Spring 2018: Bigger Yields - Vol. 31 Issue 1

Spring 2018 Vol. 31, No. 1 worldviewmagazine.org

Published by National Peace Corps Association

Embarrassed & Ashamed, The Back of the Mosque, and CeCe Winans in Skopje

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WorldView

Spring 2018 Volume 31, Number 1

Editor: David Arnold Publisher: Glenn Blumhorst Director of Communications: Meisha Robinson Contributing Editor: John Coyne Mike Meyer Elizabeth Morehead Stuart Moskowitz Jane Muree Jonathan Nash Kathleen Nelson Danielle Nierenberg Gary Parriott Florencia Pichazaca Meisha Robinson Alan Robinson Hailey Tucker Mark Walker Jade Wu

A magazine of news and comment about the Peace Corps world

MCC

Contributors: Mohamed Abd El-Ghany Glenn Blumhorst Sybil Chidiac Cameran Clayton Billie Day Peter Deekle Peter diCampo Steve Donovan Hayley Guy Beverly Hammons Kari B. Henquinet Sami Jamil Jadallah Tony Kalm Roger Landrum Charles McKinney

WORLDVIEW ADVERTISING Address all questions regarding interest in advertising in WorldView or NPCA social media and other online opportunities to Scott Oser at advertising@ peacecorpsconnect.org

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WorldView (ISSN 1047-5338) is published four times per year (Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter) by National Peace Corps Association (located at 1900 L Street, NW, Suite 610, Washington, DC 20036-5002) to provide news and comment about communities and issues of the world of serving and returned Peace Corps Volunteers. WorldView © 1978 National Peace Corps Association.

A substation in Benin is part of a $489-million-dollar investment by USAID’s Millennium Challenge Corporation to increase opportunities for the poor in rural West Africa.

Periodicals postage paid at Washington, D.C. & additional mailing offices.

POSTMASTER Please send address changes to

WorldView magazine

National Peace Corps Association

1900 L Street NW, Suite 610

Washington, DC 20036-5002 EDITORIAL POLICY Articles published in the magazine are not intended to reflect the views of Peace Corps, or those of National Peace Corps Association, a nonprofit mission-driven social impact organization mobilizing those whose lives are influenced by Peace Corps.

NPCA is independent of the federal agency, Peace Corps.

EDITORIAL SUBMISSIONS Send all communications regarding WorldView magazine to worldview@peacecorpsconnect.org.

We will consider article proposals and speculative submissions. We also encourage letters to the editor commenting on specific articles that have appeared in the magazine. All texts must be submitted as attached Word documents. For more details on writer guidelines go online to www.peacecorpsconnect.org/ cpages/submission-guidelines or email the editor at darnold@peacecorpsconnect.org.

If you need to contact NPCA regarding your magazine subscription or other matters, call (202) 293-7728, ext. 15.

PATHS OUT OF POVERTY

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THE WHIRLPOOL

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NO MORE HUNGRY FARMERS

The challenge of moving millions of people from economic despair.

The One Acre Fund offers smallholders a new road to market

By Tony Kalm

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TURNING ON THE LIGHTS

The Millennium Challenge Corporation brings electric power to West Africa

By Jonathan Nash

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ENTREPRENEURS OF BENIN

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ROOTS OF ARAB SPRING

The countryside turns to Grameen microenterprise by mobile phone for capital

By Sybil Chidiac

Can the Peace Corps model provide North African and Middle Eastern youth reasons to live for, not causes to die for?

By Sami Jamil Jadallah

COVER: Tanzania farmer Auleliana Lukosi tills her small acreage with technical and marketing support from One Acre Fund, an innovative non-profit that serves more than 6,000 smallholder clients in six African countries. Its organizers estimate more than 50 million householders need support in sub-Saharan Africa. Photo by Hailey Tucker.

SUBSCRIPTIONS In order to subscribe to WorldView magazine for $35 go online to www.peacecorpsconnect.org and click on Join Now. If you need to contact NPCA regarding a magazine subscription or other matters, call (202) 293 7728 ext. 15.

WorldView ∙ Spring 2018 ∙ www.PeaceCorpsConnect.org | 1

THE PUBLISHER

Spring 2018 Volume 31, Number 1

The publisher of WorldView magazine is National Peace Corps Association, a national network of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, former staff and friends. NPCA is a notfor-profit 501(c)(3) educational and service organization which is independent of the federal agency, Peace Corps.

ADVISORY COUNCIL

A magazine for the greater Peace Corps community

DEPARTMENTS PRESIDENT’S LETTER

CULTURE NOTES

GALLERY

3 Peace Corps’ next director Glenn Blumhorst hopes to welcome an old friend across the street

25 What the chairman said

36 The Emir’s mosque As a young Peace Corps Volunteer Roger Landrum showed vision

LETTERS

An excerpt from The Road to Sleeping Dragon, the last of Michael Meyers’ wellregarded China trilogy, takes us to office of Mr. Wang.

4 Correspondence about the

27 The back of the mosque

President’s view of Africa, Lake Chad reduced, life after death in India and the Macedonian prize in country music OUR IMPACT

6 Our responsibility Meisha Robinson invokes South African’s Ubuntu in our fractured U.S. society CASE STUDIES

19 Think two years ahead How RPCVs of Madison manage their calendar after 30 years. Editor Tamara England-Zelinski says they learned how to spell Sierra Leone a long time ago.

21 Net success Cameran Clayton of American University says research shows what works

An excerpt from Jade Wu’s work in Iraq

37 After the hacienda Stuart Moskowitz and Alan Adams returned to the Sierra’s to see if their agrarian reforms took root

29 Finding your voice

TRAVEL

Hayley Guy joins a chorus of Moldavan singers BOOK LOCKER

31 The fundraiser Mark Walker recalls the risks a development director runs around the world.

40 The Silk Road It was not easy to find but Billie Day and a couple of new friends discovered the cultural and architectural wealth of a couple of ‘stans

BOARD OF DIRECTORS ACHIEVEMENTS

FIELD REPORTS

44 Recent events in the

34 Teaching champions

lives of members of our Peace Corps community, compiled

by Peter Deekle.

How Kathleen Nelson found bright kids in the clutter of Liberian desks

Carol Bellamy, Chair, Education for All—Fast Track Initiative Ron Boring, Former Vice President, Vodafone Japan Nicholas Craw, President, Automobile Competition Committee for the U.S. Sam Farr, Former Member, U.S. House of Representatives, California John Garamendi, Congressman, U.S. House of Representatives, California Mark Gearan, President in Residence, Harvard Graduate School of Education Bruce McNamer, President & CEO at The Community Foundation for the National Capital Region Tony Hall, Former Member of U.S. House of Representatives, Ohio; Former U.S. Ambassador to Food and Agriculture Organization Sandra Jaffee, Former Executive Vice President, Citigroup William E. “Wilber” James, Managing General Partner, RockPort Capital Partners John Y. Keffer, Chairman, Atlantic Fund Administration Virginia Kirkwood, Owner/Director, Shawnee Holdings, Inc. Richard M. Krieg, President and CEO, The Horizon Foundation Kenneth Lehman, Chairman Emeritus, Winning Workplaces C. Payne Lucas, Senior Advisor, AllAfrica Foundation Dennis Lucey, Vice President, TKC Global Gordon Radley, Former President, Lucasfilms John E. Riggan, Chairman Emeritus, TCC Group Mark Schneider, Senior Advisor, Human Rights Initiative and Americas Program, CSIS Donna Shalala, President, Clinton Global Foundation Paul Slawson, Former CEO, InterPacific Co. F. Chapman Taylor, Senior Vice President and Research Director, Capital International Research Inc. Joan Timoney, Director for Advocacy and External Relations, Women’s Refugee Commission Ronald Tschetter, President, D.A. Davidson & Co. Aaron Williams, Executive Vice President, RTI International Development Group Harris Wofford, Former U.S. Senator, Pennsylvania

35 The Karamoja balance Amber Kenny recruited Kenya women because they work hard, reports Kari B. Henquinet

J. Henry (Hank) Ambrose, Chair Tai Sunnanon, Vice Chair Patrick Fine, Treasurer Jayne Booker, Secretary Maricarmen Smith-Martinez, Affiliate Group Network Coordinator Glenn Blumhorst, ex officio Randolph (Randy) Adams Keith Beck Sandra Bunch

Bridget Davis Corey Griffin Madeleine (Maddie) Kadas Chip Levengood Katie Long Jed Meline Mary Owen Thomas Potter Rhett Power Susan Senecah Linda Stingl

STAFF Glenn Blumhorst, President Anne Baker, Vice President Jonathan Pearson, Advocacy Director J.M. Ascienzo, Government Relations Officer Meisha Robinson, Director of Communications Amanda Silva, Development & Partnerships Coordinator David Fields, Special Projects Coordinator Kevin Blossfeld, Finance & Administrative Assistant Elizabeth (Ella) Dowell, Community Technology Systems Coordinator Cooper Roberts, International Program Coordinator

22 More network news from affiliates 23 Midwives & paramedics The class of ’72 was 52 girls and women were trained to promote health. Beverly Hammons reports that many are now nurses and running clinics.

CONSULTANTS David Arnold, Editor Lollie Commodore, Finance

NPCA FELLOWS Teena Curry Moriah King

INTERNS

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Amelia Espinosa Elizabeth Morehead Jessica Moultrie

William Pappas Talia Pfeffer

VOLUNTEERS

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Peter Deekle, Harriet Lipowitz, Susan Neyer, Angene Wilson

LETTER FROM THE NPCA PRESIDENT

EXPERIENCE MATTERS A warm welcome to Peace Corps Director Jody Olsen

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By Glenn Blumhorst

fter nearly a year of speculation, expectation, and anticipation, Dr. Josephine Olsen was nominated

by President Trump on January 3 of this year to be the 20th director of the Peace Corps. As WorldView goes to press, she was expected to be confirmed by the Senate. And the Peace Corps community breathed a collective sigh of relief— Peace Corps could not have fared better.

NPCA applauded President Trump for nominating Dr. Olsen— “Jody” as we know her—to lead the Peace Corps. As an RPCV, country director, acting director for the agency, and a highly engaged member in the Peace Corps community Jody knows the Peace Corps experience and the people who have served as well as anyone.

Her commitment to education and social work and her decades of leadership are a perfect match for a 21st-century Peace Corps poised for the future.

A co-founder of the NPCA affiliate group Women of Peace Corps Legacy, Olsen was a featured contributor in the Winter 2017 issue of WorldView, writing about the rise of women in leadership roles in the agency and in international development.

Olsen reported that 62 percent of Peace Corps’ current 7,300 volunteers are women and approximately 125,000 have served in the past 56 years. “Today, women’s roles are stronger than ever, particularly here in the United States,” she wrote. “Is there a need for further attention of Peace Corps women on behalf of women and girls? Yes. ….Some of the issues might look overwhelming, but the Peace Corps experience has taught us to work with whatever situation we find, a person, a family, or community.”

NPCA looks forward to a continued close collaboration with Peace Corps under Director Olsen’s leadership. We

are excited about building on our strong partnership to pursue a common vision of a more peaceful world through a united and vibrant Peace Corps community.

Toward that end, we have a few recommendations.

Enable NPCA and its affiliate groups to more effectively engage Volunteers upon completion of service. NPCA’s foremost priority is to champion the Peace Corps’ Third Goal through a

We mobilize our vast network of RPCVs, former staff, hostcountry ambassadors, family and friends to advocate to Congress for a bigger and better Peace Corps, because America and the world needs this agency now more than ever. network of over 175 grassroots affiliate groups connecting a community of more than 230,000 RPCVs. Third Goal outreach is vital to creating greater intercultural awareness, understanding and acceptance.

This mission can only fully be realized if NPCA can connect directly with PCVs upon their completion of service. Let’s find a way for the agency to share—with prior consent—the contact information of Volunteers with NPCA upon their completion of service.

Capitalize on NPCA’s ability to leverage private sector funding for Peace Corps programs. Expanding the resources available to PCVs and the

agency’s programs may well depend on greater private sector contributions. By leveraging our strategic partnerships, affiliate groups, and the vast network of RPCVs, NPCA has demonstrated the capacity to very efficiently and effectively fundraise on behalf of the Peace Corps.

We have contributed well over $1 million to the Peace Corps Partnership Program and the Let Girls Learn initiative in particular.

Rely on the RPCV community’s capacity to strengthen the impact of PCVs. In partnership with Water Charity, NPCA last year conducted training programs for dozens of Peace Corps Trainees and Volunteers in three countries with the technical expertise of RPCVs. Why doesn’t Peace Corps’ Office of Programming and Training ask NPCA and our partners to conduct cost-effective training for Volunteers around the world?

NPCA is stronger, more relevant and more impactful than ever because of the increased engagement of our Peace Corps community. As its private sector partner, our highest priority is to help Peace Corps serve its highest goals.

We mobilize our vast network of RPCVs, former staff, host-country ambassadors, family and friends to advocate to Congress for a bigger and better Peace Corps, because America and the world needs this agency now more than ever. We work together to improve health care provided to PCVs and RPCVs. We will continue to marshal the funds to support the projects of PCVs and RPCVs through the Community Fund. And later this year we will launch a newly designed WorldView to ensure that this magazine reflects the three goals of Peace Corps.

Over the last few years, we’ve worked with Jody on many of these fronts. We’re ready to work with Director Olsen to make the Peace Corps-NPCA partnership the best it can be. After all, what’s good for one is good for the other.

With great respect, Glenn Blumhorst The author is NPCA’s president and chief executive officer. He served in Guatemala from 1988 to 1991. Glenn welcomes your comments at president@peacecorpsconnect.org

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LETTERS

Correspondence about President Donald Trump, Lake Chad, a child revival & CeCe Winans EMBARRASSED & ASHAMED I’ve been traveling in the West African country of Senegal this week, just a few days after President Trump’s infamous statement about “Haiti and African countries.”

And while Food Tank, our think tank on global food security, considers itself non-partisan, I do have a few thoughts about the damage the President has inflicted. I heard from numerous Senegalese citizens—the head of a research center, a scientist, a wellknown women’s activist, an agricultural communications specialist, taxi drivers, and many others—about how much the President’s statements offended them personally and as Africans. They’re dismayed at how the President refers to this vast continent with its diverse people, cultures, and languages, and they want him to know that their country and the continent are anything but shitholes.

No doubt problems exist here in Senegal and certainly elsewhere in the region, but the same can be said of the United States. More than once, I heard how hard Senegal is working to improve the lives of youth so that they are not “lost” to the Mediterranean Sea in their efforts to find jobs in other countries.

And while I’ve never been fearful to travel in any part of Africa, I do feel a sense of embarrassment and shame now.

Shame that we have a President who doesn’t acknowledge the hope and success evident all over this continent and who fails to understand that his words have consequences.

One ray of hope emerged from the conversations I had with people about President Trump, though. One woman told me that although the American President has these views, she knows the American people, as a whole, do not.

And while I realize President Trump will likely never apologize to the people of the continent of Africa or the country of Haiti, I have hope that American citizens

will continue to encourage policymakers and NGOs to continue their support and work all over the Global South, particularly in sustainable agriculture practices supporting women, farmers, and farmworkers.

Danielle Nierenberg, Dominican Republic, 1996-1998, is president of Food Tank.

WATER MONITORS I served as a Nigeria fisheries volunteer on the shores of Lake Chad from 1967 to 1968. Through satellite and Google Earth imagery I have since watched Lake Chad, once the fourth largest in Africa, shrink 90% since 1972.

The open water basin where we did our work began 100 yards from our station and extended 50 miles eastward, with an easily navigable connection to the southern basin. Today’s small isolated pool within the northern basin is now 30 miles from the station. What was once a huge productive lake is now a seasonally flooded and fragile wetland.

What’s going on here? Although it’s tempting to simply say global warming/ climate change, which is indirectly true, the reality is more nuanced. Diversion of upstream sources of water and reduced local rainfall and higher evaporations rates are the major causes of the lake’s shrinking, which has led to major shifts from fishing to agriculture, increased

NASA satellite image of vanishing Lake Chad.

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in-migration of other ethnic groups, all compounded by and perhaps facilitating ongoing Boko Haram violence.

I suggest there are and will increasingly be significant parallels in other parts of the world. National Geographic reports the Okavango swamp is facing similar pressures; Himalayan glaciers which supply the water to nearly half of humanity are receding; the mighty Colorado is on the decline.

We should all be paying closer attention to coming strife when downstream nations run out of water.

Perhaps future Peace Corps Volunteers could have a role in monitoring these changes and raising the profile of this immensely significant issue?

Alan Robinson, Nigeria, 1967-1968

BREATHING LIFE IN Four of us were stationed in the South Indian village of Shivalli, a farming town growing mostly rice and some ragi, or millet. We were attached to the Primary Health Center and traveled from village to village by bicycle, inoculating folks against an outbreak of smallpox. Our group included me, nurse Peter, and nutritionist Diana.

