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Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2018-034
Jennifer Mamola was a Peace Corps Volunteer in an education program in Gulu, Uganda, from November 2012 until April 2013 when she was hit by a car and seriously injured. She discusses the circumstances of her accident, the role that Peace Corps played in her evacuation first to Kampala, the capital of Uganda, and then to Pretoria, South Africa, where she spent about a month in the hospital before returning home. Although Mamola praises the Peace Corps for her rapid evacuation and treatment while overseas and the help she received from the Peace Corps Advocate, she faults the agency and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) for insensitivity to her needs and the poor medical coverage she has had since her return. (DOL is the agency that administers the Federal Employees Contribution Act (FECA) disability program, which covers Peace Corps volunteers.) Mamola discusses legislation pending in 2018 to address some of the medical issues faced by Peace Corps volunteers. In addition, she talks about Peace Corps training as well as her brief work in rebuilding a library in Uganda, which had been used as a safe space for children during the guerrilla attacks associated with Joseph Kony. Interviewed and recorded by Evelyn Ganzglass, 6 July 2018. 3 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2018-033
John Klima served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Somalia from 1962 to 1964, and in Brazil from 1971 to 1973. He met his wife, Emily, a fellow volunteer, during Peace Corps training and they got married secretly during their service in Somalia. Later as a married couple with three young children, they reenlisted and the family was sent to Brazil. While Somalia was a positive experience, Brazil was not. Klima served as an intermediary school math and science teacher in Amoud, Somalia, near the Ethiopian border. He describes how his Somalia I group was terminated a month early because of security concerns during the 1964 border conflict between Ethiopia and Somalia, and says he was accused by his students of being a CIA spy because of what Egyptian teachers had told them. He also discusses problems with the Peace Corps staff in Somalia that resulted in staff being fired and 4 volunteers being reassigned. Regarding his service as a lab technician in Recife, Brazil, Klima says that even though the Peace Corps allowed volunteers with families to join, the agency did not provide adequate support for his young family, which by then included 3 young boys; therefore his wife, who was supposed to be a volunteer, couldn't work and had to stay home with the children. Klima also questions whether the Peace Corps should have been propping up sugar cane growers that exploited their workers. Interviewed and recorded by Evelyn Ganzglass, 2 July 2018. 2 digital audio files (web streaming fiels combined into 1 file). [Correction: In the interview, Klima states that Herman Smith replaced Marshall Tyree, but after the interview he remembered that Herman Smith was Tyree's deputy. Sal Tedesco was the new director stationed in Mogadiscio, the capital of Somalia.]
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2018-023
Abby Thomas served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Somalia from 1966 to 1969. Thomas served as an English language instructor in a primary level boarding school in Bulhar on the Gulf of Aden in northern Somalia from 1966 to 1968, and then as an English as a Second Language (ESL) trainer for Somali Peace Corps volunteers in 1969. During the summer, she and three other volunteers visited towns in the South of Somalia as a traveling theater group. In the 1980s, Thomas served as a development consultant in Somalia and in 2018, she was an election observer in Somaliland. Prior to joining the Peace Corps, she had read that where you grow up determines your worldview and she sought an assignment in an isolated location to explore this idea in real life. Although her assignment was difficult, Thomas says that she accomplished what she set out to do. Much of the interview covers Somali language and cultural issues, including how she was treated as a woman, and her continuing connection with personal Somali friends she made. She also discusses the Peace Corps language and teaching training she received at Columbia Teacher's College. Interviewed and recorded by Evelyn Ganzglass, 4 and 6 June 2018. The final interview segment is an addendum that was completed two days later. 3 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2018-019
Cheri Damschroder served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras from 1977 to 1979 as a home economics teacher. She attended training in the capital city, Tegucigalpa. Her college degree was in Spanish, so she didn't need as much language training as others did. However, being able to understand the local people was a challenge. Damschroder was initially stationed in El Paraiso, and then moved to the Escuela Manuel Bonillo school in La Ceiba. There she taught sewing in the practical activities program. Several years after her service, she returned to Honduras with her husband and worked at the Peace Corps training center in Santa Lucia. Interviewed and recorded by Barbara Kaare-Lopez, May 6, 2018. 2 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-2018-016
Rolly Shaner Thompson served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Peru from 1964 to 1966 in a rural community action project. During training at the University of Oklahoma, she met trainee Wayne Thompson, whom she married after Peace Corps. During her early months in the Peruvian Andes, Thompson worked in a community in a variety of "Cooperacion Popular" projects. Following that, she spent a year in Yucay, in the Urubamba Valley, where she started 4-H clubs, taught health and sanitation, and encouraged gardening. She moved to Chacan for her final six months and worked with women embroiderers, helping them produce marketable products. After the Peace Corps, Thompson made her career in education and counseling. Along with Wayne, she owns a sheep and alpaca farm in Eugene, Oregon. Four decades after her Peace Corps service, Rolly is once again involved with textiles in Peru, and travels annually to the Puno region to work with drop-spindle spinners of alpaca yarns. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia A. Wand, May 7, 2018. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combine into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2018-015
