Category Archives: Blog post

Returned Peace Corps Volunteers and the Third Goal

The Peace Corps has always operated with a three-point goal in mind: serve host countries, introduce host countries to Americans, and to help Americans better understand non-Americans. [1] Peace Corps Volunteers do not stop fulfilling this third goal when they finish their service. One of the ways that Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) have accomplished this goal is by establishing organizations that work to help their country of service.

The American University Archives features materials from these organizations, whether donated by a Volunteer or the organization itself. Returned Peace Corps Volunteers often founded these associations in the final decades of the twentieth century. Many have the title “Friends of [Country of Service].” These groups provide a way for members who served together or in the same country to keep in touch. However, they also have a central focus on providing resources to and keeping American attention on their country of service. As such, they continue to fulfill the third goal of the Peace Corps.

This flyer shows how the Friends of Costa Rica Organization clearly thought of themselves as fulfilling the Peace Corps’ third goal and wanted other RPCVs to do the same. Friends of Costa Rica, “Third Goal Forum!” 1996, American University Archives, Washington, D.C.

The Peace Corps Community Archive has materials from organizations for RPCVS from five countries: Colombia, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and the Dominican Republic. A former fellow has written an amazing post about materials from the Friends of Nigeria, but the other four groups’ collections are also fascinating. Of especial note is the Friends of Colombia, which has been donating material since before the Peace Corps Community Archive began. The archive now has several decades of the organization’s materials, as well as the collections of dozens of Colombia RPCVs. These boxes are filled with stories, such as the organization’s founding, Colombian RPCV reunions, and donations and events that the group facilitated to help Colombians. However, Friends of Colombia has also worked to make a wider circle of Americans become more familiar with Colombians, such as through their participation in President Clinton’s 1992 inaugural parade. [2]

The founders of the Friends of Colombia in the living room where they started the organization. Photo undated, circa 2000. American University, Washington D.C.

While the archives does not have as much material from the Friends of the Dominican Republic, Ghana, or Kenya, these collections are still incredibly interesting. The Friends of Ghana organization has donated materials including meeting notes, newsletters, and the donation information. Members of the Friends of the Dominican Republic donated materials from their time assisting the organization (a list of members and related blog posts can be found here). Robert Scully donated materials from the Friends of Kenya. These groups also helped to facilitate connections between RCPVs, the country in which they served, and other Americans. For example, Robert Scully’s collection features Friends of Kenya materials from the 1990s and early 2000s, when he served on the organization’s board. During his tenure, the group donated to causes such as fighting polio in Kenya. Similar to Friends of Colombia, the group also interacted with Kenyans at the highest levels of government. This included the Kenyan ambassador to the United States, as seen below.

This is Robert Scully’s invitation to the thirty-third anniversary celebration of Kenya’s independence, courtesy of the Kenyan ambassador to the United States. American University Archives, Washington, D.C.

All of these organizations have also continued to carry out the Peace Corps’ third goal. The Peace Corps Community Archive has information on dozens of charitable projects that these five organizations alone have assisted. As shown above, these groups frequently have a great deal of influence due to their ties to the Peace Corps and former country of service. Meetings with ambassadors or other high-ranking officials from their countries of service, such as Scully’s, are not uncommon. Such work has made it more likely that other Americans will learn about their countries of service. These groups have all helped Americans, whether or not they are RPCVs, better understand non-Americans, therefore fulfilling a key Peace Corps purpose.

 

 

 

 

[1]”2020 Fact Sheet,” Peace Corps, December 2019, https://files.peacecorps.gov/multimedia/pdf/about/pc_facts.pdf.

[2] “Friends of Colombia (FOC) Activities,” c. 1996. American University Archives, Washington, D.C.

The Case of the Peace Corps Fellow and the Mysterious Napkin

Hi! My name is Emily Messner, and I have spent the past school year as the Peace Corps Community Archive Fellow, cataloging new collections and writing blog posts. As the year ends, I want to share the most unexpectedly remarkable story I encountered in my work. Therefore, this post is a little different because it involves an archival collection and my work to solve a very unique mystery. In the process, I’d also like to give you all a little “peek behind the curtain” to see what it’s like to be a student-archivist. Enjoy!

Chapter 1: Arnold Zeitlin

Of course, this story starts long before me. It begins with a donor-Arnold Zeitlin. In 1961, Arnold Zeitlin was a journalist living in Pittsburgh. He was paying attention to the newly-elected President Kennedy’s policies, especially his implementation of the Peace Corps. Zeitlin then followed in the footsteps of his hero, famed journalist Edward R. Murrow, to work for the government. Additionally, the idea of trading television reviews for service appealed to him. [1] The Peace Corps accepted Zeitlin, and in the summer of 1961, he was on his way to California to take part in a training and selection process.

After a false start, Ghana accepted Arnold Zeitlin as part of the very first Peace Corps group to start their service-Ghana I. He served as an English teacher in Ghana’s capital city, Accra. During his time as a Volunteer, Zeitlin continued writing newspaper articles about his experiences, primarily for Pittsburgh newspapers. Zeitlin’s Peace Corps experience also featured love: he met his wife, got married, and ultimately divorced some years later. After completing his service, Zeitlin resumed his career in journalism, although he also continued to write and think about the Peace Corps. This included one of the first memoirs about Peace Corps Service, To The Peace Corps With Love, which he published in 1965. Recently, Zeitlin donated a great deal of his Peace Corps materials to the Peace Corps Community Archive at American University.

Arnold Zeitlin in Accra with his students, c. 1961-1963. American University Archives, Washington, D.C.

Chapter 2: An Archival Puzzle

In November 2022, I had three months under my belt at my fellowship, and I was ready to start processing another collection. I grabbed the box with Arnold Zeitlin’s donations and opened it up to see a great deal of fascinating material. The donation included everything from newspapers, to photos, to correspondence, and much more. I prefer to start working on new collections by processing any correspondence. Letters written before or during a Volunteer’s service usually give me valuable information about the Volunteer and their experiences. This context makes it easier to understand the significance of the rest of their donation. Archivists do their best to preserve the original organization of donations. Sometimes, such as in the case of Zeitlin’s correspondence, the donor only organizes some of their letters. I therefore put the rest of his letters into chronological order.

As I was doing this, I found an object that was not a letter at all: this napkin, which had no clear connection to any of the letters I sorted. It had a very strange collection of phrases on it in Zeitlin’s handwriting, such as, “I do not like to see women smoke,” “I wish I could be as happy as others seem to be,” and “I am more sensitive than most.” [2]

What was the story behind this napkin? A full transcript of the letter’s phrases is at the end of the post. Arnold Zeitlin, napkin with list of phrases, 1961, American University Archives, Washington, D.C.

Finds such as this napkin are fairly unusual. In my three years of experience, I have never seen anything quite like this. More delicate paper products such as napkins, especially a completely unfolded one, are not the easiest to write on. Nor are they easy to preserve for several decades. And then there were all the odd phrases, which made no sense and slightly concerned me. As I continued processing the collection, I became more and more confused: What was this object, and what did it mean? Since my position is only a few hours a week, it took me quite a while to process Zeitlin’s collection, and the mystery grew deeper and deeper in my mind.

Chapter 3: Mystery Solved!

The very last set of items that I had to process in Arnold Zeitlin’s collection were a few dozen newspaper articles about Ghana I’s service. Zeitlin wrote about half of them. I began the delicate process of sorting and scanning them- newspaper ages poorly and easily tears. As I started to scan the newspaper articles that Zeitlin wrote during Ghana I’s California training, a few bolded words suddenly leapt out at me. These were the phrases from the napkin!

Mystery solved! Arnold Zeitlin’s newspaper article that included information from the napkin. Arnold Zeitlin, “Peace Corps Quiz Probes Aspirant,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, date unknown. American University Archives, Washington, D.C.