I was 24 and the only one in my public health group with military experience and without a college degree. The Navy’s unwritten rule was never volunteer for anything. I volunteered for everything and the Navy was my preparation for Peace Corps.

We launched a program in family planning. Peter and I helped to educate the men. We guys also had a separate program and designed a process for making hand-flush latrines that soon had several villagers employed. We secured a contract to supply the government with portable latrines and at the end of our tour left behind a successful cottage industry.

Diana was our language star and quickly became fluent in Kannadrese. One of our good friends in Shivalli was a farmer whom

I finally convinced to grow hybrid maize.

However, not everything we tried was a success. The village doctor, nominally our superior, resented us from the beginning. His dislike hit new highs when, in our fifth month, he informed an hysterical village woman that her baby was dead only to have Diana revive the child with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Steve Donovan, India 1965-1967

MACEDONIA GOSPEL Every year, Peace Corps volunteers in Macedonia organize an English Essay Challenge for upper primary and all secondary school students. Students write and PCV judges choose the best of the 600-word essays and, in the past, the winners have been invited to the Peace Corps office in Skopje to receive their awards.

We received 80 essays from all over Macedonia. Amy Stuart and I worked tirelessly from start to finish on the project. This was the first time that we did not have sponsors or an in-person awards ceremony so we were given full rein to be creative. We chose a topic related to diversity and inclusion and a theme song, “Colorful World,” by gospel legend Cece Winans.

In March, we announced the winners in a YouTube video. We decided to recognize their diligent and brilliant work in the form of an e-book publication, the first of its kind for this project. We planned to use Amy’s lovely photography to illustrate the regions where the winners lived.

In a perfect world, we would have organized a concert with Cece Winans’ performing her remarkable song in Macedonia. I wrote an e-mail to the company that manages Cece. Three signed copies of her new album, Let Them Fall in Love, arrived at my Macedonian address in June, just before the e-book was published.

We showed our gratitude with a shoutout to Team CeCe as I held up one of the CDs in the e-book. Miracles still take place, and dreams do come true.

Charles McKinney, Macedonia, 2015-2017

OUR IMPACT

WHAT WE’VE ACCOMPLISHED

NPCA partners leverage $1.6 million in development projects, a stronger Peace Corps

By Elizabeth Morehead, Communications Intern

N

ational Peace Corps Association is a social impact organization driven by serving and returned Peace Corps volunteers, current and former staff, host country nationals, and family and friends. Our three strategic priorities: help the Peace Corps be the best it can be, empower members and affiliate groups to thrive, and amplify the Peace Corps community’s global development impact. To get there, we have forged partnerships and campaigns through the Community Fund to have an impact on the ground.

Our Community Fund mobilizes public and private financial resources to support those Peace Corps community programs and initiatives strongly aligned with our three goals. Thanks to generous members like you, in its first three years the Community Fund has invested increasing amounts in these three important practice areas with impressive results.

We are ensuring the future of the Peace Corps through community outreach and advocacy campaigns to sustain or increase Peace Corps’ federal funding, while fighting for legislation that brings about reforms and improvements at the agency. A series of sustained advocacy victories over the last few years have resulted in a Peace Corps’ appropriations increase from $356 million in fiscal year 2014 to $410 in fiscal year 2018. This has permitted an increase in trainees and volunteers in the field from 6,800 in fiscal year 2014 to 7,300 in fiscal year 2018.

Legislative advances include the passage of the Peace Corps Commemorative Act (2014) and the Peace Corps Equity Act (2015), as well as the introduction of the Respect for Peace Corps Act (2017) and the Peace Corps Enhancement Act (2018). Empowered and enabled by NPCA investments in technology and outreach,

last year our community’s advocacy for Peace Corps issues has surged, with more than 30,000 registered advocacy contacts by email, letters, phone calls and face-toface meetings with members of Congress.

Our Peace Corps community is building bridges in America and bringing the world home like never before, at a time in which America urgently needs us to foster greater understanding, acceptance and tolerance. NPCA invests in delivering core services that help our more than 176 affiliate groups achieve their objectives, whether hosting Third Goal events, organizing community service projects, or advocating for public policy.

Together, we promote Peace Corps ideals at home and abroad. More than 40 new cause-driven groups have affiliated with NPCA in the last five years, including RPCVs for Environmental Action, and the Peace Corps Alliance for Intercultural Understanding.

We are amplifying the Peace Corps community’s global development impact by making direct investments in the projects, organizations, and enterprises of Peace Corps Volunteers and Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. By marshaling over $1.6 million in private sector funds and forging strategic partnerships with the Peace Corps Partnership Program, Water Charity, TCP-Global, affiliate groups, and others, our Community Fund direct investments have benefitted more than two million lives. In the process, our Community Fund has become the single largest investor in PCPP. Over the past three years, NPCA has also deployed 126 RPCVs, 30 corporate volunteers, and dozens of high school and college students on a variety international programs that have provided technical assistance to host country NGOs, engaging in service learning experiences, and building awareness of the Peace Corps.

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OUR IMPACT

OUR RESPONSIBILITY Follow the past to walk into our future

By Meisha Robinson

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ho are you? I believe, however you answer that question—what follows “I am”— determines not only how others view you, but also how you live your life. Who you are defines your future.

It shapes the world around you.

I am a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Benin from 2000 to 2002 and as a Peace Corps Response in South Africa in 2012. But what does that mean?

Benin taught me what it means to be a member of a community. It taught me the connections that lie between me, the collective, and the environment I live in. South Africa gave me the language, the word, to communicate what I felt-Ubuntu.

Ubuntu is a Zulu word that loosely translates to “I am because we are.”

Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu. A person is a person through other persons. These words characterize the Southern African philosophy that from our Western perspective we describe as “humanity” or “interconnectedness.”

As I scroll through my Facebook feed and read the day’s headlines, I am struck by the sheer lack of Ubuntu in our American society today. We have turned inward not only as a nation, but also within our social spheres. I recently heard, as friends were preparing to go home for the holidays, that the divisive conflict in families— as in the 1968 movie “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” in which Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy struggle with Sidney Poitier marrying their daughter—is now all about political party.

In Peace Corps’ earliest years, we wrestled with a divided environment at home. When on March 5, 1965, the National Advisory Council of the Peace

Corps held a conference called “Citizen in A Time of Change,” Malcolm X had been assassinated the month before. On Saturday, March 7, closing day of that Washington, D.C. conference, Alabama State Troopers clashed with civil rights demonstrators in Selma Alabama, a day we now call Bloody Sunday. The next day the first U.S. Marines landed in South Vietnam.

In that three-day conference dozens of RPCVs joined Sargent Shriver—the Peace Corps director and conference chairman—to talk with Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, Assistant Secretary of State Harlan Cleveland, and Chief Justice Earl Warren. The RPCVs wanted to determine their roles as U.S. citizens and to understand the value of the work they performed overseas and their own government’s role in the world and here at home.

We need to bring the spirit of Ubuntu to our classrooms, boardrooms, marketplaces, sports fields and most importantly to our neighbors’ homes.

“You have had experiences that are beyond the imagination of most of your contemporaries,” the vice president said.

“You are better because of it-and you know it!”

One RPCV talked about “becoming in mind and even more in spirit, those very people we had come to help.” Others said they discovered insight, dedication, empathy, flexibility, optimism, “and a readiness to be self-critical.”

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National leaders urged them to be active citizens.

Humphrey challenged them. “If you think politics is a little dirty, why don’t you get yourself a bar of Ivory Soap and get in and clean it up?” President Lyndon Johnson’s press secretary, Bill Moyers, urged them to “pursue the ideals of a Joan of Arc with the political prowess of an Adam Clayton Powell.

“A Volunteer is a person with a split personality-wondering on the one hand if he really can make a difference,” Moyers continued, “and knowing on the other hand that he must make a difference ...

The very split nature of the Peace Corps, between what we know we are and what we ought to be, is at its heart the reason for its success.”

So what does it mean today to be a RPCV? Who are you? Who are we? I am not just a RPCV. I am Black. I am a Woman. I am an American. I am a Christian.

I feel that it is my duty to not just stand next to my fellow Americans who are my juxtaposition, but also help them traverse the politically charged landscape that pulls us further apart day-by-day.

America needs us—RPCVs—now more than ever. Our nation needs us, to bridge the gap and provide a more humane, empathetic, inclusive, and tolerant response to the ills of today that threaten the Peace Corps ideals we hold true as RPCVs. We need to bring the spirit of Ubuntu to our classrooms, boardrooms, marketplaces, sports fields and most importantly to our neighbors’ homes.

We answered the call once. We traveled to new frontiers. The new frontier is now on our own shores. So I ask you, one last time.

Who are you?

Meisha Robinson is NPCA’s director of communications. She is also the founder and executive director of I Am, We Are, a youth empowerment organization, operating in South Africa’s Royal Bafokeng Nation.

POVERTY

he UN’S 17 sustainable development goals hope for an ambitious if not impossible result: end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for everyone within the next 12 years. Poverty is measured by many factors on the Human Development Index that take into account literacy, hunger, per capita income, and life expectancy. Ending extreme poverty is one of those goals.

Columbia University economist and senior adviser to the UN Jeffrey Sachs is absolutely certain we can end poverty. He told a class at Boston College last year,“ …if we cared a whit, we would be saving millions of lives per year, we would easily be able to ensure universal access to health coverage, clean water, sanitation, education, and we’d never notice the economic costs.”

Poverty in breadth and depth defines the struggle for many at the bottom 20 of the Human Development Index: Afghanistan, Malawi, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Gambia, Ethiopia, Mali, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Guinea Bissau, Eritrea, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, South Sudan, Guinea, Burundi, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, and Central African Republic.

Peace Corps Volunteers have experienced the hospitality and heartbreak of many of these countries.

Being witnesses to poverty has driven many in our Peace Corps community to shape careers committed to poverty’s end. Three RPCVs write here about the approach: A $498 million development investment from USAID’s Millennium Challenge Corporation creates electric power for Ghana; a small innovative organization called One Acre Fund shows smallholders how to succeed in a market in a Burundi village; the economic gospel of Grameen micro-enterprise spreads by mobile phone to women in a village in Benin. A fourth contributor went to Wall Street instead of the Peace Corps but has a plan to use the U.S. federal agency’s blueprint of public service—with some revisions—to train millions of unemployed youth in North Africa and the Middle East.

Documentary photographer Peter diCampo wrote for the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting about the first time he took a taxi ride to Accra’s Agbogblushie Market, a rough place compared to his home in Wantagu, a small town in Ghana’s far north where he was working as a Peace Corps Volunteer. The driver said all the people in the capital’s central market were prostitutes and thieves.

DiCampo said that it took the intimacy of his village life to truly understand the depths of the poverty he encountered.

He wrote that, "Poverty is like a whirlpool, one that is multi-faceted and nearly impossible to swim out of. Poor infrastructure and education, lack of access to health care, a harsh climate, long-standing cultural traditions, governmental indifference—all of these factors link together to create a situation from which few can escape, and those who try face a long and difficult road."

DiCampo had returned to Ghana to document the lives of the kayayos, or porters that work in city markets. His stunning set of photographs tell the stories of small girls in the north whose present and future is sweeping the family compound, hauling water from the dam, and having children. Few can go to school. Many escape the barren north for the promise of economic independence in Accra to become kayayos who haul heavy loads of yams or other goods to the market, earning a few dollars a day and sleeping 10 to a small room.

PETER DICAMPO

T

THE WHIRLPOOL

Lamisi escaped rural, barren northern Ghana as a young girl to haul yams in Accra’s Agbogblushie Market.

“Many feel that kayayo is their only option,” The photographer says, “but their situation improves only marginally, if at all.”

The whirlpool.

The editors

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POVERTY

NO MORE HUNGRY FARMERS One Acre Fund partnerships provide sustainable solutions

By Tony Kalm

Hailey Tucker

B

efore arriving in Sri Lanka to begin my Peace Corps service, I had never met a hungry farmer.

Two years later, the term would define my life. I had been assigned to build a health clinic, train its staff, and dig wells and latrines. I did.

What haunted me nightly, however, were the funerals of children I had attended, the victims of malnutrition. Their parents were farmers, and I had spent many of my days helping them plant and harvest rice in small paddy fields, with babies strapped to their backs. My calling was less an epiphany than a moral outrage -frustration at my powerlessness. One Acre Fund was my salvation. Now, I know that the term hungry farmer will one day be wiped from our lexicon.

At One Acre Fund, I work with an outstanding group of over 6,000 individuals who have developed a demonstrably successful solution to extreme hunger and are determined to make it available to as many farm families as possible. I hope to detail the array of innovations that make up the One Acre Fund model, what makes our organization unique, and how Peace Corps volunteers— whether currently serving or returned— can join the movement to solve extreme hunger.

The smallholder’s dilemma Still in 2018, my Peace Corps-Sri Lanka experiences are representative of a daily dilemma for 70 percent of the world’s poor: How does a farmer feed a household of six with only one acre of land, the past season’s seeds, and basic farming tools?

Unfortunately for smallholders, the limited number of existing solutions can result in a lifetime of negative consequences. For children in particular, these include a 30 percent chance of stunting, a 10 percent chance of dying before age five, and a 75 percent chance of not completing high school. But if we can make this single profession, farming, more productive, it would be the largest catalyst in the fight against global poverty.

One Acre Fund approaches smallholders such as Solange Nyirarukundo of Gitega, Rwanda as active participants in their rural market economy, not as aid recipients.

There are multiple factors that contribute to rural poverty—farmers often live in remote rural areas where inputs like quality seeds and fertilizer are not available, or they lack the money to pay for them even if they are. Many also haven’t received training on proper agricultural techniques, so their crop yields don’t reach their full potential. One Acre Fund’s market-based approach seeks to address these issues through four simple components: Upfront financing for farm inputs, delivery of these products within walking distance of every farm, regular trainings to ensure farmers are putting good methods into practice, and market facilitation to enable them to maximize their incomes.

Since our beginning in 2006, farmer uptake and demand has been quite remarkable. We started with 38 farmers in Kenya, and today we directly serve over 600,000 families in six African countries, plus many more through partnerships and pilot projects in Africa and Asia.

toward children’s education, and 31 percent went to new business activities, such as buying livestock.

While our core model offers great potential, we know that there is no single silver bullet to transforming agriculture for the 50 million households in SubSaharan Africa that need immediate relief. With this in mind, our “systems change” unit forges partnerships with public- and private-sector entities already operating at massive scales. By partnering, we can work inside existing agricultural systems to drive greater impact at levels currently unreachable through our core program alone. In doing so, we can help reduce rural hunger at near-countrywide scale, while creating lasting structural changes. Importantly, our role in each of these partnerships is designed to eventually be taken over by the public or private sector, ensuring sustained long-term impact.

We prioritize “systems change” projects into three platforms. First, our input distribution and retail platform

At the end of the day, the farmer we serve is our boss, and if she is uninterested in an innovation, no matter how life-improving, we won’t take it on.

Focusing on Impact As we’ve grown, we’ve developed a simple impact goal: We envision a future in which every farm family has the knowledge and means to achieve big harvests, healthy families, and rich soils.

We rigorously measure our impact to ensure we’re focusing efforts on projects that make the biggest difference in farmers’ lives. Our preliminary estimates for 2017 show that One Acre Fund clients saw an average 66 percent increase in their incomes, compared with their non-enrolled neighbors—earning about $170 in additional income per farmer.

In the countries where we operate, this amount is enough for a typical family to eradicate hunger in their home, and leave additional income to invest in their broader wellbeing. An internal study of our program in Kenya found that after covering their annual hunger deficit, farmers spent their profits productively: Roughly 33 percent of new income went

looks to establish sustainable businesses, or work through existing actors, to increase farmer access to life-improving technologies like inputs or solar lights.

Second, we work with governments to drive adoption of more effective practices and materials for farmer training.

Third, our market stimulation platform promotes and popularizes higher-yielding seeds and other life-improving products through multiple methods, including temporary subsidies and campaigns such as SMS, radio, or demonstration plots.

Driving Sustainability Although we are registered as a 501(C)(3) nonprofit in the U.S., the staying power of One Acre Fund’s model stems in part from our market-based principles.

Often, the world’s poor are seen merely as aid recipients. Our model challenges this status quo by breaking down the traditional barriers faced by farmers and enabling them to become active market

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participants. We achieve this first of all by dignifying farmers as our customers. They pay for a portion of our services, which gives them a commanding voice. For example, when farmers are unhappy with our services in a given area, they simply stop repaying their loans. This allows us to immediately identify issues, work to resolve them, and keep our customers satisfied.

Second, our market-based approach leads to a highly sustainable business model. In 2016, farmer loan repayments totaled more than $39 million, covering almost three-quarters of our field costs and significantly leveraging every donor dollar we raised. Further, we expect to generate about $4.70 in farmer impact for every $1 of donor support we receive.