Charles Wayne Thompson served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Peru from 1964 to 1966 in a rural community action project. He was stationed in the Peruvian Andes, not far from Cusco and above the town of Calca, in Yanahuaylla, a small Quechua community of farmers who raised potatoes, wheat, corn, and cornnuts. They taught him traditional techniques for farming above the tree line at 9,000 feet, which was very different from the pear and peach orchards he knew back home in Medford, Oregon. Thompson worked with leaders in two communities to solicit money to build the first school and later earned money for an Allis Chalmers thrashing machine, which unfortunately never functioned. A medical emergency forced his departure six weeks early; unable to say goodbye in 1966, he returned in 1990 and found friends and a fully functioning school. After the Peace Corps, Thompson taught high school social studies until 2001. He and his wife Rolly, whom he met in Peace Corps training, own a sheep and alpaca ranch near Eugene, Oregon. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia A. Wand, May 7, 2018. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2018-014
Amy Amessoudji (nee Waldren) served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guinea from 1995 to 1997 in a public health and community development program. She was a graduate of the University of Wisconsin Madison. Amessoudji received initial training in Senegal and finished her training in-country before going to her rural site in south Guinea. Later, she volunteered for Crisis Corps (now called Peace Corps Response) in Togo in 2001 for a 6 month period, where she served as a technical adviser on HIV and AIDS. She met her husband while serving in Togo. Interviewed and recorded by Harry E. Bennett, April 10, 2018. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2018-013
Brenda Brown Schoonover served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Philippines Group One from 1961 to 1963 as a 5th and 6th grade English teacher. She began training at State College Pennsylvania and then continued her language and cultural training in-country at Los Banos in a group of 128 volunteers. In the Philippines, she was stationed in the town of Magarao in the Bicol Region where she worked in the elementary school and established a community library. In her interview, she describes the warm relations she enjoyed with host country nationals. While interacting with students, teachers, and other host-country nationals, she says she learned valuable lifelong lessons in cross-cultural sensitivity -- lessons she believes have served her well throughout her subsequent career as an American diplomat. After completing her teaching assignment, Schoonover continued working as a Peace Corps staffer in Tanzania and at the Peace Corps office in Washington, D.C., and eventually became a foreign service officer. President Bill Clinton appointed her Ambassador to the West African nation of Togo, and she served there from 1997 to 2000. Interviewed by Ivan C. Browning, April 6, 2018. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2018-012
Jed Meline was a Peace Corps Volunteer on the island of Chuuk, Micronesia, from 1990 to 1992. He discusses his work as an elementary school English teacher preparing students to take the high school admittance exam, and his work as a public health worker. He tells stories about helping save a baby’s life by providing rehydration medicine and helping families get funding for water catchment tanks during a particularly severe drought. He discusses violence on the island and being protected from this violence by the clan-based support system on the island. Meline also discusses the impact of the Peace Corps on his life, the view of Americans in other countries, and the role of the Peace Corps as the training ground for foreign aid workers in USAID and more broadly. Interviewed by Evelyn Ganzglass, April 9, 2018. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2018-008
Rhett Power served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan from 2000 to 2001. He taught business courses in a college in Bukhara and served as a small business consultant at a time when Uzbekistan was still emerging from the planned economy of the Soviet era. He recounts Uzbeks' reactions to the 9/11 Twin Tower attacks and the subsequent evacuation of Peace Corps Volunteers. He talks about his continuing close ties with the Uzbek family with whom he and his wife, a fellow volunteer, lived while in the country. Power also discusses their motivation to join the Peace Corps at 30 and the profound impact Peace Corps has had on their subsequent lives working in the international arena. Interviewed by Evelyn Ganzglass, March 28, 2018. 3 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2018-007
Cedar Wolf served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Namibia from 2006 to 2008. He joined the Peace Corps as he wanted to experience the "rawness of humanity." His training was held with 67 volunteers in Okahandaja, Namibia, and during this time he also made a YouTube video to welcome new Peace Corps Volunteers. Wolf initially worked in math education, and later switched to science education. He taught grades 8 through 10 in Kayengona, a village east of Rundu. During his service, Wolf became friends with am orphaned 3rd grade boy, Matjayi, and people began referring to him as "Cedar's small boy." Wolf also participated in Camp GLOW (Girls Leading Our World). One 9th grade student, Pontianus Mukiski, came to Denver for three weeks in 2017 to learn and stay with Wolf. After returning to the U.S., Wolf became a Peace Corps recruiter in the Denver area and stated, "Peace Corps is my moral compass" and that he believes in "the power of a story." Interviewed by Barbara Kaare-Lopez, December 8, 2017. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2018-005
