IS VS Gets Bonn Pledge IDuring a U.S. visit in June, German Chancel Ior Ludwig Erhard announced Bonnsuppoti of the International Secretariat for Volunteer SeNice, including a$50,0W pledge for ISVS activities. At the White House, Chancellor Erhard(center] shows President Johnson a COPYof the pledge, as Peace Corps Direc-tor SarRent Shriver (left), who also seines as U.S. corresmndent of the secre-tariat, iooks on, Argentina, Denma*, Israel, the Netherlands, Noway, thePhilippines, and the U.S. are also contributing personnel or financial suppotithis year to ISVS, which promotes volunteer-sewice programs around the world.

Volunteers Who Extend For Full Year

May Take Additional Month’s LeaveVolunteers who extend (heir sewice

a full year overseas may now take 30days of leave in addition to their regularleave.

The new policy is aimed at encouragingVolunteers whose continued service isdesired by the host countw to sewe anadditional year. The 30-day special leavemust be taken after the end of the Vol-unteer’s first term of service and beforethe beginning of his year of extendedservice,

Volunteers on special feave may travelto their U.S. homes or [o any point inthe world other than the Sine-SovietBloc, The Peaw Corps will pay half theeconomv-class travel COSW.but not more

@

than haif tbe mst of cco”omYclass jettransportation from the host count~ tothe Volunteer’s U.S. home, md return.

Host countries may pay [he other half

of the Volunteer’s special-leave travel, or[he Volunleer may draw against his accu-mulated readjustment allowance to coverthe costs of his tra”spo flation,

Further information about special-leavepolicy, and about extension policy ingeneral, may be obtained from Repre-sentatives and other field staff members,

Jamaica Sets ScholarshipThe government of Jamaica hm estab-

lished a research scholarship at the Uni-versity of the West Indies for a fomerPeace Corps Volunteer,

The award, to be called the John F.Kennedy Scholarship, will go to a Vol-unteer who has sewed in Jamaica. An-nouncement of the scholamhip was maderecently by Edward Seaga, Jamaicanminister of development and welfare,

Ex- VolunteersWanted to StaffYouth Centers

The Depaflment of Labor is lookingfor returning Volunteers to help staff aproposed nationwide network of YouthOpportunity Centers.

Youth Opportunity Centers would beestablished to train and to help obtainemployment for the estimated 1,200,000young peopte out of school and out ofwork. The ~ntem would alw focus onthe 5,500,000 youths in families whichhave Ias than $3000 an””al income, andon the 1,500,000 men likely to be re-jected by the armed forces when called“p next year by klectivc Service.

The Department of Labor is askingCongress for $38 million to support thecenters, which would be administered bythe Federal-State Employment System.The centem are not a part of the Ad.mi”istrntion’s proposed anli. poverty pro-gram now being considered by Congress.That legislation, if approved by Con.gress, would provide additional projectsto which unskilled, uneducated youngpeople could be referred by lhe YouthOppofiunity Centers for help.

Centers would be established in 105cities, with at Ieasl one in every state.They would be located i“ “eighborhotiswhere large numbers of disadvantagedyoung Fople live.

Immediare goal of the Depatiment ofLabor is to recruit 2000 youth advisersand counselor aides, who will undergo aconcentrated training course this summer.

4oThe centers will be in a very realsense historic fietd posm i“ the waragainst poverty,” Secretaw of LaborW. Willard Winz has said. ,,But withouttroops even this war we all welcome ca”-not be won. Our chief co”cer” is andmust be to recruit an able and dedicatedstaff (Continued on page 2)

E

Corps Volunteer teachers and pub-lic administrator working in U.

On Use of the Booklocker

Volunteer Offers GuidanceFor Tongue-tied Colleagues

Volunteer Hiram Woodward (OwingsMills, Md.) is a 1962 graduate of HawardCollege, with a B.A. in fine arts. He wasassistant director of a Boston art galleryfor two years while attending college.The following is reprinted from TheThailand Peace Corps Journal.

By Hiram Woodward

The Peace Corps medical kil comeswith a guide, and each Vol.nteer”s re-sponsibility for his health is well-covereddt,ring training.

The Peace Corps booklocker, on theother hand, arrived recently with noguide at all. Nor was .nyLhing said dur-ing training about its proper use.

To help Vol””teers i“ lhe absence ofofficial guidance. the JoJ’r,rcd offem asample dialogue between a Host CountryNational and a Vol””teer who is “si”ghis booklocker to maximt,m effect.

Host Co.”tT National: Where are yo”going?

PCV: I’m glxd yet, asked, As MarIi”Lulher King, Jr., pt]t it, ,<\Vhere do wego from here fire we caught i“ asocial and political impasse ?’(Sr,ide TOIvC,rdFreed.,,,, p. 153) Or, asHomer replied, i“ his well.know” work,The OdyJJey, .[ wilt go dew” to Hadesand shine among the dead.,, (p. 163)

HCN: Yes.PCV: O“ the other hand 1 also hear

the response OFJames Fenimore Cooper,“Hoot. hoot. lad. vou arc noi.n madlike ail the “rest ‘o( them:’ iTbe- Padt.fi~!~/er, p I55 )

HCN: Thai’s a good ~oi”t, Uh, whereare YOUgoing?

PCV: Frankly, my a“swcr is one withThomas J. Pepe”s, namely, ‘To A“”With Love,>> (Free “,,d l,ze.vpc,t~;ve Ed-r,c<zlio,r”l A jd., p. v )

HCN Where have y.” been?PCV: I’m .0 one in particular. I’m

from Jamaica. 1 collect shells? (DocIorNo, p. 71 ) Or would YO” Iikc my answeri“ song? ‘.1 come dew” the mot~”t ainside,1 give my hOrn a blow.” (Bl,rl f.csSo,,tb”ok, p, 167)

HCAS: What mo. nlain?PCV: What horn, you men..HCN: Watch it,PCV: Oh yes, yO,, asked me where P,,e

ken. ,.I’ve been 10 my sweetheart’smother.” (Ibid., p. 58)

HCN: SweeI old lady.PCV: O“. of the best. ‘,The litlle

dimpled hands’’—1he rest is coming back10 me—,<lhe little rectangular feet: eight

finflers, eight toes.” (6th A n.11.l Edition,Tlze Year’s Best S.F, p. 59)

HCiN: How do you like our food?PCV: As Robinson Crusoe said, “Not

Bnly agreeable. but medicinal, whole-some, nourishing, and refreshing to thelasl degree.” (p. 134)

HCN: And our national dish?PCV: ,lt had, in fact, a sorl of mixed

flavor of cherry tart, custard, pineapple,roast t,)rkey, Ioffy, and hot buttered[east.” (Alice i!t iVo,zderIund, P. 22)

HCN: How do you like teaching Eng-Iisb as a foreign language?

PCV: ‘.Tbree blue dim, p~rpendicularIi”es floating in a “amelc% yeast, Aboggy, sogg~ squitchy picture trLdY. ?

HCN: Wha!’s that?PCV: Oh nothing, jusl something from

a book I once read. (Mob}, Dick. n. 37)HCN: Let’s gel back to” food. “D”oYOU

like the peppers?PCV: Yes, especially o“e passage: “No

ma” can be a competent legislator whodoes not add to an upright intention anda sound judgment a certain degree ofknowledge on which he is to legislate?

HCN: There ,n.st be some misunder-standing, I said peppers.

PCV: Sorry, I tho.~ht ~yo. meantThe Federalist Pa”ers [~, 332), PeDDers,yes. 1 like .0 food. Beets, too:

HCN: Beets?PCV: C,Why beets? a“d whi ,,01 bee[s~

as James Bea;d once wrote. {Iat,tcs BeardCookbook, P. 44 I ) “Withoul beets therewould be “o red flannel hash, no NewEngland boiled dinner, no borsht.”

HCN: Whew, beats me.PCV: Ha. That’s very good. Here’s one

for you: .,1[’s a wi= crack that knows itsown” father.’, Bet YO” don’: know whosaid [ha:.

HCiW Wasn,t it Raymond Clapkr,1892-1945?

PCV: Whv. ves il was. You certainlvknow your E“,;leti’s F“r,t;liar QI,otndo,I;(p. 77).

HCN: Do you miss yo.i home?PCV: ‘No.,, ( The A,?zerica,t, p. 122)HCN: Do yet, know Elvis Presley?PCV: <Certainly not? (Dialogues of

P/ale, p, 253)HC,Y You’ll be lcavi”g soon. How do

you feel? IPCV: <1 am poor a“d old a“d blind;

tbe sun burns mc, and the wind blowsthrough the city gate, and coven me withdust. ; (Longfellow, ;. 75) ‘<Mrs.Wickett, you might brinE me a c“p of teabefore prep, will YOUY (Goodbye, Mr.Chips, p. I )

2

,/;..

k...;..-*/

Mumay W. Frank

Africa Field OfficerNow in Washington

Murray W. Frank, Peace Corps FieldOfficer in (he Western Region of Nigeriafor 2 $h years, assumed duties in June asDep.ly Director of lhe Division of Vol-unteer Support.

Frank will work wilh Padraic Kennedy.Director of Volunteer Support, The DepU(Y Director’s position had been vacantsince July, 1963. The Division has re-sponsibility for orientation of PeaceCorps trainees, for conducting comple-tion-of-servi- conferences, and for theCareer Information Service, in addition ●to offering administrative supporl to Vol. . .u“[eem overseas a“d publishing THEVOLUNTEER.

One Of the first field. sraff membersselected by tbe Peace Corps, Frank cameto ihe agency in August, 1961, afterserving for four years as direclor of aChicago settlement house where he man-aged a social. work program for aneighborhood of 30,000 people. Fron>1954 to 1958 he was assistant directorof a Jewish commt,nitv center at Brock-ton. Mass.

Frank holds a bachelor’s de8ree inpsycbolo~y, granted in 1951 by NewYork University. and a master’s decreein social. group” ‘work, awarded in <954by [he School of Social Work, ColumbiaUniversity, He served in the Pacific with(he Army Air Forces from 1944 to 1947.He is married and has two children.

Youth Opportunity Centers(Co,zdnr,ed fro>. p.ge 1)

“A primau requisite is a very realinterest and motivation in becomin8 apart of this cballe”ging efiort, workingon a person-to-person basis with younfipeople, reaching out [o [hem to aid themin their preparation for employ merit,”Wirtz said,

Returning Volunteers interested inworking with the Youth Opportunity ●Centers will find more information on --page 23, under Career Opportunities.

4letters From Peace Corps’Is Offered by Publisher

A collection of Iettem from PeaceCorps Volunteers was issued in June bya Washington, D. C., publisher.

The 135-page bmk, entitled LettersFro,. lhe Peace Corps, was edited byIris Lute, wife of publisher Robert B.Lute, whose firm also prduces TheNet. Rept,hlic magazine.

Mm, Lute, with the co-operation ofPeace Corps officials in Washington. ob-tained her material largely from the filaof the lnfomation Center, in the Divi-sion of Volunteer Support. Permission 10quote from letters was obtained from28 Volunteers, whose names are carriedon an acknowled8me”t page. The lettersthemselves are not attributed, other thanto rhe co”nlry of origin.

1“ ber introduction. Mm, Lute says:‘.The letters are an inspiring and remark-able collection. Tbty have the freshnessof discovery and tbe immediacy thatcomes from daily Wrsonal contact withthe living conditions, the economic condi-tions, and the people of other societiesfar different from our own. In them, webelieve, you will see a spirit of pioneering

m.

ccomplishment on the part of theseolunteers that should be a source of

‘great pride to all Americans,”Included are excerpts from letters of

application, such u the pemon who“rote :

‘,1 want 10 work for something 1 feelis imporla”l to ma”ki”d a“d “ot just‘ploting in my eighl hours’ as I am nowdoing.”

In a chapter on ‘<Training for the JobAhead,,’ O“C Vol”ntzer wrote home:

YOU might be wondering just whatkind of people become engaged in anendeavor of this nature. MY impressionis that [he Vol. nleem are both realisticand idealistic: realistic in the sense that(hey are aware of the inherent dangerin the world si[ualion today and have adeep conviction that Americans mustlive tbe ideals which they have preachedfor so Io”g—peace, freedom, equality, in-dividual wotih, and human brotherhood;idealistic i“ their belief and hope thatthrough contrib”!inc two years of theirlife they can assist i“ some small wayin the ultimate realization of these idealsfor all manki,ld.<-

Another Volunteer said: ,-Do”’t expecttraining to be the final answer, do “otbecome discouraged, a“d do what youcan to make it better a“d conserve apemonably positive attitude. In ~e”eral,training is bt(er ihan you think it is

@while y.” am undergoing it

On the problems of Iang”age, a Vol-unteer wrote from Chile:

“AI present, I cannot discuw anythingof much dep(h because I cannot reallyspeak that well, but slowly and surelyit is coming to me. Sometimes now Icatch myself thinking in Spanish andrealizing that I’ve just said something toKeith in Spanish when it w= supposedto be said in English+r wake up in themorning and realize my first thought isi. Spanish.”

