like being on another planet. In some ways it was just as remote, a parallel universe, but I thought of it as my Eden. It was December 1963, and I was glad to be gone. I'd been dismayed by the spirit of the times, the violence, the complacency, the racism, the militarism, the weird quest for material goods. I was well aware, with a lightness of soul, that I was unburdened. Everything I owned in the world fitted into the small suitcase I had with me. I had nothing in the bank, no property; did not own so much as a chair. I was superbly portable. I had just turned twenty-two. That first departure for Africa led me to a lifetime of travel. It shaped the way I see the world and showed me that there was more to write about than my own inner miseries. I realized that what at first seemed so alien-a schoolhouse of barefoot students at the end of a red clay road-was not so different at all. Wishing to express this experience, I became a writer. Although I joined one of the earliest Peace Corps groups to go overseas, I was not heeding the call from President John F. Kennedy. Apart from being a coastal New Englander, as he was, I felt I had nothing in common with this remote figure or the complexities of his ambitious and ruthless family. I joined instead partly because the Peace Corps was committed to helping people who were at last free from colonial control. As for the rest, it was a leap in the dark."

"Just after Christmas in 2006, I saw a familiar face in a small hamburger restaurant near where I live on the North Shore of Oahu. Apparently unrecognized by anyone in the place, Senator Obama, in an aloha shirt, sat at a large table with his sister and about seven children, on a holiday outing. After they had finished eating, I introduced myself. The senator was tall, witty, charming, the soul of friendliness. He wanted to talk. No sooner had we exchanged pleasantries than I became engaged in a conversation unlike any I have had before or since in this little surfing town. "You know, like you, I've spent a lot of time in Southeast Asia. I lived in Indonesia," the senator said, as a way of introducing himself. We talked about Africa, about Cuba, about Hawaii. He wanted me to know that not only had he read my work but he had traveled and lived in distant lands, as well as in the poorer parts of America. In the conversation that followed, we talked about books, and life in general, but most of all we talked about the richness of the places we'd seen and how they had influenced us. Senator Obama seemed to define himself by the depth and complexity of his experience as a young man looking for his place in the wider world. With a glow of sympathy that was enlarged by humor and intelligence, he was utterly at home in the world. I mentioned that he'd make a great president and that he ought to run. He said he was studying it. That was the word he used. "But there's no hurry," I said, and making a play with his name in Swahili I added, "Haraka, haraka, haina baraka." He understood and laughed at this owlish jape ("Too much of a hurry makes bad luck"-or an unsuitable Barack, since his name and luck or blessing are synonymous). This in itself was an event: the only time in twenty years when anyone in my little town showed any knowledge of Swahili. Not long after that encounter, Obama gave a speech at Cornell College, in Iowa, calling on his audience and all Americans to go out and serve their community. "Growing up, I wasn't always sure who I was or where I was going," he said, describing how he got all sorts of advice, as young adults do, just before he became a community organizer in Chicago-when he decided, as he put it, "to step into the currents of history and help people fight for their dreams."