After a little more reading, I realized that Zeitlin was writing a humorous, slightly frustrated article about the battery of psychological tests he and fellow hopeful Volunteers had to take. Words on the napkin were quotes from what he considered the most ridiculous true/false psychological questions on a test. [3] In To the Peace Corps With Love, which I would read later, Zeitlin discussed enduring the wide range of psychological tests and interviews, alongside his equally humored and incredulous peers. His conclusion was that the Peace Corps was bending over backwards to make sure that this first group of Volunteers would carry out their work as smoothly as possible. [4] He also noted that one of the psychologists, Brewster Smith, had not taken kindly to his critical article on the matter. Even as he hurried to join the rest of Ghana I after their arrival, his send-off included a good-natured, exasperated warning to write no further articles about psychiatrists. [5]

To confirm my findings, I contacted Arnold Zeitlin himself, who graciously answered my list of questions about a small occurrence that had happened more than sixty years before. To supplement the memoir, Zeitlin noted that he thought that the Peace Corps’ reliance on all of the odd tests to predict Volunteers’ performance was “absurd.” [6] He found the situation so ridiculous that he had to write an article. Zeitlin enjoyed the opportunity to share his experiences-whether fascinating or ridiculous- with his readers back in Pittsburgh. [7] Finally, Zeitlin wrote that he had been able to become friends with Brewster Smith years later over a lunch in Hong Kong, where Zeitlin was living at the time. [8] With all of this information, the ends of my napkin mystery tied themselves in a surprisingly neat bow. You can see the results in the finding aid for Zeitlin’s collection, which includes an entry just for the napkin. Zeitlin recently passed away, after a long, rich life. I am very grateful for the time he took to tell me about his experiences.

Arnold Zeitlin with his wife, celebrating his ninetieth birthday. Photo from Arnold Zeitlin.

Epilogue: The Mysteries Continue

This is not the only mystery that I have focused on this year. For example, one of my first blog posts was on a mystery novel inspired by the author’s lived experiences in the Peace Corps. And while this “case” was a more involved puzzle than most of my work entails, mini-mysteries are not uncommon while working in archives. If part of a donation comes without enough context through the materials surrounding it, it becomes a little mystery of its own. That is fine by me! Figuring out more information about these items is one of my favorite parts of this wonderful job. On that note, I am very excited to say that I will be back again as the fellow for the 2023-2024 school year. So be on the lookout for more Peace Corps mysteries and intrigues that I uncover in my work, starting in August!

Transcription of the napkin’s phrases:

  • I like to flirt 
  • I believe my sins are unpardonable 
  • I like to talk about sex 
  • I am more sensitive than most 
  • Often I cross the street in order not to meet someone I know 
  • Some people are so bossy that I feel like doing the opposite of what they request, even though I know they are right 
  • I certainly feel useless at times 
  • I have diarrhea once a month or more 
  • When I am with people, I am bothered by hearing very queer things 
  • Everything is turning out just like the prophets of the Bible said it would 
  • I wish I could be as happy as others seem to be  
  • I do not like to see women smoke  
  • I would certainly enjoy besting a [crude?] at his own game 
  • At times I think I am no good at all 
  • I am attracted by members of the opp[osite] sex 
  • Christ performed miracles such as changing water into wine 
  • WX or Lincoln 

[1] Arnold Zeitlin, email message to author, February 7, 2023; Arnold Zeitlin, To the Peace Corps With Love (Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1965), 19.  

[2] Arnold Zeitlin, napkin with list of phrases, 1961, American University Archives, Washington, D.C. 

[3] Arnold Zeitlin, “Peace Corps Quiz Probes Aspirant,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, date unknown. American University Archives, Washington, D.C. 

[4] Arnold Zeitlin, email message to author, February 7, 2023; Arnold Zeitlin, email message to author, February 7, 2023. 

[5] Zeitlin, To the Peace Corps With Love, 48. 

[6] Arnold Zeitlin, email message to author, February 7, 2023. 

[7] Arnold Zeitlin, email message to author, February 7, 2023; Arnold Zeitlin, email message to author, February 7, 2023. 

[8] Arnold Zeitlin, email message to author, February 10, 2023. 

“To The New Volunteer:” Helpful Letters in a New Place

Starting Peace Corps service has often been a time of unknowns for volunteers. They are living in different countries, often speaking languages that are new to them, and adjusting to cultures that they are unfamiliar with. Such was the case for Jessica Vapnek, who served from 1985-1987 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (then Zaire). She taught high school English, music, and girls’ health classes in Kirumba, a remote small town in the northeast of the country. [1] While her living conditions were well-off compared to her neighbors, her small house had no electricity, and Vapnek was the only Volunteer in Kirumba. However, she did have one unexpected guide.

Guidance From Previous Volunteers

Within her first few days of living in Kirumba, Jessica Vapnek found two lengthy letters in an envelope titled “To The New Volunteer in Kasando” (a name of a tiny town near Kirumba).[2] Two authors wrote these letters: Sheila Kemper, who served in the town from 1979-1981, and Carol Buffum, a Peace Corps Volunteer that likely served between 1981-1983. They were probably left by the volunteer who had served in Kirumba before Vapnek, from 1983-1985. The letters contained key information that an incoming Volunteer to Kirumba would have been unlikely to know. Kemper’s letter was typed (with some handwritten notes from Buffum) and contained information about the Volunteer’s house, buying food, communicating with the Peace Corps, medical care, and more.[3] Buffum’s pages of handwritten notes contained updates and advice about getting along with other teachers, students, and townspeople.[4] Such information would have been a lifeline for any Volunteers who read the letters, since they were in the process of adjusting to a town and a routine of living that they were incredibly unfamiliar with.

The envelope of the letter packet that Jessica Vapnek found. American University Archives, Washington, D.C.

After her service, Vapnek took the letters home with her because the Peace Corps closed her volunteer post when she left. She planned to send them to the next volunteer in Kasando if the post reopened.[5] However, the Peace Corps closed its Zaire programs entirely in 1991, so Vapnek held on to the letters until she donated them to the archive.[6] Jessica Vapnek also received an additional private letter from another Kasando Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, and the two wrote letters during part of Vapnek’s service.[7]

The first page of Sheila Kemper’s letter to future Volunteers. American University Archives, Washington, D.C.

Volunteers Helping Each Other

This series of letters greatly assisted Jessica Vapnek and the Volunteers who served before her. It also demonstrates the kindness and solidarity of the Peace Corps Volunteers who served in Kirumba over the course of nearly a decade. While none of them met, they made each other’s lives less stressful in new situations by adding or preserving key information for a new Peace Corps Volunteer. Vapnek thought the idea was fantastic and found the packet and her correspondence to be incredibly helpful.[1] As such, the letters are a very inspiring read. They lead me to the question: What are ways that you and I can help people in new environments?

 

 

[1] Bruce J. Cohen. “Description of Peace Corps Volunteer Service.” July 23, 1987. American University Archives, Washington, D.C.

[2] Jessica Vapnek in discussion with the author, February 14, 2023.

[3] Sheila Kemper memo to new volunteer, 1981. American University Archives, Washington, D.C.

[4] Carol Buffum to new volunteer, c. 1983. American University Archives, Washington, D.C.

[5] Jessica Vapnek in discussion with the author, February 14, 2023.

[6] “Countries,” Peace Corps, 2023, https://www.peacecorps.gov/countries/.

[7] Jessica Vapnek in discussion with the author, February 14, 2023.

[8] Jessica Vapnek in discussion with the author, February 14, 2023.

[1] Jessica Vapnek in discussion with the author, February 14, 2023.

The Peace Corps and the Vietnam War: Effects of the Conflict on the Peace Corps

In 1965, the United States expanded its role in South Vietnam into full-fledged combat. [1] By the time that the United States withdrew its troops in 1973, the country had divided between the conflict’s supporters and those who opposed it. During the war, a significant number of Peace Corps Volunteers were among this opposition. The war would impact their experience with the Peace Corps, as well as the organization itself. Two of the main ways that the Vietnam War impacted the Peace Corps and its Volunteers were through the draft and Volunteers’ various acts of protest.

The Peace Corps and the Vietnam War Draft

One of the main ways that the Vietnam War impacted the Peace Corps and its Volunteers was through the draft. Starting in 1964, the United States expanded its peacetime draft to provide soldiers for its escalating conflict. [2] As the U.S. presence in Vietnam increased, the draft would impact the Peace Corps in two key ways. First, men eligible for the draft increasingly utilized the Peace Corps as a way to avoid military service if they were opposed to the war. This avoidance took multiple forms. For example, Dan Krummes, who volunteered in Senegal between 1972 and 1974, received Conscientious Objector status. As a part of maintaining this status, he was required to do community service. The Peace Corps was an option for fulfilling the requirement, which he chose. [3]

<img src="Krummes_0001" alt="Dan Krummes standing under a tree by a school.">

Dan Krummes outside the school where he taught in Senegal in 1973.

