Close
Not finding the information you're looking for? Please contact the Archives research staff.
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2020-076
Imhotep Simba served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador from May 2017 to August 2019 on an urban youth development project. Growing up as an African-American in Baltimore, Maryland, his mother encouraged him to be a global thinker. His early career entailed mentoring young boys in his hometown. Simba was determined to serve in the Peace Corps and applied four times. His staging took place in Miami, where he met his group and conducted pre-departure activities. The group arrived in Quito, and their pre-service training (PST) took place in the Monteserrin neighborhood. Training included comprehensive Spanish, cross-cultural content, and safety seminars. Simba worked in a drug rehabilitation center for youth, and reflected on how their lives mirrored his own. He is proud of the safe spaces he created for the youth to talk, and the sessions he led on life skills, identity, and self-discipline. He also taught English and cooking classes as a secondary project. Interviewed and recorded by Charlaine Loriston, January 10, 2020. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2013-008
Meredith Green served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador from 1967 to 1969. She was known by her married name, Margaret Schroeder, at the time. She and her husband were first stationed in a small coastal community, then later moved to the larger city of Machala. While her husband worked as an engineer, Green had to find her own niche within the community development program. She undertook various activities including teaching women in the community how to make and use steel barrel ovens. She also held classes on nutrition, clean drinking water, prenatal health, and art. Interviewed and recorded by Phyllis Noble, July 18, 2013. 1 tape (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2009-004-001
Judith Stadler served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador from 1967 to 1969 on a community development project. She worked at the village level in an obstetric clinic, doing health education work. Note: Beginning of interview is missing. Interviewed and recorded by Robert Klein, September 6, 2008. 1 tape (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2008-074-001
Cheryl Nenn served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador from February 1995 to June 1997 as a forestry extension worker. Her interview includes observations on the Peace Corps experience, the people and situations she encountered, and her thoughts on how the Peace Corps has affected her life and career. Interviewed by Paul Kinsley, April 15, 2008. 1 tape (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2006-057-010
Laurel Zaks served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador from 1997 to 2001 on a community health project. Interviewed and recorded by Adrienne Fagler, July 24, 2005. 1 tape (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2006-007-001
Benjamin W. Bellows served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador from 1997 to 2000 on an animal production project. Ben grew up on a diary farm in Michigan and earned a degree in economics and history at the University of Michigan. He trained in-country concentrating on language with field training in agriculture. He was assigned to the village of Chiguinda near the Amazon basin and worked as a veterinarian. In his third year, he was a volunteer coordinator at the Peace Corps office in Quito. Interviewed and recorded by Robert Klein, September 18, 2005. 2 tapes (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2005-013-008
Billie Jean Chambers (nee Ellsworth) was a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador from 1962 to 1964 on an agricultural extension project. She served along with her husband Dave. Chambers had a farm background and joined the Peace Corps before completing the degree program at Western Illinois University. She trained at Montana State University at Bozeman in intensive language, tropical agriculture, and home economics. In the second stage of her training she worked in Puerto Rico in a small village with a local counterpart. In her first year in Ecuador, Chambers was assigned to Guayaquil to work with an extension agent affiliated with the Heifer Project. In her second year, the couple moved to a more remote area where she worked more on her own. Interviewed and recorded by Robert Klein, July 27, 2004. 2 tapes (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2003-024-001
Mari-Jo Woolfe (nee Decker) served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador from 1964 to 1966 in a variety of roles. She completed language training at UCLA, then spent four weeks in Puerto Rico, where she stayed with a family and practiced teaching. Her program was for TOEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) in secondary schools but the project was designed with the expectation that the Peace Corps volunteer would use that as a base for community development. Her first year, Woolfe was assigned to a girls' high school, where she was minimally involved. She also worked as a nurse's aide in a local hospital, and tutored an evening program to adults in English. In her second year, Woolfe relocated and replaced a departing volunteer in a school for the blind, supervised an AID funded school lunch program, and working with a local women's knitting group. Interviewed and recorded by Robert Klein, May 20, 2002. 3 tapes (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2002-020-003
Julia Mehrer served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador from 1963 to 1964 in a community development program. She began training in November 1963, with a month in Puerto Rico at an Outward Bound school. The group then was split into urban and rural, and Mehrer went with the other rural volunteers to the UNESCO training center in Patzcuaro, Mexico. After working on various health and education projects for four months at her site in Saraguro, Ecuador, Mehrer became engaged to a former Peace Corps trainee. She married in August 1964 in Guayaquil and moved to Venezuela to work in urban community development with Accion. Interviewed and recorded by Robert Klein, April 19, 2002. 2 tapes (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-053
Stanley (Stan) Laser served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador from 1962 to 1965 as an engineer. He joined because he wanted to travel, have adventures, and serve others. He had eight weeks of training at Washington State University and three months of training in Puerto Rico. Besides intensive language training and cultural training, he had a good deal of physical training. He was based in Cuenca, a provincial town. When he arrived, he had to find a place to live and also figure out what he was going to do. After a few months, the director of the Centro, the department in charge of building infrastructure, came and asked if he wanted to help with surveying for a project. After completing that, Laser went to survey for a irrigation ditch from a mountain high in the Andes to the town of Cochapata. Living in very primitive conditions, he first determined the project could be done, surveyed the route, and extended his service for another year so he could help get it started. Laser returned to Ecuador 40 years later to find the irrigation canal was still in use. He has continued to have contact with some of the people in the town. After returning to the U.S., Laser worked for a few years as an engineer and then switched to teaching in New York City so he could continue a life of service. Interviewed and recorded by Candice Wiggum, December 10, 2018. 1 digital audio file.