"For the two years I was in Malawi, I never made a telephone call and my only contact with my family was in letters that took up to a month to arrive. This suited me fine. The instant connection in today's world tends to distort the experience of being far from home. What sort of a life is it when, on the days when things are going bad, you are able to dial Mom for consolation? The experience should involve remoteness, inconvenience, hardship, even risk; isn't that the whole point of being away? I don't understand a recent graduate doing a mediocre job, finding an apartment, getting into a routine in the hope of advancement. I do understand, with Huck Finn, the wish to light out for the territory ahead of the rest. I lived among people who, on the surface, seemed to have very little. Money was so scarce, they were practically existing on the barter system. The students' notebooks were always damp and penetrated by the odor of wood smoke from the cooking fires of their huts or the kerosene stink from the lamps: Electricity was rare in their villages. Though they wore a simple school uniform, my students were barefoot. Their soles were toughened by walking to school, and they played soccer barefoot. Before we developed a lunch program, lunch for most of them was a whole boiled potato or a few stalks of sugarcane that they chewed to stave off hunger. It would be easy, but misleading, to list all the things my students and their families didn't have. This is what celebrities do when they visit villages in Africa: Out of a guilty, grotesque, almost boasting self-consciousness, these wealthy visitors enumerate the insufficiencies. That's because they don't stay very long. If they stayed longer, perhaps a few years, they would see what I saw in Africa: the resiliency of the people. Africans knew neglect, drought, flood, bad harvests, hunger, disease, and-more insidious than any of these-tyrannical government; and yet in the face of these adversities they had developed survival skills, and prevailed. For more than forty years I've heard outsiders lamenting the plight of Africans-and, given AIDS and Darfur and Zimbabwe, sometimes justly; but I seldom hear, except from someone who has lived closely among them, how Africans, ignored by the world, have managed to save themselves, often in the bitterest of circumstances. My teaching had its uses for them, but what I taught was negligible compared to what I learned. Yes, after two years my students spoke and wrote English well, and some of them went on to college. But today, despite forty years of volunteer efforts, Malawi is probably worse off than it was back in 1963. The population has quadrupled to more than thirteen million (of these, one million are orphans), and the per capita income is $160 a year."

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PC Monitor 2009 H1N1 Flu Virus in Mexico

Peace Corps is closely monitoring the 2009 H1N1 flu virus, and Peace Corps staff and Volunteers worldwide have been advised of the situation, and of precautions they should take. We are pleased to report that there have been no reported cases of H1N1 within the Peace Corps community. Peace Corps staff in Washington, including a full-time epidemiologist, is working with the Department of State, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and others to monitor the situation and to ensure that, as an organization, we are ready to respond to any eventuality.

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PCVs peak at 11,000 under Obama Budget

Al Kamen writes: "The Obama budget is giving Peace Corps devotees major agita. Despite Obama's past boosterism, it appears that the agency's proposed budget is up only 10 percent next year and that the number of volunteers is projected to rise by 20 percent, to 9,000, by 2012. It peaks at 11,000 by the end of 2016, short of the doubling Obama talked about by 2012."

"We will double the size of the Peace Corps by its 50th anniversary in 2011. And we'll reach out to other nations to engage their young people in similar programs, so that we work side by side to take on the common challenges that confront all humanity." - Barack Obama, December 5, 2007

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Damian Wampler’s play Twin Towers opens in NYC

Twin Towers is a coming of age story not only for two young men but for our country as well, critiquing the moral vacuum we experienced during the last eight years. Incorporating music, dance, a Brazilian dance-like martial art called Capoeira and dialogue overheard on the streets of New York City, Twin Towers presents an urgent plea for self investigation and transformation. Damian Wampler is a former Peace Corps volunteer who spent five years overseas as an educator, researcher and community developer in Kyrgyzstan. “When I came home, I realized that not only had my country changed, but I had changed as well,” Wampler says, “I had a greater understanding of who I was and what was right and wrong; an understanding that I had come to through my own personal journey.”

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John Garamendi front runner in California Congressional Primary

“Garamendi is the man to beat,” said Antioch City Councilwoman Martha Parsons, who says she will endorse DeSaulnier. “It’s a special election, so you have to get out the vote, win name recognition. That gives Garamendi an advantage over Mark DeSaulnier.” “I think Garamendi will have an advantage,” said Craig Cheslog, a DeSaulnier backer who is president of the Lamorinda Democratic Club. “Anytime a statewide candidate runs for something, it shakes things up.” Garamendi has been a presence on the California political scene for more than three decades, beginning in 1974, when he won a seat in the state Assembly. He then spent 14 years in the state Senate before winning statewide positions as insurance commissioner and lieutenant governor. He launched a bid to succeed Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2010 but left the race after polls showed him badly trailing his prospective Democratic rivals, Attorney General Jerry Brown, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

California Lt. Governer John Garamendi served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ethiopia in the 1960's. Read more.