Another route many draft-eligible men took was to quietly apply for the Peace Corps without Conscientious Objector status and not state their true intentions, since the Peace Corps was in the process of strongly pushing back against accusations that the organization was full of “draft dodgers.” [4] For instance, Guatemala Group XI, which served between 1968 and 1970 at the height of the Vietnam War, had several members who mentioned years later that they joined to avoid the conflict. Peter Shack, for example, had completed law school and could no longer avoid the draft through continuing his education. Therefore, he applied to both the Peace Corps and the Foreign Service, choosing the Peace Corps when he was accepted to both. [5]

Second, a controversy erupted between the Peace Corps and the military over the deferred status of Peace Corps Volunteers. Draft-eligible men who were serving in the Peace Corps, no matter their opinion of the war, joined because they thought that they would be able to receive a deferment from the draft in order to serve their full two-year term. The Peace Corps secured this arrangement during its creation in 1961, as the government deemed their work to be in the national interest. However, as the war continued, multiple male Volunteers received notice of being drafted while serving. A handful of local draft boards chose not to grant the deferment, forcing the Volunteers to end their service early and report back to the United States. [6]

One of these incidents occurred in Honduras, where the affected Volunteer group was so incensed that five members wrote to the Peace Corps Volunteer, a magazine for Volunteers. The publication featured their joint letter in its November 1967 issue. Four members of the Honduras group had received word that they were in the process of being called for military service from their draft boards, despite appeals from Peace Corps staff. The authors (three men and two women) included in their arguments that the process of removing Volunteers in the middle of their work could only be detrimental to the relationship between the United States and host countries. In addition, such incidents showed that the United States was a country much more supportive of war than peace. [7]

The Peace Corps began to take a more active role in working with Volunteers to help them continue their service, with director Jack Vaughn announcing that he would even be writing letters of recommendation for Volunteers who sometimes needed to convince not only their local board but the State and Presidential Appeal Boards as well. [8] The organization also refused to accept the Volunteers most likely to be drafted who had not already received a deferment. These strategies would help to alleviate the issue. [9] However, discussions of the complicated relationship between the Peace Corps and draft boards continued to feature in the Peace Corps Volunteer through November 1969.

Protesting Volunteers

The Vietnam War also impacted the Peace Corps and its members when Volunteers around the world began to protest the conflict, forcing the Peace Corps, a government organization, to respond. A notable example is that of Volunteer Bruce Murray. In 1967, he wrote a letter to the New York Times protesting the war during his service in Chile, which the newspaper did not publish. Murray, who was serving in Chile, sent it to a local paper, which did publish it. At that, the Peace Corps terminated his service without giving him an opportunity to contest it and sent him home. Once there, his local board drafted him and denied his application for Conscientious Objector status, despite the fact that he had a deferment. He then sued the Peace Corps over the incident, winning in December 1969. [10]

After this very public fiasco began, the Peace Corps relented but was still much more likely to tolerate intergroup forms of protest. The organization tried to strike a balancing act between Volunteers’ freedom of speech and the Peace Corps’ preferred apolitical stance for Volunteers. For example, Jeff Fletcher, who volunteered in Bolivia, was a regional editor for the Pues magazine, written by Bolivia Volunteers for their peers. The February-March 1969 issue included multiple articles stating clear opposition to the Vietnam War. This included a work of satire suggesting that the United States replace its current troops with mercenary armies and bounty hunters before arguing that all war should end. [11] However, the authors and editors of Pues, and other Volunteers creating similar anti-war media, were not subject to punishment from the Peace Corps.

A form of protest that went very smoothly for both Volunteers and the Peace Corps was the participation of Volunteers around the world in the Moratorium Day protests of October 15, 1969. On that day, over two million Americans across the country assembled in opposition to the war. [12] Protesting Volunteers included Bob and Susan Irwin, who were serving in Malawi at the time. They wrote a letter to President Nixon, describing the difficulty they had as Peace Corps members representing a country that was demonstrating much greater interest in war than in peaceful international service. [13] Richard Nixon’s presidential administration chose to push back against Americans’ protests as a whole. However, Peace Corps Director Joe Blatchford neither punished Volunteers nor changed the organization’s stance on protest or the Vietnam War. [14]

<img src="access-3.png" alt="15 Oct, 1969 Dear President Nixon, We are United States Peace Corps Volunteers and we are finding it increasingly difficult to explain to people we work with that both the words United States and the word peace can be used together. Probably one of the questions we are most often asked is, “How can you expect us to believe that you as citizens of the United States are here to promote the cause of peace when we can clearly see what you are doing in Vietnam.” General disappointment and disagreement with present United States policies is most probably one of the reasons the Peace Corps has been asked to leave Malawi. We therefore ask you, Mr. President, to demonstrate to the peoples of the world that the greatest nation on earth is truly interested in peace. Please, before it is entirely too late, begin to take positive steps toward ending the war in Vietnam. Only then will we be able to proudly and with a free conscience call ourselves United States Peace Corps Volunteers.">

The Moratorium Day letter written by the Andersons.

Some group protests among Volunteers caused other types of difficulties for the Peace Corps, especially if they happened in a more public or internationally-facing way. One example of this was the brief Volunteer protest outside the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan upon the occasion of Vice President Spiro Agnew’s January 6, 1970 visit. Designed by the Volunteers in such a way to register their dissent while not creating an international incident, the American media nevertheless heavily covered the protest in connection to local Afghan demonstrations. Members of the media included Arnold Zeitlin, a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer now working for the Associated Press, who wrote an article about the incident. [15] This led to the Peace Corps having to respond to national pushback against the incident and defend the Volunteers under scrutiny. However, the initial action only took place because the Volunteers had explicitly worked to make their protest small and only directed towards Agnew. Volunteer protest against the Vietnam War, and the Peace Corps’ various reactions to it, would have a defining impact on the organization until the end of the war.

The consequences of the United States’ military involvement in Vietnam very much extended to the Peace Corps. During the conflict, a significant number of Peace Corps Volunteers joined the Americans opposed to the war, but the war would also impact all Volunteers and the organization as a whole. Two central ways that the Vietnam War impacted the Peace Corps were in relationship to the draft and opposing Volunteers’ various forms of anti-war protest.

 

 

 

[1] “Overview of the Vietnam War,” Digital History, University of Houston, 2021, https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraid=18&smtid=1.

[2] “The Military Draft During the Vietnam War,” Resistance and Revolution: The Anti-Vietnam War Movement at the University of Michigan, 1965-1972, Michigan in the World, accessed December 14, 2022, https://michiganintheworld.history.lsa.umich.edu/antivietnamwar/exhibits/show/exhibit/draft_protests/the-military-draft-during-the-.

[3] Douglas S. Brookes, “Daniel S. Krummes: A Brief Biography,” Unpublished biographical note, American University Archives, Washington, D.C.

[4] Molly Geidel, “Ambiguous Liberation: The Vietnam War and the Committee of Returned Volunteers,” in Peace Corps Fantasies: How Development Shaped the Global Sixties, (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015), 160-162. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctt16ptn2s.8.

[5] Shack, Peter. Interview by Douglas Noble. Peter Shack.mp4†, TheirStory, American University Special Collections, https://theirstory.io/stories/6193d32472f16a0005b5d9f7/author/. Accessed 14 December 2022.

[6] “A Look At PCVs Who Face the Draft,” Peace Corps Volunteer, Vol. 7 No. 4 (March 1969), 20, American University Archives, Washington, D.C., https://dra.american.edu/islandora/object/peacecorps%3A2348.

[7] Summary from Romania Green, et al, Letter to the Peace Corps Volunteer, Peace Corps Volunteer, Vol. 6 No. 1 (November 1967), 21. American University Archives, Washington, D.C., https://dra.american.edu/islandora/object/peacecorps%3A2334.

[8] “Peace Corps to intervene for Volunteers Seeking Deferments,” Peace Corps Volunteer, Vol. 7 No. 2 (December 1967), 24, American University Archives, Washington, D.C., https://dra.american.edu/islandora/object/peacecorps%3A2335.

[9] “PCVs Who Face the Draft,” 21.

[10] Summary from “The Bruce Murray Case,” Peace Corps Volunteer, Vol. 8 No. 3/4 (March-April 1970), 11, American University Archives, Washington, D.C., https://dra.american.edu/islandora/object/peacecorps%3A2359.

