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Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-MR-2012-023
David Zakem served as a Peace Corps volunteer in four different countries: Somalia (1968-1969, agriculture); Swaziland (1969-1971, secondary education); Belize (1987-1989, community education); and Guatemala (1989-1992, maternal and child health care). He talks about leaving his project in Somalia because he felt the assignment would ultimately hurt the people with whom he was working. The Peace Corps headquarters agreed with his assessment of the situation and reassigned him to Swaziland. After establishing a career in international education and pursuing an advanced degree, Zakem rejoined the Peace Corps and was sent to Central America. In the interview, he discusses the influence of his Peace Corps experience on the rest of his life. Interviewed and recorded by Phyllis Noble, June 9, 2012. 2 tapes (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-101
Susan Selbin served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Chile from 1967 to 1968 on a community development project. She later served in Liberia (1982-1983) and Swaziland (2009-2010) as well. In Chile, Selbin was assigned to Nogales where she worked with a Mother's Club to arrange educational workshops for women. To help support the club, she organized film festivals and the construction of a building. After rejoining the Peace Corps in the 1980s, Selbin worked at a university in Monrovia, Liberia. For her third tour, she focused on teacher training work in Makayane, Swaziland. Selbin says that her Peace Corps service gave her a can-do attitude, which she has carried with her throughout her life. In between her time in the Peace Corps, she taught special needs and inner city children and then served in the Foreign Service for 20 years. Now retired, she continues to enjoy volunteering and putting on film festivals focusing on environmental and other social issues. Interviewed and recorded by Christeen Pusch, June 21, 2019. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-077
Celia D'Arienzo (nee McAvey) served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Swaziland from 1976 to 1978 as a secondary education science teacher. She joined the Peace Corps to get away, have an adventure, and hopefully to do some good. She ended up meeting her future husband and teaching a lab-based science curriculum in a school that had no electricity or running water. D'Arienzo discusses some of the cultural differences, like the challenge of being left-handed in a culture that sees the left hand as dirty, how marriages involved the payment of a bride price over time, and how the girls often got pregnant and had to leave school early. She also speaks about how she tried to help the girls. D'Arienzo describes the daily challenges of living there, including a "kidnapping" when officials from a larger school came and got them because they wanted the couple to teach at their school instead. She also recounts a time of danger they faced and her difficulty staying healthy while eating a vegetarian diet. Interviewed and recorded by Candice Wiggum, April 23, 2019. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-076
Dennis D'Arienzo served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Swaziland from July 1976 to December 1978 as a secondary education math teacher. He had little previous experience traveling and he recounts his family's response when he decided to join the Peace Corps. He relates how he met his future wife in training at the University of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland, and how training was comprised of different stages, including a home stay, to prepare them for their assignment. After volunteering for a site in the bushveldt (bush country), D'Arienzo and his girlfriend arrived at a school and residence far from any town and with no one around. He taught math classes to middle-school students in English and speaks of the challenges and sacrifices of the job, but also how much education was valued there. He remembers with sadness what has happened to Swaziland since they left due to the devastation of AIDS, and states that the maturity he gained in the Peace Corps helped him in his later career. Finally, D'Arienzo closes with an account of his travels home and the shock of arriving back in the U.S. Interviewed and recorded by Candice Wiggum, April 23, 2019. 2 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-2020-049
Allyn K. Writesel served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger from 1975 to 1977 on a health education project. She later served in Swaziland from 2015 to 2016 on an HIV/AIDS community health outreach project. In Niger, Writesel worked at a well-baby clinic in Filingue. She became fluent in both French and Hausa. In her second year, she moved to Abala to work at a smaller well-baby clinic. Because she was fluent in Hausa, she became a translator for a mobile clinic. Writesel rejoined the Peace Corps as a mature volunteer because of her continuing interest in global health. In Swaziland, she had a broad mandate to help with HIV/AIDS programs. She also worked on libraries and gardens at local schools. Writesel states that her Peace Corps experience formed the basis for her career, and also compares volunteering with and without technology. Interviewed and recorded by Tamatha Nibert, June 22, 2019. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2020-029
Joseph (Joe) Green III served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Swaziland from 1987 to 1989 on an adult education project. His first experience of living and working in under-served communities came from a volunteer trip to Jamaica in 9th grade. In Swaziland, Green was stationed in Ntfonjeni, where he created trade skill development programs. He describes himself as a Black man returning to Africa and discusses how this led him to unlearn ideas of who and what he was, and to observe the dynamics and value the differences between American and African black families. (He later elaborated on these ideas in his book, "You are Invited to Serve.") Green was part of a select group of Peace Corps alumni invited to participate in the Fellows Program, and he served as Associate Peace Corps Director for the Youth and Urban Education Program in Jamaica from 1991 to 1993. Interviewed and recorded by Charlaine Loriston, October 3, 2019. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).