As One Acre Fund increases in size and efficiency, this ratio should only rise. In today’s environment of efficiency, we aim to make every dollar go further for our farmers.

important feedback comes from farmers.

At the end of the day, the farmer we serve is our boss, and if she is uninterested in an innovation, no matter how lifeimproving, we won’t take it on.

HAILEY TUCKER

Prioritizing Innovation We also recognize that we must continue to innovate in order to maintain farmers’ loyalty and deepen our impact.

Our innovations agenda is structured to use our existing core and systems change work to identify problems, fieldtest solutions, collect impact results, and

decide where to scale. In particular, there are two innovations platforms we pursue.

First, One Acre Fund’s Product Innovations platform encompasses agricultural and non-agricultural interventions to increase farmer yields, profits, and quality of life. Examples of agricultural innovations include higheryielding crop varieties, products to boost soil health, and improved planting practices. Non-agricultural examples are clean-energy solar lighting systems, affordable sanitary pads, and nutrition education.

Second, our Program Innovations team is focused on scale and systems issues within One Acre Fund’s operations.

Scale innovations focus on increasing our market penetration and transaction size per farmer, while systems innovations are meant to improve our highly customized set of information systems, which are developed and frequently updated to support operations.

Generally, One Acre Fund takes an open-minded approach to innovations, considering those we believe have potential to impact farmers’ lives. Right now, we’re working on several promising initiatives, including solar-powered home systems, trees, and integrating tablets into our operations. We get ideas from local and global contacts, but the most

Looking to the Future Our work continues to grow and evolve because we know we can’t become complacent—there are still 450 million smallholder households worldwide who could benefit from better support. As we progress on our mission, we will seek to overcome traditional development challenges, as well as those of operating like a business looking for new markets with tailored products and services.

As active volunteers and alumni, there are several ways to continue to do good, apply the skills and experiences from the Peace Corps, and multiply our impact.

First, we encourage everyone to sign up for our newsletter and follow One Acre Fund’s social media accounts. This will allow you to hear on-going updates and build support for the global push to end hunger.

Second, keep up the hard work, and encourage your peers to consider careers in development. One of our biggest constraints is finding great people with Peace Corps-like skill sets and interests. One Acre Fund’s Peace Corps alumni employees regularly work in postings in-country and in the United States, supporting projects like finance, fundraising, and human resources. As we build a broader coalition to end hunger and improve livelihoods for the extreme poor, we invite you to keep One Acre Fund in mind and our guiding principle: Farmers First.

Tony Kalm was a Peace Corps volunteer in Sri Lanka from 1995-97. He is the inaugural leader of One Acre Fund in the U.S. from late 2009, and its president. For his work with the organization, he was named Social Entrepreneur of the Year by the Schwab Foundation at the World Economic Forum.

To learn more about One Acre Fund please visit their website at www.oneacrefund.org or follow us on Twitter at @OneAcreFund.

Smallholders in Masango, Burundi receive materials on how to combat pests and crop diseases from One Acre Fund field officer Silas Ndayiziga.

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POVERTY

TURNING ON THE LIGHTS

Will investing in electricity generate a new West African economy?

By Jonathan Nash

I

saw first-hand during my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer just how important basic services are to improving lives. Things like access to affordable, reliable electricity are vital in the effort to help people rise out of poverty.

Just after graduating from college, I packed my bags and moved to Trujillo, a small town on the northern coast of Honduras. I spent my mornings at a junior high school teaching science classes and working with a youth club. In the afternoons, I worked with a local nongovernmental group that managed two national parks nearby. I also worked with a local hospital and saw how important it is to have electricity for essential medical operations and storage of medications.

My time in Honduras left an indelible mark on me and influenced the way I think about poverty and how we work to reduce it.

One of the major obstacles to poverty reduction in developing countries is an electricity supply that is insufficient, unreliable or unaffordable. Without electricity, hospitals are unable to use the best equipment and medicine, and schools can’t teach students without proper lighting and resources. A lack of electricity also prevents businesses from growing, and constrains job creation and private investment, essential elements for poverty reduction fueled by sustainable economic growth.

In sub-Saharan Africa alone, more than two-thirds of people live without electricity. In 2015, about four percent of households in the West African nation of Liberia had access to electricity from the grid.

After years of civil war that devastated the country followed by the Ebola epidemic, the country was in need of rebuilding. The Mount Coffee

Hydropower Plant, the country’s single largest power source, was destroyed in the civil war. At the busy Port of Monrovia, through which over 80 percent of Liberian imports pass, the high cost of power from a generator prevented the port from expanding its capacity for vital goods.

(How much power could it generate then, compared with the current 88 megawatts?)

Turbines for Liberia The U.S. government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) partnered with the Government of Liberia and other donors to rehabilitate the hydropower plant. Today, all four turbines have come online with the capacity to produce 88 megawatts of power, more than doubling Liberia’s generation capacity. MCC is also investing in institutional capacity and strengthening power sector governance to ensure that Liberians and investors pay a fair price for service as well as supporting the development of a center to train local technicians in the energy sector to support sustainability of the investments.

development and eradicate poverty.

While progress has been made to reduce poverty, one in five people, a total of767 million people in developing regions still live on less than $1.90 a day, and millions more are at risk of slipping back into poverty. MCC’s investments ultimately drive economic growth that reduces poverty and supports the selfsufficiency of our partner countries around the globe, supporting stability, security, and prosperity.

MCC was created in 2004 as an experiment, changing the conversation on how best to deliver smart U.S. foreign assistance by focusing on good policies, country ownership, and results. Now, the agency is an established and respected tool of U.S. international development that has transformed the lives of millions of people across the globe.

We use a transparent, competitive selection process. Our partners must meet rigorous standards for good governance to qualify for MCC assistance, from fighting corruption to respecting democratic rights. And they are evaluated

…one in five people, a total of 767 million people in developing regions still live on less than $1.90 a day and millions more are at risk of slipping back into poverty.

Since 1990, extreme global poverty rates have been cut by more than half.

And while social programs and sectorspecific interventions like global health have played a critical role, most of the reduction in poverty has been due to sustained economic growth in the developing world. MCC was founded on the principle that economic growth is the most sustainable way to accelerate

using MCC’s country scorecards which rely on independent, third-party data. The agency focuses on country-ownership, country-led solutions and capacity building to strengthen our partner governments and help them better deliver services.

It was in Honduras that I first started thinking about sustainability in development. And it was because of

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2012 NASA image of most of Africa and the Mediterranean shows where two out of every three people in sub-Saharan Africa live without electricity. The Millennium Challenge Corporation committed $1.5 billion to power for schools, clinics and new economic opportunity for large marginalized regions of West Africa.

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Country-led solutions MCC’s work to strengthen institutions helps countries withstand global threats such as terrorism, conflict, and natural disasters, which is especially important in fragile states and regions. Our timelimited grant investments promote economic growth and help people rise out of poverty, creating more stable, secure countries with new business opportunities abroad.

We also take a business-like approach, with bedrock commitments to data, accountability, and evidence-based decision making. Our investments target the underlying conditions that hold nations back from economic growth and progress, such as the lack of electricity.

To maximize our impact, we incentivize policy reforms that open up market opportunities and we work closely with the private sector to leverage additional financing and expertise. We focus on creating the right circumstances for businesses to invest in partner countries, recognizing that private investment is the key to sustainable growth and poverty reduction.

Public-private partnerships and blended finance, the merging of public and private funds to mobilize private capital flows for the public good, are key tools to reduce poverty and also offer a unique opportunity for investors to gain a foothold in emerging markets. Catalyzing private investment for development has been fundamental to the work of MCC, and we continue to look for ways to advance conversations around how we can drive new capital into high-impact, growth sectors in our partner countries.

Over the last 13 years, we have signed 35 compacts with 29 countries around the globe, from Ghana and Nepal to Georgia and Niger. These investments are worth more than $12 billion dollars and expected to benefit over 175 million

people around the world. Our investments not only fund large infrastructure projects such as hydropower plants and roads; they also help governments make critical policy and institutional reforms that help them better deliver services to their people.

Through our investments, we expand access to vital services – including electricity, transportation, education and clean water – and connect people to jobs, markets and opportunities.

MCC

my experience working with people in Trujillo that I fully understood one of the founding principles of MCC: if you want long-term sustainable change or growth, you need to focus on country-led solutions and capacity building.

Godfred’s drug store In Ghana, we identified the Without power, Richie and his father, Godfred, at Accra’s 5th lack of affordable and reliable Avenue Chemist have difficulty serving their customers. power as a major barrier to doing business in the country.

We’re investing in the electricity sector to On a visit last year, our team met Richie improve the availability of electricity for and his father, Godfred, who have been Nepali households and businesses. Our running a pharmacy in Accra for 16 investment aims to strengthen Nepal’s years. They are unable to sell life-saving energy sector and improve regional medicine like insulin because they do energy connectivity. This includes the not have reliable electricity to maintain a construction of about 300 kilometers refrigerator required to store these drugs of high-voltage power lines which are at the recommended temperature. They about one-third the length of Nepal, also lose business when the power goes the addition of a second high-voltage out because when neighboring businesses cross-border transmission line with close, fewer customers come in to buy India, and other projects to improve their products. During the worst of the sector governance to promote private power outages, they saw a 90 percent investment. decrease in business.

The lessons I learned in my time MCC’s $498 million compact supports as a Peace Corps Volunteer and the the Government of Ghana’s goals of connections I made have been invaluable, increasing energy access and reliability. and have informed my work at MCC. We expect MCC’s investment in Ghana’s I also had the chance to return to the power sector to not only bring more community in Trujillo where I served reliable, accessible power to the people and work with local leaders on MCC’s of Ghana, but also catalyze billions in Honduras compact. I’ve always said that new private investment that will support the people of Trujillo gave me more than sustainable growth. U.S.-based companies I was able to give them. They gave me the General Electric and Endeavor Energy, ability to see the world differently. in partnership with Ghanaian energy trading firm Sage, have already begun Jonathan Nash is the acting chief executive construction on a 400-megawatt power officer of the Millennium Challenge plant northeast of Accra. Once completed, Corporation as the Senate considers it is expected to generate up to 17 percent confirmation as a Presidential appointment. of Ghana’s electricity needs.

Between 1995 and 1998 he taught science In Nepal, economic growth has been and supervised a youth club in a high school in hampered by chronic electricity shortages.

Trujillo, Honduras.

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POVERTY

ENTREPRENEURS OF BENIN

Mobile phones are the spinal cord of Africa’s micro-enterprise and financial inclusion

By Sybil Chidiac

N

estled between Nigeria and Togo, Benin is not familiar to most Americans. When I first visited in 2000, I left assumptions behind, not knowing how my new role advising micro-entrepreneurs would unfold. But as a first-generation Haitian-American, I also felt a special connection: Toussaint L’Ouverture, Haiti’s revolutionary liberator, was born in the Beninese town of Allada.

Over the next two years, my role as a Peace Corps small business development advisor gave me a deeper appreciation for the financial challenges and opportunities for communities across the country. And the lessons I learned from those microentrepreneurs have guided my work today building innovations to extend financial services to the poorest African communities.

My first experience with financial services in Benin came at a bank.

Volunteers needed bank accounts to receive quarterly stipends from the Peace Corps. I was struck by the fact that we were given directives, not explanations. No one discussed the terms and conditions of the accounts with us. No one asked if we had questions. Instead, we were simply asked to show our identification and sign a document so that the bank would have our signature on file for future withdrawals.

At that point, I imagined what it was like for a typical Beninese visiting a bank for the first time. Consumer education and involvement in the process must have been unknown and I imagined people would not know how to ask the questions they needed to be more informed.

Meeting my first client, a tailor with

a small roadside shop in the capital city, Porto Novo, was just as instructive. He had grand plans to expand his small shop, hire more apprentices and buy sewing machines, yet to do this he wanted my help to request funding from an embassy or international NGO. Like the other small-business owners I had worked with during my service, he did not see the local Beninese financial institutions as an option for financing his needs.

While nothing physically prevented these micro-entrepreneurs from accessing local financing, they were still inhibited by insufficient knowledge and appropriate solutions.

The Mistrust of banks Several challenges explained this disconnect between the average Beninese and formal financial institutions. Outside of the economic capital, Cotonou, the country’s infrastructure was largely underdeveloped, giving banks and other financial institutions little incentive to extend services to more rural communities. As a result, access to goods and services in peri-urban and rural areas was quite limited or non-existent.

Though microfinance institutions began making inroads into rural communities in the early 2000s, they suffered a significant setback in 2010 when a rash of unscrupulous institutions were discovered operating a Ponzi scheme with investors. Easy access to capital also led many to set up microfinance institutions as fronts, then disappear with deposits from rural communities.

This tainted the perception of local microfinance lenders and a general lack of knowledge of how banks operated

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created mistrust in the financial system that the Central Bank and the national microfinance association are continuously fighting to overcome.

Officials of several microfinance operations who ran these Ponzi schemes were jailed and the Central Bank closed illegitimate microfinance institutions, sending a clear message that such activity would not be tolerated. Illegitimate institutions continue to be shut down, and the sector is slowly recovering. An increased focus on financial education and consumer protection policies are making people more knowledgeable and less hesitant to approach reputable financial institutions.

Banks continue today to dominate Benin's financial sector, but microfinance remains active and reaches more deeply into rural areas than banks. In fact, microfinance institutions serve 20 percent of the rural population or 2.1 million clients' about four times the number served by banks.

Today, new opportunities are emerging as a resurgent microfinance sector converges with the rapidly developing technology sector. This offers new avenues to reach the unbanked majority and deepen financial inclusion across the country.

Since 2000, mobile networks have been a key aspect of the country’s infrastructure and development. Almost 80 percent of Beninese have phones, and in the urban areas one person can have as many as three phones because of enticing deals from competitive mobile operators.

And while my first phone in Benin was a basic Nokia feature phone, today, smartphones are becoming more common, especially in the cities where Internet access has improved dramatically.

Back then, there was little to suggest that the mobile phone's ability to connect people to institutions and information would become the spinal cord of financial inclusion across Africa. Though products such as M-Pesa in Kenya have been game changers, Benin's transition to digital payment platforms has been slower because of insufficient trust and financial literacy.

But several organizations are already making inroads, building the digital

infrastructure to reach remote locations and underserved markets.

Rural lockboxes For example, my organization, Grameen Foundation, is working with microfinance institution ALIDé in southern Benin to connect women-run savings groups in underserved, rural communities to formal financial services.

Informal savings groups are a fixture in most African communities. They give members a structured way to put aside small sums of money each week and borrow money when they need to. The money is usually stored in lockboxes, providing limited security for members' hard-earned funds. And a member's ability to borrow from the group is constrained by the overall size of the group and their savings.

Recognizing these challenges, as well as the role of savings groups in building its members financial capabilities, we partnered with ALIDé to offer something different: access to formal savings accounts that provide greater security and additional benefits with the help of mobile technology—a critical first step to formal financial products. Its staff helps savings groups open new accounts and trains group members in basic financial literacy such as how to use mobile money systems to electronically deposit and withdraw money from their accounts. To date, ALIDé has helped 207 savings groups with nearly 4,800 members open accounts, exceeding its original goal of 120 groups.

This early success demonstrates the power of leveraging mobile technology and local savings groups, and building financial capability. Last November, we met with two groups to learn more about why they chose the new service. Group members confirmed to us that saving at a formal financial institution gave them the protection and peace of mind they had longed for. And because it allowed them to build credit histories, it gave them access to larger loans than the savings groups could provide. They also revealed that they had always understood the value of working with formal financial services, but felt intimidated because they did not know how to navigate the financial system.

The new possibilities excite ALIDé

agent Yannick Koupkonou. Part technician, part coach, he helps savings groups go digital. Armed with a point-of-sale device the size of a credit card machine, he opens new savings accounts and helps local community advisors train the women. So far he has helped 120 groups.

“My biggest success in this project so far is our performance on activities in the field,” he said.

He’s already seeing a difference. On a recent visit to one village a woman said “We no longer engage in uncontrolled spending since we can put away extra funds right from our communities.”

… digital technology offers an unparalleled opportunity to finally break through the barriers of distance, cost and illiteracy that have inhibited financial inclusion in Benin.

A digital education As microfinance continues to rebound in Benin, ALIDé's experience offers important lessons for expanding access to financial services, especially in the most underserved communities.

First, financial literacy should be the cornerstone of any program for rural or unbanked communities. As the government continues to reform and strengthen the microfinance sector, financial literacy training must be a strategic priority. Through our initiative at Grameen Foundation, I saw that the women trained by ALIDé are better prepared to interact with staff at a financial institution than the clients from my days as a Peace Corps advisor. They are assured of their transactions and trust the institution. All this is due to education.

Helping clients understand terms and conditions of their services and how the financial sector works is critical to building the confidence the sector needs after the recent mishaps.