[11] Mickey McGuire, “A Modest Proposal,” Pues No. 3 (February-March 1969), 3. American University Archives, Washington, D.C., https://auislandora.wrlc.org/islandora/object/peacecorps%3A3156.

[12] “Moratorium Day: The day that millions of Americans marched,” BBC News, 15 October 2019, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-49893239.

[13] Bill Irwin and Susan Anderson to Richard Nixon, 15 October 1969, copy of letter, American University Archives, Washington, D.C. In response, they received a form letter and packet describing the reasons why the United States was fighting in Vietnam.

[14] “Volunteers Join Moratorium with Petitions, Vigils,” Peace Corps Volunteer Vol. 7 No. 13 (December 1969), 2-3. American University Archives, Washington, D.C. https://dra.american.edu/islandora/object/peacecorps%3A2357.

[15] Summary from, “Protest in Afghanistan (A Case Study),” Peace Corps Volunteer, Vol. 8 No. 3/4 (March-April 1970), 13, 22. American University Archives, Washington, D.C., https://dra.american.edu/islandora/object/peacecorps%3A2359. Outside of a quote included in the Peace Corps Volunteer, a copy of Zeitlin’s article could not be located. Correspondence and mementos from Zeitlin’s service in Ghana from 1961-1963 are also in the Peace Corps Community Archive.

A Peace Corps Murder Mystery

Happy Halloween! In honor of the upcoming holiday, today we present to you the story of a special Peace Corps-themed whodunnit. Author Rosemary Yaco served in the Peace Corps in Togo from 1983-1986. [1] She then served as a Fulbright professor in Togo before working as the Director of the English Language Program, which was at the United States Information Agency American Cultural Center in Benin, until 1996. [2] From 1998 to 2006, Yaco published a series of four murder mystery novels whose main character, Lynne Lewis, solved crimes in the West African settings where Yaco had worked. [3] The first book in this series, titled Murder in the Peace Corps, reflected Yaco’s service in Togo. It drew on a tragic event that happened during her time as a Volunteer, while also involving several twists, turns, and an enigmatic group of suspects.

Inspiration From Tragedy

(Content Warning: This section contains discussions of murder and police violence.)

 

 

Rosemary Yaco’s 1983 Peace Corps group included Jennifer Rubin, a young woman who started her own project to help Togolese women make more efficient earthen stoves, reducing the work needed to gather firewood for cooking. [4] In 1984, she realized that the daughter of the family she rented an apartment from, a close friend, was stealing her belongings. When Rubin mentioned this to the father, he turned his daughter into the police, who beat her until she confessed. A few days later, when she was released, she contacted two men from another village, who killed Rubin. [5] The two men who killed her were sentenced to life in prison. [6] This senseless death of a Peace Corps Volunteer clearly impacted Yaco, as can be seen in her book. Murder in the Peace Corps begins when Lynne Lewis hears word of a fictionalized account of this murder, and Lynne’s sadness and hope to find a resolution grounds the mystery in the shadow of Rubin’s death. [7]

Thickening the Plot

Just as in real life, the Peace Corps and Togolese government in Murder in the Peace Corps quickly resolve this first murder. However, when Lynne and the other Peace Corps Volunteers assemble to grieve and obtain more information about the murder, the Ambassador of the United States to Togo dramatically dies in front of them. Lynne quickly sets off on a cross-country adventure, involving both help and hindrance from the American Embassy, her fellow Volunteers and supervisors, and the local Togolese people. Rosemary Yaco weaves intrigue, romance and surprise into her plot, and the mystery is resolved through several unexpected twists. In addition, she includes details that clearly come from her own Peace Corps experience, such as the delicious food Lynne eats or the types of housing she lives in. However, not all of these specifics are delightful. Not unlike many other thrillers, the sexual orientation of multiple characters is used to signal “deviance” and suggest the characters have malicious or jealous motives because of their suppressed sexual orientation.  Yaco’s Peace Corps Volunteers also sometimes get angry at the cultural differences between the United States and Togo, assuming theirs are always superior, or they exoticize the Togolese they come into contact with. Yaco also underscores the isolation and difficulty adjusting that can occur when Volunteers have isolated posts, or the irritation which comes when they don’t get along with each other. [8]

The Final Conclusion

Rosemary Yaco’s Murder in the Peace Corps is a mystery that uses more than just suspense to spin a tale. By incorporating real-life experiences, Yaco transports readers to Peace Corps service in 1980’s Togo, accompanied by a plucky heroine and an intriguing set of supporting characters. Interested readers can find the digitized book online in Yaco’s collection within the Peace Corps Community Archives, here.

 

 

 

 

Notes

[1] “September 1, 2001: Headlines: NPCA: Fortieth Anniversary: Custom Conference: Who signed up for the original Peace Corps 40th – sorted by Country of Service (Part 3),” Peace Corps Online, http://peacecorpsonline.org/messages/messages/2629/2023295.html. Accessed September 28, 2022.

[2] “Lynne Lewis: West Africa Murder Mysteries,” Sonia Yaco, https://soniayaco.com/lynne-lewis-west-africa-murder-mysteries/. Accessed September 28, 2022.

[3] Rosemary Yaco, Murder in the Peace Corps (Anlex Computer Consulting, 1998), 1, https://soniayaco.com/murder/peace_toc.htm; Rosemary Yaco, Murder at a Small Embassy: Evil in Benin (Anlex Computer Consulting, 2006), 6, chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://soniayaco.com/murder/evil_embassy1.pdf.

[4] “Jennifer Rubin ’83 (Togo, 1983-84),” Hamilton Online Review, Fall 2007, in “Jennifer Rubin,” Fallen Peace Corps Volunteers Memorial Project, https://fpcv.org/volunteers/jennifer-rubin/, accessed September 28, 2022.

[5] “AN IDEALIST’S SHORT LIFE ENDS IN A KILLING IN A TOGO VILLAGE,” The New York Times, July 4, 1984, https://www.nytimes.com/1984/07/04/world/an-idealist-s-short-life-ends-in-a-killing-in-a-togo-village.html, accessed September 28, 2022.

[6] “3 ARE CONVICTED IN TOGO OF KILLING AMERICAN: Three residents of the West African country of Togo have been found guilty of killing a 23-year-old Peace Corps worker from Oneonta, N.Y. in June, a spokesman for the Togo mission to the United Nations said yesterday,” The New York Times, September 20, 1984, https://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/20/world/3-are-convicted-togo-killing-american-three-residents-west-african-country-togo.html, accessed September 28, 2022.

[7] Summary taken from Yaco, Murder in the Peace Corps.

[8] Summary taken from Yaco, Murder in the Peace Corps.

Voting in the Peace Corps, Then and Now

At the time of writing, the 2022 midterm elections are approaching, and many Americans (this author included) are making their preparations to vote by mail. For decades, Peace Corps Volunteers have been among the voters who need to use mail-in ballots. This included Susan Anderson, who served from 1968-1972 in Malawi and Mali. Before she even reported for training, the Peace Corps sent her an article, included in the January 1968 edition of the Peace Corps Volunteer, to explain the process of voting overseas. Written by Elizabeth White, a Peace Corps employee and former Volunteer, the article “How to vote in ‘68” attempted to lay out both the importance of and obstacles to voting.

“How to vote in ’68,” by Elizabeth White. This article highlights the difficulties of voting overseas for Peace Corps Volunteers.

Voting by Mail in 1968

White’s article is only meant to be a brief introduction to mail-in voting for Volunteers who were or would be overseas for the primary or general elections that year. It includes encouragement to raise the very low number of Peace Corps Volunteer votes from 1964 and provides key information geared towards first time voters. (In 1968, the minimum voting age was still 21, so a large number of Volunteers would not have voted before starting their service.) However, White’s main point was the self-responsibility of each Volunteer- every state and locality had slightly different rules, and most greatly restricted the participation of overseas or otherwise absentee voters. For example, six states required voter registration in person, so any unregistered Volunteers from these states who were already training or serving could not vote at all. Seven states did not accept the Federal Post Card Application (the federal forms to permit voting overseas), so Volunteers from these states were warned not to waste time filling out these forms and contact their state and local governments directly. Five states had either partial or total restrictions on mail-in voting for primaries. Alabama and Mississippi directly prohibited mail-in voting if a Volunteer had never voted in person before. White also acknowledged that there were several other restrictions and deadlines on a state-by-state level. She noted that, at the end of the day, Volunteers had to decide for themselves if all of these restrictions were too prohibitive to attempt voting. [1]

Voting by Mail Today

In the years since, federal and state governments have made changes that have made it easier for Peace Corps Volunteers to vote by mail during their service. While many states still have various levels of restrictions for voting by mail, several of these laws provide exceptions for those overseas, including Volunteers. [2]  The federal government has passed several different rounds of voting-related legislation, which has also smoothed this process. Most important was the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, passed in 1986, and amended by the Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act in 2009 (though only fifteen states have fully implemented the amendment). This legislation allows members of the U.S. military and other U.S. citizens living abroad to vote in federal elections and receive their ballots forty-five days before an election. [3]  Today, the Peace Corps continues to help Volunteers vote, and they include necessary information and forms on their website.[4] While access to voting overseas and in the Peace Corps has changed since 1968, the importance of voting has not. So don’t forget to cast your vote this November in person, absentee, or by mail!

