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Literary Type — 1/2003

Paul Eggers
     An interview by John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962-64)
PAUL EGGERS WON THE Maria Thomas Fiction Award in 2000 for his novel Saviors, set in a Vietnamese refugee camp on an island called Bidong off the east coast of Malaysia in the late 1970s, when boatloads of refugees were attempting to flee across the South China Sea. Last November, Southern Methodist University Press published Paul’s second book, a collection of stories entitled How the Water Feels, and we wrote Paul and asked him about his writing and his Peace Corps connection.

Where was your Peace Corps assignment?

I taught ESL in Malaysia from 1976 to 1978. My first year I taught high school in a remote village; my second year, I moved to a city and taught the equivalent of junior high students.

Did you stay in Asia after the Peace Corps?

Well, I was pretty much ready to go home after two years, but before I made it back to the US, I spent most of my readjustment allowance touring Europe on a shoestring. Back home, I found almost immediately that I missed South East Asia, and I wanted to go back. I spent two — mostly aimless — years in Seattle, doing boring, mindless jobs.
     Then I found out about a special United Nations program asking for ESL teachers to work with Indo-Chinese refugees in refugee camps in The Philippines and Malaysia. UNHCR wanted applications from former Peace Corps Volunteers, especially those who had served in South East Asia. I jumped at the chance, as did my wife, Ellen, whom I’d met in Peace Corps. Within a few months we were on our way to a refugee camp in The Philippines. We worked there for a year. Then in 1979, ever the romantics, we gave in to our desire for an even more remote and rough-and-tumble posting and requested and received a transfer to a first-asylum refugee camp for Vietnamese refugees in Malaysia, where we worked for another year.

And all of these experiences led to your first novel, Saviors?

Yes, my years in Peace Corps and the UN were probably the defining experiences of my life, so of course I wanted to write about them, or to at least in some way make sense of them. As an undergraduate, I had carried vague notions of someday doing something with writing, but I had no idea how to proceed. When my wife and I came back from working for the UN in 1982, we enrolled as graduate students at Penn State, where, as someone burnt-out from refugee work, I went into a degree program in technical writing.
     But I had the good fortune of taking a fiction/nonfiction class with the novelist and essayist Paul West, who was very encouraging toward my short essays on my Peace Corps experience. (I knew I was still close to my UN experiences, so I chose not to write about them.) He told me I had a novel in me, and that I needed to chase it down. This inspired me, of course, but undertaking a novel also seemed beyond my own sense of my capabilities, so I put his words on the back burner and proceeded to complete a degree in technical writing, which eventually led to employment in Seattle / Tacoma as a technical writer at Boeing and at Microsoft.
     I quickly tired of technical writing, and when my wife was offered a job teaching at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, I was an enthusiastic mid-30s tag-along, deciding that, if I was going to actually ever do creative writing, it was now or never. I felt I was now far enough away from my UN work in refugee camps to write about it through fiction. At the time — and this seems funny to me now — my sense was that I was too boring to write interesting nonfiction about the camps. Further, reading various nonfiction accounts had convinced me that nonfiction required knowledge I didn’t have, even that everything that could be said had already been said. I had never published a short story, and I hadn’t read any fiction about life in refugee camps, all of which allowed me to escape the notion that the task was overwhelming. In a sense, my own ignorance of creative writing gave me the confidence and room to actually attempt a novel.
     At Nebraska, I took several graduate writing workshops. In my first one, I attempted a longish and somewhat rambling short story based on people in the refugee camp in Malaysia. I got much positive feedback. Short-story writer and novelist Marly Swick, a wonderful teacher, told me it looked like the beginning of a good novel, made a few suggestions, and encouraged me to continue it. So I did, even though it took me about 100 pages to actually summon up the courage to call it a novel-in-progress. I had assumed that writers first write short stories, then go on to novels. But the feedback was so positive from everyone — an agent expressed interest when I was about half done — that I stayed with the novel project for about six years and cranked out almost 600 pages. The resulting manuscript, Saviors, was my dissertation; a slimmed-down version was accepted for publication by Harcourt-Brace about a year later.