Second, digital technology offers an

unparalleled opportunity to finally break through the barriers of distance, cost and illiteracy that have inhibited financial inclusion in Benin. Though commercial banks began offering mobile banking in 2014, only two percent of adults have benefitted. Microfinance institutions can significantly expand outreach into new and rural communities by integrating digital financial tools into their services and plugging into existing mobile money platforms. ALIDé is the first microfinance institution in Benin to adopt a mobile money channel to facilitate access from rural, remote communities. This progress and experience, if shared widely, will educate and encourage others to explore the opportunities.

Third, to serve rural communities effectively, microfinance institutions must provide relevant, affordable products and services that respond to families’ needs.

This may seem obvious but too often it is a missed opportunity. Given the mistrust and challenges the microfinance sector recently faced, designing products with the client in mind and ensuring they understand the products and their rights will go a long way to rebuilding the sector.

Imagine the opportunities if we could link these new financial products to the other entities and services people also need.

In 2002, I left Benin not knowing if I would ever have the opportunity to work there again. Those two years sparked my interest in financial inclusion and have shaped the last 15 years of my professional life. Today when I meet with financial institutions, micro-entrepreneurs, and government officials, I draw on those early lessons. And, I am hopeful that the next time I visit a rural farmer in Benin, she can tell me how she manages her finances through her phone. She can show me how she has invested her savings and loans. And she can celebrate with me the other women whose lives have been transformed, just from being able to walk into a financial institution with confidence, trust and understanding.

Sybil Chidiac is West Africa director for the Grameen Foundation. She worked in small business development as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Porto Novo, Benin from 2000 to 2002.

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POVERTY

ROOTS OF ARAB SPRING SalamNation says 100 million youth need jobs

By Sami Jadallah

T

he biggest threat to the Arab nations of North Africa and Middle East is high unemployment for their young men and women.

That’s 30 percent of the region’s 370 million people with no jobs and no prospect for a decent living. According to last year’s United Nations Development Programme report, that’s the largest cohort of youth in the past half-century. “… Arab countries can achieve a great leap forward in development, re-inforce stability and secure such gains in a sustainable manner,” the report says, if they put youth “at the center—politically, socially and economically.”

We are talking about close to 100 million youth disfranchised from the economic and political life of the nations they live in. With such a dismal outlook, why are we surprised if some of these kids go the wrong way, join Daesh/ISIS, and become terrorists?

With the rise of domestic and international terrorism, most if not all countries see and address this dangerous social issue only from a national security perspective and not as social, political, and economic issue that must be addressed in a comprehensive social, political and economic transformation of society.

The costs of addressing these issues pale in comparison to the amount governments invest in weapons and arms.

Citizens who are well taken care of and who enjoy freedoms and opportunities do not rebel and do not join terrorist organizations just for the hell of it.

Disenfranchised youth have every reason to be angry. The Arab Spring was the result of youth frozen out of the system with no hope for an economic and political future. The anger we see now in the streets of Tunisia, Iran, and Sudan is the anger that youth express against the

very governing institutions that failed them.

Arab Peace Corps/SalamNation Before I conceived of the Arab Peace Corps and while living and working in Morocco, I thought of a very simple program I called “Oui Maroc.” It was a one-day-a-year voluntary program, that allowed every able-bodied Moroccan— from middle-school children, their teachers and grandmothers to soldiers, cabinet ministers and the royal families of the Kingdom of Morocco—to take a day to volunteer. The idea was widely welcomed. We held organizational meetings, chose its leaders, and registered a web site.

In SalamNation, we want to give youth reasons to live for, not causes to die for.

Then several of us received unexpected visits from the members of the internal security of the Ministry of Interior. I talked with these government agents and their message for me was clear: Stay out of it. I took that to mean non-Moroccans were not invited to fully participate in Oui, Maroc. Therefore, we will re-start the program for Moroccans only and launch similar Oui/Yes programs efforts in the rest of North Africa and the Middle East.

Volunteering is not part of many of these cultures so an important factor in the success is to get highly respected people to lead each country’s program.

Our domestic programs in the Arab world will allow us to iron out the difficulties we face in putting in place a voluntary international program for college graduates to perform voluntary

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public service for a year anywhere within the Arab world and MENA region. In SalamNation, we want to give youth reasons to live for, not causes to die for.

Security promises to remain a big obstacle for SalamNation’s cross-border proposals because some who emigrated to other countries in past decades may choose to return to the lands of their ancestors to volunteer. Given the current violent conflicts in the Arab world and MENA region, will a U.S. or Canadian citizen with Algerian background be accepted to volunteer in Morocco? Will a college graduate with an Egyptian background be allowed to volunteer in Sudan or vice versa? It is easier for an Italian- or Irish-American to be accepted as a volunteer in Algeria or Tunisia than an Iraqi-American to be accepted to volunteer in Yemen.

Arab Peace Corps/SalamNation plans to stay independent from any government, the U.S. government, or any government in the Arab world by funding the programs with small donations of $27 minimum per donor. Imagine if only one million people from around the world contributed this $27. We will achieve our goals of having several thousand full time volunteers doing what they do best, serving their country’s best interests.

Unlike the U.S. Peace Corps, which has its own government backing, we do not have the financial support of any government. And we are not promoting “religious ideologies” that are frequently attached to generous funding from countries and individuals in the Gulf.

Although inspired by the U.S. Peace Corps, the very idea of the Arab Peace Corps is driven by the need to improve job opportunities for our youth. We believe that if we empower youth as volunteers they will focus their energies on the welfare of their own nation and their role in it. They need the skills and training

Only a jobs agenda Many governments in the region having serious and legitimate concerns about their national security and many non-government organizations with well-funded agendas seek to reshape the political landscape of many countries in the region. Our Arab Peace Corps/ SalamNation are not out to transform the political or the religious affairs of the host countries.

Our agenda is a commitment to empower youth through education, job training, and community development allowing communities to develop their own economic and social agenda. We do not carry the agenda any government.

Just like the U.S. Peace Corps, all volunteers must sign a binding agreement not to engage in any political activities that may be deemed suspicious by the local authorities and or have any contacts with local or international intelligence services. Any violation of this rule will cause immediate dismissal from the Arab Peace Corps.

Our vision is more than just voluntary work. Our mission is to work with national and international institutions to establish artisanal training programs that provide the skills to start working, earning an honorable wage and gaining the respect of the community. We want to set up top-quality vocational schools in partnership with German and Swiss educational institutions and vocational training institutes from the United States and other countries. These will be two- to four-year programs led by masters of the crafts.

Better education is the foundation for a peaceful productive society so we are planning a conference on Arab Education for the New Century. Together with regional partners, participants will address the need for equal education for all because that is the mother of all issues.

Our mission is to concentrate regional attention on science, math, technology in academic and vocational settings, establish science clubs in urban neighborhoods and villages and assign science tutors to underserved schools.

MOHAMED EL GHANY/REUTERS

that allow them to have honorable and decent life.

An aerial photograph of Cairo’s Tahrir Square as millions across North Africa and the Middle East demonstrated against regimes in their capital cities in the Arab Spring of 2011.

Many governments in this region have abandoned quality public education in favor of private education, a move that only widens the socio-economic gap and creates a two-tiered society, one for those who have and another for those who have not. A few go to college and later reach a good income, while public education produces the rest to perform low-level jobs. Parents are forced to choose between buying a home for their families or sending their children to private schools that offer a better education. The result is societies with a danger that is present and clear.

Challenging economies The Arab Spring demonstrations of 2011 swept through most of North Africa and the Middle East, but it all began in Sidi Bouzid, a small city of less than 50,000 people in the center of Tunisia’s semi-arid central region.

On a December morning in 2010, a policewoman confiscated the produce of 26-year-old vegetable peddler Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi, slapped the peddler, and cursed the name of his father.

Ashamed and humiliated in public, Mohamed pushed his cart to the front of the municipality building and set himself and his cart on fire. That day and for weeks, growing economic protests spread across neighboring countries and threatened governments.

Seven years later, with little education and few job skills, thousands of young men still peddle cheap toxic personal and household products from China on the streets of Casablanca or Tangier. Those who cannot afford higher education can only compete with merchants who run the small shops nearby.

Most if not all Arab countries do not have plans to bring their youth into the political process. Political parties

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are designated instruments of the state, and do not represent the will of the people. They are an extension of the “deep state” and possess neither the institutions nor the power to affect government policy. In any event, they have no strategies to bring these young into the political process.

One must only see the faces in any parliament or Shura to see the effective exclusions of youth from the political process and from shaping the future of their own countries.

Where money goes Military spending is the primary focus for almost all Arab countries, and funding social and economic development suffers.

Starting with the civil war in Yemen in 1960, most if not all Arab countries have been engaged in either civil wars or wars between each other. The last count was 27

I can summarize three key issues that dash the hopes so many young people: poor education, lots of corruption, and a severe lack of credible governing institutions. Unless and until the Arab world addresses these issues in open debate and moves away from “security” point of view, the Arab world will not see the transformation that is so urgently needed.

To address corruption leaders of the Arab countries must follow the model of the late prime minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, who transformed sleepy poor Singapore into an international power house when he declared that fighting corruption must start at the top.

One has to imagine what could happen if these hundreds of billions looted or trillions wasted on stupid reckless wars were spent on better education, accessible health care,

Most countries have abandoned public education for the benefits of private education, thus creating a two-tiered society: One for those who have and another for those who have not. wars, and that does not include wars with Israel in which millions died and countries were destroyed. One estimate is more than 10 trillion dollars was wasted on these stupid reckless wars.

The news across the globe recently was the arrest and detention on corruption charges of some 200 key businessmen including members of the royal families.

Well, Saudi Arabia is not the only country that has experienced the looting of its national treasury. Looting of the treasury varies in each country but it happens in all of them.

Corruption is endemic in the Arab world with no country excluded. Hundreds of billions have been looted over the years by corrupt dictatorships. The syphoning of public funds to private accounts by heads of states, and high-ranking officials have robbed tens of millions of citizens of a chance for a promising future and a dignified place in society.

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investment in infrastructure and an explosion of training programs. Why would anyone who is happy with a life of prosperity, fulfillment and security leave all that and join terrorist organizations like Daesh? They would not.

Sami Jamil Jadallah is a founder of the Arab Peace Corps and SalamNation. He served as director general of the late Saudi Crown Prince's Conservation Foundation and recently was appointed director general of International Foundation for Natural and Wildlife Preserve in Morocco, a foundation funded by H.H Sheik Hamad Al-Thani.

He is a former Wall Street lawyer and a business consultant on defense, construction, hospitality and conservation issues in North Africa and the Middle East, United States, Switzerland, Finland and Germany. He was born in Palestine and served in the U.S. army.

CAPITOL CASEHILL STUDIES UPDATE

THINK TWO YEARS AHEAD

How hard is it to make calendars in Madison, Wisconsin?

“Celebration Ale.” Everyone eats, drinks, and votes. Over half of our 80 members voted on images for this calendar.

A smaller development committee finalizes the 12 or 13 countries to be featured in the calendar, based on visual appeal and image quality. We consider the mix of countries, cultures, and continents, the ratio of landscapes to people, urban versus rural, adults versus children, and gender. Another factor is the problem of getting enough photographs of some countries, such as Costa Rica, Kosovo, or Latvia, despite putting out requests.

In the beginning, many more people participated in all of the decisions, but it seems to work well now with a smaller calendar group with the added benefit that committee work is kept to a minimum.

WorldView: Who are some of your stalwarts in making the calendar?

England-Zelenski: It really takes a village to pull this off every year. Buck Trawicky, Don Sauer, and Troy Rutter are our

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orldView asked Tamara EnglandZelenski, the editor of the RPCVs of WI-Madison’s International Calendar, what it takes to make this stunning calendar each year for 30 years. England-Zelenski has edited the last four calendars. It’s one of the longestrunning Third Goal projects in the United States and one of the most successful and complex. They’re already hard at work on the 2019 calendar, and are now accepting photo submissions for 2020.

England-Zelenski: The calendar development process is lengthy. Each one takes about 16 months from photo submission to printed calendar and the goal every year is to create a calendar that’s both beautiful and informative. The decision about which countries to feature starts with the photos we receive as submissions. A photo review takes place in spring, when the Madisonarea RPCV members gather to vote on the photos submitted through February 15th.

WorldView: How many RPCVs sent you photographs for the 2019 calendar?

England-Zelenski: For the 2019 calendar, we had about 100 photographs from 23 photographers, not all of whom are RPCVs. Anyone may submit photos, up to a limit of five photos per year.

In the past, we’ve received as many as 400 images in one year. Initially, all were viewed and voted on as slides, but these days we use 5 x 7-inch prints for our review. The voting takes place during one of our fabulous international potlucks and usually includes a specially brewed beer (we are in Wisconsin, after all!). To “launch” this 30th-anniversary 2018 calendar and vote on 2019, our RPCV “Brew Crew” created a delicious

“dayblock experts,” in charge of holidays, holy days, and other observances listed for each day. Buck has done this since the very first calendar, with extensive research on other calendars —Chinese, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, Baha’i, and others. Most of those systems are based on lunar movements rather than solar movements, which means their observances move every year relative to our Gregorian calendar. Julie Olsen has provided the beautiful indigenous design-inspired artwork in every calendar since 1989. Walt Zeltner created and still manages our donation allocation process. Countless others contribute their expertise in business, operations, accounting, distribution, marketing, or customer service. The true magic of this project is that as people move on or burn out, someone else with the right skills always seems to materialize, and so the calendar endures.

WorldView: Have you had any crises?

England-Zelenski: An early calendar was missing a day, and there was a whimsical errata response for customers who complained. One year, “Sierra Leone” was misspelled on the back cover—gah! A 2005 feature photo of a Bulgarian market scene, showing six piglets in the trunk of a car, was met with some complaints— including one from a Bulgarian official.

1988–2018

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KATE SCHACHTER

Justin Kohl, Anna Schaub, Mark Miller, Anthony Giombi and Terry Sizer voted on submitted photographs for a previous Madison calendar. Brewmaster Kohl held a cup of the affiliate’s home-made JFK IPA.

For 2018, we were excited to include Myanmar and Vietnam for the first time, but very close to our print deadline we learned that Peace Corps Vietnam had neither an office opened nor volunteers in country yet. We had to react quickly, and were lucky that we had a good photo from Lesotho to put in its place.

WorldView: With the University of Wisconsin—one of the hotbeds for Peace Corps recruiting—you must have lots of new RPCVs in the group.

England-Zelenski: Actually, we’re an aging group, and we want and need new members with new ideas and energy.

We’re hoping that our current social media efforts will reach more newly returned PCVs. The challenge is that younger RPCVs are often very busy with grad school or looking for or starting new jobs.

We have a Facebook page and website, which lists our group’s activities and encourages new members and of course sells the calendar. The website also provides cultural information about the countries that are featured in each calendar, so that educators or others who are interested can learn even more about the countries served by Peace Corps.

WorldView: We understand you pay a designer. How has that worked?

England-Zelenski: For the first five years, the calendar was designed and

produced exclusively by Madison volunteers, lead in large part by Jim Good.

The advent of desktop publishing and the ability to create digital files really changed the publishing process, and in 1992 the group hired Sue Kummer, who shared

The true magic of this project is that as people move on or burn out, someone else with the right skills always seems to materialize, and so the calendar endures. office space with Jim, to take us into digital publishing. Sue had both design and editorial skills and, as a Quaker, had done international work and was active in the peace movement. Although not an RPCV, Sue had the skills, good heart, and calm commitment needed to improve the calendar process, which also helped reduce some of the “volunteer burnout.”

Sue remained at the design helm for 25 years, and has been recently succeeded as designer by her daughter Lisa.

We also pay for warehouse services and a “webmeister,” both of which are crucial for our calendar business today.

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WorldView: Who is the market for the calendars and how do you sell them?

England-Zelenski: Our main market is RPCVs and their families, and anyone interested in international development and peace. Affiliate groups have always been an important part of our sales and marketing efforts: RPCV groups in Northern California, Western Montana, Atlanta, and Northern Florida are among our top groups, but even group sales are slowing a bit. We know that people today rely less on print calendars. RPCV groups have more and more new members who grew up with calendars on their phones and computers—not on the wall—so the perceived value of a print calendar is less.

Still, our online sales to individuals are strong, and we work hard to keep costs down to make the calendar affordable as well as appealing.

WorldView: I understand that since you began selling calendars in 1987, you’ve given away some $1.3 million in sales revenue to a number of projects. How do you decide who benefits?

England-Zelenski: We have two main funding tracks: GiftAway funds overseas and domestic good works and the Peace Corps Partnership Program (PCPP), which funds PCVs in the field. For GiftAway, we use Walt Zeltner’s well-oiled allocation process to vote twice a year on projects requested by or sponsored by an active

member of the group. It’s a great process, thoughtfully and fairly done. In 2017 our GiftAway donated more than $42,000 to 22 projects, including micro-lending for Haitian women, libraries for Kenya, and an immigration and asylum project for rural Wisconsin immigrants. GiftAway donations are listed on our website. For our PCPP donations, Tom Brodd makes sure that members attending our major meetings and special events have a chance to pick a PCPP project to receive funding.

