WAGING PEACE

In my previous post, I published my thoughts

on the Peace Corps after attending the 25th Peace Corps

Anniversary Conference in Washington DC in 1986.

The following is an update I wrote three years after

attending the Peace Corps conference held in June 2002.

[In 2005, I wrote:]
         In 2002, I attended the 40th Anniversary Peace Corps Conference. It had been scheduled for September of 2001. After the 9/11 tragedy, the organizers decided to go ahead as planned, because they felt we needed the PEACE, as exemplified by the Peace Corps, more than ever. But when Reagan Airport was shut down, the conference had to be postponed until June of 2002. 

        Like the 1986 conference I wrote about previously, it was a happy, joyous, nostalgic, emotionally-draining weekend.

        I briefly met Jason Carter, Jimmy Carter's grandson, who had recently returned from service in Africa, following in his great-grandmother's footsteps. (The president's mother, Miss Lillian, had served in India when she was 68-70 years old.)
        Sargent Shriver, already suffering from alzheimers, spoke briefly. Bill Moyers, who had been in on the planning of the Peace Corps, was in attendance.

        Alejandro Toledo of Peru was supposed to attend, but he conferenced in by phone due to a national emergency. In 1963, Toledo, then an adolescent shoe shine boy in a family of 16 children, developed a friendship with Peace Corps Volunteers Joel Meister and Nancy Deeds. 

        After Toledo graduated from high school, Meister and Deeds helped him gain admission to San Francisco City College and later San Francisco State University, where Toledo earned a degree in economics by obtaining a partial soccer scholarship and working at a gas station. Subsequently, he earned a scholarship for graduate studies at Stanford University where he earned advanced degrees in economics and education. He became a professor of economics at the Universidad del Pacifico in Peru and a guest professor in Japan. He also worked as a consultant for various international organizations including the United Nations.
        In 2001, Alejandro Toledo was elected to the Peruvian presidency. [During Toledo's presidency, the economy grew steadily and Peru showed one of the world's lowest inflation rates. He served until 2006. He has denied rumors that he may run again in 2011.]

        At the 2002 conference, I enjoyed being with others who had served in Brazil, including two other Returned PC Volunteers from my own Peace Corps group. Gary had been working for the Christian Children's Fund and returned to Brazil often. Vivian remained in Brazil for 20 years where she met her Chilean husband. They had recently moved to the Washington area and kindly allowed me to stay in their spare room. Brunie, the woman who overlapped me for one year at my Brazilian PC site, attended the conference with her husband, adopted son, her niece and grand niece. Several evenings, a small group of former volunteers who had served in Brazil met at several Brazilian restaurants to enjoy feijoada and other Brazilian dishes.

        One elderly woman, 86 at the time of the conference, had served in Brazil for 15 years teaching goat husbandry. Most Volunteeers serve two years, but may extend service to four, especially if time is needed to complete a project. Apparently, the Peace Corps had to travel to her site to physically remove her because she didn't want to leave. I don't remember what years she served, but since the PC stopped serving Brazil in 1980, that may have been her 15th year.

        Since 1961, more than 165,000 [now 195,000] volunteers have served in the Peace Corps, working in such diverse fields as agriculture, small business and community development, education, environmental conservation, healthcare and information technology. Peace Corps volunteers must be U.S. citizens and at least 18 years of age. The oldest volunteer was 84. Most programs require a college degree and all majors are welcome. Non-degreed applicants must have three to five years of experience in business, farming, ranching or a skilled trade. Peace Corps service is a two-year commitment. Its benefits include language and cultural training, medical and dental coverage, housing, travel to and from the country of service, as well as a monthly stipend and 24 vacation days a year. Volunteers may defer repayment of various student loans while serving.

        With the Iraqi War costing this country billions of dollars and thousands of lives, I often wonder how much less it would have cost in both lives and money for us to send teachers, nurses, doctors, farmers and business professionals to Iraq and other mideastern countries to wage peace.

(©2005, with 2009 revisions, C.J. Peiffer)

THE TOUGHEST JOB YOU'LL EVER LOVE

Originally, this was written in October of 1986,

thus many references are to that time.

