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All The World’s a Stage: A Nigerian Shakespeare Festival

Tom Hebert served in the Peace Corps from 1962-1964. During his service in Nigeria, he served as a business manager for the University of Ibadan’s School of Drama. In this role, he also worked as the “advance man” for the University of Ibadan’s “Theater on Wheels” cross country tour. His duties including tour logistics, promotion, and coordinating with local civic organizations.  In 1964, in commemoration of William Shakespeare’s 400th birthday, the tour group organized a traveling Shakespeare festival. Actors performed selected scenes from plays such as Richard II, Hamlet, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Many West Africans read Shakespeare in school and in many cases throughout the tour, actors performed in front of full capacity audiences. In the city of Calabar, not even a rainstorm shortly after the start of Julius Caesar prevented the audience from enjoying the show. Shown below is a poster advertising the March 6-7, 1964 Shakespeare festival in Ibadan, Nigeria. Tom Hebert donated this item to the Peace Corps Community Archive this past summer. Many of the details in this post are taken from Hebert’s reminiscences of his Peace Corps service.

Ibadan Shakespeare Festival, March 6-7, 1964. American University Peace Corps Community Archive

Ibadan Shakespeare Festival, March 6-7, 1964. American University Peace Corps Community Archive

Rachel Teter in Panama

Rachel Teter

Country of Service: Panama
Dates in Service: 2011-2013
Keywords: Agriculture

Accession Date: August 13, 2014
Access: Donor must be notified via email when permission to publish is requested
Collection Size: 1647 items

Link to digital collection.

Document Types and Finding Aid

Cole Shaw in Mexico

Cole Shaw

Country of Service: Mexico
Place of Service: Nuevo Leon
Service Type: Engineering (CONACYT)
Dates in Service: 2009-2011
Keywords: Community Development, Information Technology, Health

Accession Date: July 10, 2014
Access: No restrictions
Collection Size: 1 item

Document Types and Finding Aid

      • web blog

https://wayback.archive-it.org/1435/20140825194452/http://awolverineinmexico.blogspot.com/

Avram Primack in the Philippines

Avram Primack

Country of Service: Philippines
Place of Service: Negros Oriental
Service Type: Marine Fisheries
Dates in Service: 1987-1989
Keywords: Agriculture, Environment

Accession Date: July 9, 2014
Access: No restrictions
Collection Size: 1 item

Document Types and Finding Aid

Anita P. Turner in Kenya

Anita P. Turner

Country of Service: Kenya
Service Type: Small Towns and Community Development (USAID)
Dates in Service: 1982-1984
Keywords: Business, Community Development

Accession Date: June 23, 2014
Access: No restrictions
Collection Size: 0.5 linear feet

Document Types

  • Correspondence
  • Reports
  • Training materials
  • Memoir

Related Items in Other Repositories

Finding Aid

  1. Descriptive Reports
    1. Timeline and Description of Service 
  2. Peace Corps Times Article Correspondence 
  3. Personal Correspondence
    1. 1980s 
  4. Post-Service Peace Corps Involvement 
  5. Problem Solving Workshop, 1983
    1. Workshop Materials 
  6. Housing Unit Curriculum (1984)
    1. Curriculum Materials 
  7. Proposal Writing Workshop, 1984
    1. Workshop Materials 
  8. Recollections of Application and Arrival in Kenya 
  9. Resume Writing/Career Planning Workshop (1984)
    1. Workshop Materials 
  10. Small Town Development and Urban Housing Materials (1982-1984) 

Tom Hebert in Nigeria

Name: Tom Hebert

Country of Service: Nigeria
Place of Service: Ibadan
Service Project Title: University of Ibadan’s Shakespeare Traveling Theatre (Tour Manager)
Dates in Service: 1962-1964
Keywords: Arts

Accession Date: June 3, 2014
Access: No restrictions
Collection Size: 1 oversize item and 8 linear inches

Document Types

Finding Aid

  1. Training Materials – “Syllabus for the Peace Corps Training Program – Secondary School Teachers” 
  2. Teaching Materials – UCLA Schedule, Readings, Lecture Notes, Exams 
  3. Application: Blank Peace Corps Application 
  4. Correspondence 
  5. Returned Peace Corps Materials 
  6. Newsletter: “the Tilley Lamp” 
  7. Official Paperwork: Peace Corps Service 
    1. Certificate 
  8. School and Teaching Materials – Ahmadiyya Grammar School 
    1. English exams from students 
  9. School and Teaching Materials – University of Ibadan 
  10. Theater Materials (Nigerian) 
  11. Theatre Production, “The Gossips of Ewa” 
    1. Photos and Prompt/Cue book 
  12. Theatre Production: Shakespeare 
  13. Training Materials – Letters from students in the teacher training course 
  14. Training Materials – Supplies and Medical Information 
  15. Traveling Materials (maps, etc.) 