Malcolm Odell, Jr., served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal from 1962 to 1967. Odell was in the first group of volunteers to serve in that country (Nepal I). In the interview, he discusses his various posts teaching in remote villages and his close friendships with Sherpas and other Nepalese. He tells many stories of his adventures in Nepal, India, and other countries. These include traveling around the world between Peace Corps tours with another volunteer to learn about successful educational approaches, meeting the Dalai Lama, and hitchhiking from Nepal to Turkey with a friend at the end of his service. Interviewed and recorded by Evelyn Ganzglass, 10 January 2018. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2017-040
Robert L. "Bob" Staab served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Turkey from 1965 to 1967. He applied and was accepted to the Peace Corps before finishing his bachelor's degree. His training began in Oregon at Portland State University, and continued in Ankara, Turkey, at the Middle East Technical University. Staab was assigned to work on a rural community development project in a village near Edirne, in western Turkey. His work focused on building and developing a community center. Three months into his service, Bob and his fiancee, Sylva, married in a traditional Turkish wedding ceremony. The couple spent their final five months of Peace Corps service teaching English to adults in Ankara. The Staabs returned to Turkey to visit the village in 2001 and again in 2014. Interviewed and recorded by Phyllis Noble, 7 March 2017. 2 digital files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2017-039
Sylva Telford Staab served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Turkey from 1965 to 1967. She was motivated by a visit from Sargent Shriver to her college campus, and applied to the Peace Corps during her senior year. Her training began in Oregon at Portland State University, and continued in Ankara, Turkey. Staab was assigned to work on a rural community development project in western Turkey in a village near Edirne. After her marriage to a fellow Peace Corps volunteer, Sylva moved to her husband’s village, where she worked with women in health care, began a preschool, and helped develop a library with funding from CARE. The couple spent their final five months of Peace Corps service teaching English to adults in Ankara. The Staabs returned to Turkey to visit the village in 2001 and again in 2014. Interviewed and recorded by Phyllis Noble, 7 March 2017. 2 digital files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2017-038
Kathleen Snyder Cox served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras from 1971 to 1973. After training in Puerto Rico, she was assigned to work on a public health and nutrition project organized by Caritas (Catholic Relief Services). Snyder was stationed in Juticalpa, the capital of the Olancho Department. She worked with impoverished women from outlying villages, and trained them in nutrition education and health care so that they could return to their villages to function as "promotoras de salud" (community health workers). Interviewed and recorded by Phyllis Noble, March 2, 2017. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2017-037
Amelia "Mimi" Budd was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nigeria from 1965 to 1967. Her training at Western Michigan University included study of the Hausa language, along with preparation for teaching at the secondary level. When Budd arrived in Kaduna in the Northern Region of Nigeria, she was surprised to find that she was expected to teach in a primary school. After her first year of successful teaching, inter-tribal tensions began to mount as the country moved toward civil war. Romantic involvement with an Igbo military officer also placed Budd in a precarious situation. The Peace Corps moved her to a safer location in the Midwest Region where she taught in a secondary school during her second year. Along with other volunteers, she was evacuated when the Biafran army moved into the area. That harrowing experience did not deter Budd from involvement with the Biafra relief effort after the Peace Corps. Interviewed and recorded by Phyllis Noble, 2 March 2017. 2 digital files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2017-036
Paul Gilman served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mali from 1997 to 2000. As a child, he had lived in Zaire with his American parents, had attended Congolese schools, and had learned to speak Swahili, Lingala, and French. Gilman applied to the Peace Corps at age 29 after having earned two baccalaureate degrees, the second in electrical engineering, thinking that this would be a useful skill in Africa. Instead, the Peace Corps assigned him to an agriculture project in Mali. Training took place in Tubani So, in Bamako. After beginning to study Bambara, a language spoken in southern Mali, Gilman was informed that he would work in the northern area where Sonrai is spoken. Once he arrived in the town of Ansongo to help women with their gardening project, he discovered that no gardening was going on, largely because women traditionally do not participate in farming work. This frustrating situation led Gilman to extend for a third year, during which he helped the agency plan projects more carefully and oriented new volunteers. Interviewed and recorded by Phyllis Noble, 5 March 2017. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2017-035
