Peace Corps News

Notes from All Over: Ethiopia, Dominica, Korea, Swaziland

Some 40 US Peace Corps volunteers are expected to arrive in Ethiopia soon to serve in the Amhara and Oromia regional states
Peter Parr, director of the Peace Corps office says that the volunteers will be working with the Ministry of Health, and will mainly be involved in efforts to combat HIV/AIDS. The Peace Corps volunteers will work with the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) through the Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator. Parr said that at present the Peace Corps office is being set up and Ethiopian staff are being recruited for administrative positions and to help volunteers in their training of local languages and customs. There director said, however, that he could not at present stage provide details of the 40 volunteers or the exact time of their arrival. Read more.

Ronald Reagan thought Chris Dodd was "far out liberal and left winger" who served as a volunteer in Dominica
If your name is Chris Dodd or Lowell Weicker, please, read no further. It seems our 40th president, Ronald Reagan, was no fan of either Connecticut senator during his eight-year tenure in the Oval Office. Weicker may have been a Republican, but he was no Reagan Republican. And Dodd? Well, he was a Democrat and therefore part of the evil empire. Reagan kept up a public persona as an affable, polite, regular guy. Even on the campaign trail, he would refrain from attacking his opponents. When Jimmy Carter took shots at him, Reagan famously responded: "There you go again." And, in Berlin he firmly — but politely — told "Mister Gorbachev" to tear down this wall.

But that doesn't mean Reagan was without his private opinions. Those he kept in a daily diary for himself — until now. Just out in hardcover is "The Reagan Diaries," which features 693 pages of his daily observations while in the White House. From the Reagan Diaries: "Today named Dick Stone, former Dem. Senator as personal envoy to Central America. Sen. Dodd & other far out liberals & left wingers are all over the tube screaming foul. Dodd calls me ignorant. His claim to expertise on Central Am. is 2 yrs. as a peace corps vol. many yrs. ago in Dominica."

PCOL Comment: "Mr. President, Senator Dodd served in the Dominican Republic not Dominica."  "You mean they're two different countries?" (Overheard in the Oval Office in 1984)  Read more.

Christopher R. Hill considering visit to Pyongyang soon after it shuts down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor
Senior negotiators in the six-party talks with North Korea -- including U.S. representative Christopher R. Hill -- are considering a visit to Pyongyang soon after it shuts down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, diplomats said. Although no trip has been scheduled, they said, the visit would take place in conjunction with the next round of six-party talks in Beijing, probably next month. The North Koreans are delaying Yongbyon's closure until they receive $25 million that was frozen in a Macao bank in 2005. An American bank, Wachovia, said yesterday that it had agreed to consider accepting the transfer.

Mr. Hill, the U.S. negotiator, told The Washington Times last year that he would not rule out a visit to Pyongyang but said he would not go while the Yongbyon reactor was operating. "We would consider a trip if it would serve our interest to do so," he said. "But our concern is that North Korea is continuing to run a nuclear reactor whose purpose is to make bombs and to be talking to them while they are making bombs doesn't appear to be in our interest." Any visit to the North Korean capital by an American official is rare and could be used by officials there to further their pursuit of international legitimacy. Christopher R. Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs and former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon. Read more.

Chris Matthews says: Anybody who‘s ever been in the Peace Corps knows people don‘t like being taken over
"I do not accept the idea that the American people were snookered into Iraq.  I know it‘s a comfortable argument to make that we were all tricked into it, but back when we went into the war in 2001, I came across—or 2002, it was in the summer of 2002, the year before we went to war, the American people were asked whether they supported the war, and they said by 55 percent of so they were for the—or 57 percent, they were for the war.  But then asked if there were significant casualties involved, Are you still for the war, and a majority came out against the war. Well, who the hell thought there wouldn‘t be casualties?"

"Well, the Iraqi people—look, anybody who‘s ever been in the Peace Corps knows this.  People don‘t like being taken over.  If you ask any African country, no matter how tough it‘s been since independence, Would you rather the white guys come back and run this place, they might run it a little bit better, maybe, maybe, maybe, they‘d say, To hell with that idea!  We want to run our own country.  Nobody likes to be invaded.  I think the president even said that a while back.  He must have known it intellectually, but he didn‘t act on it." Journalist Chris Matthews served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Swaziland in the 1960's. Read more.

Read more about Peace Corps Ethiopia.

Read more about RPCV Senator Chris Dodd.

Read more about RPCV Diplomat Christopher Hill.

Read more about RPCV Chris Matthews.

Returned Peace Corps Volunteers and Business

Swaziland RPCV Reed Hasting's Netflix delivers One Billionth DVD
Netflix said it viewed the one billionth delivery as symbolic of the company's rapid subscriber growth, high levels of customer satisfaction and a record of operational excellence. Netflix's service is widely recognized as among the best and most reliable in Internet commerce. Businessman and Internet Visionary Reed Hastings of California, the founder of Netflix, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Swaziland.

"I was very interested in serving my country and first joined the Marine Corps in their Platoon Leader Class, a sort of officers’ candidate school. I spent summers in the Marines and between sophomore and junior year I was in Quantico, Va., in boot camp. I found myself questioning how we packed our backpacks and how we made our beds. My questioning wasn’t particularly encouraged, and I realized I might be better off in the Peace Corps."

