Peace Corps Volunteer, Summer 1971

COVER: During the judging of the 10th Anni- versary Photo Contest this photograph of a Peruvian child so impressed Alfred Eisen- staedt that he asked the Famous Photog- raphers School to present it the Special Alfred Eisenstaedt Award. It was taken by What is Peace Corps? former Volunteer Wayne Roberson, now of Austin, Texas. \m\ At right: the beauty of people and plar; captured by Volunteers: (1) Tunisia: Bill Dix. princeton, - N.J. (2) west Malaysia: Jay Mather, Denver, Colo. (3) Ghana: Eric Mus- tonen, New York City. (4) Senegal: Lars Peterson, Washington, D.C. (5) Malaysia: Jerry Kamprath, Elmhurst, 111. (6) Philippines: Ronald A. Wilcox, San Francisco. (7) Ecua- dor: Bert Steves, Des Moines, la. (8 & 9) Bolivia: Mickey McGuire, Menlo Park. Calif. facing more challenges happens to people who don't have despising the people and not knowing and conquering more fears enough to eat why than you ever thought struggling to communicate in a lan- loving people and knowing why possible guage that you think you'll never learn thinking, sharing, forgiving, bending your back for hours in a mud: seeing a small boy vomit up a 10-inch understanding, giving, rice field worm and having your own worms and learning, changing dysentary giving up a thousand and one times expecting to do work that is extraordi- vacillating between really liking the nary and finding that it is just ordinary trying to understand and being exas- perated with "their" inferior culture, then people and feeling close to them and struggling to understand your own realizing that yours is not a model being discouraged and disgusted with motives culture either their ways answering over and over again the same believing that your personal one-to-one being frustrated by rigid systems and questions about your country-"Is it relationship with people justifies your not being able to change them true that in America it doesn't matter presence in another country condemning yourself for wanting what race or color you are" finding excitement, opportunity for privacy, for not being able to adjust and "Why is the United States initiative, achievement and responsibility always at war?" realizing at the end of two years that you being sick and terribly lonely and think- have adjusted more than you ever feeling isolated, unwanted and thought you could and realizing its home misunderstood ing how ridiculous your being there is showering late at night under the becoming aware of how large the world eating rice everyday and learning to like it shimmering stars with cold water from is and how small you are your tank telling your students that they cannot being disappointed in yourself and in knowing that you will never be the same your' accomplishments come back to school next year because their English ability is too low again. longing to have someone talk to you holding a mosquito-infested child in -from writings of Ruth Book, straight, to jump and dance and run your arms and talking about adoption RPCV, Micronesia and David without the uncomprehending looks of Moats, PCV, Afghanistan, Fred a misunderstanding people coming to know death very personally Deter, PCV, Mauritius and EditL and frequently seeing hunger, and watching what Barksdall. RPCV, Philippines e being frustrated and angry with people for noifollowing sanitary methods with their children an intricate mosaic of 50,000 and one countries, what it has meant in our personal and individual experiences. country and to the people who have Peace Corps is the high point, or the low been a part of it directly or indirectly point, or perhaps even an inconsequen- would require thousands of volumes. tial point in the lives of people who have They have, in fact, been written-in been and are part of it. Interwoven are dozens of books, in hundreds of reports, patterns of people of developing in thousands of stories, in millions of countries who have seen and learned of words that have been said and written America through the Peace Corps every day of every year of these ten Volunteers who appeared in their midst, years. struggling to use their language, to This volume is, rather, a reflection of understand their ways, to work and live Peace Corps. In the words and photo- among them and who in some small way graphs which follow, Americans, some changed their lives. intimately involved in Peace Corps, It is a mosaic not without scars. It has others working on the periphery, talk been attacked by those who have seen about it. Here, too, are comments and it as inept, ill conceived, and of little observations from people in host value, as well as by those who have countries where Peace Corps people loved it most and want to make it better. have worked and lived. Without a doubt Peace Corps has The photographs are of special written vivid chapters