 

 

[1] Summary from Elizabeth White, “How to vote in ’68,” Peace Corps Volunteer, Vol. 7 No. 3 (January 1968), 16, American University Archives, Washington, D.C.

[2]  Information from “Absentee Ballot Rules,” Vote.org, https://www.vote.org/absentee-voting-rules/. Accessed September 27, 2022. For anyone looking for voting resources, Vote.org is a great place to start.

[3]  “The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act,” The United States Department of Justice, last updated February 18, 2020, https://www.justice.gov/crt/uniformed-and-overseas-citizens-absentee-voting-act; “Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act,” Ballotpedia, https://ballotpedia.org/Military_and_Overseas_Voter_Empowerment_(MOVE)_Act, accessed October 4, 2022.

[4] “Voting Assistance,” Peace Corps, https://www.peacecorps.gov/voting-assistance/, accessed October 4, 2022.

 

The “Peace Corps Postcard”: A Brief History of Peace Corps Critiques

The Postcard Incident

Marjorie Michelmore was a 23-year-old Smith College graduate when she applied to the Peace Corps in 1961. Selected to serve as an English teacher in Nigeria, Marjorie became a member of the first cohort of Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) sent to the country. After two months of teacher training at Harvard University, the volunteers flew to Nigeria to complete phase two of training at University College in Ibadan. On October 13, 1961, Marjorie Michelmore wrote a postcard to her boyfriend back in Boston. She drew a scene of the city of Ibadan on the front of the postcard and wrote on the back: 

“Dear Bobbo: Don’t be furious at getting a postcard.  I promise a letter next time.  I wanted you to see the incredible and fascinating city we were in.  With all the training we had, we really were not prepared for the squalor and absolutely primitive living conditions rampant both in the city and in the bush.  We had no idea what “underdeveloped” meant. It really is a revelation and after we got over the initial horrified shock, a very rewarding experience.  Everyone except us lives on the streets, cooks in the street, sells in the street, and even goes to the bathroom in the street.  Please write.

Marge 

P.S. We are excessively cut off from the rest of the world” [1].

The postcard, however, was never mailed. In a 2011 interview for the Smith Alumnae Quarterly, Smith College’s alumnae magazine, Margery recalled: “I either dropped the postcard or it was taken out of the mailbox. I have no idea how it was found” [2]Either way, a Nigerian student found and made copies of the postcard and distributed them throughout the university.  The students were furious. They attended rallies and passed resolutions that denounced PCVs as “America’s international spies” and their teaching program as “a scheme designed to foster neo-colonialism” [3]. The story appeared in nearly every Nigerian and U.S. newspaper. While the “Peace Corps Postcard” incident is a well-known story, it is also telling of the agency’s flaws. Marjorie Michelmore’s story sheds light on the most prevalent critiques of the early Peace Corps and allows us to consider the agency’s role in both the past and the present. 

“Kennedy’s Kids” & Naiveté

Marjorie Michelmore represents the ideal PCV in the agency’s early years—a young, recent college graduate. At the heart of the Peace Corps mission was the idea that America’s young people were motivated and enthusiastic global citizens with a deep commitment to humanitarian service. The notion of sending young, unskilled college graduates abroad to fix the world’s problems, however, received ample criticism. President Dwight D. Eisenhower referred to the Peace Corps as a “juvenile experiment” [4].  The nick-name assigned to the first wave of volunteers, dubbed “Kennedy’s Kids,” reflects public perceptions of amateurism. This critique certainly holds some truth.  In the 2019 documentary A Towering Task: The Story of the Peace Corps, Christopher Dodd —Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV) and former U.S. Senator from Connecticut—says:

The idea that I—an English Literature major—it was a presumptuous idea that I was somehow going to eradicate ignorance, poverty, and disease.”

    Christopher Dodd (RPCV: Dominican Republic, 1966-1968)
A Towering Task: The Story of the Peace Corps (2019) 

Dodd’s reflection puts words to the ultimate paradox of the Peace Corps. Although thousands of young Americans were inspired by President Kennedy’s call to action, PCVs often found that their efforts were not enough to make a large-scale impact. While naiveté is a prominent critique of the Peace Corps, the same concept—that young Americans could go abroad and fix complex global problems—brings forth questions of neo-colonialism.

Decolonization & Neo-Colonialism

The Peace Corps emerged during the post-war era of decolonization.  After World War II, dozens of countries in Africa and Asia gained independence from European empires. In the 1950s and 1960s, international development volunteering organizations emerged across the globe—Australia’s Volunteer Graduate Scheme (VGS) in 1951, Britain’s Volunteer Service Overseas (VSO) in 1958, and the United States’ Peace Corps in 1961, to name a few.  Development volunteering models, including the Peace Corps, exacerbated a neo-colonialist distinction between “developed” and “developing” nations [5]. In the case of Marjorie Michelmore, Nigerian students condemned the Peace Corps’ teaching program as a “scheme to foster neo-colonialism.” Nigeria had been independent for just one year at the time of the postcard incident. Many newly independent nations were reluctant to allow PCVs into their country to begin with. Margery’s discussion of “primitive” conditions and her blatant use of the word “underdeveloped” not only broke the trust of host country nationals, but also echoed the colonial rule that the country had just broken free from. 

Cold War Competition & Suspicion

After seeing the ways in which Marjorie Michelmore described their country, Nigerian students  suspected PCVs were “international spies.” This allegation reveals another dimension of Peace Corps critique. The Peace Corps was, in many ways, a response to the Cold War—an era of heightened international tension, suspicion, and fear. Founded at the height of the Cold War, motivations for the establishment of the Peace Corps certainly venture outside of promoting “peace and friendship” abroad. Was the goal of the agency to foster peaceful international relations? Was it to assist in the development of emerging nations? Was it to show the Soviet Union and the world the power of American democracy and capitalism? Or, was it to “win” the allegiance of unaffiliated countries? With historical hindsight, we can infer that it was all of the above.

The founders of the Peace Corps were keenly aware of the pervasiveness of Cold War ideology, however. President Kennedy, Sargent Shriver, and others worked hard to allay fears that the Peace Corps would harbor secret agendas or become a tool of the CIA by requiring countries to request volunteers. To this day, previous work with an intelligence agency automatically disqualifies citizens from Peace Corps service. Despite these measures, host countries were still suspicious of the Peace Corps. Concerning Marjorie Michelmore, Nigerian students almost immediately questioned the motives of American volunteers. While the founding of the Peace Corps in 1961 cannot be divorced from the political climate in which it emerged, it is also difficult to overstate the significance of the establishment of the Peace Corps, an agency devoted to peaceful engagement with the world, amidst Cold War international tensions.

During his presidential campaign, John F. Kennedy said in regards to the establishment of a peace corps: “I want to demonstrate to Mr. Khrushchev and others that a new generation of Americans has taken over this country…young Americans [who will] serve the cause of freedom as servants of peace around the world, working for freedom as the communists work for their system” [6]. This quote and the above cartoon, published in the Washington Post on June 26, 1962, demonstrate the influence of the Cold War on the establishment of the Peace Corps. Not only did the United States want to compete with the Soviet Union for the allegiance of newly independent nations, they also wanted to promote American democracy abroad.

Poster denouncing the Peace Corps in Colombia. Translation: “The Peace Corps is: 1) an international affiliate of the FBI-CIA, 2) a military corps that supports dictatorships, and 3) yankee mercenaries of the oligarchies. What do they do: 1) plot coups, 2) defend yankee interests, and 3) prepare attacks against democratic and nationalist leaders.”