What’s your academic background?

I’ve got an MA in technical writing from Penn State and a Ph.D. with an emphasis in creative writing from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. As an undergrad at the University of Washington — my first two years were at Tacoma Community College — I was an English major.

Did you study creative writing in college?

Oh yes. I took poetry workshops as an undergrad. For my MA, I took three graduate poetry workshops, in addition to the class with Paul West. I was a mediocre poet, so when I had the opportunity to continue my education at Nebraska, I figured it was time to give fiction-writing a shot.

Penn State has been a favorite school for RPCV writers. And Paul West a favorite teacher of many RPCVs. The late Maria Thomas (Ethiopia 1971–73) was a student of Paul West, as was Peter Chilson (Niger 1985–87) and Bird Cupps (Kenya 1987–89.) They were all creative writing students at Penn State. Did you run into any of these writers, or other RPCV writers at State?

I didn’t realize all these writers went to Penn State; to my recollection I was the only RPCV in the early ’80s in the English department. At Nebraska, too, in the ’90s, I was the only RPCV.

Do you think that there is value in a creative writing program for RPCVs?

Absolutely. There’s no way I could have finished my novel, or even had the motivation and confidence to start, if I hadn’t been in a creative writing program. I found that when I wasn’t surrounded by other people engaged in the same process, it was simply too easy to allow life to intrude and take me away from the necessary and constant reading and drafting.
     In a writer’s early development, I think it’s essential that he or she sees how “real writers” — their instructors, their actively publishing classmates — work and talk and think. I say the following with all affection to my teachers, and I encourage my own students to understand this, but writers aren’t nearly as smart or funny or profound in real life as they seem on the page, which is both a simple and an enormously important realization to come to — i.e., if these otherwise average people can do it, then so can I. And there’s nothing like the possibility of public humiliation to spur one into finishing and polishing a story or poem.

What Peace Corps writers have you read?

Until recently, I’ve focused on Peace Corps and non-Peace Corps writers dealing with South East Asia. By far the most important Peace Corps writer, for me, was and is Paul Theroux; in particular, Theroux’s accounts of Singapore and Malaysia in Saint Jack and The Consul’s File were instrumental in helping me develop a tone and approach in my own writing. Non-PCVs Tim O’Brien and Robert Olen Butler, both of whom of course deal with South East Asia, have also been useful and inspiring to read.
     Lately, because I’m working on a novel taking place in Africa, I’ve expanded my reading list. There’s a lot of great RPCV writing about Africa. I’ve particularly enjoyed the Africa books of, again, Paul Theroux, but also Melannie Sumner, George Packer, Norman Rush, and Eileen Drew, and the non-Africa books of Bob Shacochis.
     Nowadays, I read mostly with an eye toward helping me expand my repertoire, so I like to read a variety of stylists dealing with a variety of experiences. My own idiosyncratic list, in addition to ones I’ve mentioned, would include anything by Marquez, anything by Alice Hoffman, anything by Conrad and V.S. Naipaul, anything by Lorrie Moore, anything by Chuck Palahniuk, and anything by Richard Russo. Reading these wildly divergent writers has, I think, helped me expand my sense of what’s possible.

Where do you live in California?

I live about 15 miles outside Chico and teach at Cal State-Chico, where I’m lucky to be teaching with fellow RPCV writer and the recent Maria Thomas Award winner, Rob Davidson.
     In some ways my wife and I live in a clichéd “writer’s house” — in a pine forest, with a woodpile out back, a big fireplace, a propane tank, a redwood deck, and lots of trees and quiet.
     My wife also teaches at Chico State, so life tends to revolve around school and various projects requiring us to sit at our respective writing desks. We have a dog, Jackson, who likes nothing better than to get something going, but outside of him and socializing with friends there really aren’t that many distractions.

What does Ellen teach?