A Volunteer in the Philippines finisheda letter with this biting comment:

,,~e mosquitws are gelling me andI must end abruptly.”

On the value of being a Volunteer, acommunity-development worker in Co-lombia wrote:

“1. this year a“d one-half away fromtbe United States, I have develowd afuller view of life, a stronger pride inwhat OUr ~OU”lW stands for, a firmerbelief in the necessity of a self-help formof foreign aid, a“d . deeper detemi”a-tion to serve mv co””tw further when. .1 return,,,

And of the qualities necessary for s“c-cess, a girl in the Philippines said:

.&In ~y opinion, among the main pre.requisites for a successful Peace CorpsVolunteer are: a love of people, courageto try anything once, and a sense ofhumor:

Scholarship FundEstablished bySahara Hitchhikers

Five women Vol””teers i“ Liberia whohitchhiked 4000 miles across tbe Saharaearly this year FHE VOLUNTEER, May,1964] have established a Peace Corm%holarship Fund from the money paidthem for their story by a nationalmagazine.

The five-Barbara Doutrich (Kirkland,Wash.), Barbara Kral (San Lorenzo,Cal. ), Geraldine Markos (McKeeswrt,Pa. ), Barbara Prikkel (The Bronx, NY.),and Evelyn Vough (%ottsdale, Pa.)—received $5000 from Li/c after picturesof their trek and a story written by themappeared in the publication.

The scholarship fund will provide two-year scholarships for Liberian teachemso [hey can obtain teacher ceflificationat Liberian colleg~ and the Univemityof Liberia. While working for certifica-tion, the teachers will be relieved byPeace Corps Volunteers.

Contributions to tbe scholarship fundhave also been made by Sargent Shriver,Peace Corps Director, who donatedfunds received as an ho”orari.m fromTemple University, and by David Pear-wn, Deputy Dircclor of the Peace Corps,Ofice of Public Information, who pre-sented an honorarium received from themagazine O,,r St,”doy Visitor.

John Muth (Pompano Beach, Fla.), a Volunteer math teacher, stands with his Ma-Iayan bride, Azizah binte Hassan, in front of their house at Pokok Assam, nodh ofKuala Lumpur near Taiping on Malaya’s west coast. Married last December in MUS.Iim ritual, Muth has taken the name kiz bin Abdullah, following Islamic custom.

3

Is It ‘Peace Corps’ in the City?Eugene Paslov (El Segundo, Cal.) holdsa B.& degree in English from LongBeach (Cal.) State Col Iege, granted in19W, He sewed as a ftight-line m+chanic and flight engineer in the AirForce from 1951 to 1956, and taughtAmeri~n literature to eleventh.gradersat a Long Beach high school for twoyears before he joined the Peace Corps.On June 20 in Istanbul, he marriedVolunteer Susan Garlick [Milwaukee,Ws.).

By Eugene Pmlov

When I first arrived in Turkey lastSeptember, I was assigned to Odemis,a town of 25,000 located 65 miles inlandfrom the west coast city of Imir, 1taught English in the local public sec-ondary school, junior high school, anda boys’ technical school. My classesranged from 50 to 80 students a“d wereconducted in classrwms that were toosmall, poorly lighted and pwrly heated.

My roommate, Tom Malloy (NewHyde Park. N.Y.), and I had only a smallwind-burning stove in our house to keepus warm on cold winter nighti. For thefirst few weeks we could only communi-cate whh three or four Fople in theentire town because we knew just enoughTurkish to order kt,zii (lamb) in thetown’s single restaurant. In addition toour 23 hours a week of regular teaching,we taught adult night classes twice aweek, We also spent a great deal of timeexploring the communily, learning aboutl~al customs, and using our best Anglo-Saxon English when we encountered theproblems of manipulating a Turkishtoilet.

In February of this year, at my request,1 was transferred to Ankara, the capitalcity, Now I live in a comfortable apart-ment with hot.a”d<old mnning water,central heating, a“d a Western toilet,Ankara has a modern transportation sys.tern, many excellent restaurants, a“dgood movie theaters, There is little doubtwhen one sets the modern skyscraperslhal Ankara is an up.toda[e, growingcity.

I have questioned myself many timesabout the usefulness of having Volunteersin a city of this sort. IS it too mtier”? ISit too easy? Am I doing what I cameover here to do? The questions aresignificant, eswcially for Vol”.teersthroughout the world who are living andworking in modern cities,

I am now working at the Middle EmtTechnical Univemity, Of the three “ni.vemities in Ankara, METU is the newest,most progressive, and o“e of the twouniversities i“ Turkey which use En81ishas lhe medium of instruction. In 1956METU had 40 students and three teach.

ers. When 1 arrived there were 2100students and 365 teachers. Tbi universityiwelf is Imated three mfies outiide of thecity on 12,000 acres of the Anatolianplateau. What was once barren land is“OW covered with seven million saplin~,reprexnting the largest forestation pregram in Turkey. There are m~ern CIWS.room buildings with central heating andgod lighting. The campus pulses withactivily as new buildings go up to housethe ex~cted 200 per =nt increa% inschool-age population within the nextfew years. A great deal of time, money,and effort are going into the univemityto train the engineers and technical sw-cialisu that Turkey and the entire NearEast so desperately need.

MEWS student bdy is commed ofTurks, Pakistanis, Syrians, and Lebanese.The result of this amalgam’is a greatvitality and spirit throughout the xhool,a quality not readily apparent in mostTurkish schmls. In my opinion the fiveVolu”teem “OW working at METU—Richard Rolhwell (Bellflower, Cal.),David Long (Garden City, Ma.), SteveAllen (San Francisco), Jim Lepkowski(Gardner, Mass.), and I are engaged inone of the most dynamic educational ex-periments in the Near East.

I have heard some obsemem say that itis not ‘&Peace Corps” unless one lives i“a mud hut or the equivalent and packin his OW” sleeping bag, I have heardthat there is an ‘,image,, which, petiorce,a Volunteer must maintain;l’suspect thatI might have e“tertaineda vague co”~ptof an ‘image., before I kcame a Vol-unteer. I have since concluded that thereis no one kind of Volunteer any morethan there is any one kind of job that

a Volunteer d~. I am now working ata university. It is quite different fromthe exwrience 1 had in Odemis, but 1don,t feel 1-s a Volunteer becaue of it.I know that in helping to teach the uni- ●vemity student I am impafling a bodyof knowledge and a way of life that willk helpful to future generations. The uni-versity graduate is a nation’s future influ-ential citizen. He will be in a Fsitionto bring changes in local educationwithout always being told, as a for-eigner is, *<He is a stranger—he dmsn’tundemtand.”

The Peace Corps and METU a~ work-ing together to solve some of the uni-vemity,s pressing problems. Next yearthere will h five Volunteers teachingmath a“d physics at the univemityproper, and 10 others ~signed to thethree-year-id METU preparatory school.Next Septem&r, the preparatow schoolwill have a !a”g”age laboratory, under-written by a granl from the FordFo”ndatio”, and a rejuvenated languageprogram, which we have assisted inplanning, There are also plans to establisha univemity poultry project under thesupewisio” of a Volunteer.

Today there are 140 Volunteen inTurkey. By the end of this year therewill be over 200 more, Iwated mainlyi“ mral areas. Volunteers are doing manydifferent kinds of jobs, from com-muni~development to unive=ity and high-school English teaching. f. each job @situation the Volunteer attempti to main-tain the living standard of his Turkishcounterpart. Needless to say, the Volun-teerlivi”gin the ci!yis more comfortablethan his colleague in the small town orvitlage. B“t the real measure of a Vol.unteer’s success is not where and howhe is Iiving; rather, it is what he is doingand the contribution he is making thatare the imwrtant things.

METU students stand nea{ tempora~ classroom buildings of preparatow schwl.

d

Indian Magazine@Has Free Copies

For VolunteersThe monthly English-1 anguage class-

room magazine Sttnshine, published inIndia, is again offering free samplecopies to Volunteer teache~ around theworld, in hopes of securing regularsubscriptions

Published by the nonprofit SumhineFoundation, the magazine is entering itssecond decade of service and is embark-ing on an expansion program. Sunshinewas founded in 1954 by Dr. G. StephenKrishnayya, who had ken a professorof education, a superintendent of schools,president of a teachers college, and aneducational attach4 to the Indian em-bmsy in Washington before beginninghis publishing venture,

Sti”shint, aimed at junior a“d seniorhigh-school levels, was the fimt and isstill the only schoot-oriented youth maga-zine in India. It has obtained a signifi-cant circulation outiide India, and hasbeen endorsed by African and Asianeducators. &me 400 Peace Corps Vol-unteers in many areas, including LatinAmerica, have already taken advantageof the magazine’s ofler of free samplecopies, and many have entered subscrip-tions, according 10 Jaswant Krishnayya,son of the publisher and U.S. representa-tive of the founda[io”.

The magazine hopes to tower its print-ing casts a“d expand its circ”tatio” byobtaining photo-typesetting equipmentand an offset press, and is currently con.ducting a drive for funds to pay for the“ew machine~.

Volunteers who would like to obtaincopies of the magazine may write toJaswant Krishnayya, 888 MassachusettsAve., Cambridge 39, Mass. The offer offree copies is Iimiled 10 a three-monlhperiod. Regular subscription rate is $2a year. The foundation’s address in Indiais 6 Parvali Vilta Road, Poona 1.

Dutch VolunteersReceive Peace Award

The fimt Dutch volunteers, 2 t mem-bers of the Jongeren Vrij willi gem Pro-gramma who went to the African republicof Cameroon last December, have re-ceived the annual Wateler Peace Awardfro” the Carnegie Foundation in theNetherlands for their work in rural edu-cation, agriculture, and hcallh.

h honorarium of $8350 normally ac-wmpanies the award, which ws foundedby the Ia@ J. G. D. Wateler, a directorof the Oranje-Nassau Mortgage B=k inThe Hague, the Netherlands. The awatih giVen alternately to Dutch md non.Dutch citi=ns.

Mr. and Mrs. Chester Wggins, oldest couple to complete semice as Volunteers.

Peace Corps Couple SaysAge No Obstacle to Success

Age is no obstacle to becoming an ef-fective member of the Peace Corps. Asa matter of fact, Chester N. Wiggins, 67,and his wife, Barbara, 64, think it helps.

The Wigginses returned June 1 froma Peace Corps project in Arequipa, Peru.They are the otdest couple to have com-pleted a two-year tour of duty with theCorps.

,<1 would recommend people tike our-selves to the Peace Corns and the PeaceCorps to those people; “said Wiggins, forwhom a rocking chair retirement holdslittle ap~al.

The Wigginses, who rented their homein San Francisco two years ago to join theCorps, are staying with a son, Warwn, anhsociate Director [for Program Devel-opment and Operations] of the Corps.

The etder Wiggins said he asked his sonrecently if he had had qualms about theire“listme”t, ‘.Never,SS W= the reply, andWiggins remarked, “1 think he was gladto see us go:’

Wiggins, plant mainte”a”ce managerfor United Air Lines in Sa” Fmnciscofor 20 years, was a construction super.visor i“ a slum reclamation project i“Arequipa.

His wife taught in the fist free nurseryschool to be established in Per”,

Now they are out of the Peace Corpsand headed for Cornell U“ivemity toteach Corps Volunteers who wilt begin aproject in Peru next October.

—Reprinted by permissionfrom The Washington POSI

5

A trunk for fun, slated for removal, was saved by Volunteers Myra and Bill Ilson (Brooklyn, NY.), elementa~-schoolteachers in Porus, Jamaica; Myra poses with students, who use 100-yea f.old cotton tree trunk as recess plaything,

Semen and stige star Gene Kelly visited VolunteerSuellen Fisher (Coconut Grove, Fla.) recently in PortBouet. Ivow Coast, and hel Ded her with mi Ik oroeram.

Championship team of northern Nigeria is the Abuja Potters,coached by Volunteer Ben Stickney Jr. (No. Miami, Fla.) here dis-cussing strategy with team members during recent tournament,

,-

(

I

!

Ragged shoeshine boys, barred because of appearancein Quito, Ecuador, were aided by Volunteer SamMcPhetres (Juneau, Alaska) who got them uniforms.

!

Hom&economics instruction is offered by VolunteerGlenda Warren (standing, rear), of Ft. Bliss, Tex., toNepalese girls at training school in Kathmandu, Nepal.

PeaceCo~sPanorama

Words of advice are given Nepal trainees by AssociateJustice William O. Douglas of the U.S. Supreme bun, dur-ing walk alone old canal tow-path near Glen Echo, Md.

LIBERIA Volunteers Are Working in Afri@

Thomas Howard Emer=n Quimby, PeaceCorps Representative in Liberia, is anative of Michigan, born and reared inGrand Rapids. Before going overseas in1962, he was Deputy Associate Directorof Public Affairs for the Peace Corps.He joined the staff in 1961, after sei-ningas assistant to U. S. Senator PatrickMcNamara of Michigan. A 1940 graduateof Haward College with an A.B. inphilosophy, Quimby did graduate workin regional planning at Haward beforeentering the Naw in 1941. He seined inthe Pacific and attained the rank oflieutenant commander. After the war,he became assistant counselor for vet-erans at Haward, then became traffic

manager for a division of National LeadCo. at Grand Rapids. He was named di-rector of workmen’s compensation forMichigan in 1955 and held that postuntil 1958, when he became politicalassistant to G. Mennen WiIliams, thengovernor of Michigan. He is marriedand has two chi Idren. This summer,Quimby will go to Kenya to becomePeace Corps Representative for a newteaching project to be statied there.