The Peace Corps has remained a controversial agency throughout its history.  I address additional questions and critiques briefly below.

The Peace Corps vs. the War Corps

Early proponents  called for the implementation of a program like the Peace Corps to provide a “moral equivalent to war” [7]. Richard Nixon, however, famously deemed the Peace Corps a “haven for draft dodgers.” In 1966, as war raged in Vietnam, over 15,000 PCVs were promoting peace and friendship abroad. There is no greater demonstration of the tension between the altruistic idealism and the harsh political realities that defined the sixties in America [8].  More firmly, the Peace Corps is a crystallization of American attempts to engage with the world in a different, more peaceful way. Considering the Peace Corps in tandem with the U.S. military also poses evocative questions. Is service in the name of peace just as worthy of respect and remembrance as that of war?

Is the Peace Corps an apolitical agency?

The Peace Corps was established as an independent agency within the State Department to avert influence from short-term foreign policy goals. Throughout its history, however, the Peace Corps has struggled to navigate the dynamics between the White House, policymakers in Washington, DC, Peace Corps leadership, and volunteers abroad. To date, the agency has operated under 12 U.S. presidents and 20 Peace Corps directors. The Peace Corps has, at times, strayed from its mission and promoted the White House’s foreign policy goals to remain relevant. For example, when the Cold War ended, President George H.W. Bush eagerly sent Peace Corps Volunteers to Eastern Europe to “impart capitalism” [9].

Volunteer Safety

In 2009, Kate Puzey was serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the West African country of Benin. Puzey believed a Peace Corps employee was sexually harassing female students at the school where she taught and sent an email to her country’s headquarters to inform them. Although she asked to remain anonymous, Puzey was found dead shortly thereafter. President Barack Obama signed the Kate Puzey Peace Corps Protection Act in 2011, designed to protect Peace Corps Volunteers and improve the agency’s response to acts of violence and sexual assault [10]. Nevertheless, in 2021, many RPCVs came forward and expressed their disappointment in the Peace Corps after experiencing sexual assault during their time of service, and not receiving support from the organization [11]. Kate Puzey, however, is just one PCV who died during service. Engage with The Fallen Peace Corps Volunteers Memorial Project  to learn about the more than 500 PCVs who died during service.

BIPOC & Queer Volunteers

Race, sexual orientation, and gender identity greatly influence Peace Corps experience. African American, Asian American, and Latino PCVs have been questioned if they are really Americans in their host countries. What does this say about perceptions of Americanism abroad? Identifying as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender is illegal in many countries.  Queer volunteers often have to weigh coming out to their community with the potential danger that it may put them in. View Many Faces of Peace Corps, 60th Anniversary and explore the former LGBT Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Association website to learn more about how race and  identity shape Peace Corps service.

Does the Peace Corps make any positive impact on host countries? 

The everlasting question of impact has haunted the agency since its inception. Does Peace Corps service primarily benefit the volunteers? Volunteers have the opportunity to live abroad, add to their resume, and receive eligibility for government jobs upon their return.  Many volunteers do report that they gain much more from the international communities they serve than they give. Historically, the Peace Corps has struggled to quantify its success because it is typically on an interpersonal level. 

Is the Peace Corps still relevant today?

If the Peace Corps is a Cold War relic, is it still relevant? RPCV Lacy Feigh writes for the Washington Post’s Made By History: 

“At 60 years old, has the Peace Corps outgrown its time and relevance? Viewed as an organization meant to provide foreign aid and development, maybe. But as a vehicle to build relationships, empathy, and experiences, it is as important as ever” [12].

Just as the Peace Corps faced challenges at home and abroad in the 1960s, the organization faces challenges today. In 2020, for the first time in its history, the Peace Corps evacuated all volunteers from their posts due to COVID-19. During that time, the agency reflected on how they can redefine their mission to remain relevant today. Read the 2020 National Peace Corps Association’s (NPCA) report, Peace Corps Connect to the Future, to learn about the future of the Peace Corps.

Abolish the Peace Corps?

While some view the mission of the Peace Corps as more important than ever, others are vying for its abolishment. Shortly after being evacuated from Mozambique due to COVID-19, 3 PRCVs founded Decolonizing Peace Corps—a project to abolish the Peace Corps. Functioning primarily through Instagram, Decolonizing Peace Corps collects data from volunteers and host country nationals with the hope of inspiring the abolishment of the Peace Corps by 2040 [13].

The Peace Corps has been a contentious agency since its inception in 1961. While it is difficult to disentangle the Peace Corps’ idealistic fervor from its shortcomings, understanding and recognizing criticism of the agency allows us to better understand its complex history and rethink the ways in which it can or should exist in society today. 

 

References

[1] John Coyne, “Our Most Famous and Infamous RPCV: Marjorie Michelmore (Nigeria),” Peace Corps WorldWide, November 2, 2019

[2] Ibid.

[3] Stanley Meisler, When the World Calls: The Inside Story of the Peace Corps and its First Fifty Years (Boston: Beacon Press, 2011), 39.

[4] Meisler, When the World Calls, 42.

[5] Agnieszka Sobocinska, “How to Win Friends and Influence Nations: The International History of Development Volunteering,” Journal of Global History, 50-51.

[6] Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1965), 606.

[7] “Peace Corps Fact Book, April 1961,” From Papers of John F. Kennedy. Presidential Papers. President’s Office Files. Departments and Agencies. Peace Corps, 1961: January-June. https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-viewer/archives/JFKPOF/085/JFKPOF-085-015.

[8] Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman, All You Need Is Love: The Peace Corps and the Spirit of the 1960s (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), 10.

[9] Meisler, When the World Calls, x-xi

[10] Angela M. Hill and Randy Kreider, “Obama Signs Kate Puzey Volunteer Peace Corps Protection Act,” ABC News, November 21, 2011.

[11] Donovan Slack and Tricia L. Nadolny, “Sexual Assault rises as Peace Corps fails its Volunteers,” USA TODAY, April 22, 2021. 

[12] Lacy Feigh, “Now 60 years old, the Peace Corps can be more than a Cold War artifact,” Made By History at the Washington Post, 5 March 2021. 

[13] Shanna Loga, “Should the US Abolish the Peace Corps?,” Medium, September 20, 2020.

Tweaking Qormeh Sabzi Khoresh

 

As I skimmed through our newest accession–a collection of correspondence, photographs, and books donated by a PCV who served in Iran from 1964-1968– at the Peace Corps Community Archives, a flash of red caught my attention. At first glance a charming–yet unassuming–text, complete with an advertisement for Pan Am’s in-flight meal service on the back cover, Cookbook: Peace Corps · Iran seized my attention, and here is why:

The original recipe for Qormeh (more commonly spelled Ghormeh, meaning fried in Azeri) Sabzi (the Farsi word for herbs) Khoresh–among the “most famous and common rice-based food products in Iran”–calls for sautéing “meat, onions, [and] fat,” then adding “1/2 cup dried red kidney beans,” followed by a low and slow simmer for several hours. [1] The stew is then garnished with “1 cup chopped parsley and or 2 tablespoons of lemon juice.”

In the meager margins between recipes, however, someone had tweaked the recipe for Qormeh Sabzi Khoresh in red pen, suggesting that “1/2 cup chopped fenugreek, 4 dried lemons pressed or 2 tbsp lemon juice” be added to the recipe. This was not an anomaly; in fact, other recipes were modified throughout the cookbook with the same distinct red ink.

The cookbook contains recipes for a wide variety of staple Iranian dishes, but it also details recipes that would have been more familiar to American palates, such as: stuffed peppers, pan gravy, and porcupine balls. The latter is a cost-effective relic of the Great Depression.

The cookbook further features a comprehensive guide on how to make mulled (or spiced) wine and red wine.

Seeing as a cohort of Iranian cooks, Peace Corps Volunteers, and nutrition specialists all contributed to the cookbook, it is perhaps best read as an iterative artifact–a microcosm for the (ongoing) negotiation between Western and Iranian culinary cultures. On the one hand, the PCV who marked the cookbook in red ink embodies part of this negotiation: an American who embraced Iranian cuisine in a tangible way, via their service in Iran and interaction with Iranians. Their tweaking of Qormeh Sabzi Khoresh was not an attempt to co-opt or Westernize the dish; rather, the addition of fenugreek and dried lemon is actually reflective of the traditional version of the recipe that the PCV likely encountered in their everyday interactions with Iranians.