Linguistics. She got her Ph.D. from the University of Washington in 1990; I got mine later on. For writing, it’s wonderful to have an expert on various language and cultural issues in the house.

Give us some idea of how you go about your writing.

The pattern I developed in graduate school was to do most of my writing during the summer. It took me almost seven years to finish my novel while I was at Nebraska, but I was also taking and teaching a full load of classes, studying for comps, and writing academic essays. I found that writing during the summer gave me the best shot at having a long, unbroken stretch of time. Since then, I’ve continued this pattern, doing most of my writing when school is not in session.

Where do you write?

I have a home office (there are too many distractions at school) where I do all my writing, usually on the computer. Until this year, I couldn’t get “in the zone” unless I was listening to loud rock music. The louder and trashier, the better. My explanation is that the music forced me to tune things out more quickly; my best writing always occurred when I couldn’t hear the music any more. I don’t know if my explanation is truly accurate, but nowadays I’m tending toward having quiet when I write.
     When I began writing my novel, I also smoked cigars while I was drafting. I’m not sure if it was the buzz or the affirming picture I had in my head — the cigar-chomping writer at his desk — that made me do this, but I’ve since given that up, too. Now I like to have a cup of coffee at the desk and stare at the trees outside the window.
     I usually don’t write every day; I tend to write in patches, whenever I’m free and motivated to do it. Typically, I like to begin a writing session by reviewing my previous writing on the subject and looking over things I put in my writer’s notebook — ideas, quotes, questions and observations I have about the material I’m working on, doubts, rough sketches of scenes, ramblings, images, and so on.
     I find I forget useful things if I don’t put them down in my notebook.

How might a short story develop?

Well, one of the stories in my collection, in fact, grew out of an image I scribbled in my notebook. It was an image of a guy hauling a bucket up from a well, and inside the bucket was a pet monkey. In the Peace Corps, a friend of mine actually did have a monkey that liked to curl up in the well bucket and take naps. The image stayed with me. In real life, the friend and his monkey were benevolent presences. But when I separated that image from its actual context, there was something lurid and vaguely threatening about it, all of which I tried to capture in the story. I knew that if I could convincingly get to that point in the story — a character hauling up a hellish, screeching monkey from a well — the story would work itself out because the scene was so metaphorically rich and full of possibilities.

Finally, what are you thinking about now in terms of a new book?

I’ve spent the past few years trying to nail down a voice and approach for a novel involving chess and Africa. Ellen and I lived in Burundi, Africa, from ’85–’86, and while we were there, I made some Reagan-era friends with Burundians and Soviets who hosted elaborate chess tournaments. As a writer, I love the incongruity and oddness of having a mismatched group of chess fanatics — I, myself, am a former nationally ranked chess master — indulge their game board fantasies in a developing and largely ignored country with very real problems, a country on the brink of violent change (the early ’90s ethnic violence in Rwanda was played out on a smaller scale, with the sides reversed, in neighboring Burundi). The blindness and moral ambiguities of that “pre-explosion” time, from my vantage point as outsider, are what interest me now; the experience is, to my mind, heavily overlayed with issues of fiction and fictionalizing, so fiction seems the appropriate vehicle.

Something Grand
by John Flynn (Moldova 1993–95)
Be Move Press
October 2002
117 pages
$10.00

Reviewed by Joe Kovacs (Sri Lanka 1997–98)