By T. H. E. Quimby

● ,<Look mummy, wtite map.” A littleKpelle boy pointed to the Volunteer mov-ing in next door in one of the tribal

I “m

Linda Foster, Suellen McAndrews, Evelyn Vough, and SusanSchoenbauer were flappers at President Tubman’s inaugural.

areas of Monrovia. “That’s not whiteman; that’s Peace Corps,” the Kpellemother explained to her son.

. The invitation was a general one.All staff members and VolunteeE wereinvited to a soirie at the Executive Man-sion honoring all groups that bad workedon the arrangements for President Tub-man’s inauguration, The Peam Corpswas the only non-Liberian group so hon-ored. We were included because of themusical variety show the Volunteen puton as one of the official events of theinauguration.

Each country has im illustrations ofthe fine way in which Peace Corps Vol-untee~ have been accepted and becomethreads in the fabric of that counlw. Theanecdotes above are two of many illus-trations that could be cited to show howthe 231 teachem and the 4 t public ad-ministration are working out in the Re-public of Liberia, the oldest indewndentrepublic in Africa.

Like other countries i“ the tropicalrain forest of West Africa, Liberia feltlike a Turkish bath to the first group ofVolunteers who arrived i“ August, 1962.The rainy season, which extends from lateApril to November, had already broughta major portion of the 200 inches of rain-fall that drench the coastal plains of Li-beria each year. Up country, in the three

At Cuttington Col Iege in Suacoco, ~miles northeast of Monrovia, Jim Kean(Longmont, Col,l fires starter’s pistolat track meet; he teaches at College.

Edward Morgan, a Volunteer from McKeespoti, Pa., listens toa student, recite at Monrovia High School, where he teaches.

interior provinces away from tie fivecoastal counties, the air is drier, the rainmuch less. The rain forest still surroundsthe openings of civilization hut the eleva-tion rises from sea level to 900, to 1200,a“d in some places 10 3000 feet.

The 91 elementary and secondaryteachers of Group I were joined in MaY,1963, by 42 teachen of Group 11 andin September, 1963, by 1I 3 teachem ofGroup 111. We now are teaching in 111schools in 69 villages and towns. Thegreat majority of elementaw schwls andsome of the secondary schools are dayschools without the compound life foundin the former colonial countries of Africa.Our teaching Volunteers are housed forthe most Part as lhe other pople of thevillages are housed, in mud-and-stickdwellings wilh corrugated metal roofs.Volunteers” houses generally can be dis-tinguished by the presence of a highwooden platform holding %veral 55-gallon drums which serve as reservOirfor a gravity water system. Volunteershave such olber amenities as kerosenerefrigerators and sloves, and hcause ofthese they fret shout nOt fulfilling the

●stateside image of the Peace CorpsVolunteer.

Part of Group If I were 45 publicadministrators brought 10 Liberia undera project agreement with the SpecialCommission on Government O~rations—a Liberian model of the HooverCommission—but, unlike the HooverCommission, charged not only withrecommending government reorganim-tion and reform but also implementingthe recommendations accepted by thePresident and the Iegisature. The pub-lic administrators work in 12 govern-ment departments in a variety of jobs:assistnnt hospital administrator, archivesclerk in the Slate Department, assistant toa district commissioner, assistant to adistrict road-maintenance engineer, as-sistant mannger of an agricultural re-search center, reporter for the L,herianI“formatio” Service, and so on.

Liberia is blessed with a goti supplyof lop-level administmlors, Harvard Lawdegrees, and Ph. D;s from the Universityof Chicago and the London School ofEconomics. But there is a lack of stafftrained for the intermediate and lowerlevels of civit service. The pubtic-admin-istration projecl was designed to alleviatethis lack, The assignments to whichthe pubtic. administration Volunteers areposted are for the mosl part unstructured.

*

This has resulted i. the Volunteer’s be-coming a kind of bureaucratic tom-.

(Cotzrin,,ed on page 15)

Mout the Country

Liberia is about the size of Ten-“essee in area and has a POPUla-tio” of more than 1,000,OW. Thenation, oldest republic in Africa,was established in 1822 by fOr-mer ~etican slaves who went tOthe area under the spOnSOrSbiPof the American Colonization S*ciefy to set up a colony for free-men from the U. S. The first groupcalled their settlement Monrovia,i“ honor of President James MOn-roe, Today Monrovia is CaPital ofthe country, which became a re-public in 1847 by mutual agree.ment between the society and thecolony, Descendants of the earlysettlers and indigenous peoplewho have been educated arecalled Americo-Liberians, who useEnglish as their primary tOnEUeand are mostly Protestants. Li-berians belonging to more than20 tribes make up the rest of thepopulation. The government iS~tterned after that of the U.S.,with a Senate, House of Representatives, and a President. Wil-liam V. S. Tubman was electedPresident in 1944 and in January,1964, was re-elected almost unani-mously to a fifth term. Liberia’schief crop and main export iSrubber, grown mainly on planta-tions started nearly 40 years ago.Liberia alw annually producesmore than three million tons ofiron ore, rated the richest in theworld. Most of Liberia’s peoplesupport themselves with subsist.ence agricultur~ crops includerice, bananas, cocoa, coffee,sugar, fibres, and kola nuts. Theclimate is one of the most humidin Africa; average annual minfallis 180 inches or more along thecoast, 80 to 100 inches inland.Temperatures average between 70and 80 degrees. tiberia usesAmerican currency as the basis ofits monetary system. The officialIa”guage is English, though ava-riety of languages and dialects isspoke n.

9

Modern Housing,

Supermarkets —

Is This ‘Image’?

Volunteer Joe Cashion (Belvidere, Term.)graduated in 1961 with a B.S. in indus-trial and administmtive managementfrom the University of Tennessee. Heenrolled in George Washington Univer-sity’s program in health-care adminis.tration and in 1963 received an M.B.&in hospital administration. The pro-gram included a year as administrativeresident at the East Tennessee BaptistHospital in Knoxville.

By Joe CashIon

Living in mdern housing, worfing ina Western atmosphere with technicallyqualified professional people, having ac-cess to essential equipment, shopping forfood in su~rmarkets as well as nativemarkets, and retaxing along the scbistoso-mimis- free Atlantic coast does not fit the‘<Peace Corps image: Tfis article. then.may help to dispel the myth that allPeace Corps Volunteers live alone inisolated villages, enduring hardships,teaching English to semi-literate villag-ers, and fighting disease.

In September, 1963, 114 teachem and45 oublic administrators joined the fint. .two groups of VOlunleers in Llkria.The public-administration group is aPeace Corps pilot project—the firstVolunteers requested to fill jobs with,nthe 8overnment of a foreign nation.

Having ken trained in hospilal ad-ministration, 1 was assigned permanentlyto the Carrie V. Dyer Maternity Centerin Monrovia as a special assistant to the

June Kowaloff and young patients at Carrie V. Dyer Maternity “Can we afford this?” Joe Cashion asks Louise Wolf as theyCenter in Monrovia gather around table for African folk songs. shop for groceries in a well-stocked Monrovia supermarket.

Volunteer Whit Robinett intewiews oP-eratinproom supewisor at Dyer Ma.ternity Center, as he assists in govern-ment-wide job-classification program.

administrator, The Peace corps’ Oft-repeated advice to Vol.”teers, ‘be flexi-ble,,’ did nol apply to me as it did somzof my assuiates who found themselvesin positions not utilizing their formaleducation.

My first assignment by lhe directorgeneral of the National Public HealthService was an administ~ative survey ofthe hospital to determine inadequaciesand to point out areas where I could beof assistance. The fiKt projecl has hento improve all hospital records—admin-istrative, medical, financial, and stalisti.cal. After starting the project, 1 began

-..,;& _—.- -- -. -: --‘~-

. Q

[. ; .,, :..., . . ...-. .

~ ::.’;! _&__

Plans for a new training cent;r which will be constructed in front of the maternityhospital [rear) are discussed by Volunteer Cashion and Hospital Administrator JohnFalconeh hospital was joint project of Liberian government and U.S. Baptists.

to work for a hefter office in a centralIocalion, adequate lighting, god ventila-tion, a“d better equipment.

Whh some financial help from NPHS,the office changes came about. , Improve-ments i“ records came more slowly, butthey came. Many new medical and ad-ministrative forms have been( desiEnedand printed. Reporting procedures havebeen improved along with a tremendousred”ctio” of palaver i“ all areas. Medi-cal charts are now located with our im-proved indexing and filing system. Fu-ture projects include improvements inhousekeeping, maintenance, diet therapy,pemonnel administration, and ,expandedhospital auxiliary projects. TO make alasting co.tribulion, 1 hope tO have aLiberian counterpart whom 1 can trainas the program progresses. .1

1 was fortunate to be asslg.ed withAdministrator John B. Falc?ner, an

American missionary of the NationalBaptist Convention, who has had 17years of experience here. He has kena great help to my understanding theproblems we face.

The 143.bed hospital, catering 10 ma-ternity, gynecology, and wdihlric pa-tients, was completed i. 1958 as a jointproject of the Liberian government andlhe National Baptist Convention, U.S.A.The relatively m~ern and well-quippedhospital has a“ international medical and“.rsi”g staff. The seven doctom of thestaff. representing the U. S., Germany.Hai(i, and Liberia, are headed by aHaitian, Dr. &Luveur Larose.

Ironically, i“ this developing nationthere is no critical shortage of nurses asis the ca% in many well-develowd na-tions, Our nt)ming staff of 84 consislsof 51 nurses and midwives who have qhad professional training.

10

Recognizing many areas where otherVol””teers could assist, I requested five

● -

part time school-vacation projects. Thesewere successful and now three Volunteersgnve their spare time on a permanentbasis.

One of (he part. timers, June Kowaloff(New York ~ty), describes her job:“MY afternoon teaching assignment ina government school lefl my morningsfree to develop some type of play ther-apy in the pediatric ward. I work withabout 25 children, ranging in age fromthree to 13, in a corner of a multipur-pose room, Simultaneously, it is a class-room for me, an examining room for thepediatrician, a work room for nurses,and a waiting room for mothers andfretful babies, In addi!io” to makeshiftequipment, I use secondhand toys suchas blocks, clay, games, and dolls for tbechildren to work with.

“Since some children’s lengthy hos-pital s[ay (average of 20 days) will ne-cessitate missing many weeks of schoolwork, reading n“d arithmetic are i“-cluded with games, stories, a“d singing.Not only does this type of program pro-vide many learning experiences b“t italso enables the children to relax n“denjoy themselves.”

Whit Robi”ett (Venice, F~8, ), whoteaches math and physics at mor”i”gclas~es in laboratory High School of the

~:.Unlvers]ty of Liberia, acts as an after-noon administrative assistant. Otherprojects he is working on include con-tinuation of the medicnl-records. indexingproject and records improvement. He isa great help in many ways,

Louise Wotf (Dixon, ItI.) is the lhirdpart-[ ime helper, acting as a secretaryand assistan[ in the administrative omce.Her regular assignmenl is to teach 27sixth-graders in the Afternoon Demon-stration School.

Living in Monrovia has nol worktdhardships on us, In this progressivecapital city, we have theaters, modernshopping conveniences, and householdluxuries of both electricity and hot.and-cold running water.

Far from being isolated, we hnve ex-celtent external transportation with atleast B dozen major airlines, operatingout of Roberts field International tir.port, giving direct jet service to manymajor cities. Modern ocean liners call inMonrovia’s new free port. Internal pub-lic transportation is by taxi and bus overan ever.expanding road network.

Our Peace Corps experience has beenmost enjoyable here in Monrovia, andwe feel we have contributed to the co”n.try with some degree of successevcnthough we don,t square with the commonimage of [he Volunteer i. a m“d hut,mites from nowhere, That .,image,<, forwhatever il,s worth, co,jld be broader,

The No. 1 Need: FoodGeorge Haney (Havertown, Pa,) has beenin Liberia since September, 1963, as amember of the first Peace Corps projectin public administration. He is assignedto the Department of &riculture inMonrovia. He has a master of businessadministmtion degree from Notihwest-ern University, granted in 1963, and aB.S. degree in business administrationfrom Pennsylvania State University,from which he graduated in 1962.