Houchang E. Chehabi, an Iranian scholar and professor of international relations and history at Boston University, describes traditional Iranian cuisine as “alive and well.” Rice and bread–both consumed as food, while the latter also doubles as a vessel, as makeshift cutlery, and as a general aid to eating–remain staples of Iranian cuisine, often served with a variety of traditional stews, pilafs, proteins, stuffed vegetables, sweets, and the like. The now widespread availability of Iranian food outside of Iran has, according to Chehabi, expanded our collective global palate and “helped relieve the monotony of life.”

The centrality of rice and bread in Iranian cuisine cannot be overstated; however, the image above illustrates regional variations in their preparation.

On the other hand, Iranian culinary culture has been shaped by Iranians’ interaction with outsiders and their respective cuisines, a process that predated the Peace Corps and the publication of this cookbook in the 1960s. Indeed, during the Qajar reign (1789-1925), elite Iranians at Court began adopting new culinary habits from Westerners, and these habits subsequently spread to the middle class and then to the “rest of the population in a process that is not complete–and perhaps never will be.”

Exemplified in the images above, the traditional Iranian sufra (food spread) was colorful, decorative, and dishes were served concurrently rather than in successive courses. Moreover, Iranians generally enjoyed their food atop embellished carpets, and food was to be consumed with the right hand–sans cutlery. In Qajar palaces, food was prepared by a permanent cooking staff in a kitchen some distance from the living area where it was presented and consumed.

Iranians embraced outside culinary habits in earnest during the 1900s. A 1928 decree issued during the Reza Shah period, for example, outlined several sweeping changes that Tehrani restaurants would be required to implement, including: seating around a table on chairs; containers for dispensing salt, pepper, mustard, and sumac; and strict use of cutlery, thus forbidding patrons from eating with their hands. Just before the inception of the Peace Corps, the consumption of traditional meats–chiefly camel and mutton–in Iran had been superseded by beef and veal, and today chicken–once a delicacy–is consumed ubiquitously. Immediately following the Iranian Revolution (1978-1979), however, food establishments that served western-inspired food and were operated by non-Muslims had to put signs in their windows to “alert those Muslims who considered non-Muslims, and therefore any food handled by them, as najis (ritually impure).”

Despite these changes, and especially since the 1990s, the dual westernization and resilience of Iranian cuisine remains evident; the scent of hamburgers on the grill and pizza in the oven drifts from fast food chains and global food courts scattered throughout Iran’s major cities, a contrast to the age-old aromas that flow (though not as numerously) from higher-end restaurants, street vendor stalls, and Iranian homes. Here, friends and family still sit atop Persian rugs, preferring their right hand to cutlery, as they enjoy an abundant feast (sometimes followed by a period of fasting). Until I have the privilege to experience Iranian cuisine in Iran, I look forward to trying this PCV’s version of Qormeh Sabzi Khoresh–with the addition of fenugreek and dried lemon–in my own home, and I hope you will do the same. Share your favorite recipes with us below, especially those that warm you up on a cold winter day!

“To Whom It May Concern”: The Peace Corps, Public Health, and COVID-19

In his capacity as tour manager for the University of Ibadan’s Shakespeare Traveling Theatre troupe, Tom Hebert brought renowned productions—like Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Hamlet among others—to audiences throughout Nigeria. The pictures above illustrate a core tenet of Shakespearian performance: audience interaction, which was anything but lacking in West Africa during the 1960s. In a recent blog post, Hebert recalls that millions of Nigerian students were required to study Shakespeare as part of their secondary education; consequently, audiences numbering in the “thousands would mouth the lines in an audible susurrus” during shows. [1] Hebert also came to understand that British colonialism and an entrenched caste system overshadowed the educational merits of theater: “literate African kids wandering the streets with nothing to do, and nowhere to go.”

In 1964, after two years of service as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV), the time had come for Hebert to return to the United States. Addressed “To Whom It May Concern,” a disease identity card (pictured below) marked Hebert’s return:

Disease Identity Card, April 1963, Shelf: 12.03.05, Box: “Tom Hebert,” Folder: “Hebert, Thomas L, Nigeria 1962-1964, Training Materials–Supplies and Medical Information,” Peace Corps Community Archive, American University Library, Washington, D.C.

In another example, an unnamed PCV received a similar card upon their return from India in 1968:

Disease Identity Card, 1968, Shelf: 12.03.02, Inquire for Box & Folder Information, Peace Corps Community Archive, American University Library, Washington, D.C.

These cards were a reminder to PCVs as to the prevalence of disease in their country of service. They were also ostensibly a precautionary measure—designed to warn physicians that the returning PCV might well be a public health risk, in which case subsequent isolation, treatment, contact tracing, and the like would become necessary. [2] Thus, in addition to coping with “reentry, readjustment, and reverse culture shock,” returning PCVs further faced the (remote) reality that they themselves might inadvertently bring lethal pathogens—for which there was little protection against—home to friends and family. [3]

An example: there was no vaccine to combat Dengue Fever—one of several diseases that Tom Hebert was potentially exposed to in Nigeria—in the 1960s. To this day, a “safe, effective, and affordable vaccine” for Dengue Fever remains elusive. [4]

This is not to say that the Peace Corps only took steps to protect PCVs on the back-end of their service. Additional evidence from the Peace Corps Community Archive is revealing; even in the 1960s, the fledgling Peace Corps had a robust front-end health program. It featured preventive medicine (where possible) and pre-departure education designed to reduce disease transmission:

Vaccination Appointment & Record Card, Shelf: 12.03.02, Inquire for Box & Folder Information, Peace Corps Community Archive, American University Library, Washington, D.C.

PCV Medicine Book, Shelf: 12.03.05, Box: “Tom Hebert,” Folder: “Hebert, Thomas L, Nigeria 1962-1964, Training Materials–Supplies and Medical Information,” Peace Corps Community Archive, American University Library, Washington, D.C.

In the case that preventive measures such as vaccination and sanitation failed, the Peace Corps also offered active PCVs reactionary treatment in the form of a standard medical kit:

Peace Corps Medical Kit with Health Guide, ID # 2011.0228.36, Transfer from the Peace Corps, National Museum of American History, https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/search/object/nmah_1412958

Medical Kit Inventory, Shelf: 12.03.05, Box: “Tom Hebert,” Folder: “Hebert, Thomas L, Nigeria 1962-1964, Training Materials–Supplies and Medical Information,” Peace Corps Community Archive, American University Library, Washington, D.C.

On balance, the health measures enacted by the Peace Corps—from pre-service medical training and vaccinations, reactionary treatment options during service, and disease identity cards upon return—were largely successful. From 1962-1983, 185 PCVs died during their service; of those 185, 40 died due to illness. For context: some 235,000 PCVs have served in hundreds of countries since the Peace Corps’ inception in 1961.

Relative to the Nigerians for whom he organized Shakespearean performances, Hebert enjoyed a position of privilege in terms of access to healthcare. For many PCVs, the prospect of becoming ill during service or bringing illness back to loved ones upon return was remote; indeed, the public health infrastructure of their home country, the United States, was robust compared to many countries where the Peace Corps operated.

However, what if the opposite were true? What if returning home was seemingly just as dangerous—if not more dangerous—to the well-being of PCVs? In March 2020, following the onset of COVID-19, this seeming impossibility came to fruition as all active PCVs were evacuated back to the United States. [5]

In a blog post for the Pacific Citizen, Kako Yamada—an evacuated PCV who had been serving in Comoros—recounts the abruptness of being evacuated due to COVID-19: [6]

Our plans for the remaining months or years of service vanished as we collected what we could of our belongings — some able to say their good-byes, others not so lucky.

I had been allotted one hour to pack and say my farewells to my host family — leaving my friends, students, teammates and co-workers in the dust.

Yamada did not fully grasp the gravity of the situation until she embarked on the long flight from Comoros—an island country off the coast of Africa—to her home in New York City:

On my layover in Addis Ababa, I saw people in full body suits; on the subsequent plane, flight attendants wore gloves and asked passengers not to help one another. Upon arrival at Newark Airport in New Jersey, a hollow silence echoed. Welcome home.

She also remembers questioning whether the evacuation was justified, especially because the situation in Comoros appeared much less dire (in terms of infection case numbers) than it did in the United States. It wasn’t until May 1 that the first case of COVID-19 was announced in Comoros; by then, in the month and a half since she had returned to New York, “there had been 304,372 reported COVID-19 cases in New York, a number that equated to half the population of Comoros.”