Much of this is still relevant today.

[In October 1986, I wrote:]
        Nineteen years ago, on an August evening in 1967 when I was 22 years old and fresh out of college, full of hopes and ideals and ready to save the world, I arrived in the tiny town of Nossa Senhora da Glória where I spent the next two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer, teaching English and working on community development projects in Brazil's underdeveloped Northeast.
        I didn't save the world, of course. Although some of my optimistic hopes and ideals were soon dashed, many were also fulfilled.  After almost twenty years, I look upon that time as one of the best times of my life and one of the experiences of which I am most proud.
        In those two short years, I probably learned more than ever before or since in a 24 month period. I learned about the customs and habits of another culture. I learned to communicate in the Portuguese language. I learned to live reasonably well without running water, electricity, and other conveniences. But what I really learned is a little less tangible.

        I learned I could do many things I thought I would never be able to do ---like learn another language well enough to get along in most situations. I learned to live without things I thought I couldn't live without, such as TV and telephones. This gave a boost to my self-confidence.
        I learned to look at the United States from a global point of view during the Vietnam years. I didn't like the warmonger, imperialistic image I saw. I thought it was a shame that, as a nation, we were not respected nearly as much as we were feared.
        I learned that we are truly one world, and that we are going to have to start thinking and acting as if we believed it. One of the Peace Corps' mottos is  to "bring the world back home." One contribution Returned PC Volunteers have made to our society is to return with a wealth of experience and knowledge of another culture to share with family, friends, students, and coworkers.
        Most of all, I learned how lucky I am to be an American. I am not complacent. There are many things that need to be improved here, but living in a town of 2000 where perhaps 20% of the people were functionally literate, where the infant mortality rate was about 30%, made me appreciate, more than ever, the wonderful opportunities I have as an American, at the same time celebrating the similarities and differences of other cultures.

        In September 1986, I attended the Peace Corps 25th Anniversary Conference in Washington, DC.  I learned a sobering fact there. The Peace Corps has less funding per year than our military bands. The Peace Corps has always had to beg for its meager funds.
        In 1961, Kennedy had so much faith in the idea for a Peace Corps, that he used his discretionary funds to train and place Volunteers in 8 countries before Congress approved PC funding. For months it operated from a hotel room, with mostly volunteer workers, people who hunted down the office and dropped in to give time to the project.
        At the conference, I learned that everything and anything could bring me to tears.
        I cried when Cory Aquino [the new president of The Philippines] received a standing ovation upon her entrance. I cried when Bob Shriver told us how proud his father [Sargent Shriver, first PC director] was that his younger son had joined the Peace Corps, the first Shriver to do so. 

        When the first PC Volunteer told how he received a letter saying he had been accepted to serve in "China or some other African country," I cried with laughter. He was assigned to Korea.

        Awards were given to Volunteers who had returned home only to do amazing things, like start a program to prevent blindness in a Caribbean nation. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I listened to the award winners' stories.

        I was thrilled at the sight of 7000 Returned Peace Corps Volunteers marching from the Lincoln Memorial to Arlington Cemetery, each group carrying the colorful flag of the country served. We passed JFK's gravesite on the way.
        I cried at Bill Moyers' speech at the memorial service held in Arlington's amphitheater,  honoring Volunteers who had died during service and when Sargent Shriver and Loret Miller Ruppe [the PC director in 1986] handed yellow roses to family members of the deceased. [Fewer PC Volunteers died during service than those in the same demographic group at home. Most were victims of accidents.]
         Although not many from my own PC group attended, many others who had served in Brazil were there. Brunie, the girl with whom I shared my PC site [our service times overlapped for a year] flew from California, along with her fiancé and adopted daughter. It was wonderful to see her and to catch up with an old friend.
        It was a happy, joyous, nostalgic, emotionally-draining weekend. I didn't want it to end.