BY Geome F. Haney

President William V. S. Tubman ofLiberia calls it, “the nation’s No. 1priority program.” The persons respon-sible for carrying it out are awed by thestaggering task set for them, 1“ pro.claimin~ Operation Production, Presi-dent Tubman emphasized that the fore.most concern of the nation should be tobecome self. sufficient in food prod”c.tion. Peace Corps Volunteers i“ Li.beria are making contributions to (hisvital program,

Operation Production demands a newconcept of agriculture for Liberia, Al-most all farming is carried out on thesubsistence level, The staple crop, rice,is grown by the traditional bush-fallowmethod; the land is cleared by b“r”i”g,the rice seed is “scratched” with hoes,and afler the harvest the land is atlowedto return to bush for seven years, 1“addition to rice, most villa~es raisegreens, cassava, eddoes (taro root), pewpers, and perhaps a few chickens,

In order for Liberia to decrease itsfood imports, production must be sufi-cient to feed not only the tribal villagesbut also the growing population of Mon-rovia, and the population centers de-veloping around the booming iron mines.President Tubman has snid that the cur.rent imports of rice, now amounting to30,000 tons annually, must soon bestopped, and (he demand filled domestic-ally.

The Liberian government agc”cy mostdirecdy concerned with Operation Pro-duction is the National Extension Serv.ice of the Department of Agriculture. Itis the job of this agency to teach and en.courage farmers 10 improve their meth-ods in order to increase production a“dto market their surplus produce. Thetask of Extension is to change the veryway of life of the farmers of the coun-try; the Extension worker must be apatient teacher as well as a competentfarmer.

Like the Co-operative Extension Serv.ice in the United States, the NationalExtension Service of Liberia is orgB”izedby areas. County agents throughout thecountry are responsible for the s.pcrvi-sion and direction of more than 100

11

aides working i“ individual villages. Thefield personnel are supported by an ad-ministrative staff and technical expertsbased in Monrovia.

As administrative assistant to the di-rector of the Extension Service, I amengaged in support for field pemo””el,Not only moral but also supervisory andlogistic support is necessary for the ef-fective operation of the Extension pro-gram. Apparently simple matters, Ekethe lack of parts for a Jeep or the “a-vailability of technical material for theagents, can halt work in an entire area.To help clear some of these administra-tive bottlenecks, President T“bman askedlhe Peace Corps to place trained publicadministrators i“ positions throughoutIhe Liberia” government,

MY job in the Exlension Service is onewhich the Peace Corps terms ‘unstruct-ured, ” That means that the job lacks aformal structure of duties. In practice,however, the job covers nearly the entirespectrum of administrative activities,from creating detailed procedures andsystems to the occasionally creative, butmore oflen routine, implementation andfollow-through required to make thesecffcclive, My most recent projects havebeen the taking of our first inventory offield equipment, the writing of job de-scriptions, and the clarification of thechain of command (and reporting pro.cedures) within the organization,

There are many job frustrations, andfew “successes.” Spendin8 half of everyworking day chasing around Monroviatrying to get parts for a“ Extension Jeepor trying to buy seeds or office suppliesoften seem like unproductive ways fora Volunteer to spend his time, Then I

Volunteer George Haney, working on“Operation Production:’ discusses re-port with Extension Agent Victor Yates,

remember that if the agent doesn’t havehis Jeep or the demonstration stationdoesn’t have seeds, the entire Exlensio”progmm is retarded. So, 1 chase aroundMonrovia.

Other Volunteem helping to carry outthe objectives of Operation Productionare up<ountw teachem such as Bob Sad.ler (Gatesville, Tex, ) and lack Soldate(Corona, Cal,), who are Ieadi”g a 4.HClub in Bopolu; Jim and Wilds Obey(Mahtomedi, Mi””,), who have be~””their own swam~rice. and-poultry proj-ect in Toe Tow”; a“d George Koch( Doylestow”, O.), wbo is trying to or.ganize the farmers of one village into amarketing co-op so they can realix aprofit on surplus produce.

Because one of the major problems ofthe Exle”sion Service is an acute short.

age of trained staff, Peace Corps teacherswith an interest i“ agriculture perform

2% Tons ofGeorge Koch is from Doylestown, O. Hereceived a bachelor+ f. fine-atis degreein 1962 from Bowling Green (O.) StateUniversity. He has experience in car.pent~, and is a skilled ceramist, paint.er, and draftsman,

BY George Koch

There :,rc no stores nnd only I I hulsi“ my PcAce Corps home tow” of Yopea,Thus I must travel the 150 miles intoMonrovia every so often to buy sup

Wth his principal, Mr. Tegli [left),George Koch discusses farming andmarketing problems with Yopea farmers.

valuable scmice in axisting Extensionwork in the villages where ~~ey are as-signed. We expect that many more Vol-unleem in Liberia will soon be directlvinvolved.

Althou8h 1 had no exvetience in agri.culture b~fore coming to” Libe’ria, 1 hivebecome deeply involved i“ the wholeconcept of Operation Prod. ctio”. Thoughall government operations, including thework of Extension agents and aides, acehampered by a scarcity of funds, moraleamong many field workers is, high, andchanges are gradually coming about infarming methods. Agric”lt”r?l develop-ment is a key to economic expansion i“Liberia, and close co-operation betweenthe Peace Corps a“d the Ndtio”al Ex-tension Service—botb in admi”islratio”and in !he field-is see” by tht two or-ganizations as an opportunity to speedthis necessary growth. !

Watermelonplies, Every now and then, for smallpurchases, I take a jaunt 10 ~“ta fivemiles away, give or take a fcw bumps,on Iaterite-sur faced roads.

It was lhe middle of Dece,mbr andthe start of the dry season in Libriawhen Mr. Tegli, my principal, a“d 1 setout on my motorbike for Zdenla. Aswe rode into town, we passed the hou=of a farmer who had two lar~e a“d in.viting watermelons o“ display.

1. tow” we bought otlr ‘small-smallthings” and then went back 10 inspect

the watermelons. Their owner, a Mr.Massaq”oi, spoke little English, but Mr.Tegli soon discovered that they bothspoke Mendi, one of the 26 dialects ofLiberia.

As they talked, I was able 10 followonly their Eestures, wbicb were pro-“o”.ced. Mr. Tegli occasionally stoppedto explain [hinw to me. Mr. Massa-quoi was having trouble wddling hismelons, Local merchants would pay himonly a fraction of what he could get forthem in Monrovia. But he had no wayto haul them, and he couldn’t spare lhetime for the four-hour trip.

Impulsively, f said I would we if Icould help. Al lhat moment 1 had noidea of how many melons he had. Helhcn took us around back where themelons were stacked i“ k;”j.bs (palm.frond b~kefi) inside a small mud hul.mere were so many melons lhal Icouldn’t even look. 1 was speechlessTo seal my commitment, Mr. Tegli said,“Your hand is i“sidey (1 had 8ive” myword. )

While en route home with o“e 20.pound melon, I pondered ways to dis~seof the melons. After drooping off MrTegli, I went back alons” “the- road 10hunt up some sort of transport.

Three hours later I stopmd a truck.The driver and I bargained over a fare10 Monrovia, where 1 felt I could bestsell the melons. After 15 mintl! es, wesettled on $35, Plus gasoline. 1 told thedriver I would have to return home tofelch my bag because 1 would have 10sleep in Monrovia that night. When 1returned, he h~d vanished. apparentlyhaving thought better of tbe deal.

Lois Hirst (Miamisburg, O.) bargains with women in marketplace for plaintain,a banana-like fruit; she and her husband, Steve, teach in Tapeta, west of Mon-rovia near the lvo~ Coast frontieq they arrived with the first group in 1962,

-, ,. :..-—. . . ,.,,.. .

By that time, 1 wished I had kept mymouth shut in Zoenta. Then over thehill came a battered tmck that looked. .hke the Airican Qlceen on wheels. Thetruck was full and darkness was comingon, so 1 asked the driver if he could stopin the morning.

Surely enough, he did. We bargainedand bargained, but the lowest price 1could get was $50. I didn’t want to losethis truck, too, so 1 agreed.

Some time later we drove into Zoentaand, after explaining my plan as best Icould to Mr. Massaquoi, we loaded themelons and drove off. After one stopfor chop (Food ), two stops for gas, threeS1OPSto repair a Imse clutch plate, andfour stops for the driver to talk tofriends, we arrived in Monrovia. Bythat hour, all (he markets were closed,nnd 1 began to lhink of the melons asmillstones around my neck. The onlyplace I could think of 10 store themelons was the Peace Corps hoslel.There I found a crew of Volunteers tohelp unload.

Early lhe next morning I sold all themelons at wholesale 10 one of the city’snew sumrmarkets. The quick sale of5000 pounds of melon was a great in-centive to the farmem back in Zoenta.Their custom had been 10 spend 10”8hours vending their prtiuce in the old-style marketplace.

My experiences in produce marketing

● barked o“have “o! ended. [n fact, now 1 am em-

a farming-and-marketingproject. The farmers are working to-wards forming a co-o~rative, whichshould give them leverage to sell theirproduce at a profit.

..:.

Ka-Hell-of-a-Thank -You JobVolunteer Paul London is from ShakerHeights,’ O. He went to NtitihwesterhUniversity and graduated in 1963 with aB.A. in philosophy.

By Paul bndon

Liberia’s roads are panicular victimsof the country”s rainy seasons, and a fewdays of heavy downpour witl usuallywash out a road somewhere. This wasoften the case with the deeply rutted 12-mile stretch connecting Toweh-town, inLiberia’s Central Province, to the mainroad at Graie, [he village where I teach.

Twice Andy Hanson ( Miles, Mont.),who lives at Toweh-town, had beenblocked by washouts; so he, my room-mate, Bob Sherrill ( Riegelwood, N.C. ),and 1 decided to improve (he road.

We cartied our proposal to the para-mount chief, leaning heavily on the eco-nomic advantages of an all-weather roadto win his support. Liberia’s Depart-menl of Public Works and Utilities approved our plan and promised us theloan of any heavy equipment not beingused elsewhere.

All that remained was 10 co.vi”ce thePeace Corps staff that this would be avaluable way to spend our 21A.mo.lhschool vacation. The Peace Corps ap-proved the projecl and not only allowedGary Melick (Wantagh, N.Y. ) and UckLcmkin ( Hemps tead, N,Y. ), public. ad-minislration Volunteers, and Bill Bab-Iitch (Stevens Point, Wis. ). a teacher, to

@Frank Cunning (Allentown, Pa.), Lee Gilles (Elgin, Ill.), Dr. Dorm Leaf, staffphysician, and Bill Staab (Essex Falls! N.J.) make up barbershop quartet in aPeace Corps varkty sbw honoring President Tubman during inaugural celebration.

13

join the project but also gave permissionfor lwo other teachers. loan Barnes(%ver Forest, Ill, ) and Sue Karr (Can-onsburg, Pa.), to sign on as cooks.

So the gang of us trooped off armedwith picks, shovels, axes, wheelbarrows,and cutlasses supplied by the Depart-ment of Public Works and Utilities. Intrue Peace Corps Fashion, we were over-equipped wilh enthusiasm and under-equipped wi!h know-how. We had twohours with a U.S. Agency for interna-tional Development rural. roads exp$rtto try to remedy our shortcomings.

The plan of attnck was simple. Of the32 bridges on the road, nine were ingood condition. Three “ceded onlyminor repairs, such as replanning of theroadway. The rest we planned to re-place by culverts. In addition, there weremany spots where water would not drainoff the road surface; lhese needed ditchesto allow the water to run off and intostreams, In other spots, streams andswamps had to be cleared to permilrapid drainage.

By trial and error, we hit upon a stylefor the culverts. For each culvert, weused 55.gallo. drums which we coaledwith tar after chiseling off the tops andbottoms. We laid several drums end-lo-end across the stream Ihal cross?d theroad, crudely sealing the joints, We thenpacked soil along both sides and nearly10 the top of the pipeline formed by therow of drums. Next ws laid n log oneach side of the culver[ and packed soilaround (hem until ils level reached thetop of the logs. Then for the roadwayover the culvert, we put down four-footsections of 2-by- 12s, three 10 a side, and“ailed their ends into the logs. A final15.20 inches of fill was packed over th:!t.

Retai”i”g wings were placed to keepthe fill from eroding. The finished prod-uct was sturdy enough to support !heh..viesl grader and large enough 10 nc-commod. te a swift flow of water.

Total expenses r.. just over $500.The paramount chief levied a S3-5 roadtax on all the hilts in the Gio chiefdomto meet costs. Fortunately, the drumswere donated by various iron-mininB,rtlbber, and constr~tction companies inLiberia,

The labor was not always there bychoice. Although everyone in lhe areawanted the road. when it came time towork on it—well, that was a differentstory.

Many mornings we were ready 10 goat 6:30, only to wait for two hours for(h. men to gather. Olher mornings wecould not contain our laughter whencrews showed up consisting of boysunder 10 and tottering old men who

looked as though they hadn’t been out-side their huts in 20 years,

Crews turned over every two weeks,sin= two weeks of labor could be con-tributed in lieu of the road tax, After amonth, however, we relained a nucleusof good workers who stayed with usuntil the end,

The villagers along the way conti””.ally greeted us with a cheery and sincereka-zo6.oh (ka: plural address; zd.oh:thank yoz{). A unique variation on thiscame from a friendly, wrinkled old wom-an who one day burst forth with ahearty ka-hell-of.a-rl?ank.ye!, a“d slappedher hand into ours.