Moreover, in the United States, a crisis of public trust emerged—only compounding the threat posed by COVID-19. The situation rapidly devolved into a multifaceted culture war, one which pinned public health experts against conspiracy theorists and their sympathizers in government leadership. Anecdotal evidence and misinformation were disseminated to discourage mask wearing and promote unproven miracle cures, among other flashpoints of the culture war.

Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, for example, were frequently touted by right-wing conspiracy theorists as miracle drugs in the fight against COVID-19. With the benefit of hindsight, and given that credible public health experts have historically warned of the untested efficacy of these drugs, we are now certain that neither chloroquine nor hydroxychloroquine are safe to administer to COVID-19 patients. [7] Records from the Peace Corps Community Archive do show, however, the historical—and empirically proven—use of chloroquine as an antimalarial drug in locales such as Senegal:

Chloroquine Program Document, Shelf: 12.04.02, Box: “Cherie Lockett,” Folder: “Cherie Lockett, Senegal 1979-1981, Health Care N.D.,” Peace Corps Community Archive, American University Library, Washington, D.C.

 Yamada grappled with guilt, for although the situation in the United States appeared dire upon her departure from Comoros, her evacuation ensured a better chance of survival:

It came down to privilege. After months of integrating — through language, food and dances — in the end, I am privileged. In a pandemic, I, as an American citizen and Peace Corps Volunteer, got to fly out to a country with better health care.

I could not escape the fact that I was a volunteer that would disappear if things got bad.

People often ask: how will the history of COVID-19 be written? What will history tell us about our response to a global pandemic? Historians and public historians themselves are asking different, more pointed questions: how will we remember our global response to COVID-19? Who gets to shape the memory of the American experience with COVID-19? Is it the historian’s place to weigh the immeasurable suffering and loss of human life against the resilience and moments of unity that will get us through this? Likewise, who and what dictates how Comorians remember COVID-19? What are the stakes if we omit the lived experiences of those who were and are the most vulnerable to COVID-19? Do public historians have a responsibility to interpret/challenge those actors who downplayed and mismanaged the crisis from its outset? For Yamada, her answer is fairly straightforward:

The situation of a country miles away, often labeled as one of the poorest in the world, is very much mirrored here in the United States.

The characteristics of denial, governmental inadequacies and systematic vulnerabilities of certain social groups over others are paralleled. However, one quality is certainly different: we have the resources, and yet, we dared to fail.

[1] Tom Hebert,  “Shakespeare and the Ins and Outs of Education Reform,” Peace Corps Writers, n.d., http://www.peacecorpswriters.org/pages/2001/0109/109cllkheb1.html.

[2] Amy Lauren Fairchild, Lawrence O. Gostin, Ronald Bayer, “Contact Tracing’s Long, Turbulent History Holds Lessons for COVID-19,” The Conversation, July 16, 2020, https://theconversation.com/contact-tracings-long-turbulent-history-holds-lessons-for-covid-19-142511

[3] Peace Corps, RPCV Handbook: You’re on your way Home (Office of Third Goal and Returned Volunteer Services, n.d.), 10, https://files.peacecorps.gov/resources/returned/staycon/rpcv_handbook.pdf

[4] World Health Organization, “Questions and Answers on Dengue Vaccines,” Immunization, Vaccines, and Biologicals, April 20, 2018, https://www.who.int/immunization/research/development/dengue_q_and_a/en/

[5] Jody K. Olsen, “Peace Corps Announces Suspension of Volunteer Activities, Evacuations due to COVID-19,” Peace Corps, March 15, 2020, https://www.peacecorps.gov/news/library/peace-corps-announces-suspension-volunteer-activities-evacuations-due-covid-19/

[6] Kako Yamada, “Welcome Home? From Peace Corps Service to COVID-19 America,” Pacific Citizen, May 22, 2020, https://www.pacificcitizen.org/welcome-home-from-peace-corps-service-to-covid-19-america/

[7] United States Food and Drug Administration, “FDA Cautions Against Use of Hydroxychloroquine of Chloroquine for COVID-19 Outside of the Hospital Setting or a Clinical Trial due to Risk of Heart Rhythm Problems,” July 1, 2020, https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-cautions-against-use-hydroxychloroquine-or-chloroquine-covid-19-outside-hospital-setting-or

 

 

Don’t Forget Your Helmet! Motorcycles and the Peace Corps

Since March 16, 2020, American University and Peace Corps Community Archives staff moved their tasks online to wait out the impact of COVID-19. While this bars access to our physical collections, the PCCA’s digital archives has a number of interesting journals, memoirs, and photographs available to explore.

As I flipped through the pages of a guestbook from the Volunteer Rest House in Kambia, Sierra Leone–donated by Jim Hiiter–one photo stuck out to me more than the rest.

A young woman perched on the seat of a motorbike, with the caption, “Posing with my ‘death machine’ and my controversial ‘to be a woman is not easy’ helmet. (Before the accident.)

Thankfully, Bernadette Chaloupka only injured her ankle after an accident on her motorbike; however, the Peace Corps still flew her back to Washington, D.C. to recover—cutting short her time in Sierra Leone. She writes about travelling back to the U.S. afer a local doctor called for surgery:

I’m a living example of why the Peace Corps has decided to ban motorcycles…Even though an operation was unnecessary, I tell Peace Corps plenti plenti tenki for that wonderful holiday!”

Chaloupka’s experience with motorcycles is just one of many. As I dug through Peace Corps policies, volunteer memoirs and letters home, I found that Chaloupka’s brief recovery period was a minor consequence compared with the many stories of motorcycle accidents.

Between 1961 and 2003, the Peace Corps reported that 89 volunteers died in motor vehicle accidents—21 of them involved a motorcycle. An article in the 1985 Peace Corps Times advised volunteers on motorcycle safety, reporting that in 1983, fourteen volunteers were evacuated to the United States due to motorcycle injuries.

That said, reliable transportation is an important piece of volunteer service, when distances between villages and cities could be several hundred miles away. For some, motorbikes were a beneficial way to get around during their assignments, connecting volunteers to important resources in other regions.

Alan Crew, a PCV in Nigeria 1965- 1966, mentions that as the only form of transportation available to him, his motorbike was important for travelling the long distances from his village to meet other volunteers or go into bigger cities. He wrote to his family in 1965,

My motorcycle is running beautifully, although it still isn’t completely broken in. I can understand the almost reverent feeling the old volunteers have for their machines, as they afford one the only means of mobility available…There are 104 of us within 125 miles of each other so that we can all get together on weekends if we like. Therefore, the mobility of the motorcycle takes on a new dimension of importance.

In the case of Jane Wertz, her motorcycle may have been the only thing that helped her safely leave Zaire during military-led riots in 1991. Wertz was featured in a Peace Corps News article following the event, relaying her journey from her host village to Kikwit, the closest city with a Peace Corps office. “Usually it’s about a 3 ½ hour trip, but it took me about six hours because I had too much stuff on my bike…It was dark. I had fallen about six times. The bike was really, really heavy. There were times when I thought I wouldn’t be able to pick it up.” Wertz’s motorcycle, as heavy as it was, was the only thing that could have gotten her to the office for evacuation.

Today, the Peace Corps allows volunteers to use motorbikes only on a project-by-project basis. Many of these exceptions are for volunteers in rural areas, only after comprehensive safety training. And, at the heart of the manual? Wear your helmet!

Sources:

Office of the Chief of Staff, “MS 523 Motorcycles and Bicycles” January 7, 2013. https://files.peacecorps.gov/documents/MS-523-Policy.pdf

Adventure in a Great Big World,” by Alan Crew, Peace Corps Community Archives, https://blogs.library.american.edu/pcca/adventure-in-a-great-big-world/

Angene Wilson and Jack Wilson, Voices from the Peace Corps: Fifty Years of Kentucky Volunteers (University Press of Kentucky, 2011).

Susan Trebbe and James C. Flanigan, “Exit from Zaire,” Peace Corps Times, Fall 1991. https://dra.american.edu/islandora/object/peacecorps%3A2500?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=680d78e377b816da1f3b&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=0&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=8

Pat Seaman, “Peace Corps and the Art of Motorcycle Safety,” Peace Corps Times, January-February 1985, 8-9. https://dra.american.edu/islandora/object/peacecorps%3A2463/datastream/PDF/view