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Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2006-073-003
Cynthia Ellison Mehary served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia from 1965 to 1967 as a teacher. She had just graduated from the University of Buffalo when she decided to join the Peace Corps rather than take a teaching position. She trained for the assignment in Salt Lake City, which she comments on as an African American woman in the 1960s. Mehary was the first female teacher in a Jesuit co-ed school in Addis Ababa, where she taught mostly business subjects. While in Ethiopia, she met emperor Haile Selassie. Interviewed and recorded by Frieda Fairburn, July 20, 2006. 2 tapes (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2006-063-002
John Rex served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia from 1962 to 1964 as an English teacher (Ethiopia I). He applied during his senior year of college and joined in 1961. Rex trained with about 300 others in Washington, D.C. Most of the 200 Peace Corps volunteers in Ethiopia I taught and lived together in groups throughout the country. Rex's assignment was teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) to secondary school students in Debre Birhan. His school became known for a student strike that was aimed, in part, at the Peace Corps volunteers stationed there. Later in life, Rex also served from 2003 to 2004 with the Namibia 22 group. Interviewed and recorded by Frieda Fairburn, May 23, 2006. 2 tapes (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2007-003-003
John Skeese served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria from 1961 to 1963 as a teacher. His interest in other countries began with his military service and continued with American Friends Service Committee international work camps. After training at UCLA, Skeese taught science in a Catholic mission school near Onitsha. He describes his service, his many friends, and his motorcycle trips in and around Nigeria with Jack Finlay, culminating in a stay at Dr. Albert Schweitzer's hospital in Gabon. Interviewed and recorded by Frieda Fairburn, September 16, 2006. 3 tapes (web streaming files combined into 1 file).