At the beginning of the scco”d monrh,the department sent out a grader, Mo.madi, (he Mandingo grader-operator,

kept us in a constant state of confusionwith his fractured English. Once he hadto curtail work until he could find abla ,vren. We questioned him for 15minutes, unable to determine what hewanted, Dick Lemkin tried French anddiscovered that what Momadi neededwas a blade wrench for the gmder, Allin all, Momadi was a great help with hiswork of filling ruts and widening theroad bed,

The run from Toweh-town to Graienow takes a (bird of the 75 minutes itused to take. But more important is thatit can h used i“ all weather,

The rainy season is stani”B “OW, as Iwrite this. There have bee” several heavyrains, and the c“tverts and ditches areeasily handling the water. Time will tell.

Volunteer Bruce Lawhead (Spo-kane, Wash,), working on newaccounting system, consultswith manager of Telecommuni.cations Center in Monrovia,

A Boost for AthleticsFrancis Pollock is a 1962 graduate of St,Vincent College, Lat,obe, Pa,, with aB.A. in English, He was born and rea,edin Yonkers, NY, Editor of his collegepaper, he was also a columnist, andsports editor of the Home News andTimes, Yonkers, during summer vaca.tions,

By Francis Pollock

Shortly after the first Peace CorpsVolunteers arrived i“ Liberia two yearsago, one of the leading newspapers, afterextending a hearty welcome, asked, “Whydoesn’t the Peace Corps send somecoaches for our youngsters

Today, the Peaco Corps in Liberiaprobably has as many Volunteer coachesas any other nation, yet among the 200or so Volunteers serving here, not asingle coach, as such, has been brought in,

Helping to create the remarkable“sports revolution,, occurring within thepast year, more thnn one-fourth of theLiberia-based Volunteers are “OW dcvol.ing spare time to coaching thousands ofyoungsters in soccer, basketball, volley.ball, track, and swimmin~.

No one seems to know why the youngmen and women in this Tennessee.sizedcountry are suddenly engaging in sportsas they never have before, But whateverthe reason, Liberia may soon be makingits mark in the world of African, sports,

One of the sports where Volunteershave left their imprint is basketball:courw are now appearing all over Li.beria, and tbe youngsters are taKng toit with tbe snme enthusiasm they havefor soccer, hitherto the national spoti.Equipment is scarce, but some i“genio”~boys are using, in place of basketballsand rims, soccer balls and sections of oildrums nailed to backboards,

Hundreds of “ew players have pro.gressed so rapidly lbat at Ieasl one col-lege in the United States has offered afull scholarship to one of Liberia,s play-ers, marking the first time that a Liberianstudent will attend college in, Americaon an athletic scholarship,

Volunteer Andy Hanson of Miles City,Mont., stafied a pro~ram in volleyballand has developed the national team sowell tha! it would have little trouble com-peling with American college squads. Yetthe national team here is composed ofhigh-school players,

Peace Corps Volunteers. were sent tothe African Friendship Games in Dakar,Senegal, last year as coaches of the na-tional [rack.and.field, volleyball, and has.ketball teams, and it is likely that theywill be asked to coach at least two teamsfor the Pan. Africnn Games in Congo.Brazzaville next year,

Obsenirig the interest that Liberia Vol.unteers had in athletics, Peach CorpsRepresentative Thomas Quimby arrangedfor [he transfer of two Volunteer ‘teachersto the Bureau of Physical Educa!ion lastyear: one was to help administer> lhe firstnation-wide schoot athletics program, andthe other was to develop opportunitiesfor girls in sports,

In the past, O“IY a handful of !schools,most of them around Monrovia, partici-pated in a sports league, but {now astrong effort is being exerted 10 ~ring asmany of Liberia’s 700-PIus schools intoorganized competition in major sports.

Volunteers and Liberian teachers areworking hand.in.hand to devetop n soundprogram, a“d interest is high, To partici.pale in a soccer game organized, ~hro”gh(he Bureau of Physical Education, oneVolunteer a“d his playem Trudged ~hrougha rain forest for a day and a half,

The director of physical education,

14!

Sy!VeS1crJ. Thomas, who has bee” super.vising the program, speaks highly of lherole that Volunteers have played: “Withthe assistance of Volunteers, the bureauhas bee” able to complete successfullya series of athletic meets throughout Li-beria. They were a great inspiration andincentive to all the youths, and it opensup a great future for sporb and athleticsin tbe country,>,

With the exception of !he IWO VOI””.leers assigned to the bureau, all Vol. ●untcers are primarily teachen or public -administrators and secondarily coaches,Some have had coaching experience orhave played on college teams in theUnited States, but by and large the Vol.un[eer now coaching in Liberia rateshigher on enthusiasm than on experience.

When asked to enter a team from herschool in the national track champion-ships, Sue Schoenbauer of Jordan, Minn.,first replied that she couldn’t coach ateam because she had never even seena track meet, and none of the otherleachers at [he school was interested.Nevertheless, she tried, and much to hersurprise, one of her students emerged osthe fastest miler in Liberia,

The problems involved in school spansare big ones: transportation costs for agame may have to be met by students’penny contributions for several weeksprior to a game; communications are notreliable, and on one occasion, an UPcountw school discovered that it hadbeen supposed to participate in a trackmeet at a nearby town—three weeksearlie~ equipment is not always available,and that which is found is expensive a“dof unreliable quality,

Despite these problems, the firsl stephas been take”, a“d those of us partici-pating in the program, are hoping thatwe can conti”.e to contribute i“ o“r i“-experie”ced b“t enthusiastic ways to the @future of Liberia” schoot sports,

—. . . . .. . ... ,

Paradise at~,

Er!c Broudy (East Nowalk, Corm.)graduated ii 1962 with a B.A. in Englishfrom Trinity College, Hatiford, COnn.He studied for a year at the Universityof Edinburgh in Scotland, and beforejoining the Peace Corps was a first-yearstudent at Yale Law School.

By Etic Broudy

The first words 1 ever heard aboutRiver Cess were “accessible only bysurf.boat or airy A surf-boat is an openrowboat about 35 feet long, convertibleto sail after clearing the shoals, and isused for hauling palm nuts, piassava,a“d other goods to and from Monrovia.Inside the vessel sit about 12 husky menwho row to the rhylhm of a chant, notunlike the Cambridge crew.

The second words 1 heard about RiverCess didn’t strike me until f was as-signed there on Oct. 1, 1963. Thesewords were all various synonyms for“pmr chap” and “blody” awful.” Un-daunted, my new roommate andl movedin [o relieve a married couple who hadalready spent a year there.

River Cess is a small village on tbecoast of Liberia, about midway between

*.. Monrovia and the frontner of ivoryCoast Inhabtted ma,nly by Bassa, Kr.,a“d Fan(i people, it lies on a low penin-sula al the junction of the Cess Riverand the Atlantic Ocean. During the pastfew decades, the sea has ken nibblingaway at the sandy shores of River Cess,threatening to inundate it. No one, how-ever, seems very concerned about build-ing a sea wall. River Cess is “ot a bud-ding metropolis, but there is one roadwhich winds about 20 miles “p the coasttowards Monrovia. Highway officialshave been talking for eight or moreyears ofcompleling the road, thus bring-ing i“ industry, tourisls, a“d transport.But if lhey keep moving al the present

River Cess

m:e, the town will be nothing but a beachwhen the road arrives.

1 was a teacher in the River Cess ele-menta~ schml for three monlhs lastyear. The school was a firmly-adminis-tered little family of six teachers and65 students ranging from primer to sixthgrade. River Cess had a junior highschool, too. When 1 was there, they hadtwo teachers to teach the four seventh-and three ninth-graders.

Believe it or not, my fimt reaction toRiver Cess was the same as if I hadbeen washed ashore on an island para-dise. There was no contact with lhe out-side world except on Thursdays at I Ia.m. when a DC-3 of Liberian NationalAirlines would squee= onto the field tounload its human and material cargobefore the masses of River Cessians whohad come out for their weekly holiday.

Paradise was evidml everywhere.Growing wild were grapefruit, pine-apples, coconuts, oranges, and plumswhich could be obtained for a smile,sometimes; vegetables were availabte atbudget rates. The evenings were (he besttime of day—lhat is, if you like magnifi-cent sunsets accompanied by the gentlechirping of rice btrds. I could look outof my second-story window towards theocean a“d see coconut palms swaying in[he breeze, the sky’s reddish tones andpastel oranges and yeltows (capturableonly on postcards) as a backdrop, a fewdiligent Bassa Fople milling about, andsome Fanti people mending nets. It wasall very romantic.

Serenity and order, or at leasI orga.-ized disorder, were the essential charac-teristics. This, of course, was marredfrom time to time, For instance, lheaflernoon of the Black Star VS, OBSMission football game provided a. in-tecr. otio”. The came concluded in . .ho”r~lo”g melee ‘instigated by a spec-

. .. ,. ..,...tator who naa oeen

Chief mechanic and helpers disassemble engine at PublicUtilities Authority yard in Monrovia, where 3 Volunteers work.

~

n,r tn I.e “... OY

a o“”,.” udd. This was a peculrar enato Uni(ed Nations Day, which had earlierbeen marked by a program emphmizingpeace and equanimity throl!ghout theworld.

B“t River Cess’s problem was certainlynot violencq rather, it was one commonto many other towns. There was aninertia which probably dated back to longbefore (he founding of the country.People, on the whole, were still unawareof what it meanl to be part of a nationand have community responsibtl itics.

The most meaningful relationships 1established in tivcr Cess were with mysixth-grade sludents. The children, Ifound, were more responsive to truefriendship and understanding than weretheir paren~. In many cases, the oldergeneration did.’l care to be understoodor befriended. The children, as ever~where, were the light and hope of thevillage. But even the children, as theygrow old enol,gb and obtain moneyenough, inevitably move to a city 10 seekwork. River Cess holds little bopc forthem.

Up the road, River Cess is not kno\%,nas ‘the town,” even though il is {he b.si-ness center of the territory: it is called‘.lbe beach.” Someday, if they ever Pittthrough that promised road. then maybethings will change.

Quintby(Cottlint(ed fro,. prize 9)

m.nity -developer subject to all of thefrustrations inherent in community de-velopment. If his imagination does nollead him into projects for the improve-ment of his department, he may findhimself with little productive work to do.On the other hand, if his imagination isgood bul his supervisor is lradition-bound, he may still find his efforbthwarted. Finally, he may really be aneager beaver wilh an e.erge!ic super-visor, but the money required for trans-portation or files or paper is simply nO1availnbl.. Despite these hazards of frus-tration, the fiberians term the Peace

Steve Hirst (Miamisburg, O.) and Liberian friend play “che-quers” before an interested audience in the town of Tapeta.

I . . .

L.. “...::_.._...._..........;.t.,When Volunteer Barbara Kral (San Lorenzo, Cal.) and SueMiller (Notih Manchester, I“d,) came to Be”mnville i“ lg62,the community, located 30 miles from Monrovia, had noschool b~jltilng classes were held in several old, corwgated-metal structures, such as the Methodist Church (upper left],which for 15 yean housed primer through sixth grades. inMay, 1963, a new communitpschool building was dedicated,and classes moved under one roof for the first time, Today,pupils meet in mms such as the one at left where GraceNeuman ‘(8rooklyn, N.Y,), who came to Bensonville in 1963, isteaching!an eighth- and ninth-grade social-studies class. Thethree girls live nearby in a house visible at the left of the pic-tureabo$e; Sue Miller is walking to school with several friends.

Corps the most effective foreign assist-ance they have had, a“d [he Voluntee~after nine months o. the job are lear”-ing ihe paths by which things can getdone regardless of the obstacles.

With a“ anticipated force of 400 Vol-unteers by next Sep!emher, the questionof saturation in Liberia, a coti”try ofslightly more than o“e million pe~ons,must be faced. There are 80 Vol””teersi“ the capital, Monrovia, a city of 80,000.As i“ chemical compounds, the saturationpoint of the population depends on thevolubility of tbe Vol.”teers. The polilicalatmosphere i“ Liberia does “ot inhibitthe sol”bility or integration of the Vol.unteer in[o Librian society. The Vol”n.teer is accepted exactly for what he is:an America”, repcesenti”g only himselfi“ seeking to help Liberia fulfill her OW”national aspirations i. her OW” way,free of the imposition of foceign ideasand methods. To keep from being aninsoluble lump Ihrough the sheer massof n“mkrs, particularly i“ Monrovia,the volunteers must a“d do strive tokeep from coagulating in social gro”w.

Ltving i“ villages rather than in schoolcompounds lhe Volunteers outside Mo”-rovia have good oppor(”nities for extra-curricular projects, The three mostwidespread activities have been eveningadult.literacy classes, development of

a{hletic facilities and learns, and develop-ment of village libraries. The most spec-tacular extracurricular project /has bee”tbe development of a mark~ting co.operative by two Vol. ”teem, lone i“ arather remote vi[lage, who obtains trans-portation for agric”lt.ral p,~”ce, andone in Monrovia, who handles the sale ofproduce. A“olher Volunteer h~s stimv-Iated cottage industries in his ~cea, par-ticularly the manufacture ofi a verysturdy cane chair, by finding customersfor products.