in the continuing significance. Most were selected from saga of Americans abroad. It has placed more than 4,000 taken and submitted by Americans in the remotest villages of Volunteers and Returned Volunteers for Africa, Asia and Latin America. It has the recent Tenth Anniversary Photo helped Americans to know peoples and Contest. Taken over the decade, the countries they never quite knew existed photographs are of the places where before. Volunteers lived and worked and of the A people-to-people program, it was a people they knew. whole fresh, new idea that has set the pattern for many other countries and other programs, which today are work- At right: (1) India: Peter D. Vallone, Madi- ing to develop brotherhood among men. son, Wis. (2) Micronesia: Ray Battestilli, This is not, because it cannot be, even Birmingham, Mich. (3) Morocco: Ann Lar- son, Morocco. (4) Tanzania: Anne M. Turley, in the most remote sense, a complete San Bernardino, Calif. (5) Ecuador: John A. look at Peace Corps in its first decade. Bruning, Cincinnati, 0. (6) Iran: Larry Barns, Hancock, Vt. (7) Tanzania: Bruce Weber, Ft. What.Peace Corps is, what it has tried Collins. Colo. (8)Ghana: Eric Mustonen, New to do, what it has accomplished in host York City. (9) Tunisia: Bill Dix, Princeton, N.J. For a decade Peace Corps Volunteers Order, naming Shriver as director. and lived among the people with who have left home and family and headed People everywhere have always con- they worked. It was a fresh, new overseas to cities and remote villages sidered the Peace Corps as belonging proach to international relations. ~1) in developing countries of the world. to Kennedy, and from the standpoint For Americans who stayed at home, Their purpose: to help people who that he believed in the idea and devoted Peace Corps provided armchair adyen- need help. Their method: to live and his skill and power to make it a reality, ture. There was something exhilarating work among the people, to speak their the Peace Corps does belong to him. about young Americans facing up to the language, to understand and adapt to Congress passed the Peace Corps formidable problems of an African vil- their culture. Act on September 22, 1961 and Ken- lage or a Latin barrio. Caught up by the The idea of young Americans going nedy signed it into history. Its purpose: excitement, the people at home created to work abroad took shape in early 1960 -to promote world peace and friend- their own image of Peace Corps, per- when Congressman Henry S. Reuss pro- ship; haps embellishing its accomplishments. posed a bill in the House to study the -to help the peoples of developing The Peace Corps was an almost instant possibility of a youth corps. A similar countries meet their needs for success because Americans would not measure was put to the Senate by trained manpower; permit it to be otherwise. Richard L. Neuberger. Later, Hubert -to help promote mutual under- Early thinking behind the Peace Corps Humphrey introduced a Senate bill call- standing between the peoples of held that a rapid start and sizable num- ing for creation of a "Peace Corps" to the United States and the develop- ber were essential to success. Volun- send young Americans abroad to work ing countries. teers were recruited, processed and sent in missions. That is how it began. overseas as quickly as possible. Nothing really happened with the The Peace Corps fired the imagina- The first group was assigned to Ghana idea, however, until mid-October when tion of people everywhere. It was an in August, 1961 and by the end of the John F. Kennedy speaking at 2 a.m. to idea born at the right time and in the year, there were 431 Volunteers over- students at the University of Michigan right place. seas. first defined the Peace Corps. The stu- Coupling brotherhood and service Young, most of them right off the col- dent response was immediate and en- with a promise for high adventure, lege campuses, these Americans found thusiastic and interest in it spread quick- Peace Corps gave a dynamic thrust to themselves in an alien land, an alien ly among the young people in America. public service. It was dedicated to work culture and an alien language, and they The idea generated such response, in developing countries, to attack hun- struggled to survive. that in January, Kennedy appointed his ger, disease, ignorance and poverty. A David Riesman who worked with eas brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, to de- people-to-people program, its Volun- Volunteers said that one of "the great velop a plan. And on March 1, 1961, he teers worked hard, learned the lan- educative experiences of the Peace created the Peace Corps by Executive guage, were sensitive to local customs up for as many Volunteers as they could THE BEGINNING.

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