Each year we also donate 10 percent of our profits to NPCA which is building the capacity of our affiliate network.

WorldView: Does Madison’s commitment to the International Calendar leave time for other good works?

England-Zelenski: For 37 years, we’ve sponsored a benefit run, Freeze for Food, a combined 5K run/walk + a 10K run in the dead of the Wisconsin winter. Our motto is, “We never cancel due to the weather!” Currently this run supports Madison’s Open Doors for Refugees efforts.

We also march in Madison parades and staff tables at Fair Trade and other international events to promote Peace Corps and our group—and to sell the calendar whenever we can. We’ve recently added RPCV Story Slams, which have been run by some of our newer, younger members. And just for fun, we have a hiking club, book club, and dining club, plus a regular schedule of happy hours on campus.

Our group offers lots of ways to connect with other RPCVs and carry out the Third Goal, but the bottom line is that the International Calendar is a huge sustaining part of our existence.

Check out more about RPCVs of WI-Madison and our work at www. rpcvmadison.org and www.rpcvcalendar. org/

NET SUCCESS

By Cameran Clayton

NPCA partnered with graduate researchers at American University’s School of International Service to learn how successful affiliate groups engage members, overcome obstacles and thrive. Here are some factors researchers identified: Involve members in meaningful work. They bring members together for advocacy, fundraising and community service projects. Events, newsletters, email and Facebook keep members connected.

Post on social media. They use social media to keep members informed, garner support for social and political causes, inspire the world with their stories and photographs and find new members.

Delegate responsibilities. They delegate tasks according to group needs and member strengths. Strategic planning takes groups to the next level.

Reach beyond RPCVs. They connect with AmeriCorps volunteers, aid and Foreign Service workers, non-profits, immigrant communities and passionate travelers, and reach out to non-RPCVs to grow memberships and accomplish more.

Work closely with NPCA. They turn to NPCA for website development tips, advocacy advice and networking opportunities. In turn, NPCA better understands how to serve the affiliate groups.

Cameran Clayton led the research project that studied web sites, social media accounts and newsletters of 62 country-of-service and 84 geographic affiliate groups and received survey responses from 25 groups. Clayton recently completed an M.A. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution at American University’s School of International Service.

Tamara England-Zelenskyi served in Armenia from 2011–2013. She taught English at the Ijevan branch of Armenia’s university system, and one of her favorite Peace Corps experiences was participating in a three week border-to-border walk across Armenia. As a retired children’s book editor, the calendar is right up her alley.

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MORE GROUP NEWS

The number of NPCA affiliate groups in our Peace Corps community now stands at 176 with the addition of the RPCV Oral History Archive Project. More groups are forming to take on projects in their own communities, the countries in which they served, and throughout the world. As the NPCA board of directors approves their applications we will welcome them. Here’s what some of our affiliates have been doing recently.

MOROCCO ORCHARDS EXPAND The High Atlas Foundation planted an estimated 9,000 trees in the 16 provinces of Morocco in January, just ahead of the nation’s growing season.

The foundation, which was founded 17 years ago by RPCVs, has partnered each year with nurseries, project coordinators and community volunteers to plant pomegranate, almond, fig, walnut and carob trees. Their mission is to support economic growth and sustainability through community-led agricultural development. In its first 14 years, the foundation organized the planting of one million fruit trees across Morocco.

MINNESOTA DIVERSIFIES SERVICES Community service is central to Minnesota RPCVs. In 2017, group members participated in home building projects with Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity, food distribution through Second Harvest Heartland, cooking for families with the Jeremiah Project, and a twice-a-year clean up through the adopt-a-highway program. The group also collected overstocked and discarded medical supplies for Mano a Mano, which supports health care needs in Bolivia.

JOBS FOR MIGRANTS The newest recipient of the “Partnership for Peace” prize awarded by the RPCVs of Washington D.C. is Upwardly Global, an organization that works to eliminate employment barriers for skilled immigrants and refugees and integrate individuals into the professional U.S. workforce. The prize is a two-year

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partnership in which the NPCA affiliate participates in Upwardly Global’s quarterly events, publicizes its activities and donates a portion of funds raised through their own annual silent auction.

Past recipients of RPCV/W partnerships include the Latin American Youth Center, the Washington English Center, and Atlas Corps.

GUYANA COCONUT PRODUCTION Entering its second decade, the Friends and RPCVs of Guyana (FROG) hopes to raise $5,000 to support at least a half-dozen projects in their country or service. One of their new projects to support is a coconut-product production facility in Strong Hope Canal community in northeastern Guyana.

In previous years the group has supported an estimated 30 projects focusing on art, business, education, health and the environment. They have contributed to Timehri Film Festival, a Guyanese and Caribbean film festival that promotes the work of local and regional filmmakers.

NORTHERN VIRGINIA GROWS Five years in the Northern Virginia RPCVs show growth in membership and active engagement in serving their community. Members recorded 327 hours of volunteer service last year, performing quarterly cleanups of hiking trails in suburban Reston, hosting a booth at the annual Reston Multicultural Festival, and joining a local Rotary club to help Lutheran Social Services of the National Capital Region prepare refugee welcome kits. The group also made a donation to a Peace Corps Partnership Program in the Philippines.

Jonathan Pearson is NPCA's advocacy director and served in Micronesia from 1987 to 1989.

CULTURE NOTES

MIDWIVES & PARAMEDICS Tracking the careers of promotoras in Ecuador’s rainforests

By Beverly Hammons

F

orty-five years ago, five Peace Corps women-- two registered nurses, a biology instructor, a health educator and a nutritionist-- opened a five-year project that trained 52 girls and women in Ecuador’s rainforest and mountains to be rural midwives, paramedics, and health educators called promotoras de salud, promoters of health.

The training was a collaboration of local physicians, nurses, and provincial public health officials; priests and nuns from Ecuador and Italy; Protestant and Catholic missionaries from North America; and medical and nursing school faculties and students from the University of Cuenca. Two highly respected local physicians were ardent supporters of the program but despite their efforts, the ministry of health chose not to officially recognize our promotoras and thus, they would not receive a government salary for their work.

Students were between the ages of 14 and 30, with minimal primary school education. Some were native Spanish speakers, others were native Kichwa speakers, and one spoke Shuar. All had been selected by leaders in their small communities to participate in our courses.

Their families promised to assume the agricultural and domestic duties of their daughters during their three months of training and allow them the time to provide health care to their neighbors. Each community pledged an indoor location for a small clinic. Peace Corps volunteers received limited funds from the U.S. Agency for International Development to purchase basic medical equipment and the first supplies for each promotora. By the end of the program in 1975, all 52 promotoras had received the training.

In 2012 Mercedes Gualtieri and I

went back to Ecuador to see what had happened to the promotoras and the program. We had never stopped thinking and worrying about our students.

They had yearned for education and opportunity. Had we a made a difference in their lives? Had they been successful?

Had Ecuador benefitted? Had it all been a mistake? We started our quest with only a list of names, communities, and old blackand-white photos to go on.

Discovering success How Ecuador had changed. As trainers in the 1970s carrying heavy backpacks of medical equipment and supplies, we had hiked on muddy trails and ridden in dugout canoes to do our work. Now we travelled in new buses and taxis with seatbelts on two-lane, paved roads and over sturdy bridges. New airports serviced new passenger jets and cell phones and the internet connected even the most remote regions.

completed a degree in bacteriology at the national university in Quito. She had established her career as the only bacteriologist at the Tena hospital before marrying and raising a family. Now retired, she receives a pension from the Ministry of Health. Carmela told us about other promotoras, such as Mariana Serda who still provides health care upriver in an adjacent province. Our search continued.

A shopkeeper in Puyo, now a booming jungle city, recognized Teresa Guevara’s photo. She led us four blocks to Teresa’s home where we found her tending orchids.

“Mercedes!” exclaimed Teresa. And she turned to me and remembered my nickname in Peru. “Lucia!”

When the people of the hamlet of Madre Tierra had chosen Teresa for training, she was the postal officer in their tiny, two-room, concrete block post office. She liked the job and needed the

She liked the job and needed the income, so when she graduated from our program, she ran the post office by day and opened a clinic in the same building at night.

When we arrived in the eastern jungle town of Tena, a hotelkeeper recognized Carmela Grefa’s name and led us to Carmela’s house around the corner.

Carmela’s husband said she would be shocked to see us after all those years.

Following many hugs and exclamations of wonder, she sat us down to tea and talked about her first health work in her community of Puca Chicta, 30 miles downriver. She had saved the small fees patients paid her and with support from others and a German organization, she

income, so when she graduated from our program, she ran the post office by day and opened a clinic in the same building at night. Retired since her mid-60s, she now receives a postal service pension.

We asked about others and Teresa walked us to the home of Fanny Gamboa, who was only 14 when she completed our course to become the promotora in the hamlet of Fatima. Fanny later completed high school and is a surgical technician in the Puyo hospital.

As Mercedes and I sat arm-in-arm

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BEV ERLY HAMMONS

and instructor of health care classes at the only hospital in Gualaquiza.

Peace Corps Volunteers are surrounded by the Promotoras de Salud, Class of 1972, who stood in front of Pastaza Province offices in Puyo. Back row: Alice (Leach) Kittredge, RN, stands to the left of a nun and Anne Marie Masek stands to the right of the nun. Below the nun in the second row are Beverly Hammons (left) and Mercedes (Torres) Gualtieri.

with Teresa and Fanny on the baroque settee, they told us that we had “planted the seeds” that eventually grew into their careers.

The road to Tulcán Teresa helped us find three others.

Our luck was holding. In the village of Diez de Agosto, we found Julia Poso whose work as a promotora and led to more Ministry of Health training and a year-long course in the cold high altitudes of the Andean mountain town of Tulcán, far from her parents and siblings. Julia became skilled at delivering babies.

She told us a story. One day an indigenous woman was carried into Diez de Agosto from the jungle. She had been in labor for three days. Julia found that the head had crowned, but had stopped moving.

She recommended an episiotomy to enlarge the birth canal without which the death of the baby was certain. The family consented. But Julia had never been taught how to suture and would not be able to stitch the wound since the Ministry of Health did not allow the

teaching of this medical procedure to paraprofessionals. Still, Julia made the incision, and the birth was a success.

After serving her community for many years, Julia is now a Ministry of Health pensioner.

Another of our students was 14-yearold Marilena Olmedo. She too was awarded a free auxiliary nursing course by the Ministry of Health and is now retired and living in her modern Puyo home, working on her small rural farm and caring for family. Some of her adult children have graduated university, a dream come true for Marilena.

Teresa, Fanny, Julia, and Marilena reported on the careers of others. We were not surprised to learn that Olga Fiallos, always eager for education and advancement, became a registered nurse and works at a regional hospital in the mountain city of Ambato. When she trained to be a promotora, she was a young widow with three small sons.

Isabel Wajari had continued working with the women of her Shuar-speaking communities in Morona Santiago Province and now is a health care provider

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The road to Macas Teresa called Enma by cell phone and arranged for us to meet in the Macas bus station during our trip to Cuenca on the new road that now connects Puyo with Cuenca. In 1972, the only routes to Macas were footpaths or a flight on an old, second-hand DC-3 cargo plane. The people of the new jungle settlement of 24 de Mayo had chosen Enma Arevalo to take our course. Enma provided the only modern health care in her community until a hospital was built in Macas and a road was constructed to connect the settlement to the town. She worked in the Macas hospital until her retirement.

At the end of our search, we had reunited with six of our 32 students. They had told us of their accomplishments and those of others. We had offered them opportunities and, as Teresa and Fanny had said, we had planted the seeds of their professional success as midwives, paramedics, and health educators. The Peace Corps had made a difference. Their work was demanding, difficult, and even dangerous. Their training took them farther than any of them had ever dared dream. They had risen to the challenges and contributed to the common welfare of their country.

We had all wept tears of friendship when we had reunited and now again when we said goodbye. I don’t think any of us had ever thought we would see one another again. Being reunited made us realize how important we had been to each other.

Beverly Hammons’ career in health care planning includes the successful founding of the first hospice in New York State to provide home care and a residence designed for those unable to stay in their homes. She served as volunteer in nutrition and health care planning in Ecuador from 1970 to 1973.

CULTURE NOTES

WHAT THE CHAIRMAN SAID

Students head to morning classes at Neijiang Teachers College in Sichuan province.

One thousand miles from Beijing MICHAEL MEYER

By Michael Meyer

T

he teachers college loudspeakers usually roused students at 6:30 a.m. to assemble for morning exercises with the brassy blast of “The East Is Red.” In my first week on campus, however, I awoke to the lilting flute of “Morning Mood” from Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt. The next day it was replaced by the crunching opening chords of Nirvana’s “In Bloom” blasting through the old public address system in

teeth-rattling treble. China is changing, I thought. The next day, “The East Is Red” returned as our reveille.

In his office, Mr. Wang asked, “Do you know what the most important word in China is right now?” I guessed family. “‘Money,’” he replied. “I should say ‘family,’ but it’s money. That is our reality these days.” Mr. Wang was chairman of my department and a member of the Communist Party. I thought everyone in

China was enrolled at birth, but only 6 percent of the population belonged to the organization that controlled the country.

Top high school and college students were invited to join, or a person could be nominated by an existing member or apply on their own with the support of one. In their induction oath—the only time he had taken vows, Mr. Wang said—inductees promised to “fight for communism.” In practice, however, the Party had spent more years dismantling a Marxist economy than building one; since Mao’s death in 1976, reforms ushered in a market-oriented, state-supported hybrid the Party called “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Mr. Wang joined the Party because he was a patriot, and also, he readily admitted, because it was good for his career. Its 83 million members made up the world’s largest private club, with access to powerful people and an inside track to government jobs such as teaching, since the state ran the school system across all levels.

After a summer of being browbeaten in training about propriety and maintaining “face,” Mr. Wang’s candidness surprised me. It shouldn’t have. Soon, over faculty dinners and on the basketball court and on the campus’s lone dirt street, I learned that people spoke without a filter, asking the sort of direct questions that, back in the States, would get a drink tossed in one’s face or could only properly be answered after an exegesis of great books. How tall was I? What did I weigh?

What was my blood type? How much did I earn? Did I believe in God? Who holds the map of our life’s journey? Is wisdom more important than morality?

I was twenty-three, preparing to teach courses titled Writing and Civilization with textbooks, a box of chalk, and a cassette player. These made up the contents of the college’s “Technology Closet.” In this it resembled my former American high school. The chalk was the same length and the same color, and still smarted when I pressed it against the

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callus that had hardened from writing on the blackboard across the previous year.

I was a teacher accustomed to classroom life. Acclimating to China as a journalist or businessperson or foreign service officer would have been a different introduction to the country, as would being posted to a large coastal metropolis instead of Neijiang, a city of two hundred thousand, small by Chinese standards, located between the former wartime capital Chongqing (Chungking) and the provincial capital Chengdu, four hours northwest by train. High-speed rail would later cut that journey to under an hour and one million more people would move in, but in 1995, Neijiang was the boondocks. Pronounced “Leijiang” in local dialect, its name meant Inner (nèi) River (jiāng). In English, the school’s promotional brochure said that it was located “in the hinterland of the center of Sichuan with the Tuojiang River running by.”

Only one bridge crossed the water that separated the town from fields of rapeseed and the dirt road that ran two miles under a canopy of tall bamboo to campus.

Downstream, a floating bridge made of planks lashed to oil drums was bookended by lean-to tollbooths whose attendants charged two jiao (one-tenth of a yuan, the equivalent of a nickel) to people, but twice that for each pig. Neijiang was a leading pork producer as well as sugarcane grower.

The local propaganda bureau had branded it Sweet City, a nickname that to me seemed akin to calling Fargo the Winter Wonderland. There was, however, some truth in this advertising. In downtown Neijiang, spindly rows of hard purple stalks leaned against buildings, blocking sections of sidewalk. Vendors lopped off sections of sugarcane with large knives, charging five jiao for a length that customers gnawed like pandas chomping bamboo. It tasted like syrupy bark.

Upstream, a rusty flat-bottomed skiff ferried farmers to town. It charged twice as much as the bridge but allowed them to board with oxen. Its pilot worked the crossing in 15-minute intervals, unlike the lone bus that ran into town, which wouldn’t turn its engine over until every seat and then stools set in the aisle were filled. I preferred the ferry. But aside from

the bank and post office the town offered me nothing but the stares of locals.

I grew up in and around lakes but am wary of rivers which are more watery highways and dangerous borders than recreational sites. In Neijiang the Tuo ran brown and looked deceptively shallow and still. But when the ferry pilot aimed upstream, cut the engine, and floated at an angle into the rubber tires buffeting the landing, you could feel the current’s gentle pull. Sixty miles south, it emptied into the Yangtze.