Unexpected Finds in the PCCA

The Peace Corps Community Archive is more than old documents and  photos.  In fact, the collection contains a few unexpected items.

Travel Brochures

Travel guides and brochures found in Steven Bossi’s collection.

Steve Bossi’s collection includes vibrant travel brochures, guidebooks, and maps of India in the 1960s.  Guidebooks from Delhi and Agra include images and maps depicting the cities’ beautiful architecture and historic and religious sites.  Each guidebook provides an historic overview of the city and its tourist attractions.  The colorful maps reveal popular sites and accommodations, as well as industries, agriculture, infrastructure projects, and “handicrafts emporiums” found throughout the region.

Maps

Maps and travel guide from Steven Bossi’s collection.

Located amid the DeAntoni’s correspondence are Turkish greeting cards.  Karen DeAntoni sent the cards to family members in the United States in 1965.  The cards include embossed images and prints of engravings depicting Turkey’s culture and history.

Embossed Cards

Turkish embossed cards sent by Karen DeAntoni.

Engraved Cards

Top: An engraving of the rock relief at Yazilikaya–the Hitite King Tudhaliya IV. Engraving created by Charles Texier in the 1830s. Bottom: Ankara in 1701. From an engraving by Pitton de Tournefort.

Not only are these visually interesting, but they provide a new perspective of the places Peace Corps volunteers called home.

 

 

 

Peace Corps through Images: The People

Below are images of local citizens taken by Peace Corps volunteers.  Each photograph captures local culture and customs through the nation’s people — as artisans, students, families, and participants in celebrations.

“Paraguayan artisan making ‘nanduti’ (spider-web lace) in her home shop in Itagua, the center of the nanduti artistry.” Caption written by Robert Meade.

 

“Students husking–polishing the floor with a coconut husk. At 7:00 AM–before school duties.” Caption written by Joyce Emery Johnston

 

“Campesino home and family.” Caption written by Robert Meade.

 

PC Boge- Snake Charmer edit

Snake Charmer

 

Celebration. Captured by Norm and Janet Heise while working for Walt Sangree, professor of anthropology. circa 1963-1965.

 

RPCV Memoirs: Accomplishing the Third Goal

The Barrios of Manta

Memoirs capture an individual’s life.  For many RPCVs, writing about their life and work in another country provides the best way to educate others.

Rhoda and Earle Brooks, who served in Ecuador from 1962-1964, published the first Peace Corps memoir titled The Barrios of Manta: A Personal Account of the Peace Corps in Ecuador in 1965.  Shortly after, Arnold Zeitlin (1961-1963) published To the Peace Corps with Love—a memoir about his service in Ghana.   The Barrios of Manta and To the Peace Corps with Love established a precedent for future Peace Corps volunteers.

To the Peace Corps with Love edited

 

 

Upon completing their service abroad, Peace Corps challenges returned volunteers to carry out the organization’s Third Goal.  The goal aims to inform Americans about people and cultures around the world.  Through education about other nations and their people, the Peace Corps seeks to foster understanding and world peace.

Memoirs provide a platform for sharing one’s experiences and knowledge of their host country with the rest of the US.  For more information and an extensive bibliography of published works on the Peace Corps, visit Peace Corps Worldwide.

Worth A Thousand Words

Images offer a chance to peak inside someone else’s world.  Often, they provide the best means for understanding an event in the past, or an experience beyond our own comprehension.  This is especially true when it comes to the many exciting and exotic opportunities encountered by Peace Corps volunteers.

Reading about these experiences, or hearing RPCVs recall stories from the past, doesn’t convey the same understanding as seeing it with your own eyes–even if that means through a photograph.  While they may have faced difficult challenges and unpleasant moments, Peace Corps volunteers also witnessed beautiful landscapes, sampled local cuisine, and embraced traditional cultures and customs.

From ordinary to the unusual, images in the PCCA depict the wide variety of Peace Corps volunteers’ experiences.  Enjoy a few of the images found in the collection.

Miango Village near Jos. Home of the Irigwe people studied by Walt Sangree, professor of anthropology at Rochester University. circa 1963-1965.

 

Pearl Diver

A Peace Corps volunteer followed by a crowd of children. Winifred Boge remembered, “she always got a big ‘following’–she was smiling and friendly to all.”

 

Peace Corps volunteer on top of a termite mound in Concepcion, Paraguay.