        In many countries of the world today, people acquire their impressions of America and Americans from TV or movies. It's frightening to think that Rambo movies and Dallas or Dukes of Hazard reruns form opinions of us. [Remember, it was 1986 when I first wrote this.]
        In many remote villages, the only real American anyone ever meets or has been close to or worked with, has been a PC Volunteer, someone who looks strange to the locals, who may dress differently, may not speak the language particularly well, but someone who cares about them and their lives, someone who will work hard and love it ---as they say, it's "the toughest job you'll ever love."
        PC Volunteers live in remote regions of the world, not needing protection. Few have had to be recalled because of internal problems in host nations. Local people love the Volunteers for what they do. When I left Peace Corps service in 1969, a few Brazilians, frank to a fault, told me they still disliked the United States, but they loved me. This was progress ---some had told me two years earlier that they despised America.

        
        It wasn't easy. There were times I would have gone home in a snap, like the time we found a poisonous snake in the house --- but there wasn't a bus passing through Glória for four days, so I stayed.
        We had to cook everything from scratch (that meant starting with a live chicken), boil and filter water, sleep on a straw mattress under a leaky roof, teach with fewer materials for an entire class than a single American student would have. At times, I suffered depression, culture shock, alternating bouts of diarrhea and constipation. I lost nearly 30 pounds and suffered with intestinal worms that required a handful of horse-sized pills to cure.
        Yet there were wonderful moments. I taught English as a foreign language and helped with community-development projects. I made visual aids for the elementary school and for the doctor who showed up once a week, because sometimes he had only one text book for an entire class at his medical school. I was able to travel throughout Brazil and visit other South American countries. There were lazy days at the beach, exuberant Carnaval celebrations, soothing rhythms of samba and bossa nova, and wonderful new Brazilian friends. There were also many humorous moments, such as on my first day in Rio when I ordered two fried grapes for breakfast.
        I loved Brazilians and Brazil. It was truly a land of contrasts. At times, I found Brazil backward, yet rapidly progressing, sexist yet wonderfully romantic, fascinatingly exciting while amazingly slow paced. Each day was full of joy, humor, and tragedy. The land surrounding the town where I lived was drab and colorless. The cities, the language, the music, and the people were vibrantly colorful, sometimes exotic.

        In its heyday, the Peace Corps had more than 15,000 Volunteers serving around the world. Today [1986] only about 5500 are in the field. In the 1980's, with an ever-increasing military budget, star wars, and terrorism, we need a Peace Corps more than ever.
        Current Volunteers and Returned PC Volunteers have become citizens, not only of the United States, but also of the world.

(©1986 with 2009 revisions, C.J. Peiffer)

WORLD CLASS TRAVELERS

        After college, I spent two years in the Peace Corps in northeastern Brazil. During my second year, I used my vacation time to travel through Brazil by bus. Although it was winter in South America, it was warm enough to swim in Rio de Janeiro, but was pleasantly cool in southern Brazil. From there, I ventured to Buenos Aires.
        I learned enough Spanish to say, “I don’t speak Spanish. I speak Portuguese. Speak slowly and I will understand you.” In Buenos Aires, I somehow managed to communicate to my taxi driver that I wanted a clean but economical hotel. I don’t know if the driver knew that the small hotel was owned by a Brazilian couple, but it was a stroke of luck, making communication possible for me.
        I had been traveling for several weeks and needed clean underwear. The landlady directed me to a wash tub in a dark hallway where I met an American woman laundering by hand. She wore slacks and a turtleneck which matched her dark eyes and hair, which was sprinkled with silver strands. She said, “You’re washing more underwear than my husband and I own.” Soon she and I were chatting like old friends.
        Her husband had broad shoulders and was a little taller than his wife, his mustache and receding hair streaked with more gray than hers. During that week, over breakfast and for an additional hour or two each day, I listened in awe to their spellbinding travel tales. In the intervening years, I may have forgotten some of the details, but the essence of what they told me follows. I can’t remember their names, so I will call them George and Helen.