The river’s name not only sounded like the act of spitting, it actually was the Chinese word for it too: tuò. No, said Mr. Wang. The character was actually pronounced with a rising tone: tuó, but local dialect reversed it. With his index finger, he traced the river’s name on his palm. I nodded, understanding nothing.

Later, when I flipped through my little red dictionary, I found characters for tuo that meant camel, ostrich, tearful, and the verb stall for time. I love the literal directness of Chinese. A toupee is “fake hair,” pajamas are “sleep clothes,” and a giraffe is a “long-neck deer” and again the language seemed spot-on. It did feel as if I had moved to the muddy banks of the Stall for Time River.

Mr. Wang smiled when I told him this, reflexively closing his eyes as usual, giving him the appearance of a man about to savor a moment. In school and at Party meetings he had learned that foreigners looked down on China. They

Peace Corps Volunteers Wanted: Good writing for Cultural Notes and Case Studies.

Do you have a story to tell about a great new friend you’ve made, a recent bad vacation, a project that worked, a new recipe for the local cuisine, the latest political news in your village, or how it feels to be an expat American these days?

Email your proposal or polished thoughts, opinion or news to news@peacecorpsconnect.org.

Write your country and last name in the subject line. If we like it, we’ll reply to discuss it with you.

26 | WorldView ∙ Spring 2018 ∙ National Peace Corps Association

complained about its polluted cities and praised its underdeveloped countryside.

Now he could correct this pìhuà (fart speech) and, as he put it in English, “combat sentimentalism.” Our tuo was an antiquated noun not listed in my dictionary. It just meant “a branch of a river.” While nodding at Mr. Wang, I told myself that it was a slow-flowing branch that stalled for time before meeting the mighty Yangtze.

Earlier that week, when I first arrived on campus, smoke from morning cooking fires shrouded the countryside’s spindly firs. Everything looked new to me. A newcomer to a city like New York or London will recognize landmarks from a lifetime of movies and shows; a firsttimer to the French or Dutch countryside might find the landscapes familiar from paintings. I had never seen even a snapshot of Sichuan, let alone its fields. I sounded as giddy as The Tempest’s Miranda (“O brave new world . . .”), drinking it in for the first time. I watched a blue-suited farmer with rolled-up pants trail a row of geese down a packed-earth path. But mostly the land was empty of people and full of terraced paddies silently filling with rice.

“It’s beautiful,” I observed to Mr. Wang.

He picked at the label sewn outside his sport coat’s cuff in the popular style, so the brand was on display. “You are wrong,” he said. “It’s not as good as Chengdu.

Chengdu is developed. This,” he said, stabbing his pricey Red Pagoda Mountain brand cigarette at the landscape, “is very backward.”

But not to a newcomer, or at least someone who could leave.

Michael Meyer is an associate professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, where he teaches nonfiction writing. This text is excerpted from The Road to Sleeping Dragon: Learning China from the Ground Up, the last in his China trilogy published by Bloomsbury. He is a recipient of the Whiting Writers Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship among other honors. As a Peace Corps Volunteer he taught at Neijiang Teachers College in Sichuan, China and lived in China until 2012.

CULTURE NOTES

THE BACK OF THE MOSQUE Gender lessons among Iraq’s righteous

By Jade Wu

I

The next day in class, several of my students asked if there was anything I wanted to do in Baghdad before my time here was over. Though my last day was still weeks away there were a number of things I wanted to do but could not due to security problems.

AHMED SAAD/REUTERS

n 2010, when I was teaching English to employees in the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Nour-al-Maliki in Baghdad, I lived in the secured international zone called TONI but I regularly left the U.S. compound to explore the city.

One day my student Mohammad Hassan wanted me to meet his supervisor from the prime minister’s office.

Mohammad was a bright, tall, young man who perfectly fit the word gentleman. He dressed immaculately in a suit, held open the door for others, and always greeted everyone upon entering the room.

“She’s coming to TONI compound today,” he said excitedly.

I had no idea why his supervisor was coming. Shortly after class that afternoon, I saw an elegantly-dressed Iraqi woman alight from a car and walk towards our main entrance. Mohammad stepped forward and introduced me.

Mrs. Masri, a lady in her 50s who exuded dignity and grace, spoke fluent English. She wore a headscarf, a business jacket and a long skirt, all coordinated. As we sat down, she told me what a wonderful job I was doing with her employees.

Surprised, I thanked her and told her that my students have also taught me a great deal. We chatted a bit and she invited me to her house for dinner in the coming weeks.

Apparently she had two daughters coming home from London for the summer where they had been studying.

“I really want them to meet you,” Mrs. Masri said.

I told her that I looked forward to making their acquaintance.

Before leaving, Mrs. Masri gave me a large chocolate cake as a sign of appreciation. I was really surprised and touched. The warmth I felt from her and my students was a far cry from some earlier bad experiences at the airport.

Noor was a Shiite as were the majority of my students. Conservative, she usually wore a head scarf and a long dark dress that covered everything to the ankles. Judging her by her clothes, one might assume she was quiet, cold and standoffish. Surprisingly she was anything but that. She was warm, level-headed, and professional, an eye opener for me to the Shiite women of the world.

Sure enough in a few days, with the blessing of my security office and the consent of her imam, Noor and I

Shi’ite women pray at Baghdad mosque on Eid-al-Adha.

Then suddenly I had a request. I said that before I leave, I would like to go to a mosque with one of them and observe prayers.

“Is that possible?” I asked, looking around the room.

My students looked at each other.

They knew I wasn’t Muslim. But to my surprise, they were very open minded. For the next few minutes they talked amongst themselves about how to make this a reality.

Then Noor, my female student whose name means “light”, spoke up.

“I pray at a mosque not too far from here,” she said. “Let me speak to my imam and get back to you.”

drove to her mosque located inside the international zone. Upon her advice, I wore a long sleeve shirt, slacks and a head scarf to cover me from head to toe. The mosque was a large, newish-looking building with a huge dome and a visible minaret. When we parked the car and stepped out, the imam, wearing a gown of complete white, came out to greet me.

“Are you our visitor today?” he asked in very good English.

Surprised, I nodded. I was not expecting to be met by the imam nor was I expecting him to speak English.

“You are most welcome,” he continued, smiling. “Please follow me.”

We followed him up the steps to the

WorldView ∙ Spring 2018 ∙ www.PeaceCorpsConnect.org | 27

entrance, took off our shoes, and went inside. Once in the mosque, the imam gave me a short history of the place and told me that if I had a camera, I was welcome to take any number of pictures I wanted, even during the prayer. He then gave me a CD. “Listen to it at home,” he said smiling.

“It talks about Islam in English.”

I felt at ease as I walked through the mosque. There was a feeling of peace. It wasn’t fancy but there was wall-to-wall carpeting, clean walls and a few windows.

There were no tables or chairs but a water dispenser at one end with glasses beside it. I brought a glass of water to Noor. The temperature outside was boiling and inside it wasn’t much better in spite of fans.

‘Why are the men in the front?’ I asked. ‘Why can’t the women be in the front? We’re all praying.’

Within minutes the imam took his post. Prayer was about to begin.

A number of local men and women had entered. The men lined themselves up in the front of the room all facing one way while the women gathered in the back of the room facing the same direction as the men. Almost all the men wore t-shirts and slacks while the women dressed like Noor. I was the only foreigner present.

Hearing the call to prayer, Noor turned to me.

“Jade, we’re women.” she whispered.

“We have to pray in the back.”

I followed her to the back rows where the women were. Then prayer started.

I looked in front of me and saw rows of men praying. They stood, knelt, and bent forward while their foreheads touched the ground. Then they stood again, knelt again, and bent forward again, going through each step over and over.

I looked around. The women were doing the same thing too.

After watching this scene for several minutes, I, being the equal opportunity American, turned to Noor.

“Why are the men in the front?” I asked. “Why can’t the women be in the

front? We’re all praying.”

I was completely expecting her to give me cultural and religious reasons. Instead she turned to me and called my attention to how the men and women were praying.

“Look! Do you see what they are doing?” she insisted. “They stand! They kneel! They lean forward! Their foreheads touch the ground! Their behinds go straight up into the air! Do you think it would be a good idea for the women to be in the front? And the men in the back staring at rows of women’s behinds? The men won’t be able to concentrate! You need to think! You need to be practical!”

My eyes were opened.

She had put me in my place. Though I had seen Muslims praying on TV, this thought about modesty never occurred to me. It had never occurred to me that there was a practical reason on top of religious and cultural ones but an Iraqi woman pointed this out.

We Americans really needed to open our eyes and look at things differently.

Things are not always as they immediately seem to American eyes.

A Mecca overlook Weeks after my arrival in Baghdad, another American joined us on TONI. His name was Stan Smith. Stan was a bright young computer programmer from Oregon. He was blond and fit with the physique of a bodybuilder. With his military background and IT skills, he was hired to do administrative tasks for the compound. As it happened, Stan was given the largest office on TONI. When I walked by his office one afternoon, I found Stan with arms crossed, standing in the hallway staring off into space. Puzzled, I asked Stan what he was doing. He rolled his eyes and pointed toward his office. I peeked in. Several Iraqi staffers were in the room with their mats out praying. Apparently Stan’s window and balcony provided an unobstructed view in the direction of Mecca.

Prior to his arrival, few of the Americans had focused on the fact that this room had a view facing Mecca and that some of the local employees prayed here several times a day. Before Stan, the room had been mainly used for storage.

Now Stan was inconvenienced. He told

28 | WorldView ∙ Spring 2018 ∙ National Peace Corps Association

me that he was constantly interrupted throughout the day by prayers. He said he had been polite enough to accommodate the first week but this was beginning to affect his work.

“This is so annoying,” he mumbled, shaking his head. “I have deadlines to meet, reports to write, phone calls to return-- and then there is this,” he said gesturing toward the Iraqis who were praying.

I sighed.

“I wish they would just hurry up!” Stan shouted rudely into the room.

I was appalled. Several of those praying turned and looked at him. Obviously they had heard him but they went right back to praying.

As I quietly tiptoed away, I thought about what it meant to be culturally sensitive. This concept had been raised on and off throughout my time overseas but no one had actually defined it. Was it Stan who wasn’t or was it the Iraqis who weren’t? After all, this was an Americanbuilt compound, funded by American money, and the office had been given to Stan. It was his workplace. Surely the Iraqis could have gone somewhere else to pray? Indeed, several of their colleagues prayed elsewhere. They could face Mecca even if a room did not.

Still, shouldn’t Stan recognize that he was in an Islamic country? What did he expect coming to Iraq? Was it reasonable for him to assume that his office here would operate like one in the U.S.?

Or does being culturally sensitive really mean that both sides find a compromise as each recognizes and accepts the other’s differences?

The text is an excerpt from Flash Points: Lessons Learned and Not Learned in Malawi, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan, by Jade Wu and published in July by the State University of New York Press. Published by permission of the author, Jade Wu, who holds the copyright. In 1995, Wu finished two years teaching English in Malawi and began working in foreign assistance programs in Kosovo, Germany, Philippines, Iraq, and Afghanistan. She also served as a county prosecutor, rule of law advisor and now works for a law firm in Washington, D.C. The book is available at sunypress.edu.

CULTURE NOTES

FINDING YOUR VOICE

The lyrics were tougher than the Rose of Moldova

By Hayley Guy

I

love to sing but always did it alone— in the shower, on long car rides alone or whenever my roommates weren’t home.

I spent ten years learning various instruments and taking voice lessons, yet music remained intimate and personal for me. It was something I enjoyed utterly but couldn’t bring myself to produce in front of others, whether due to irrational anxiety or self-consciousness.

I wanted to change this. In fact, singing karaoke was one of my New Year’s resolutions for the past two years.

I even knew which songs I would choose: “Valerie” by Amy Winehouse, “Teenage Dream” by Katy Perry or “Doo-Wop (That Thing)” by Ms. Lauryn Hill. But whenever the moment presented itself, I just let it pass.

Then I came to Moldova this past summer to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

Moldova is a country that fearlessly flaunts its love of traditional music: accordions, bells, shouting, flutes and drums. Just mention Trandafir de la Moldova, or Rose of Moldova, and people are certain to recite the chorus.

When my host mom first invited me to come to one of her choir practices, soon after I arrived at my site, I never expected to join the group, much less sing on live television with them a few months later.

But that’s what happened.

The choir has about ten women, nine men, six students, a drummer and a flutist. Several weeks ago it was invited to perform on the Moldova 1 television channel. It accepted the invitation and drove on a Monday afternoon in a zebra-painted bus to Moldova’s capital, Chișinău, arriving about an hour before it was due to go on air. I came along to document and support the experience but certainly not to take part in it. The choir

members changed into national dress, ate placinte pastries and practiced their songs and dances. When my host mom started dressing me up in a traditional embroidered vest and head scarf (without the traditional shirt and skirt), I thought it was for fun: to take photos to send back home, to laugh and to include me in their festivities.

When we walked outside to the stage, though, they pulled me up with them.

I was positioned in the center of the second row, in front of the camera. The stage was decorated for the holidays, with icicle string lights and tree branches that

occasionally sneezed snow onto us. It all coalesced for me into one of those “get comfortable with being uncomfortable” moments.

The choir members told me to smile and mouth the words since I only knew the choruses. A lady from the station appeared, rapidly speaking in Romanian— something about no pausing, she’ll introduce us and we’ll sing. A 10-second countdown began and then we started.

I felt silly mouthing “watermelon,” smiling and looking around. I felt my familiar self-consciousness. When another guest performer started singing, our group was yanked down off the stage and started dancing the hora, Moldova’s traditional circle dance.

When the host saw I wasn’t wearing the traditional Moldovan skirt, she pulled me to the side, asking me what I was

Her host mother invited Hayley Guy (second from right) to overcome her fear of singing in public. She posed with Vasalina, Elena and Maria after the choir’s appearance on Moldova 1 TV in Chisinau. ˛ ˘

WorldView ∙ Spring 2018 ∙ www.PeaceCorpsConnect.org | 29

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thinking. My host mom explained I was American and didn’t own a national outfit.

The host called a woman who started running with me around the building to find a skirt while the rest of the choir continued their performance, despite my repeated “no it’s really okay, I can stand on the side.”

They were determined to include me.

After we found a skirt and I put it on, I was pushed back on stage, immediately joining another hora dance, with everyone smiling and singing. I felt more and more like I belonged.

When it was over, everyone cheered and no one even mentioned my fashion faux pas. We took approximately 100 photos and thanked the TV station, which thanked us for coming. Then we boarded the bus and left. Underneath the extraterrestrial green lights of the bus cabin, I sang Christmas carols for everyone shamelessly, played the ukulele and answered my students’ many questions about American musicians and songs. The next day at school, the teachers, cleaning ladies and students all talked to me about the performance.

I can’t promise that my shyness about singing in front of people is now eliminated, but I did agree to play the ukelele and sing holiday songs in both English and Romanian at our New Year’s celebration. This time I was dressed in the proper Moldovan traditional outfit.

Once the crowd heard the familiar chorus to Jingle Bells they all started singing along, whether they knew the English lyrics or not. I’ve learned that I don’t have to sing great or play perfectly to be included in my community. My Moldovan friends keep telling me to “Sing louder!

Stop being embarrassed!”

Those words could also be a motto for my Peace Corps service generally: It’s supposed to be fun. I chose to be here, to be uncomfortable and challenge myself, to share stories, photos, ideas and music.

I still love to sing but I don’t have to do it alone.

Hayley Guy teaches English in primary and secondary schools in Moldova, sponsors two English clubs and a college prep class. This text originally appeared on the Peace Corps web site and is reprinted by permission.

30 | WorldView ∙ Spring 2018 ∙ National Peace Corps Association

BOOKLOCKER

THE FUNDRAISER

Running risks in Nepal and Bolivia

By Mark Walker

T

he area representative, Tom Arens, met our group of 10 at the small and unimpressive airport in Kathmandu, Nepal. Tom was a former Peace Corps Volunteer with more than 25 years’ experience in the area, most of it with World Neighbors. Once we purchased our hiking licenses, which were necessary for all tourists in Nepal, we were ready to embark on our journey to the hinterlands with our World Neighbors staff.

As the senior fundraising director for World Neighbors, a Christian-based, international, grass-roots development agency in Oklahoma City, I was leading one of many donor tours to World Neighbors’ programs. We threw our luggage on top of one of two tan Land Rovers and headed northeast of Kathmandu on the only road that leads to China. In Kathmandu we met the staff at a health center. As is typical of World Neighbors outposts, the Kathmandu program worked with local partners that were independent, indigenous-run operations. Here, the program focus was reproductive health and agroforestry.

Nepal is a poor, isolated kingdom nestled north of India in the Himalayas.

As we climbed up the mountains, the basically Hindu population gave way to the Buddhists at about 6,000 feet.

That’s when the special temples and prayer wheels became prevalent. We visited a few temples to see the red- and yellow-lacquered gods with fiercelooking monkey-like heads glaring at us.