THESE STORIES ARE FROM THE GUTTER, housed with losers, wannabes and out-of-luck dreamers, whose mouths bulge with alcohol and vulgarities, whose lives are done before they’re begun, whose imaginations carry them no further than their backyards. Something Grand, the ironical title of this collection of eleven short stories, presents us with a number of poor, uneducated or traumatized individuals struggling for respect from themselves and others in a larger world. As readers with the benefit of an external perspective, it is easy for us to see they are mentally and emotionally unequipped to fill any station beyond their present one. The problem with Something Grand, is that the stories are ungrounded in larger environments or contexts that might provide alternatives to their current situations. While the characters, their relationships and their problems are revealed in sufficient detail, they float in a landscape of their own barbs and expletives, with no role models or choices toward which they — and through them the readers — might strive.
     This lack of environment begins with a failure to provide external descriptions. In “Wistah Irish,” an uneducated and frustrated hospital janitor drives to a nearby bar after arguing with his wife who wants to name their first-born after an “uppity” friend whom her husband despises. At the bar, when he spots a new SUV, the prose withdraws into furious, expletive-ridden internal monologue. Avis throws a cinder block through the SUV window but does so without providing a larger description of the bar scene from which a chance detail of hope might be gleaned. Why shouldn’t Avis get mad if he sees no choice for anything else? The same is true in “Pulpo Avoids A Hard Time,” whose protagonist, an Hispanic who works several jobs in east Los Angeles, is not as convinced as his wife that they can make ends meet and make a life for themselves. The bulk of the story takes place in the restaurant where Pulpo is a dishwasher. He is hassled by fellow employees, accused of smoking marijuana, which could lead to his getting fired, and dreams of killing his boss. Other characters, whose lives or situations might be more hopeful, are completely absent. Pulpo, like Avis, is reduced to vulgarity and violent thoughts, which does little to endear him to the readers’ sympathy.
     In rare moments the author presents a fine, sympathetic detail that readers may identify with: “Daddy’s Home” tells us about a father who works too hard but presents his children with a new football, only to accidentally kick it on the roof, ending their fun a few minutes later. In another story, Ethan, a musically talented but naïve country boy falls into the web of despair of an older sexual predator in New York City and sacrifices his violin to her jealousy. At the end, we are told: “For many days after, Ethan cried meekly to himself, alone. Not he, nor his beloved instrument, would ever sound the same.”
     Most of the troubled characters brood deeply and enforce an emotional paralysis on themselves that makes it impossible to improve their lives. The stories are often overwritten as well, but most importantly, they are limited by the author’s failure to drive beyond a general malaise to a broader environment where improvement or happiness might be found. The characters guard their personalities, even from the readers, through recourse to violence, alcohol and vulgarity. In doing so, these stories degenerate rapidly into tales of conditions rather than of conflicts. And as a result, boxed in with little hope for escape or victory, the weak characters lose the readers’ interest as well as our desire to travel with them through the pages.

Joe Kovacs is a regular contributor to WorldView Magazine. His most recent articles, “The Harlem Renaissance, Washington, DC” and the “Rise of Langston Hughes” will appear early next year on Literary Traveler.com. He recently accepted a marketing position with Gelman, Rosenberg and Freedman accounting firm in Bethesda, MD.

On Valentine’s Day, 1973, Suzanne Clark and her husband Vern were in one of their favorite bayside restaurants on Newport Harbor, a short drive down the Pacific Coast Highway from their home in Huntington Beach, California. They were sitting at a second floor window table watching the sunlight sparkle on the water and the ceaseless tossing of small boats on the bay when Vern turned to Suzanne and said, “Why don’t we join the Peace Corps?” Thus began the Clarks’ journey to Mauritius as PCVs (1973-75). Recently Suzanne collected her letters home and her memories of her Peace Corps tour while taking a Life Story writing class and self-published them in a small book entitled, My Mid-Life Adventure. With Suzanne’s permission, we reprint one of her “Letters Home” from Mauritius to her daughter Janet, then a Physical Therapy student at Long Beach State College. Today the Clarks live in Sebastopol, California.



It is Sunday morning — Dec. 9, 1973.