I

School Builtigs Compte~ed

Tbe Laberian school year r~”s fromearly March 10 mid-December, leavin~ a21Amonth vacation period in ~bich toundertake s.hstanlial projects. iAt leastfive school buildings, some untier con-struction for as long as 10 ye~m, havenow bee” compleled by joint efforts ofvillagers and Peace Corps Vol”hteers inthe past two vacation periodk. FortyVolunteers taught i“ the six-we~k Vaca-tion School conducted by the \LiberiamDepartment of Ed”catio”. A farm.tO.market road was built belwee” two vii.Iages 12 miles apart, One 61:year.oldVolunteer installed a rainwater system inhis village capable of s.pplyin~ the dri”k-ing water needs of the village ~tbro”gb

the dry season. 1“ the beginni”E, goodvacation projects were hard to come by,There is now a momenl”m wxtch hassomulated the energy and imagi”alio” ofthe Volunteers.

Liberia presents interesting a“d cba].lenging logis!ics p,oblems to Ihe staff,It is necessary to accumulate two orthree bottles for each new Volunteer forthe storage of boiled a“d filtered water,For the 180 Volunteers comi”~ thisSeptember, lhere will be an ap~al tothe American community here for S40bottles (empty).

There is no system of mait delive~i“ Liberia away from the coat, Oneroom of the Peace Corps office in Mon-rovia is devoted to the Peace Corps maitsystem,

Inter”al comm””ications are lacking,The Peace Corps maintains its own radionetwork, utilizing mission radios wherethey are established. Some Volunteersare in areas “01 available by access road.The Peace COrPs staff uses a charterflying service to support these vol””teer~and to transport them when emergenciesrequire it.

Liberia is a geographically and demo.graphically small count~ without a his-Iory of colonial development. For thiswason it is an exciting plain to work. @The Volunteer seeking the fulfillment of

16(

personal effectiveness can find it hereknowing that he is working not to pre-

- serve a structure imposed from the out-~side but rather to develop a stmcturethat has evolved without oubide help formost of tbe 117 yearn of Liberia’sindependence.

One final word: From talking to theVolunteem and reading the articles theyhave written for this issue of THEVOLUNTEER, I know they wmt to shunthe impression that they are heroes,capable of unique self-sacrifice, or thatthey have some magic by which a de-

veloping nation will become a developednation as a result of their work. ~atthey are not living ordinav lives will bemore apparent to their friends and fam-ifies back home than it is to them, thestrange and unusual having become thefamiliar and habitual. One of the wwardsof Pea- Corps wrviw, particularly forthe slaff obsemer, is the continuingrealization that a civilization wtichwombips material comfofl bas not com-pletely dulled the yearning of the humanspirit to prove itielf outside of thatcivilization.

Susan Schoenbauer holds a little girl, whose sister reaches to reassure her.

The Solution to IsolationSusan Schoenbauer is from Jordan,Minn. She is a 1963 graduate of theCollege of St. Benedict, St. Joseph,Minn., where she received a B.A. inEnglish,

BY Susan Schwnbnuer

An old, barefoot man knocked on thedoor of our house. A small boy with abasket in each hand and one on his headstood near him. We gathered th~t theywanted 10 sell the baskets, but wecouldn’t undemtand a word the man wassaying. James, our houseboy, saunteredover,

“lames, is the man speaking Kpelle?1 wked, as if 1 could undemtand Kpelle.

James laughed. “No. He is speakingEnglish? he said.

Embarrassed, we waited as James

@

lranstated the man’s English for us.Then there was the time we invited

our Liberian teachers and their wivesover for American chop. I held the plat-

ler as one of my housemates oozed thespaghetti out of the only pan we owned.With perfect synchronization we bothtipped at the same time, and there wasour supper all over the kitchen.

Yes, there are frustrations. Some areunique to our situation here, but just asmany could happen anywhere. You can’tget on the phone and talk about them,so you learn what isolation means andhow to deal with it, The solution for meis to keep busy, and I imagine !he an-swer is the same for others, whether itbe reading, writing, cooking, correctingpapers, or catching bugs,

Our village of Artbington lies 20 milesfrom Monrovia, the capital. The housewhere I live with Linda Spradlin (Kan-sas City, Me. ) and Shirley Hinnant(Greensboro, N.C.) is nearly at the endof a seven-mile road off the highway. Adaily market truck leaves for Monroviaat 5:30 a.m. and returns at noon. Ar-tbington.s houses are scattered along theroadside rather than collected in a

huddle. A few little shops sell such itemsas kerosene, canned milk, and Fanta, nbottled orangeade.

Our major job is that of teachingmornings in a school, where we have 90foufih-to-ninth graders instructed by fourLiberian teachem and us three PeaceCorps teachers. Since we moved into anadequate building and received textbooks,our teacting problems have dwindled.We now have individual classrooms, andour new textbooks help, even if some areAmerican* riented.

Our extra activities have all been cen-tered on the school and have ranged fromadult education to modern dance. Sincethe drop-out rate in school is high, wethought there might & interest in adultclasses. So now 1 have five adults andone girl taking literacy classes for twohours every afternoon. Linda is trying toget a speech club working. On ThursdaysShirley conducts 90 singing students as.sembled on the three porches of ourU-shaped school. The first edition of aschool paper has just come out underShirtey’s direction, On Sundays Shirleyteaches the Arthingto” Junior Red Crosscourse in first-aid. My extracurricularnclivities deal with administrative prob-lems. You might find me, assisted byfour ~ass.cuttem, two cutlasses, and 50school boys, directing (he clearing of aplayground next to our “ew school.

Linda has just joined us this semester.We are sor~ she missed the experienceof being among the first Peace Corpsteachers in Arthin8 ton, of being amongthe first a“d only foreigners, and ofbeing part of O“C first incredible a“dinto.gruo”s projec(s: modern dance andcoaching.

Shirley was a dance instructor in col-lege and decided to give modern dancea try in Arthington. Ten girls came tothe fimt meeting expecting to Iear” theTwist. They did”,t, b“t they came backfor more classes, The practice room wasihe grassless plot i“ front of our house,Shirley promistd that there would be adance reci[ al. The problems were many,None of the girls knew what a recitalmeant, much less modern dance. Further-more, someone always missed rehearsals,Costuming was exw”sive. B“t a recitalthere was.

Night Club Amateur Night

The Tropical Hut, a night club inMonrovia, hm an amateur night, and itsmanagement happily accepted the danc-ers. Far from being professional buthaving a novel experience—i”cl”di”gdancing through a “umber even thoughthe music failed—they WO” scco”d prize.(There were two other acts.)

Liberia was starting track as a “a-tional sport. 1 showed a tetter 1 receivedthrough the Peace Corps regarding thematter to my principal. He heartily toldme to so ahead and starl a track team

and immediately announced it to theschool. Me? I had never in my life evenseen a track meet. The next thing, I wascoaching a 14.boy team.

With a couple of sporti manuals, a25-foot tape measure, and a clipboard,I plunged in. We found 220 yards ofsemi-level road. What 1 lacked in know-how, the boys made up in enthusiasm.They would ‘<tramp: as they called it(or “trot; as [ called it), as much asfour miles a day. We learned sprintingstyle from pictures in the manual.

On the day of lhe first meet a wholetruckload of students went to watch. Our

nine entries wo” two plaws: our milerunner took first place a“d the 440.yardman took second. At present we arepracticing for the national meet.

No dramatic changa have swept overArthington or us. How can YOU talkabout success in the Peace Corps whenit seems as if most of your free time isspent trying to get the kerosene refrigera-tor to make ice and sifting bug outof rhe flour? After the market truckleaves tow” each morning, there is littleto disturb the quiet in Ar1hin6 ton. Andthat is the way il will be for some lime.

Pleebo Finishes a SchoolDave Swanston of Pueblo, Col. attendedPueblo College, where he studied jour-nalism, dramatics, and music. He re-ceived an associate~n. arts degree in1962. He supported himself as a drum-mer in a nightclub dance band whilein college, and was also editor of hiscollege newspaper.

By Dave Swansfo.

The principal, the factdty, and espe-cially the students were angry. Someonehad pt)t a mark on a wall in the school,an offense that wotdd have gone u..noticed less than two years earlier. Mylhot,ghts, oblivious to the din of theinvesligatio”. drifted back over lbosemonths, b:tck to our firsl day at thisschool and our first day as Peace Corpstenchers.

Amos Isaac (San Bernardino, Cdl.),another Voh, nteer, and 1 had arrivedAt,g, 29, 1962, in Pleebo, a [own ofabout 4000 people which lies 20 milesinland a“d a fcw miles from lhe Ivory

Coast frontier. We saw lhe kchml forthe first time ibe next morning. Scvemlstudenls had arrived before us and wereengaged in “getting the school ready forclasses.” This consisted chiefly of ch=-ing out some cows, who found, the build-ing excellent for sleeping, and trying tosweep the floor, a job which, ,amountedmostly to rearranging the d,rt.

Soon after W? arrived, more studentsbegan to trickle in, carrying boxes, chairs,and blackboards on their he?ds. Sincethere was no way of closing the building,we later learned, all school furniturehad [o be carried 10 school each morn-ing and taken home at the end of theday. When everyone had assembled, weheld a brief meeting, and the studentswere dismissed for the day.

When they had gone, the principalshowed .s around the school. He told usconstruction on the building had beguneighl years earlier but had stopwd aftera few months. What little there, was hadbeen bl,ilt well. The walls and founda-tions appeared strong and the roof secure,

Volunteer Dave Swanston, who writes above, cuts a plank forthe library of Pleebo school with the assistance of students.

but that ws tbe extent of tbe building.Large, square opcninm had been left intbe walls where windows should go.There were frames in (he doorways, butno doors. The unpainted concrete walls ●were covered with scribbling.

On the advice of a teacher, we beganholding our classes outside under tberubber trees. Weeks passed. Then months.The principal and Ihe teacbem obviouslywanted to finish the schwl. But bow?

Amos and I spent many evenings dis-cussing the probtem.

“First, we could do, T‘No, we’re not here to do; we’re here

to help do. They must do itdur job isto assist.”

Tbe DrOblem was discussed in facullymeetinfis. Tbe group decided that thepeople of Pleebo should be asked to helpcomplete the school. After (he districtcommissioner and township commis-sioner had been informed of our plan,we held a tow” meeting at the schoolto explain the situation. A board of di-rectors was elected; Amos and 1 wereto act as nonvoting advi=m.

US. School Contributes

Several masons and carpenters fromare. ”d Pleebo met, studied the school,proposed how il could be finished and atwhat cost. Interest begs” to grow.Dances, queen contests, and carnivalswere held to raise money. Individualco”tribulions were soliciled. A school inRedla”ds, Cal,, where Amos had tat,ghtbefore joining the Peace Corps, held adrive to raise money, This was the onlydonation rhat came from outside Pleebo,

Reaching our floal of $750 bad seemedimpossible at first but slowly the dollam,quarters, even pennies begs” to mountUP.

As the school vacation drew closer,we began making construction plans. Thestudents were asked to hel~boys with

In school vacation, John Mitchell (Decatur, Ala,) and studentspour cement for school floors; windows are cement blocks.

the building and girls with cookingCARE fod for the workmen. Manylocal craflsmen aEreed to donate time.

m.he board wrole the Peace Corps office

,n Monrovia and obtained five additionalVol””teers who were willing to work i“Pleebo as a vacation project. The Fire-stone rubber plantalio” that surroundsPleebo donated the use of a dump tmckfor transporting sand from HarRr Ci(y,18 miles away.

As SOO” as the vacation started, con-struction began. Students, local masonsand carpenters, tbe principal and teach.ers, and six Peace Corps Vol””teembegan putting in windows, hanging doors,pouring floors, and painting walls andwoodwork, The seventh Volunteer a“dsome girls from the school cooked o“emeal a day for the workmen.

Heavy rains came and washed awayour precious sand. Thumbs were po””dedby inexperienced carpen(em. Nervessometimes frayed, a“d tempers occa-sionally Sared, Yet these and many olbermisadventures were b.tied beneath theenthusiasm for the job. It was”>t all work.There were noisy times of singing con-tests between the cnrpe”tcrs and masonsas (hey worked, ra”co”s tim~ of waterfights and wrestling matches d“ri”glunch, a“d quiet times of talk when theday’s work had ended.

By mid-At, g.st, the windows were i“,

● ‘ ,.the doors hung, the floors finished, a“dthe b.dd,ng patnted The project wasover. It was ome to go back to school,

Al the dedication of (be buildi”E, aspeaker quoted Wi”sto” Churchill: ,CThisis “ot the end. This is not even thebegi””ing of the end, This is just theend of the begi””ing., >Indeed i( was.

Plcebo Government School now has alibrary. stage, science room, CARE kit.

then, outhouse, a“d power ge”eralor—all financed and installed through effortslike those we applied i“ our first project,

A Dance Leads to BushLeon Weintraub grew up in the Bronxand Brooklyn. He attended Hunter @l-iege in New York and studied Englishand drama at Brooklyn College from1960 to 19~. He was a member of thecampus theater group and took pan insummer stock in Notih Carolina as as-sistant to a scenic designer.