Below were endless brownish foothills that reached to the horizon, where the snowcapped Himalayas emerged.

Small boots or boots Since all of World Neighbors’ villagers worked in the hills, hiking was the main mode of transportation, with the aid of

about six Sherpa helpers. Fortunately, we were there during the dry season.

Tom said that during the wet season, roads were impractical because of the difficult terrain so walking and small boats on the river were the key forms of transportation. Also, he told us, the trees swayed toward you as you passed from the weight of leeches jumping off to feed on you.

On our second day in Nepal, we were hiking up the side of the Himalayas when

Emma, to see if she had an idea what was going on, and she nonchalantly said, “Well, he does have a heart condition, you know.”

I was incredulous, and said, “Of course I didn’t know, or we wouldn’t be here in this precarious situation!”

Obviously, we had to get Harvey down the mountain, and fast, but how? Tom recommended we put Harvey into one of the cone-shaped baskets the Sherpas used to carry our luggage. No way! I thought.

But within 10 minutes, the six-foot-three Harvey was in the basket, and the Sherpa was heading down the mountain. Harvey, in the basket, looked twice as big as the Sherpa, but the Sherpa seemed to take it all in stride.

We had screened the participants for such challenging visits, and Harvey was an avid hiker.

Okay, he was 80, but he seemed to be in good health.

Harvey Milken, one of our donors, passed out. I thought, We’re in the middle of nowhere. No roads within a day’s hike.

We had screened the participants for such challenging visits, and Harvey was an avid hiker. Okay, he was 80, but he seemed to be in good health. I turned to his wife,

We were halfway up the mountain and could see the terraced hills below. They looked close by, but they weren’t.

The Sherpa carried Harvey down to one of our host medical centers to recuperate. Four days later, he climbed to the other side of the mountain to meet us on our return, just to prove that he could do it. You can’t anticipate craziness sometimes, but we didn’t have any fatalities among our 12 hikers, which included donors, staff, and Sherpas. So I was a happy tour guide.

We stayed in medical centers and an occasional sparse lodge during the next week. The Sherpas carried nearly everything. After a week, we were all very tired of dal, a lentil-based sauce with cumin, coriander, turmeric, and other spices. In my most culturally sensitive manner, I suggested a vegetable soup with some cheese as a change of pace.

We got a lentil and potato greens soup with the same spices, which, although it might have contained some cheese, tasted basically the same. It wasn’t like we could go down the street to the next restaurant.

WorldView ∙ Spring 2018 ∙ www.PeaceCorpsConnect.org | 31

After a grueling day of hiking, we stopped for tea at the home of one of the local World Neighbors promoters. We entered a small village with two-story dwellings on the right and a drop-off down the mountain on the left. The lower level of the house was lined with small children gawking at the strange-looking foreigners. We were shown into the living area, an open room with small windows and shelves lined with dishes, pots, and spices. Our promoter was a short,

well-tanned guy with brown hair and a mustache. He wore a dirty shirt with a suit coat and khakis.

We all sat cross-legged in a circle on a grass mat and watched the promoter’s wife prepare the tea. She dumped in a clump of cream, so what we got was a nasty concoction of salt and cream overwhelming the tea, but it was hot, our hosts were generous, and all of us were pleased to be off our feet and grateful for their hospitality.

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32 | WorldView ∙ Spring 2018 ∙ National Peace Corps Association

In the end, no mega-gifts came out of this trip. Certainly, I would be better prepared to tell World Neighbors’ story to donors as a result of this first-hand experience, but these were older donors who didn’t have the capacity to provide large cash gifts. But every member of the tour had World Neighbors in his or her estate plan, which would bode well for the organization down the line.

Escape across Lake Titicaca Eleven years later, when I was a Senior Director of Development for Food for the Hungry, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, I led a group of 14 Rotarians up to the highest navigable lake in the world, Titicaca. We were all in a daze from altitude sickness, so we stopped at a restaurant for a drink. I looked at the television and thought, Oh, shit. What are all those troops and tanks doing in La Paz? Isn’t that the same road we just came out of? This was all I needed.

I’d gotten these folks all the way up here, and now we couldn’t get out!

I knew enough about La Paz to realize that the highway goes through the working community of El Alto, and when the inhabitants got pissed off about something which negatively impacts their community and stage a protest, the troops moved in right away, and all hell broke loose. It’s not like you can take another route—there isn’t one. This was the end of the line: no airport, just a slow canoe across the majestic lake to the other side, which is Peru. Now what?

I glanced around at the tour members in the room, looking for help, and spotted Ed Corr, a MAP International board member and friend from the many tours we had shared. A stocky, middle-aged academic type, Ed taught at the International Programs Center of the University of Oklahoma, but he was also a college wrestling champ and a former Marine. He’d had a long career in the Foreign Service. He was a former ambassador to Bolivia, El Salvador, and Peru, and an anti-terrorism expert. He would know what to do.

I worked my way across the room, weaving through the crowd, who had no idea of the trouble we were in, and pulled Ed aside. I whispered to him my concern that we were trapped at Lake

Titicaca unless we figured out an escape route of some sort. “Ed, could you call the ambassador to find out what the hell is going on?”

He stepped outside to make the call.

When he came back in, he shook his head and looked concerned. “David said under no circumstances return to La Paz with a busload of gringos,” he told me. “He said we had to wait it out.”

When he came back in, he shook his head and looked concerned.

‘David said under no circumstances return to La Paz with a busload of gringos,’ he told me.

I nodded but knew we couldn’t wait. I had to get this group to La Paz in a couple of days for their departure. We got through to our tour company in La Paz, and, as luck would have it, it also had an office in Lima. Saved! I called my contact.

“So, Alvaro,” I said, “looks like we’re stuck up here for the duration, and our plane departs from La Paz in a few days. What would our plan B look like?”

Alvaro simply said, “Give me a few hours. We might have to divert the group through Peru.”

The next day, we skipped across Lake Titicaca on a hydroplane and landed in Puno, Peru. We spent the night and the following day we boarded a plane for Arequipa, one of my favorite communities, with its Spanish buildings and many interesting churches built of sillar, a pearly-white volcanic material.

Arequipa sits in a beautiful valley at the base of the perfect cone of a snowcapped volcano, El Misti. We changed planes and within a few hours were in Lima.

Alvaro’s counterpart, Lidia, picked us up at the airport and took us to the city center and the Plaza Mayor, where we checked out the Cathedral of Lima and colonial buildings. We saw the official guards goose-stepping in front of the government house. We visited the oldest residence in Peru, the Casa de Aliaga.

The family still lived there, and it was a

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WorldView ∙ Spring 2018 ∙ www.PeaceCorpsConnect.org | 33

Excerpted from the book, Different Latitudes: My Life in the Peace Corps and Beyond,

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FIELD REPORTS

TEACHING CHAMPIONS

How to reach everyone in a crowded Liberian classroom

By Kathleen Nelson

L

ike many classrooms across Liberia, mine is what you might call “spatially challenged.”

Seventy students were never meant to sit in such close quarters to one another; nevertheless, they persist in coming to school every day and fighting to find their seats amidst the sea of mangled desks and chairs. Unsurprisingly, having a seating chart was a dream of mine that died.

When my students struggled to find their seats each morning, how could I force them to sit in a rigid system? Eventually, we settled upon neat and, sometimes tidy rows. Like this, at least, I felt like I could start to do my job.

Circulating was always my favorite technique from a book called Teach Like a Champion, perhaps because it is so simple and, more so, because it is so effective.

It is challenging to keep 70 students on task, and I cannot claim to have mastered that just yet, but being able to walk up and down the aisles of desks has helped me get to know my students, their abilities and more importantly, how best to encourage their talents. There is a young woman in my 11th-grade class who I discovered because I took the time to walk around and stop to look at her work.

Like me, she is never the first to raise her hand, if she raises it at all. She is quiet, well-behaved and dedicated to her work.

In a class of 70, some are more eager than others to share their knowledge.

She’s easy to overlook. Taking the time to stop and glance over her work revealed a young woman with such great potential to succeed in mathematics and there our journey began.

More and more, I would stop beside her while circulating the classroom, checking on her progress during our "Do Nows." Having that opportunity to correct her work and reinforce the ethics of "right is right" had such a profound effect on her confidence and her desire to get the right

34 | WorldView ∙ Spring 2018 ∙ National Peace Corps Association

answer the first time that soon enough she began to call my attention to her work long before I had a chance to make my way to her desk. One of my proudest moments as a teacher is the day that this young woman decided to come to the board and solve one of our "Do Now" problems.

Coming to the board as a female student is a brave choice for some. Boys might make comments about the length Kathleen Nelson

veritable museum, filled with pictures of famous family ancestors and centuriesold artifacts and furniture. At the end of our two days in Peru, we boarded a plane and headed back home.

I was pleased that most of the tour participants assumed that the last leg of the trip to Peru was part of our original travel plans, as the changes had been seamless. Ed Corr and I acted like nothing unusual had happened.

of your skirt, the state of your hair, how slowly you may or may not be writing, and what if you make a mistake? Nevertheless, this particular student was confident enough to overcome that fear, and it gave me the opportunity to praise her in front of her peers.

Giving her precise praise helped to raise her up in front of her classmates and, I hope, encourage the other young women in the room to take that same opportunity in the future.

I cannot claim I have mastered how to ‘teach like a champion’ yet, but I am certain I helped to teach a champion, and that is more than I could have hoped for even amidst the sea of mangled desks and chairs.

Kathleen Nelson is currently serving as a twoyear Peace Corps Volunteer in Liberia. This text originally appeared on the Peace Corps web site and is reprinted by permission.

FIELD REPORTS

THE KARAMOJA BALANCE Where wives plant crops and husbands learn nutrition

By Kari B. Henquinet of the change-agent mission of the USAID projects she advises. Her team always anticipates the impact of their proposals on a 14-year-old girl, the most common age and gender in Uganda’s demographics.

In USAID Food for Peace activities, lead mothers train other moms on nutrition, breast-feeding, hygiene, and birthing services. Male change agents also receive trainings on and share the value of nutritious foods, making decisions with partners, and caring for children.

In a partnership with the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research and USAID, Harvest Plus offered new varieties of bio-fortified sweet potatoes and beans which are

Kari B. Henquinet, Ph.D., is a senior lecturer in anthropology and director of Peace Corps partner programs at Michigan Technological University. Her professional and research experience focuses on international development, gender, and religion.

HarvestPlus Photo

T

o change gender inequities among farmers and pastoralists in the isolated and arid northeast of Uganda, Amber Lily Kenny has learned two things: be intentional and thoughtful about including women in projects, and be patient and diligent because this kind of change takes time.

Kenny learned how critical it is to engage more women in the marginalized economies of Ugandan households and communities through her experience as a Peace Corps agriculture and natural resources management volunteer in Agodopke, Togo from 2004 to 2006 and in her coursework in Michigan Tech’s Peace Corps Master’s International program.

In Togo, men typically spoke more French than the women, had a little more money and better access to cell phones, and expressed interest in participating.

Kenny says it initially may have seemed easier to work with men, but she knew that Togolese women also farmed the land and held critical responsibilities in the community. To sustainably increase food security and improve nutrition, Kenny needed to engage more women.

She began to explicitly recruit women to work with and gained buy-in from the community elders to support women’s participation.

Kenny now leads a U.S. Agency for International Development vulnerable populations unit as a commissioned agricultural officer focusing on Uganda’s Karamoja region. She sees the daily challenges Karamoja’s women face: only two percent are literate, and many face gender-based violence, poor nutrition, and a lack of access to health care and education.

Kenny applies those same Togo strategies in Karamoja by purposefully placing women’s issues at the center

commonly women’s crops, have also been introduced to address vitamin A and iron deficiencies. A farmer and mother who happens to be a school cook in Karamoja now grows the new beans and potatoes and has put them on the school lunch menu.

USAID sees results in Karamoja of an increase to 87 percent of women who feed their infants only breast milk, more husbands and wives now make joint decisions on household issues and child nutrition, and a decrease in gender-based violence. Kenny remembers, however, that change takes time, sometimes generations. Measurable improvements in women’s opportunities and child nutrition in Karamoja are laying a foundation for this next generation.

Dina is a farmer, mother and the school cook. She planted new bio-fortified sweet potatoes and beans, put them on the school menu and sells them in a Karamoja market.

WorldView ∙ Spring 2018 ∙ www.PeaceCorpsConnect.org | 35

ROGER LANDRUM

GALLERY

EMIR’S MOSQUE The photograph of the Emir’s Mosque in Zaria was taken by Roger Landrum. His service as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nigeria from 1961 to 1963 began a lifelong dedication to the youth service movement. As president of RPCVs of Washington, D.C. he was instrumental in establishing our national headquarters in Washington, D.C. He founded Teachers, Inc. in New York and Youth Service America and Youth Service International in Washington, D.C. Landrum worked closely with

36 | WorldView ∙ Spring 2018 ∙ National Peace Corps Association

the Ford, Kellogg and Mott foundations and such champions of national service as Sen. Harris Wofford and Father Theodore Hesburgh to enact the National and Community Service Acts of 1990 and 1993. In retirement, he turned to fine art photography and received the Prix de la Photographie Paris and first-place honors in the 2008 International Photography Awards. Landrum died on December 9. A memorial service will be held in Washington, D.C. on June 2.

FIELD NOTES

AFTER THE HACIENDA

Achieving economic independence in Ecuador’s Sierra

A

lan Adams and I were among a small group of Peace Corps Volunteers who were sent in the mid-1960s to the Ecuadorian highlands to help indigenous communities overcome the severe poverty and social degradation that have existed for generations.

A military junta took power and passed an Agrarian Reform Law three years before our arrival, returning land to the indigenous farmers who owed their livelihood and their very identity to a 400-year-old hacienda system developed by the Spanish conquerors.

Many of the haciendas we saw were poorly run, punitively administered, and in some cases abandoned by their owners.

The hacienda system had degraded the soil due to lack of proper soil conservation management.

In any major social and economic undertaking such as agrarian reform, large sectors of Ecuador’s non-indigenous population resisted and pushed back, in part due to the fact that the hacienda system was not just an economic institution but had an over-arching social and cultural system that had subjugated the indigenous people for centuries.

Alan worked in Cañar and I worked in Colta, located in Chimborazo Province 10,000 feet in altitude rising to 13,500 feet in the Ecuadorian highlands in a high plateau pasture area with an uneven topography from rolling hills to deep ravines and steep slopes called the Páramo. The Páramo was mainly used as pasture land. These communities were situated along the Pan-American Highway that runs along the spine of the Andes from Colombia to Chile.

Best of Intentions Many attempts were made during the 1960s to develop farm cooperatives,

FLORENCIA PICHAZACA

By Stuart Moskowitz

Middle School Students from Rumiñahui School in Quilloac, Cañar working with seeds

increase the soil’s productivity, and encourage their own efforts to improve their general well-being by improving the social, economic and psychological conditions that had been destroyed under the hacienda system. The indigenous farmers who lived in these local communities of the Sierra were distrustful of outside intervention by well-intentioned Ecuadorians and of many foreign aid agencies and that included this small group of Peace Corps Volunteers.

To confront this reality of distrust, Alan and I were part of a team of volunteers called the Campesino Leadership Program founded under the auspices of Peace Corps Ecuador and the U.S. Agency for International

Development. We developed a series of educational seminars to encourage indigenous community leaders to become more self-reliant and interdependent.

They achieved a greater sense of selfempowerment and community goalsetting but we weren’t sure how certain it would last beyond our departure. But what I took away from it was that the indigenous participants gained a greater sense of self-empowerment and enhanced community goal setting.

Two years ago, in 2015, I fulfilled a lifelong dream to return to Ecuador.

I saw many changes as a result of many socioeconomic forces, but what I experienced was profound differences in the well-being of the indigenous populations. The Ecuador I left in 1969

WorldView ∙ Spring 2018 ∙ www.PeaceCorpsConnect.org | 37

was not the Ecuador I found 46 years later.

I met Nicolas Pichazaca Mayancela, the general manager of a cooperative called the Association of Producers of Seeds and Nutritional Andean Foods of Mushuk Yuyay. The co-op was founded in 1994 by a group of local indigenous community leaders long after our Peace Corps work had ended. Officially, it was called APROSANAMY. Mushuk Yuyay means “new thought” in Quichua.

Their goal is to tackle the threat of food insecurity, to create sustainable family farm economies, restore agro-biodiversity, develop a healthier agricultural community in Cañar, and slow the massive exodus from the Sierras region.

The meeting with Nicolas Pichazaca had been arranged by Alan, who two years earlier had been contacted by Nicolas to assist them in the cooperative’s development. Now a retired teacher who lives thousands of miles away in Hillsborough, New Jersey, Alan has helped raise funds to build a farm produce processing and packaging plant

to process highly nutritious Andean grains, particularly quinoa, chocho, and amaranth and establish a child education program called Healthy Children Healthy Futures.