We received your letter Friday, the 7th. Congratulations on making the program. We knew you would! We are so proud of you and know you will continue to do well and put the L.B. State School of Therapy on the map! The rest of our group here send their congrats also. We all had a beer Friday night to toast your success. Also, how great that you sold your car so quickly. Hang on to that money for the future. We have been here a week and it seems so much longer. The language instruction is very intense. Amine and Danielle come every morning at 8 and we work until noon on a half day and until 2 or 3 on a full day. The teaching is all oral. We sit with no books and listen then repeat. Evenings and mornings we work on vocabulary. We have copybooks to list words then we are supposed to work together in our spare time. It is no wonder I wake up in the night repeating Creole words. But apparently the system is working. They tell us we are doing well. Along with the language we will go on field trips to learn the culture. Monday we are going to the market to learn about shopping. The nurses who are working here now came on Thurs. to tell us a little about the work we will be doing. We saw Dr. Malleck Fri. and got gamma globulin shots. Also T.B. skin tests. We still have to have DPT and typhoid. Today is a welcome party for new volunteers at Blue Bay. Vishnu will pick us up about noon. We will meet the other volunteers, swim and eat. Both of us plan to get masks and snorkels because the reefs are beautiful! Yesterday afternoon Dad and I rode the bus into Curepipe, another town up the hill. Just walked the streets and looked in the shops. There are not too many ready-made clothes but lots of fabric — much of it just like home — and many places to have clothes made. The majority of women wear short dresses. You seldom see shorts or pants. Only the Indian women wear the sari. The men, mostly trousers and shirts — some wear suits — all clothes are very colorful. The big food market (or bazaar) is all open stalls with everything fresh and on display. Meat shops the same. Some small stores with packaged and canned goods. The bread is bought fresh every day because there are no preservatives in it. It tastes good! This coming Thurs. they have planned a Sega party here at our beach house. Sega is the native dance with drums. This will be part of our cultural experience. We will wish you Merry Christmas now. We both feel fine and are doing ok. Of course, we are the “old folks” of our group but don't feel it is a handicap. Mary Tom, the Hawaiian girl, is 25. The other couple, Newton is 23 and Pauline Chase is 31. We have had a couple of bridge games with them. Still have not seen a hospital but that will come in Jan. when our training period is finished. Also then we will have our own houses. Please share this letter with whoever is interested. I will try and write to as many as possible but we are really busy now and only have a day and a half off a week.

With love,
Mom and Dad

Looking for Ben Franklin in Timisoara
by Andy Trincia (Romania 2002–  )