BY bon Wehtia.b

1 was one of about 20 in the fimt groupof Liberia Volunteen to be assigned toMonrovia. Like a few others, I was dis-appointed. How on earth could I everlive up to what friends and family weretbi”king of me? How could I ever liveup to the image? How could 1 functionsuccessfully unless 1 lived in a mud-and-stick house with bet-and-cold runningcockroaches? How could 1 be a success-ful Volunteer unless 1 was in the bush?

Alas, there I was. I recalled that some-time in my training I had given my wordth~t I would serve wherever the PeaceCorps thought I was needed most. ThePeace Corps had decided that MonroviaGovernment Junior High School No. 3was where 1 would k most valuable,I was a little hesitant about teacbi”gjunior-high arithmetic after majoring inEnglish a“d Iitcrature, but my maste~of the s.hject was complete.

One evening i. Monrovia 1 discoveredthat the bush of Liberia can be fo.”din the capital. 11 was about 7:30 p.m.on a Friday when I first heard the drums,not far from my apartment. Eagerly Iresponded: here was my chance to dis.cover real African cu!t”re,

At first the crowd was too thick forme to see the ““sic-makers. Thi.king(hat strangers might “ot be welcome, 1walked past. When 1 returned i“ a fewminutes, the crowd had grown much

Eddy Archer (New York City) and Swanston labor on windowsand dmr%, beyond the school stands a forest of rubber trees,

larger, so I assumed that anyone wasfree to watch the prweedings, Singing,drumming, and dancing were takingplace in front of a house i“ one of tbecity’s less developed areas.

I watched the party for about a“ hour,noticing that one man, of the many i“tribal gowns, had indisputable authority,Wbe” be spoke, everyone listened. Iu.demtood not a word of his dialmt.

Gradually, as some of the spectatorsgrew tired of the show and drifted away,I moved forward until at last I was i“the front row, not three feet from thedancers. As the only white face i“ thecrowd, I was now giving the performerssome compelitio” for the atlentio” ofthe audience. Before long, everyone wasaware of my presence. Then one of thedancers came to me and said, ‘,Wouldyou like to dance with us? Little did heknow that that was j“sl what 1 had beenwaiting for,

I told him that 1 didn’t know thes(eps, b.1 be said that he and tbe olherswould teach me. So around and aroundwe went, arm i“ arm, all the spectatorsand I having a wonderful time, Me”smiled approvingly and women giggledendlessly at this strange white ma” i“their midst. After dancing ( 1 use thisterm Iooscly) for a while, we werestopped by the voice of (he ma” ofau[horily.

He spoke for a minute or two to thecrowd, and the” we started dancingagain, Anolher few minutes and heslopped us again, this time for a five-mi.l,te speech which someone Ira”slatedfor my benefit, What 1 heard was a greatand wonderful surprise,

The leader turned out to k Woto Mo”-gr.e. ParamOUnt chief of the Gbeleh.gehchiefdom of tbe Gio tribe. Here was a

Completed at last, Pleebo school presents a modern pro fite;Iibrary, stage, science room, kitchen, have since been added.

rea!, live chief, md I—Monrotia-bmedWelnUau&wm dancing at his pafly.The festivities were in honor of thechiefs visit from KIS village of fihnple,more than 200 miles away.

Before I had time to remver from thefirst surprise, I had another. One of thecMePs aides had stipped behind me, andbefore I h8d a chance 10 react! he puton me a gown of the Gio tribe. megowning was followed by another danwduring which evewone watched open--mouthed while the chief and I per-fomed alone in the circle.

The chief indimted that he was hon-ored to have me at his patiy and intitidme to visit Kahnple. I acwpted, notknowing where in the world it WM. Asit hapwned, about a month later I didpay a vbit to the chief, traveUing toKahnple with a friend who had beenthere often.

After a few more visi~, I decided thatI had to move to Kahnple. The PeamCorps stti was not so eager u I w=,but it did work out so that I spent mysecond year, at least, king a Volunteerout in the bush.

arrived here last September were thepioneer Peam COTS Wople to work inpublic administration.

The agency for which these three Vol-unteers work, the Public Utilities Author. ●ity, is responsible for supplying waterand power to Monrovia and its envirom,encompusing some 80,000 penons. Al.[bough organizationally similar to manypubllc utilities in the U. S., the authorityhm many administrative problems Pcu-Iiar to the still developing countries, Thesituation related above is but oneexamule.

Th~ work of the Volunteers spans alldivisions of the authority. Gilles, whoholds an M.B.A. from Stanford and a

‘We Can Walk Today’“NOW let me go over it again. Henry,

you’re Being to find out about that stand-pipe at the Usco Warehouse. Smuel,you’ll disconnect those five houses inSinker, and David, you’ll replace themeter at the USAID house on PayneAve., O.K.? Where did the driver go?’

“He left with the comptroller:“Well, we must have a driver;’“1 can drive.”“O.K., David, here are the keys. ~11

see you about 3 o’clock:’“But David can’t drive?“Why not?”“He doesn’t have a Iiwmc?“1 meant that I would use my driver:’“Does he have a license?’“Yes, here it is:“Trev, this looks like a receipt and

not a license,”“II’s O. K.; the receipt can be used in

lieu of a license. But there’s still oneproblem.”

‘<what?,

“He’s not on our payrolt~’“Well, who the heck are we going

to get to drive today?”

“Koffie’s tmck won’t stafl, so he isavailable.”

“Great, now let’s get on the road:’C<BU1we can’t take our vehicle:’“Why not?’“The 1964 plates are requited today,

and we still hive the ’63 tags on it?“Well, we walked before we got the

vehicle, so I guess we can walk today.”

❑ 00,

So ended a minor but typical crisis inthe daily job of a public-administrationVolunteer in Liberia. This situation oc-curred at the Pubtic Utihties Authority,where VolunteeB Leon Gilles (Elgin,Ill. ), lames Kaval (Cleveland, O.), andTrevis Markle (Lansing, Mich ) areresigned.

Working with a special agency ofthe Liberian government, the PeaceCorps agreed to the idea of; installingVolu”teem in middle- and low-levelmanagement positions within ttie govern-ment, Some 40 of the Volunteers who

Presiding over weekly meeting of tiberian Jazz Club, which meets in :he Mon-rovia Iibraw of the U.S. Information SeNice, is Mike Duberstein (Bethesda, Md.),a public-administration Volunteer assigned to the Uberian Bureau of ,Customs.

B.S. in industrial engineering fromNorthwestern, co~rdinates the trainingprogram designed to upgrade the skillsof the Liberian staff, Eventually nearlythe whole staff of 400 in the authoritywill have participated in one of Gilles’scourses, At present they include Use ofHand Tools, Basic Diesel Mechanics,Water-Meter Repair, and Pump-Operat-ing Procedures. Instructors are the a“.thority’s supewisors, This program is thefirst of its kind undertaken in Liberia.

Kaval, a Stanford M.B.A. who holdsa B.S. in chemical engineering fromNotre Dame, and Trevis Markle whosebackground is in economic+B.A. fromMichigan State Univemity Plus graduatestudy at Wisconsin—work closely withthe financial administration of the Divi-sion of Water and Sewer. @

Kaval has worked in the billing and thecollection of water revenues, a job whichincludes contact with the billing andledger section, the disconnection andmeter-replacement gangs, and the Cus-tomer Relations Bureau. He also hasundertaken a job evacuation of authorityemployees to try to establish an equitablepay state,

Markle has worked on the authority’ssvstems and Procedures. He has set UDthe Customer-Relations Bureau, the inte~-office communications network, and cus-tomer information records.

Besides their formal duties, these threeVolunteem have worked at a wide varietyof other tasks. Gilles, for example, whiteconstructing a classroom for his cou roes,wa called upon to build offices for (heWater Division field staff. Kaval hmacquired a Sherlock Holmes reputationas a ‘<tracer of lost water Iin= and non-paying customem~ Markle, in expeditingthe impoflation of authority materials,has learned to drive the path betweenthe Bureau of General Supplies, theTreasuv, Cusroms, and the freeportblindfolded,

Besides helping their Liberian co-workers, the tiree have educated 10 Vot-unteer teachers as to what a full workingday really is by entisting them in a map-

aping and records-management project - ,during school vacation.

Po~cornmm

William Hess (Bakersfield, Cal.) at-tended Bakersfield Col IeEe and Fre$no

Wbs the Day ~-- ‘-

State College, majoring ‘in education.A year after his 1962 arrival in Libe! ia,he married Volunteer Jo.Ann Kachsglan(So. Milwaukee, Wis.), Together they areteaching in a rural school in ZinnahTown, 70 miles from Monrovia.

On many occasions we have sharedfood and meals wilh our neighbors, bulperhaps the lime that all of us will re-member for a long, long time is whenZinnah Town discovered popcorn.

One afternoon my wife, Jo-Ann, w=entertaining Caupoo, sister of ChiefZinnah, and washing dishes .at the sametime. Caupoo couldn’t help noticing thecanned goods on the shelves. We hadjust returned from a shopping trip toMonrovia and, consequently, the shelv~were still very full. Among the cans stmda bright red can of popcorn and naturally,it attracted her attention, Immediately,she wanted to know if i[s contenu wereedible. We shook the can, Wi”led co thepicture on it, showed her the unpop~d

,. kernel~bul that drew a complete blank,

*

‘~; definitely had to be more graphicand what better thing could we do than

- Wp it. Was she detighted with what she

saw, felt, and tatcd! She was so sur. iprked at what she saw that she wanted ~to we it happen agab. Well, all right, \We did it again. As a matter of fact, we ~did it two more times, a“d that was !enough,

The next thing we knew, she waspasing through the kitchen dwr and o“her way out of tie house. We followed,Our parade was halted at the first hut.Many words were spoken; CaUpOO hadken shouting sinm she had left o“rhouse and il was q“ile evident that whalshe’d said had gained the attention of theneighbors. People awakened from theirsiestas came to see what it was all ah. i.All who turned o“t made short work ofthe o...”,... . . . . . ..

Wilh a little coaxing we m“vincedCaupoo she m“ld mok the new wonderover her OP” fire. First we ~xp]~i”~dthat it was necessary to cover the pot orthe ~pcom would fall o“ lhe @o”nd andbecome unfit to eat, She smiled know. ;ingly a“d went about her work in herown ma””er. She p“red the remainingkernels in the pot and plawd it over thefire. Soon the corn kgan to pop, and,because she had failed to cover the Wt, !the kernels Wpyd into the air and ontothe ground. Small children darted herea“d there, a“d that waS all that wss Volunteer Jo-Ann Hess (So. Milwaukee,needed to make the chaos eve” more Wis,) poses with Caupoo, sister of Chiefchaotic. of 2innah Town, where Hesses teach.

Volunteers Around the WorldTRAINING

Brazil . .. ..... ... ... .. ... .... ....... 94Central America .— ..... .... 9Chile ...._. _..__..— .. .... . .... 53Colombia .. .. ......– .... .. ... .... 156Dominica” Republic . .._ 35Ecuador .. ... ... ... .. ... ... .. . .. 58Ghana ...__..._...— ...... .... 67India ... .... . .... .. .... ... .... ..... 38Iran .. .... ... ...... ...._ 94Jamaica _ ....__ ....– ... .... ... ...... 3Nepal _ ....._ .... ..–- .. .. .... ...... 1Panama . .. ...... . .... ...... .... IPhilippines ..... .... .. ... . . ... . 69Sierra Leone . ... .... .... 88Ta”ga”yika ...... . ..... .... ... ..._ 31Togo _ ....— .....— ...... ....... 28Turkey .. .... ... ... .. .... .. .... .. 60Venezuela ....__...— ...... ..... 13

TOTAL IN TRAIN2NG . 898

TOTAL OVERSEAS _........_6297

GRAND TOTAL ....._ .....__..7l95

Figures as of June 15, 19641

21

Industrious Cameroonians

Caught in Old-New ConflictBabette Andr&, who grew up in Hawaii,attended the University of Hawaii fortwo years and then transferred to theUniversity of California at Berkeley.Majoring in political science, she grad-uated with a B.A. in June, 19~. Sheis now teaching English at the Coll&ged’Enseignement G6n6ral in Bafoussam,East Cameroon.

By Babette Au*;

Most Cameroonians say that (be Bami-Itki, wbo live in tbe weslern part ofEast Cameroon, are tbe most industriousof the lrihd groupings in Cameroon.Anthropologists call them semi-Bantu.They are known as the workers, (he en-trepreneurs, and the merchants through-out the country, especially in the devel-oped centers of ihe south.

hlost of the Bami16k6 are located inEast Cameroon, but they have spilledover the border, knowing nothing ofartificial boundaries. For this reason, theunification of the IWO Cameroons hasmeant more for them than for manyother lribal groupings. They ha~e broth-ers in Wes[ Cameroon who were sepa.rated from Ibem by the arbitrary linesdrawn by the colonial powers and theLeaglte of Nations after World War LSome speak English; most of lhem speakFrench: but Ihey are all Bamil{k4.

