Category Archives: Blog post

Waterways and Local Communities

“Marine Fisheries Trainees Doing Artificial Reef Construction,” Avram Primack, Peace Corps Community Archive

Avram Primack served his time in the Peace Corps (1987-1989) in the Philippines working with marine fisheries. One of the goals of the Peace Corps is to “to help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.” For many Filipinos, fishing is a major source of both nourishment and trade. Coastal Resources Management Volunteers continue to support the Filipino communities by creating eco-friendly environments that provide food and revenue for local fishermen.

One of the methods employed by Peace Corps volunteers is the construction of artificial reefs. The practice of artificial reef construction is thousands of years old. Recently, such reefs have been used to create semi-permanent habitats for fish as well as preventing erosion of crucial shorelines. These reefs give local communities the environmental support they need for economic development, which is especially crucial in the islands of the Philippines.

Between 1973 and 1975, Jonathan Green served in the Kanchanaburi Province of Thailand assisting with malaria control. While in Thailand, Green observed how communities use rivers to transport goods and materials. During the rainy season, roads become impassable quagmires. Rivers are thus the primary means of transportation and communication when there are no asphalt roads in the area.

Service in the Peace Corps gives volunteers the opportunity not only to assist local development, but to gain new appreciation for the environment and how other cultures live side by side with various environmental concerns.

“People are loading bamboo in barges, presumably to take down the river to sell in the big cities”, Jonathan Green, American University Peace Corps Community Archive. In other countries such as Thailand, Peace Corps volunteers observe how crucial waterways are in the economy of local communities.

Student Artwork in the Peace Corps Community Archive

Christine Wenk-Harrison served her time in the Peace Corps working as an art teacher with students in Sierra Leone. Her lesson plan notebook shows how Christine stressed the originality of artwork to her students. She believed art could be “something about you, your own idea, and work.” Her lesson plans also reveal her belief that teaching through art could demonstrate to her students how to work both creatively and independently while at the same time following instructions and overall directions.

Through art, Christine’s students expressed themselves, their culture, and their hopes. Below are several examples of her students’ work, held in American’s University’s Peace Corps Community Archive.

Student Artwork, Christine Wenk-Harrison, American University Peace Corps Community Archive

Student Artwork, Christine Wenk-Harrison, American University Peace Corps Community Archive

“Weevils and Beetles”: An Amusing Peace Corps Anecdote

Brian Adler and Cynthia Elliott, a married couple, served together in the Peace Corps in Suriname (2002-2004). His extensive diary records the daily life of a Peace Corps volunteer. In addition to assisting in community projects, Brian and Cynthia also found time to travel the countryside. In doing so, Peace Corp volunteers not only adapt to different and local cultures, but also to the environment as well. This amusing anecdote, taken from Brian’s diary, shows how volunteers, placed in new locations, cope with the forces of Mother Nature.

Harlequin Beetle in Hand, Brian Adler, American University Peace Corps Community Archive

“The bugs have gotten better and braver at night. This hasn’t pleased Cindy, She woke me up with a start the other night scared out of her wits. I think it was the Mephoquin. We both heard buzzing in the walls and at 3:30 in the morning I could care less so I quickly took to some light hearted joking by naming the insect “The Wood Weevel.”

Cindy was unimpressed. She made me get up several times to look for it, turn on the lantern, turn off the lantern because it smelled, etc. I never did get back to sleep because she would violently shake her bug netting every 20 minutes. I finally got up and told the jungle to stop it but I don’t think it listened.”

Visualizing Our Collections

From a quick look at our Peace Corps catalog, it becomes apparent that many of our collections are of those who served during the 1960s. To what extent however, are the other decades in which people served represented? The graph below presents our collections in a visual format, indicating trends in Peace Corps activity expressed through our holdings. (Note: Each year corresponds to each Peace Corps volunteer’s year of entry into the two-year program)

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

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 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 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.

Turkish embossed cards sent by Karen DeAntoni.

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.

Joyce Emery Johnston, Husking, 1965-1967

“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.

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

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.

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.

Love and Marriage in the Peace Corps

Not only did the Peace Corps experience provide opportunities to travel and develop skills, but also led to the development of romantic relationships between volunteers. Norm Heise noted the Peace Corps’ reputation for “being the best ‘unofficial matrimonial agency’ going at the time.” The PCCA collection includes several stories of volunteers’ dating escapades, but there are also two instances where volunteers married during their service.

August 18, 1963, St. Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University

Norm and Janet served as teachers at Toro Teaching Training College, in Northern Nigeria, from 1963-1965. After meeting in training at Columbia University, Norm Heise proposed to Janet Driggs. The two had known each other for less than a week. The couple married in August before departing in September for their assignments in Nigeria. As a result of their marriage, Peace Corps altered their placements to ensure the couple traveled, lived, and shared the experience together. Their collection includes photos and stories of their work in Nigeria.

Norm and Janet Heise in Toro, Nigeria, 1963

The DeAntoni’s story is a bit different. Both members of Turkey IV, Ed and Karen met during training and maintained contact while working in separate towns. The two friends began a romantic relationship, in the midst of their service, after connecting at a party. Karen wrote her parents on August 12, 1965, “I’m afraid this will come as an awful surprise, but then it’s more fun that way—last night I got engaged!” Because of the distance and the realization her parents did not know Ed, Karen anxiously awaited their response. Ed informed his parents by writing, “Before you start reading this, sit down, get composed, light a cigarette…In a word, it’s too good to be true. Karen and I became engaged last night, and I’m so happy I could cry.” Their collection of letters uniquely presents their same experiences from different points of view.

Karen’s letter to her parents announcing her engagement to Ed DeAntoni, August 12, 1965

Karen’s letter (pg. 2), August 12, 1965

Karen’s letter (pg. 3), August 12, 1965

Although Ed and Karen initially planned to return to the US to marry, they quickly decided to hold a wedding in Ankara, Turkey. Their desire to travel together, avoid inconveniencing roommates, and being in love seemed sufficient enough. The approaching marriage influenced many of the couple’s letters home—especially Karen’s—discuss wedding plans, financial needs, and concerns about family planning.

The DeAntoni’s wedding invitation, 1966

It is not surprising that living closely with other volunteers and sharing life-changing experiences established lasting bonds—both friendly and romantic. In a letter to his parents, Ed explained, “This common experience has given us a tremendous basis for learning about each other, a common feeling for so many things, and the ground for our love to grow and flourish.” For many volunteers, this experience of surviving a new place, establishing relationships, and sharing similar goals fostered the development of many romantic relationships.

Peace Corps Community Archives

AU Library