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-007
Robert Mowbray served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador from 1963 to 1996 in an agriculture and forestry program. He also served as Associate Peace Corps Director for Agriculture and the Environment in Paraguay from 1973 to 1978. Prior to the Peace Corps, Mowbray had been stationed in Okinawa, Japan, in the U.S. Marine Corps and then completed a master's degree in forestry at Yale University. His group was the first to train in Mexico at the UNESCO Patzcuaro facility, but did not receive much technical training. He discusses the "de-selection" of volunteers in his group. In Ecuador, he was located in Ibarra and Otavalo and first worked as part of the Heifer program in conjunction with the Forestry Service, assisting with reforestation, the development of farmer forestry cooperatives, and research. During his second year, Mowbray and other volunteer foresters assisted the Forestry Service in developing a request for more volunteers for the program. In his third year, he moved to Quito and served as liaison between the Peace Corps and the Forestry Service. Following his service term, Mowbray trained new forestry volunteers going to Ecuador at Montana State College. Later, in Paraguay, he worked with the Basico training company to develop more specifically defined jobs and more technical training for volunteers. He also worked on a Peace Corps project with the Smithsonian Institution and expanded the program from 30 to 100 volunteers. He discusses whether volunteers who are expected to "find their own way" or those with clearly defined jobs are more useful to the host country. He concludes the interview by recalling the reactions of volunteers and Ecuadorians to President Kennedy's assassination. After the Peace Corps, Mowbray spent his career in USAID agriculture and forestry projects in South and Central America. Interviewed and recorded by Evelyn Ganzglass, August 28, 2018. 3 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2018-018
Nicola Dino served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador from 1993 to 1997 in a public health program, then joined the training staff in Ecuador in 1999. Dino was a mid-career registered nurse and the mother of grown children when she decided to join the Peace Corps. During training in Tumbaco, she focused on "how to do rural public health in Ecuador." But it was not until she was working in the village of Juan Montalvo side-by-side with the local nurse practitioner (Mercedes) did she finally grasp rural health care, and along with it, the Spanish language. With Mercedes, she practiced health care and initiated health and hygiene education for schoolchildren, whose infectious enthusiasm lead to regional health education. She and her community petitioned to extend her service so she could finish projects and provide country-wide leadership in Peace Corps public health programs. After the Peace Corps, she completed a masters in community and economic development at Illinois State University and moved to Portland, Oregon, where she provided health care services to immigrants. In 2002, Dino became president of the Committee for a Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia A. Wand, April 23, 2018. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2016-019
Sandra Wilcox served as a Peace Corps volunteers in Ecuador from 1971 to 1974. She began her service by providing nutrition education for women in Chimborazo Province in conjunction with a food distribution program operated by Caritas, a Catholic non-governmental organization. After about a year and the departure of her mentor, Wilcox continued this work with a variety of community development groups in scattered rural communities. She returned to the United States on medical leave and then went back to Ecuador in 1975 under a six month extension, working as an in-country trainer for new Peace Corps Volunteers. Wilcox discusses the role of the Catholic Church, especially the role of the Bishop of Riobamba as a proponent of Liberation Theology, in educating peasants about their rights under land reform. She also discusses differences in working with the Catholic communities versus the Evangelical Christian communities. Note: This interview ends abruptly and appears to be incomplete. Interviewed and recorded by Evelyn Ganzglass, December 13, 2015. 1 digital audio file.
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2020-050
Peter Kircher served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador from 1973 to 1975 in a bilingual education project. He had lived in many international locations as a child and decided in 6th grade that he wanted to join the Peace Corps. As Kircher already spoke Spanish, his language training focused on Quichua (Kichwa). He then worked with three other volunteers to build schools in local indigenous communities that were interested in having their children become bilingual in Spanish and Quichua. The schools would allow bilingual teachers to live directly in the communities. Interviewed and recorded by Tamatha Nibert, June 21, 2019. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2020-048
David Driscoll served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador from 1964 to 1966 on a rural community action project. He received cultural, language, and technical training at the University of Missouri. His group then went to Puerto Rico for Outward Bound and further language training. Upon arriving in Ecuador, Driscoll was assigned to assist another volunteer with the surveying and construction of an irrigation canal near Cochapata, a small isolated village in the southern Andes Mountains. A few months later, at the request of the villagers of the nearby town of Nabon, he took over the responsibility for surveying and construction of canals in that region, and stayed there for the rest of his service. Driscoll discusses living in harsh and isolated conditions, motivating the villagers to participate in canal construction, and dealing with the local politics. He also talks about how the Peace Corps experience influenced his life upon returning home. Interviewed and recorded by Stanley Laser, October 31, 2019. 1 digital audio file.
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-105
Mary Ward served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador from 1984 to 1986. Being blind herself, she worked with other blind people in a special education program. She was initially assigned to work as an administrator in Quito, where she worked with blind teenagers. However, due to some difficulties at her first site, she was soon reassigned to Cuenca, where she worked with both a local school and with a club of blind adults called Home for the Blind. Ward states that the Peace Corps changed her view of the world, showing her how to appreciate the good in both her own culture and that of her host country, while acknowledging the shortcomings of both. Through her experience, she has learned to worry less and has gained a greater appreciation of personal relationships. Interviewed and recorded by Christeen Pusch, June 22, 2019. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).