        Helen and her husband had yearned to travel around the world. She was a secretary and George an auto mechanic. They didn’t have high-paying jobs that would permit them to travel in luxury. When their sons were grown, the couple sold their house and furniture, depositing the proceeds into savings. They applied for passports, arranged for immunizations, quit their jobs, and withdrew a few thousand dollars.
        When their travel funds were nearly depleted, they returned to their hometown, rented a furnished apartment, found jobs, and foregoing all luxuries, worked until they were able to save several thousand dollars again. Television, library books, and travel brochures were their only entertainment. They never saw a movie while in the U.S. because the same film would be playing in foreign countries at a much lower price while they traveled. They purchased only the essentials and were soon on the road again. They went through the routine several more times and with each trip learned to make their resources stretch farther.
        When we met, Helen and George were on their fifth trip. They intended to continue this pattern until their money or their health ran out.
        They couldn’t describe lush accommodations or exclusive resorts, but they recounted exciting travel anecdotes that could never be found in a travel brochure. They spoke of stopping in Abu Dhabi or Shanghai the way I might mention a trip to the local mall. They almost always stayed at clean but humble hostels or hotels, but recalled a time when they had arrived at a bus station late at night in a small town in the Middle East and couldn’t find a hotel. In desperation, they arrived at the police station where they were offered an empty cell. They told me of one other night that they had to sleep in a stair well, but that was their only night of real discomfort in many years of unconventional travel. Even the jail cell had been warm, clean, and safe.
        They each carried only two changes of shirts and slacks, with one set left in the hotel room to dry after washing it. The recent introduction of drip-dry fabric made laundering easy. With the addition of a plain black dress for her and a sports coat and tie for him, they could get by at all but the most elegant of events. With three sets of underwear, one good pair of walking shoes, a pair of dressier shoes, and a light water-repellant jacket and sweater, they followed the seasons, so that heavy clothing was unnecessary. Besides toiletries, the other things in their suitcases were an immersion heater coil with foreign adapters, two mugs, spoons, tea bags, instant coffee, and packages of dried soup.
        Most foreign hotels included a breakfast of bread, fruit, and coffee. The couple sought out good food with generous portions at a reasonable price for lunch. For dinner, they purchased fruit, bottled water and bread, carrying them to the hotel room to consume with soup and coffee or tea.
        They knew every interesting place, event, fair or festival in Buenos Aires that they could attend for free or at a very low cost and happily shared that information with me. Mornings and afternoons were spent sightseeing, attending museums, zoos, historical sights, or strolling through picturesque streets, parks, or botanical gardens. They spent most evenings writing letters to their sons, visiting new acquaintances, reading, or attending musical performances or movies.
        George and Helen usually celebrated with a “night on the town” on their last evening in any large city. I doubt that they bought souvenirs of their trips. or even had a camera. Film and developing may have been too prohibitive for their frugal ways, or the bother of carrying a camera might have restrained such an unencumbered couple.
        When I met them, they were waiting in Buenos Aires for a cargo steamer to dock. It would eventually transport them to Genoa. They planned to buy a used motorcycle to bike themselves to Germany where one son was stationed in the military. After staying with their son and his young family for a few weeks, George and Helen planned to roam throughout Europe or perhaps Russia, then sell the motorcycle and move on.


        I think of George and Helen often, wishing I had the courage to follow in the footsteps of such an inspiring couple. If I had the courage to travel as they did, I’m sure it would be a wonderful escapade. But maybe I’d have to forego an extra set of clothes and carry my laptop and a camera so that I could record the intriguing details of my exotic adventures.
        If they are still living, George and Helen would be in their nineties by now. I’d like to think they are still satisfying their insatiable wanderlust. If not, I hope they have settled down with the satisfaction that they did what they wanted to do and did it well. So I salute all the Georges and Helens of the world and all others who have had the heart, the courage, and the determination to achieve in their senior years the dream of a lifetime, to accomplish things that most of us would love to do but probably will never even attempt.

(©2009, C.J.Peiffer)

PRESIDENT OBAMA

I thought some of our new president's comments would be of interest to former Peace Corps Volunteers and those interested in the Peace Corps.

"To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds.

"And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders, nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it...

"What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character than giving our all to a difficult task.

"This is the price and the promise of citizenship."

President Barack Obama, Inaugural Address, 1/20/09