William "Bill" Lawrence was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Zaire from 1972 to 1974. His training began in the Virgin Islands with French language instruction, then continued with practice teaching for a month in Lubumbashi, Zaire. Lawrence was assigned to a secondary school in a very remote area where he taught science in the French language. After completing his two years in Zaire, he then extended his service to work on a public health project in Upper Volta from 1974 to 1975. In this WHO-sponsored program, Lawrence worked on the eradication of river blindness (Onchocerciasis). Interviewed and recorded by Phyllis Noble, 28 February 2017. 3 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2017-034
Christy Allen served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Swaziland from 1974 to 1977. She applied to the Peace Corps after completing her undergraduate degree, despite strong opposition from her mother. Her training occurred in a number of different locations within Swaziland, and provided exposure to various kinds of schools as well as instruction in the siSwati language. Allen was assigned to work in a secondary school in Hlatikulu, a chilly mountainous area, in a Teacher of English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) program. The interview includes a discussion of how white Peace Corps volunteers traveled through South Africa during apartheid, as well as the challenges that occurred when a volunteer married a host country national. Interviewed and recorded by Phyllis Noble, 15 February 2017. 3 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2017-032
Mike Wildman served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Iran from 1972 to 1974 as a vocational education teacher. He applied to the Peace Corps after receiving an electrical engineering degree from the University of California at Berkeley. His training in Iran included the study of the Farsi language. Wildman then began his service in a vocational education program at a school in Isfahan. Together with an Iranian counterpart, he worked to translate a technical education teaching manual from English into Farsi. Interviewed and recorded by Phyllis Noble, February 23, 2017. 1 digital file.
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2017-031
Ken Ng served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Micronesia from 1975 to 1978. Ng's training in Majuro in the Marshall Islands included the study of the Marshallese language and preparation for teaching. He then worked as a teacher and a teacher-trainer in the outer islands of Arno Atoll, and extended for a third year to teach in Mili Atoll. Six years after returning to the United States, Ng applied to the Peace Corps again. He was offered a unique role as a volunteer in a cooperative venture between the Peace Corps and the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) as a teacher in China (1984-1986). He notes that this was nine years before the Peace Corps began its own programs in China. Interviewed by Phyllis Noble, 22 February 2017. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2017-028
Amanda Silva served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Indonesia from 2013 to 2015, in an English education and youth development program. Her cohort was the third group to re-enter Indonesia after an absence of nearly 50 years. (Previously, Peace Corps volunteers had served in Indonesia from 1961 to 1963.) Silva's training was conducted in-country in the cities of Surabaya, Bandung, and Malang. She was then stationed in Cikedung, Indramayu, West Java, where she lived with a host family, taught English in a vocational high school, acquired a bicycle for the hour-long commute, and became involved in the community. Working with the children of Indramayu Javanese backgrounds, Silva developed after-school clubs and regional leadership camps for both boys and girls. Challenges included adjusting to various counterparts, changing host families, and enduring dengue fever. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia Wand, January 5, 2017. 2 digital files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2017-026
John Michael "J.M." Ascienzo served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand from 2012 to 2015. Ascienzo had experience with AmeriCorps and had been a teacher in Vietnam and South Korea prior to joining the Peace Corps. His training took place in Bangrachan, Singburi Province, where he studied the Thai language. Ascienzo was assigned to Baanluang, a small farming town in the mountains of Nan Province near the Laos border. He trained teachers in a primary and secondary school and embraced the local culture by doing what his host family and neighbors did: farming, fishing, and generally trying to lend a hand. He extended his service for a third year to teach English at Prateepsasana Islamic School near the Gulf of Thailand in Nakhon Sri Thammarat City. In the interview, Ascienzo reflects on how the form of government affects people's lives, the challenges of depending on others to get things done, the community leaders’ aversion to taking risks, and how he learned the value of small talk. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia Wand, 6 January 2017. 2 digital files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2017-025
Mary Lou Currier served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Yemen from 1991 to 1994. She joined the Peace Corps at age 50. Her training in the capital city of Sana’a included the study of Yemeni culture and the Arabic language. Currier was assigned to teach English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) at a university in Sana’a. Additionally, she volunteered at a women’s center and helped to develop a sewing center with funding from USAID. The interview describes unique social interactions made possible by the volunteer’s age, and reveals Currier's deep appreciation for the culture of the Yemeni people. Interviewed by Phyllis Noble, 8 February 2017. 3 digital files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).