"I petitioned the recruiting office and left the Marines. After a yearlong application process for the Peace Corps, I left college early on my graduation day to begin my training. I was assigned to a high school with 800 students in northwest Swaziland. I taught geometry, algebra and differential equations. We were in a rural part of the country. We had no electricity and cooked with propane and wood. Corn was our staple. I lived in a thatch hut and slept on a cot. The high school graduation was really colorful. The celebrations were traditional and there were a lot of color wraps and furs. I was one of the few in Western dress."

"I joined the Peace Corps after graduate school and went to teach high school math in Swaziland, out of a combination of service and adventure. It was an extremely satisfying experience. Taking smart risks can be very gratifying. Guessing right is a skill developed over time. Not all smart risks work out, but many of them do."   Read more.

Peru RPCV Peter McPherson named Chairman of the Board of Dow Jones, publishers of the "Wall Street Journal"
Dow Jones & Co. announced today that Peter McPherson will be named chairman of the company during its annual shareholding meeting on April 18. "I look forward to continuing to work closely in this new capacity with my fellow directors, including Rich Zannino," McPherson said in a statement about the company's CEO. "The board believes Rich and his team are successfully executing the right strategy for the digital era. We are working to increase value for shareholders and customers by building on Dow Jones's heritage of journalistic excellence while developing new ways to provide vital business information to today's global audience."

McPherson will continue to serve as president of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges. From 1993 to 2004, he served as president of Michigan State University. During his tenure there, he took several months off during 2003 in order to lead a team in Iraq for the Coalition Provisional Authority working with the Iraqi Ministry of Finance and Central Bank. McPherson has also held various positions at Bank of America. From 1987 to 1989 he was deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.  Read more.

Peru RPCV Fred Poses' American Standard to break up into three companies
American Standard is to break up into three, unravelling a $10bn toilets-to-brakes group dating back to the 19th century and sounding another death knell for out-of-favour US conglomerates. The decision by American Standard to spin off its vehicle controls business, sell its bath and kitchen products division and retain its air-conditioning division reflects growing investor dissatisfaction with sprawling groups.

The disenchantment is a rejection of the notion – popular in the 1960s and 1970s – that conglomerates' vast array of businesses offered investors protection from swings in the economic and business cycle. The current trend in favour of more focused companies such as Google and Apple has contributed to the demise of several diversified groups and raised questions over the strategies of some of the surviving ones, such as General Electric and Citigroup.

Fred says an executive takes experience wherever he can get it. “You learn a lot in the sandboxes when you are a little kid,” Fred Poses says, “and you learn a lot in Peru in the Peace Corps.” The chairman and CEO of American Standard Companies spent two years in Peru working with small companies after college. “I’m not sure I raised the gross national product very much, other than the $100 a month we spent,” he says with a laugh, “but it was a wonderful experience.”  Read more.

Read about other Returned Volunteers who have made a career in business.

Spotlight on Peace Corps Swaziland

Swaziland Peace Corps Volunteer Cliff Okada writes: Success Story
"She was supposed to be my one success story. The person I would look forward to hearing from: how are you, how’s life, how are your kids? I keep telling myself, I took the right steps. I tried my best."

Swaziland Peace Corps Volunteer Mark Wengo writes: “Do you feel like you’re making a difference? Are your efforts well received by the Swazi people?”
On my way back from a meeting with the chiefdom elders last Thursday, I randomly met some guys who used to run the youth meetings. They said that in 2004, they had gone to workshops and put a lot of effort into getting themselves trained as peer educators. Then they came back to their rural community and tried to host HIV education sessions for their compatriots. It was a miserable failure. The would-be educators were too well-known in the community, and this diminished their credibility. People would say, “You are African, just like us. What can you teach us?” It’s a little sad, this lack of faith in their own people, but I tried to console these guys that maybe it’s not just an African thing but merely a human characteristic to believe that what is foreign or imported is “better” – perfume, leather handbags, exotic fruit… or information.

Swaziland Peace Corps Volunteer Moly Pacenta writes:  black and white
"Even though I didn't come here intending to give material things, it continues to be expected of me. And when a young girl comes to me crying after being kicked out of school because her sick mother cant afford the fees, I can't turn her away. For $150 I'll give her another year of education. I can spare it and it's important. But what will she do next year when I'm gone? And what do I do when word gets out and 10 more girls come knocking on my door? If you give a mouse a cookie. There are big questions that can make my head spin as I drift off to sleep, and there's never an answer. I'm just trying to soak it all up and be the best person I can be."

Swaziland Peace Corps Volunteer Vincent D'Agostino writes:  A Day in the Life of a Trainee
4:00-A new day begins...the rooster coos and doesn't fucking shut the fuck up. By the way...my rooster is the leader of the pack. Because its like living in a valley here. You hear each and every one of the roosters go off like alarms but in sequence or in sync. But I assure you...it is absolutely silent until my little fucker opens its beak to make that awful, wretched, ear drum shattering, make you want to scream "Shut the fuck up" from my hut as loud as I can.