Within a relatively small region, onefinds a very dense population of Bami-lbkh, homogeneot!s but fractionalized bya diversity of dialects. Overpopldalionof the Bamilike area has resulted inincreasing interaction and confict amongthe formerly isolaled villages. They havehad 10 expand from their region in searchof more space and in search of widermarkets, the commercial aspects of whichhave caused a certain amount of antago-.isn> fron> other tribes in the cuunlryBccnusc they are indt,striotls and becausethey are enterprising, the Bami14k4 areresented.

Their Ia”d is very inten%ly cultivated,mostly by women. The rich volcanicsoil of the area provides a wide varietyof good crops—fruits, starchy rools,vegetables of every sort. They raisesheep, goats, pigs, and chickens for meat.lt is a prosperous area, all the moreproductive because of the traditionalspirit of the Bamil&k6,

A yo,,ng Bami14k6 finds himself caughtin the same sq(teeze that Africans all overthe continent are feeling—the conflictbetween the lradilional and modern.Which does he choose, or must be chooseat all? Is there a synthesis of the two

which will prevent the alienation andanomie so common in urban centem?

He sees all the material thins oftbe modern world and naturally wankto partake. But this means ,giving upmuch of the traditional that he haknown. It means a new orientattan, anew education. T6e young BarnilLk6 basa heritage of production and ,work, butonly recently hm he been exwsed toan economy based on money, with ikevils and its advantages. H? is takenfrom the fields and abmptly thrown intothe commercial world. If be succeeds,very well; but if be does not, he iscaughl. He will drift, never being able10 go back to the fields and his traditions.

As Robrt Ruark bw so aptly put it:“When you Iry to change or take frompeople their way of fife and tw 10educate them away from their customs,YOU must replace it with something of wvalue, What have we to offer m some-thing of value? We educate, we intro.duce technology, but we also destroywhat has hen.”

The young Bamilik4 is intelligent; heIhinb of his extended familv. his an.cestom, his colonial past and, more re.cently, his country. He has rebelled. Itwas but a few short yearn ago that beparticipated in the terrorism against thegovernment, It impinged on his tra-ditional rights. He was defeated. Buttbe government of bis countw realkesthat it cannot resl with the ancient tribaljealousies. The Bami16k6 is no longerjust a member of his village; he is apart of the countw, an integral pati.He must help the countv grow andprosper. He is now a part of a largerworld.

Peace Corps Staff Aides Killed in CrashTwo mzmbers of [he Peace COrPS staff

i“ Washi”gtondne a former ‘Volunteerand the other a Volunleer-to:be—werekilled in an auto accident June 6 inPennsylvania.

They were John McGinn, 26, whoserved two years as a teacher in Ghana,and Margaret hlilmoe, 23, who wasshortly to-enter train-ing for a project inNigeria, Since his re.turn from overseas in1963, McGinn hadbeen working in the

m*.

Division of Recruit-ing. Miss Milmoe was

M

&a writer in the Office ‘~ -of Public Information.

The couple wasdriving from Washing- ‘“ato” to,Miss ,Milmoe’s ,Oh” ~T&im

home ,n Onetda, N.Y.Their car skidded on wet pavement andcollided wilh a south-bound vehicle. Thedriver of the other auto and his wife, aChicago co.ptc, were alw killed.

h5cGinn was a member of one of lhefimt groups of Volunteers to ho Over-seas. He taught English and literature atthe Kadjebi Secondary School in the ruralTrans-Volta region of Ghana.

Born in Marsh field, Wis., McGinnmajored in English at the University ofCalifornia in Berkeley, re=iving a B.A.in 1959. In 1961 he was gian[ed amaster’s degree in art history at Berkeley.While in school he worked as a readera“d teaching assistant in the de~artmentsof art and speech, as a library page, andas a youth-g. idancc worker with theBerkeley Police Department, Followinghis Peace Corps service in Ghana, Mc-

22!

Ginn studied French for several months~t the AOiance Fransaise in PaliS.

His parents are Dr. and Mn. EdwardJ. McGinn of Alameda. He is also sur-vived by a brotber and four sisters.

Mis Milmm joined the PeacCCorp>slaff in June, 1963, after working forfive months in Washington as pemonal

assistant to Nancy

‘A” “

Hanschman Dicker-son, lhen a CBS news

4

correspondent andnow wi~h NBC. Prior

i’- - 10 that she served forseveral months in the

l-”capital as a public-

/.information specialistwith the Heart Dis.

Lease Control Programof lbe Department ofHeallh, Education,

M~=et ~tJmOe and welfare,

After attending Skidmore College,Saratoga Springs, N. Y., from 1958 to1960, Miss Milmoe transferred [o Penn-sylvania State University and was granteda bachelor’s degree i“ journalism in 1962.I“ the summer of 1961 she went abroadunder tbe auspices of the Experiment inl“ternational Living, staying eight weekswith a German family. Sbe was born inSyracuse, NY.. and W= lbe daughterof Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius M. Milmoeof Oneida; a brotber, of Oneida, alsosurvives her.

A fund to S“PPIY books to tbe schmlwbcre McGin” taught i“ Ghana has kenestablished by a group of former GhanaVolunteem and staff memkrs. Contribu-tions may be sent in care of GeorgeCarter, Regional Director, Peace Corps,W%hington, D. C. 20525.

Government, Education, Teaching

* Career Opportunities forOpportunities for returning VOlunteem

are listed i. a monthly bulletin preparedby the Peace Corps Volunteer CareerInformation Service, and sent regularly10 Volunteers. Volunteers i“ their lastyear of secvice have bee” asked 10 ret”r”registration cards i“ order 10 receive i“.divid”al assistance. Inquiries should beaddressed to the Peace Corps VolunteerCareer Information Ser\ice, Room 601,1815 H St, N,W,, Washington, D, C,20006, Following is a selection from thec“rre”t bulletin:

Government

Education

Returning

mPresident Johnson has announced his

sp~cial interest in recmiting returningPeace Corps Volunteers for Federal em.ployme”t, The Career I.formation Sew.ice a“tic ipales rcq”ests from Federalagencies interested i“ hiring former Vol-unteers, a“d a program hss bee” dcvel.oped i. co-operation with the Civil Serv.i- Commission whereby CIS will for-ward Voh~nteer r6sum6s to them forcirculation among government agencies.If a“ a~ency is interested in a Volunteer,be will be asked to submit s standardaPPlicatiO. fOr Federal service, Form 57.

Vol””teers completing service i“ 1964who are interested in Federal employmentshould take the following steps:

● All Vol. ”teers (wi[h the exceptionof engineers, nurses, acco””ta”ts, socialworkers, a“d other specialists) shouldlake the Federal Service Enlca”ce Ex-amination. Check with Rcpr:se”tati.esfor dale a“d pla~,.

. File a registcatio. card with theCareer Information Service. Cards mayhe obtained from Representatives or di-rectly from CIS.

. Complste a“d submit the Form aL-tached at the end of tbe May, 1964,Career Opportunities b“lleli”.

Vol.”teers who are interested in Fed-eral employment may ohtai” a copy ofa special Government rzport prepared bythe Career Information Service, whicho“[lines basic Civil Service procedures aswell as general opport.”ities with anumber of Government agencies.

23

VolunteersTeaching

Letters to The Volunteer

Reader Takes Exception :To Article by Staff Wife

The following letter is in response toa W&pati article that appeared in theMaY and June Issues of The Volunteer,“MY Sun-Drenched Dream; written byMargaret Monroe, wife of Robeti Monroe,Peace Corps staff physician in Ecuador.

Dear Sir:

I was pleased to see printed in yourMay issue for the first time an articlethat could be considered controversial.Controversial to the extent of the gen-eralization “most Volunteers are an inb-red lot: Although the author statesthat “generalizing about Volunteers ispractically impossible” she has risen tothe occasion and managed to do it, Gen-erally, generalizations do not appeal tome—this one I take actual offense to.

Unless Sargent Shriver placed evewill-bred Volunteer in Ecuador, it is en-tirely possible (hat the author’s unreal-istic picture of a tour with the PeaceCorps as a protracted vacation in a‘swarm gold. washed country of sunshineand singing” has been a deciding factorin the formulation of this genera li=tion.

I also find it difficult to accept that inone paragraph they are referred to =“ill.brefl and in the one immediatelyfollowing as .’~rsonable and tikable~One statement would seem to deny theother.

The a“tbor’s account of her fi~t fewmonths in the Peace Corps were indeedharrowing and her transfer most upset-ting, but if she had taken a few momentsof time from her purchasing and herdissatisfaction with the transfer to reflecton what the role of a slaff wife in anunderdeveloped country really is, therewould be no reason to consider [he Vol-unteen as intrudem who ‘invade thefamily privacy and disturb domesticroutine.,, Ilis part of the job, and franklya very rewarding one.

Having hen a staff wife for [he lasteighl monthsin Liberia (acou.t~ wherealmost 300 Volunteem are stationed), Iwould like to state that of the 150 or soVolunteers that 1 have entertained in myhome, I have found them all to be ve~gracious guests, and when entertaining mei“ lheir homes, fine bests a“d hostesses..—— ——— ———-—-—-—-— —.

Male Vol.”teers have biked applepies for us; they have made raisin breadfor my child,en who adore it; and onei“genio”s Volunteer recently pr~ucedhomemade sour cream for u;. 1 receiveve~ few engraved rhank. you, notes, but1 attribute this to the fact that a mailing~ystem is just being devised in Liberia.[t is not the fault of the Volunteers.

Sincerely,R!TA SCHIFF

Monrovia, Liberia

Rita Schiff is the wife of Afihur Schiff,Associate Peace Corps Representativein Liberia, The Schiffs, from Scarsdale,N.Y,, have been in Liberia since Oc.tober, 1961; they have two ,daughters,6 and R

❑ 00

A Volunteer forester in Bmzi/ has alwresponded to Mrs. Monroe’s article, inthe form of a letter to the writer.

Dear Mm, Monroe:

I just spent a delightful few momenbreading Part 1 of your “Sun-DrenchedDream? Your lively account of allthose unenviable experiences struck manychords in my memow of one year as aPeace Corps Volunteer: thelariguage, thedelays, the diarrhea. Of spe:i~l intereslto me, though, were those k,nds of ex.perie.ces !hat we both have known, butfrom a different point of view? lhe inter.relationships of Volunteers with staff andfamilies,

Through your words o“ ,Vol”nleerma””em 1 have come to recognize whatmay k a common problem of Volun-teers. 1, al least, have not regarded hos-pilalily shown to me by membem ofthe staff and their famili~ m being ofthe .s”al private “at”re. Peace COWS a“dPersOnal life are so thoroughly blendedthat the staffs’ kindnesses always seemedmore like part of their jobs rather [ha”as somelhing strictly perso”ald

Now, thanks to your hetp, I knowthat i should not consider them so. Yourarticle has been for me a little lesson i“etiquette and attitude. If many Volun-teen ksid~ me lcamed something from

-———-—-————————-———.

your comments, then you are undoubt-edly established w the Emily Post of thePeam Corps. Congratulations and tbanksl

Wth best regards,PHIL BMNCH @ .

ENf, Caixa Postal 2959Curitiba, Paran6, Bratil

Branch, from Orinda, Cal., has been athis assignment since June, 1963; he isa Januaw, 1963, graduate of the Univer-sity of California in Berkeley, holding aB.S. in forest~,

Volunteers in Peru

Aid Making of Film

On Savings, CreditVolunteers working in a Peru program

to establish regional savings-and.loan m-sociations have assisted in the making ofa film designed to promote savings andthe concept of Ion@term credit in tbecountv.

The film, “A Home for TodayY wasfinanced by El Banco de la Vtvienda dePeru and by the U.S. Agency for inter-national Development. Eighteen minutesin length, it will & shown in (heatersthroughout Pem.

Twenty-one Volunteem+ixteen menand five women—are working in Peru

&on the savings-and-loan program. The . ..project began in May, 1963, after ElBanco de la Vivienda, which correspondsto the Home Loan Bank in the U. S.,requested Peace Corps assistance in thedevelopment of branch and regionalsavings. and-toan ass=iations. Two Vol..“teers have been assigned to eachregional assxiation, one as a teller-appraiser, and one as a comm”nity-rela-tions worker.

The tradition of low-cost credit forhome constmction, and of wide-spreadhome ownemhip in lower and lower-middle income groups, has been unknownin Peru; interest rates have been hifihand credit terms restrictive, so that inthe past, homes had to be paid for beforeconstruction began. The savi”~and-loanprogram was aimed at fostering lowerinterest rates and long-term moflgag=in order to change the pattern of homeconstmction and transform the slumsencircling major cities into habitableareas.

-— ——— ——— —- —- ——— —-- .

CHANGE OF AODRESSPEACE CORPS+

POSTAGE AND FEES PAID

. . . . . . . . . . WASH INGTON, D.C. 20525Name OFFICIAL BUSINESS I. .... ................ ... ........ .... ...... .... ... ............... ... .

.,

Address

. . .. .. ...... ... .. .... ... .. . ...... ........ ... .. ....... BCity, State, ZIP Code 1

----- .. . .. . . .. . . . . .. . .. . . . .Effective date

Please send in together with mailing label at right.