President Obama has asked Congress to provide Peace Corps with a 10% increase in its appropriation for FY2010

"We will double the size of the Peace Corps by its 50th anniversary in 2011. And we'll reach out to other nations to engage their young people in similar programs, so that we work side by side to take on the common challenges that confront all humanity." - Barack Obama, December 5, 2007

What is increasingly apparent is that at its top levels, the Obama administration does not realize that it has reneged on the President's fervent campaign pledge. I know how unlikely that sounds, but it is the truth, and Congressman Howard Berman has done the President an immense service. If the Peace Corps is able to reinvent itself for the 21st century, Berman will deserve a place not simply in the history of the organization but in a new American presence in the world. Obama has a plate piled to overfilling with an endless heaping of intransigent problems, and it is understandable why he has not paid attention to the Peace Corps. But the time has come in the next few weeks when he can ensure this bold new Peace Corps will be a reality. The first thing we should all do is to call the White House at 202 456-1111 between 9 and 5 and tell the operator that we support a bold, new Peace Corps for the new century. Read the rest of Laurence Leamer's article.

Have French Atomic Tests in the Pacific put Peace Corps Volunteers at Risk?

Samoa RPCV Michael L. Driscoll writes: "In the Summers of 1973-1974, the French did 12 Atomic Tests in French Polynesian atolls, in the atmosphere, at elevations of around 800 to 1200 feet in the air. I served in Western Samoa, from February 19, 1973 until November 14, 1974, as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I went through the 3 months of Peace Corps Training in country, Western Samoa, and upon graduation, was assigned the the Department of Education, and the Teachers Training College, in Apia, Western Samoa, as a Math Instructor. I was in Group 11. As I am writing this today, I am not able to say with certainty, that we were aware of the French doing their Atomic Testing in the French Polynesian Islands, to our West and South. I do know that I had some unexplained skin issues that came to my attention in the Fall, 1974, and when I went to the Peace Corps Nurse, she could not tell me what it was on my stomach, arms, and legs. The appearance was concentric, and just red circles, and while I was in the hot and humid climate of Western Samoa, the condition was that if one were to put a finger on my stomach, which had a redness and exposed blood vessels, about 2" in diameter, the finger would show blood on the end of it."

"For 30 years I thought that I had psoriasis; but, in May, 2004, I went to a dermatologist in Spokane, Washington, and he said I had EAC, Erthyma Annulare Centrifugum, and also said that the doctor in 1974 probably didn't know about EAC, as it has some characteristics like psoriasis. I also developed a thyroid condition in 1999, and have been taking a morning thryoid pill since, and will for the rest of my life, take this 75 mg Synthroid pill."

"I personally believe it was the French Atomic Tests that were putting me and all of the other Pacific Islanders at risk, as these tests were in the atmosphere. When I was in Western Samoa, the population was about 150,000 Samoans, of which about 3500 caucasions and other nationalities were present on the Islands. I am unaware of anyone serving in the Peace Corps at the time, nor am I aware of any Samoans, who were experiencing skin issues while I was, when I was there in 1973-1974. There are many thousands of Islanders, in a radius of 1000 or more miles from the French Polynesian atolls, that may be having health issues."

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Peace Corps' Roadmap for the Future

John Coyne writes: President Obama has in his hands the Peace Corps Transition Team document "Peace Corps Roadmap" telling the president what should be done to increase and improve the agency. The twenty-page transition document was written by his own team, sent to the Peace Corps after the election and before the president was sworn in. This impressive piece of work manages to be both positive about the Peace Corps and its role in the world, and yet outlines the problems of the agency and makes suggestions on how the president can improve the Peace Corps so that more Americans are able to serve our country. The Transition Team document is sitting on President Obama’s White House desk. It has been (so far) unread by the president. Would you like to read it? Peace Corps Online has the document below. Read it now.