Women and children Indigenous men in the region have been abandoning unsustainable farming and looking for work in cities and neighboring countries, leaving the women to farm unproductive soils. Mushuk Yuyay helps indigenous women who remain at home by increasing their role in developing their own association and involving them in cultivation, harvesting, and marketing Andean grains.

The cooperative has achieved many victories, but its long-term prospects are daunting. The board of directors remains committed to success and has borrowed a considerable amount of money to build the processing and packaging plant. The facility should open early in 2018 and will increase production of these highly nutritious Andean grains, particularly quinoa, chocho, and amaranth, all with

Mushuk Yuyay helps indigenous women … involving them in cultivation, harvesting and marketing Andean grains. the goal of restoring the biodiversity of the Andean agricultural environment and providing a more nutrient rich diet for local residents.

I want to call attention to the success of Healthy Children, Healthy Futures, one of the projects empowered by Mushuk Yuyay. Ten communities in and around Cañar are being served by this innovative program that underscores the very heart of the coop’s mission. Healthy Children, Healthy Futures was designed to reduce malnutrition and raise the overall performance of the students. With strong community support, the project has created crop demonstration plots in the local schools.

In Cañar Province’s community of

Application Deadline June 1st

38 | WorldView ∙ Spring 2018 ∙ National Peace Corps Association

Quilloac, 171 primary school students are learning the nutritional value of these Andean grains by growing crops, processing the harvest, preparing the crops, and serving them in a daily school meals program, thereby raising the overall school performance of the children who are eating these nutritious meals. In the long term, they are promoting these traditional nutritional foods to the next generation.

This garden and nutrition program has been supported by contributions from First Peoples Worldwide, the global crowd sourcing GlobalGiving, the NPCA affiliates Friends of Ecuador, the Boston Area Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, individual RPCVs, and many who have not served in Peace Corps.

Before I left the Sierras, I stopped at my old site in Colta where I met an unmarried indigenous woman. She happened to be walking along on a newly constructed unpaved street. I asked for the directions to the home of a farmer I worked with. As we talked, I noticed she was looking directly at me, making good eye contact as she spoke. She did not need a chaperone. That would never have happened when I was there in 1969. Then she introduced me to her entire extended family that included four generations and invited me into their home constructed of cement walls, metal roofs, ceramic tiles on the floor, and a dropped ceiling. This was a far cry from the dark, mud house I had lived in for one year in 1968. They served a traditional barley soup, boiled eggs, and sweet crackers. I left with an inner smile of hope and the satisfaction of knowing that Ecuador had made the hard and long transition to integrate the indigenous peoples into the fabric of Ecuadorian life.

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Stuart Moskowitz is a marriage and family therapist in Worcester, Massachusetts. He worked in campesino leadership in Colta, Ecuador from 1967 to 1969. For more information, contact Alan Adams, RPCV at aladams475@aol.com or Stuart Moskowitz at smoskow@charter.net. Or search for the Healthy Children, Healthy Futures produced

by APROSANAMY on You Tube.

WorldView ∙ Spring 2018 ∙ www.PeaceCorpsConnect.org | 39

TRAVEL

LOOKING FOR THE SILK ROAD

Travel by van and train in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

By Billie Day

I

put away all of my images of Genghis Khan and his horsemen thundering across the vast steppes of Central Asia when I arrived in Almaty, the old capital of Kazakhstan. It’s a charming city bustling with activity and still embracing its reputation as the nation’s cultural and commercial capital.

Jane Lombardo, Muree Reafs, and I arrived a day early for a 12-day NPCA Next Step Travel tour of two of the countries that once thrived as major crossroads along the great Silk Road. In all of my years of travel to countries like Turkey and teaching about the rest of the world for two years in Sierra Leone and nearly 30 more at a couple of Washington, D.C. high schools, this is a place I had long been curious about: the centuries-old overland trade routes through Central Asia that brought together commerce and culture from the Korean peninsula all the way to the ports of the Mediterranean.

With maps in hand, we walked from our hotel along the broad tree-lined avenues to discover its old architecture.

We were stunned by the beauty of Ascension Cathedral, a massive Ukrainian-

baroque structure of many domes. Inside, we watched families holding infants and toddlers, waiting for baptismal rites from a handful of Russian Orthodox priests.

We capped off the afternoon with French pastries at the Aurora Cafe.

It seemed a walkable city but as soon as we joined our tour guide and translator, we began criss-crossing the streets of the city in a van, sometimes slowed by buses and other vehicles. Stops included a large well-kept market where we bought dried fruits and nuts. We saw a large selection of beef, lamb and horse as meat dominates the regional diet; there’s very little chicken or fish.

In our travels we found many Kazakhs and Kyrgyz friendly and helpful. Some vendors found us very amusing, three older travelers. In Bishkek they were amazed at our ages. In Almaty, they gave us free samples of nuts, fruit and candies.

Sometimes when we were lost, people on the streets gave us directions. One day, when Jane and Muree were lost and wandering through the streets, they asked a young couple how to get to the art museum. The couple said, ‘no, we’ll

40 | WorldView ∙ Spring 2018 ∙ National Peace Corps Association

take you there. Just follow us.’ And they did. When Jane suffered a severe attack of sciatica rushing to catch her flight home, a young man came up to her and in perfect English explained that her departure gate had changed. He directed her to the gate where she barely caught her flight.

Our first days in Almaty were filled with museums of art and history, including the beautiful Kazakh Museum of Folk Musical Instruments, the shining blue dome of the Almaty Mosque, and an array of monuments. We were honored to be hosted by a national artist and his family and to see their works. Along the way, we learned that the apple probably was, so to speak, born 4,000 years ago in Central Asia and its seed spread out along the Silk Road to the world. We were certainly to see our share of apple trees before we left the region.

Silk Roads It was three days before we spotted one of routes of the storied Silk Road.

After a morning trip to the shore of a lake outside Almaty, our guide stopped the van to point out one of the historic

ALL PHOTOS BY MUREE REAFS

routes: a nondescript dusty road. Absent the bustling caravans of ages past, it was hard to imagine this was the road which even today is one trade route among many. We continued our own journey on an overnight train ride across the steppes to Astana, Kazakhstan’s newer capital city.

Seeing the past and present of Central Asia reminded us that the United States is not the center of the universe. Twelve days is not long enough to deeply understand these places, but it was enough to appreciate that these two countries with their contrasting ways are trying to keep their place in the changing world and may once again be the hub.

In Astana we quickly plunged into the future at EXPO 2017 Astana, a World’s Fair event with a theme of Future Energy.

It was a vast display of sustainable and innovative technologies from over 130 countries. Kazakhsta is a country with a very long past but a future filled with large oil resources. The country’s exhibits explore a future filled with digital, multimedia, interactive technologies and displayed live presentations various energy sources such as solar, water, wind, biomass, and nuclear.

Astana was a small old-style Soviet city closer to Russia than Almaty. Things changes when in 1997 President Nursultan Nazarbayev moved the capital there. He’s been Kazakhstan’s president ever since the fall of the Soviet Union. His capital is a few old buildings now standing in

the midst of towering skyscrapers and modern shopping malls designed by worldrenowned architects to honor the spirit and history of the steppe nomads. Billions were spent to prepare the city for hosting EXPO 2017. There is also a new presidential palace but we visited the old palace which looked more like the museum of one of our former U.S. presidents.

Reminders of former Soviet times are clearly evident. One example is the Russian language spoken by so many people here.

Another is the stamp of Joseph Stalin’s reign of terror. At the gates of Alzhir, a former internment camp a half-hour drive outside of Astana, the sign at the entrance says the camp was built for “the wives of traitors of the Motherland.” Its victims included mothers, sisters, daughters, and small children of those accused of treason. For more than 15 years the Soviet Union jailed 18,000 women and girls of 62 nationalities who were only guilty of their family relationships. Older children disappeared into orphanages. Like other such museums of the world that serve as reminders to never forget, one cannot come away without somber reflection.

Back at the city of the future, we visited the beautifully designed Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, a conference and concert hall where we viewed the vast expanse of the city. The evening ended with a visit to the over 300-foot-high Bayterek monument. Following a long slow line of

The author shares a park bench with a statue of the 20th-century Kyrgyz writer Chingiz Aitmatov.

WorldView ∙ Spring 2018 ∙ www.PeaceCorpsConnect.org | 41

other visitors, we rode elevator to the top of “The Golden Egg,” a spherical symbol of the tree of life, a model of the ancient nomads’ perception of the origin of the universe. At the top, crowds queued up and placed their hands in a mold of the hand of President Nazarbayev to make a wish and preserve the occasion with cell phone photographs.

Eagles & yurts An endearing experience of the trip for us all was the meals with families in each country. Visiting a Kazakh family outside of Astana that hunts using golden eagles, we had one of the best-tasting meals of tender beef, noodles, dried cheese and traditional bread. While the mother of 11 cooked the meal, her children danced for us and her husband played music on his two-stringed dombra. The family also demonstrated its archery skills and some of their traditional children’s games.

Yurts remain central to the nomadic life of the region. They were in all of the museums. We learned how women and other family members take these yurts down, move them by truck from meadow to meadow and put them back together again every season. We were delighted to visit a yurt maker whose skills were handed down through his family. He demonstrated the long and difficult task of preparing the wood gathered from trees by all of the villagers. We slept that night in a yurt, gazing up to value the craftsmanship and the beauty of our very comfortable sleeping quarters.

In Kyrgyzstan we saw the Burana Tower, all that remains of a once-thriving eastern center on the Silk Road. The city was Balasagun, where cultures, religions, and languages met and mixed for more than five centuries. Today the only visitors are tourists and an occasional wedding party. Much of our trip in Kyrgyzstan Top to bottom: The Palace of Peace and Reconciliation that gives a modern look to Astana, Kazakhstan’s capital. It’s not far from the 300-foot tall Bayterek monument where members of a family ride an elevator to the top to place their hands in the mold of President Nursultan Nazarbayev. A maker of yurts displays the circle of wood that frames the ceiling of the nomad’s still-popular portable home.

42 | WorldView ∙ Spring 2018 ∙ National Peace Corps Association

took us around Issyk-Kul Lake to view the beautiful and sometimes unusual scenery along the way and to stop for fresh strawberries from the fields and apples from the orchards.

I will not forget my walk through a complex of chapels, statues, and pavilions in a four-acre park called Ruh-Ordo Cultural Center. The center is in the

We were lost and wandering through the streets when we asked a young couple how to get to the art museum. They said, ‘No, we’ll take you there. Just follow us.’

And they did. harbor town of Cholpon-Ata, a historic mixing of all major religions, civilizations and culture on the Silk Road. The chapels represent five of these religions. One of the pavilions is dedicated to the 20th-century Kyrgyz writer, Chingiz Aitmatov, whose 83 works include “Jamila,” his famous love poem that has been translated into English. His longer narrative of the history and culture of his homeland, The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years, was overlooked by his Soviet censors and captured the Soviet public attention.

Aitmatov’s works have much to say about people’s lives and the complexities of society. Encountering him at the park was one of the many new experiences of this Silk Road tour that proved to us that the region is once again at a major crossroads.

Billie Day taught secondary education in Sierra Leone from 1961 to 1963, was president of the RPCVs of Washington, D.C. and served on NPCA’s global education committee. If you are interested in more information about the NPCA Next Step trip to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the next trip is scheduled for September 1 through 13, 2018.

WorldView ∙ Spring 2018 ∙ www.PeaceCorpsConnect.org | 43

ACHIEVEMENTS

ARMENIA Mandy Manning (99-01) is a math and English teacher in Spokane, Washington and one of four finalists in the 2018 National Teacher of the Year competition. She teaches immigrants and refugees.

Joseph Andriano (09-11) is a law professor in the David D. Reh School of Business at Clarkson University.

He recently led a student trip to Armenia in fulfillment of the university’s student abroad requirement.

CHINA Michael Meyer (95-97) published his newest book, The Road to Sleeping Dragon, in Fall 2017. His new book documents his extensive post-Peace Corps service efforts to more fully understand China. He is a two-time winner of a Lowell Thomas Award for travel writing, and the recipient of the Whiting Writers’ Award for nonfiction and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

EL SALVADOR Mike Honda (65-67) concluded his 16-year congressional run this year. In 2008, he worked with thensenator Barack Obama to enhance federal coordination for supporting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs in public schools. He was a strong supporter of the Affordable Care Act, LGBT equality, and minimum wage increases.

ETHIOPIA Alesha Klein (14-16) is pursuing a master’s degree with the Stevenson Center for Community and Economic Development at Illinois State University. During her teaching service in Ethiopia she trained women to be gender ambassadors and raise awareness of women’s rights. Klein helped plan and manage the Women First 5K in Ethiopia’s capital city, Addis Ababa. The event drew 10,000 women.

HONDURAS Barbara Kaare-Lopez (78-80) was honored with the 2017 Outstanding Returning Peace Corps Volunteer award, which was given as part of the Governor’s Service Awards, presented by Serve Colorado, on September 7, 2017. She was nominated by the board as her “outgoing personality and compassionate nature has allowed her to connect with and make a difference in many people’s lives over the years.”

KENYA The recent New Yorker short story, "Cat Person," was written by Kristen Roupenian (03-05). This story about online dating was the weekly magazine's second most-read story of 2017.

Scout Press has paid a reported seven figures for the rights to two works by Roupenian.

The first is a collection of stories, "You Know You Want This," that is scheduled for release in the spring of 2019. She spent two years teaching public health and HIV education at an orphan's center a few hours from the Ugandan border. She then worked as a teacher's aide and a cashier in a bookstore before earning a Master's degree in English at Harvard. She devoted five years

44 | WorldView ∙ Spring 2018 ∙ National Peace Corps Association

to full-time writing and is currently at the University of Michigan on a writing fellowship.

PARAGUAY Phylicia Manley (12-14) is a community development specialist for Global Communities.

She received a master’s degree in economics and community development from Western Illinois University in Macomb this year.

SENEGAL Katherine Elizabeth [Pollack] Lamp (11-13) is a program associate for the Clinton Health Access Initiative, working on global health policy from Boulder, Colorado. She served in the Peace Corps in Senegal as a health education volunteer.

Laura Moro (15-17) of the Master’s Entry into Nursing Practice program has been named the 2017 Gurtler Scholar.

The $60,000 award is given each fall to one Returned Peace Corps Volunteer at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing.

SIERRA LEONE Arlene Golembiewski (74-76) was awarded the Procter & Gamble Humanitarian of the Year Alumni Award in November 2017.

Following the close of the civil war in Sierra Leone she returned to her country of service on a Friends of Sierra Leone trip and identified several community needs. In four years her Sherbro Foundation funded girls’ education, planted fruit trees, provided school fees and supported efforts to control the Ebola pandemic.

TUNISIA In December, the North Brunswick High School pool officially will be renamed for Gregg Anderson (70-72) who coaching record-breaking swim teams for the New Jersey school. Anderson was a two-time All-American at Rutgers, taught swimming in Tunisia, was inducted into the Rutgers Olympic Sports Hall of Fame and is a member of the New Jersey Interscholastic Athletic Association Hall of Fame.

SAINT VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES George Neary (73-75) since his Peace Corps service has continued his community engagement through his career in hospitality and tourism.

In 2017 he was awarded the 27th Miami Tourism Professional of the Year by the Miami Academy of Hospitality and Tourism. This award is given to the tourism professional that personifies the best in Miami’s hospitality and is working above and beyond the norm to showcase Miami to the world.

co-executive director of AmeriCorps Alums, supporting the nearly one million alumni of AmeriCorps.

Bruce has supported the careers of young leaders through America’s Promise Alliance, the Boston Public Schools, City

Year, the College Board, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Corporation for National and Community Service, and MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership. She was a youth development volunteer in Morocco.

Peter Deekle is a regular contributor to WorldView and served in Iran from 1968 to 1970."

School of International and Public Affairs and The Earth Institute

www.sipa.columbia.edu/mpa-dp

CAMEROON Jacob Moore (12-15) is director of ScholarShop Africa, an organization furnishing school supplies and leadership training to students in Sub-Saharan Africa. He recently started a crosscountry U.S. bicycle trip to raise money for the program. As a volunteer, Jacob started sustainable community gardens for five villages in Cameroon continues to serve as an agribusiness consultant in Cameroon helping rural farmers boost their income with new agricultural techniques and crops such soybeans.

MOROCCO The B.A. Randolph Foundation appointed Mary Bruce (04-06) as its first executive director. She recently served as

We are not spectators The Master of Public Administration in Development Practice (MPA-DP) engages emerging practitioners to develop, implement, and manage comprehensive approaches to sustainable development.

Early Action: Fellowship consideration: Final deadline:

Nov. 1st, 2018 Jan. 5th, 2019 Feb. 5th, 2019

WorldView ∙ Spring 2018 ∙ www.PeaceCorpsConnect.org | 45

A DEGREE OF

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