ONE BLUSTERY DAY in November 1989, Dorel Jurcovan stood in line several hours for a half a kilogram of meat — just over one pound — his family’s ration for a whole month. Ration lines were a way of life in Communist Romania. Waiting, more waiting, for 5 eggs, less than an ounce of butter and a half-gallon of milk.
     Night fell in Timisoara, and still he had no meat, so he began to ask about the slaughterhouse and delivery truck — how could they be sure meat would arrive? Other people around him suddenly were nervous and moved away. One man uttered, “It doesn’t matter. Look, I want to go home from here,” meaning the alternative was to be hauled off to jail for challenging authority. Dorel eventually received a piece of meat the size of his forearm, but most of it was bone and fat.
     “I was so furious when I got home,” he recalls. “I just shouted — not at my wife or daughter — but shouted, ‘If we can’t ask a simple question, we are just doomed. Our lives have no meaning.’”
     So a month later, when anti-Communist protests erupted in Timisoara’s streets and main plaza, Dorel was right in the middle, even circulating his secret writings to Western journalists covering the drama. Fueled by TV reports from nearby Yugoslavia that the Berlin Wall had come down and change was engulfing the rest of Central and Eastern Europe, the December 1989 Revolution rumbled across Romania and into Bucharest, leading to the toppling of the government and the Christmas Day executions of evil dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his equally hated wife, Elena. Dozens of students died in the melee, martyrs for freedom, though many believe a simultaneous coup d’etat engineered by Romania’s Securitate, KGB-like secret police, actually toppled Ceausescu. Nonetheless, Communism was dead in Romania.
     Today, Dorel is a successful, 57-year-old businessman and an inspiring, yet unassuming figure. Another Peace Corps Volunteer and I met him recently — he’d asked us to come to his restaurant and talk business. His story was so amazing that I went back another night to have him tell me more. After six months here as an economic development Volunteer, I can tell you that this country needs more people like him.
     A nuclear physicist by training, he spent many years working for the Romanian state’s Research Institute, specializing in semiconductors and machine circuitry.
     “Before the Revolution, I had no idea about starting a business,” he says. “I had zero knowledge of accounting, economics or marketing. I didn’t even know my salary. My wife took care of the finances. I was just so focused on my job, the technical aspects of it. But I eventually realized that I could be my own master. Economics is like a game of chess. There are rules but you just have to have common sense.”
     Fortunately for him, his writings surfaced after the Revolution and he received letters from around the world, including one from Norway in 1990 inviting him to an economics symposium. He and his wife, Luita, daringly packed up their old car with food and clothes and headed northwest with just enough money to buy gasoline. They encountered the kindness of strangers along the way, as well as the excitement of crossing the border for the first time and seeing new countries.
     “When we got there, it was paradise for me. It was incredibly beautiful. These people seemed so rich, their houses so big, but they were nice to us. For the first time, we were treated like human beings, like normal people. I made great connections, new ideas. It was so exciting for me. Everyday was something new, like I had a new life.”
     Not long after, Dorel and his partners began importing floppy disks and started a computer training business. They tried many ideas in the next three years, most unsuccessful, but came to the conclusion that “people eat.” They opened up 3+1 Pizzeria, so named after original partners plus a new one, on a busy street in central Timisoara. Pizza did not exist in Romania before the Revolution, so people gobbled it up — and still do. His little restaurant, smaller than some living rooms I’ve seen in America, cranks out a few hundred pizzas daily. Ironically, because of seemingly endless red tape and widespread corruption, he believes it is harder to start a business now in Romania than it was during the years immediately after Communism.
     Along this journey, he sought out American and other Western books, devouring The One Minute Manager and other self-help business guides. He befriended previous Peace Corps Volunteers, and another American development worker, who’s now in Mongolia, has been a steady and trusted mentor for him. His daughter, Ioana, now attends law school in San Francisco. He has great affinity for America.
     But it is Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography, which Dorel has read 13 times in the past 30 years, that guides him daily – in his marriage, friendships, the restaurant and his work in international development.
“If you understand Benjamin Franklin, then you know how people in the United States think even today. More honesty than other places. A strong work ethic — this notion does not exist in Romania. Have you ever even heard the words ‘work ethic’ in Romania?”
     In 1994, Dorel was the grateful recipient of a grant to visit the United States as a businessman from a developing region. “I didn’t believe that I was going until the plane’s engines started,” he remembers. “It was a big moment for me.”
He traveled to several cities, met with a number of business people and consultants, but also toured scores of pizza restaurants, where he specifically observed processes and equipment. He likes to show off his kitchen’s ventilation system, which is modeled after one he first saw in America — he took copious notes and made measurements with his arms and footsteps. Naturally, he remembers his first impressions at the airport in Philadelphia, a city he was excited to see because of Mr. Franklin.
     “The guy who greeted me was so nice, but I was suspicious of him. “We were taught to be suspicious, because if you weren’t, you could lose your life. I thought about it later, what a wonderful feeling it is to always trust people, to always have trust. But you only have that when you are free.”

Before joining the Peace Corps, Andy Trincia was a corporate communications executive in the financial services industry. Sworn in on August 16, 2002, he is working as a business consultant for the Chamber of Commerce in Timisoara, Romania. We have asked Andy to file reports for the next two years of what his life is like working and living in Romania.

Songs from Africa
by David Kendall Grant (Chad 1990-92)

Sea. Sky and Ground

During my time in Chad we were evacuated from the country twice, and those of us in N’Djamena were removed to “safe houses” several times during the Gulf War and in response to various movements of factions in the City of Rumors.

The fields are burning
As we leave you behind
In your desert, dust devils
Spin to the heights

From a landcruiser
Watching you wave goodbye
Hiding our hearts till our return from the sky

Never wanted to go
Never wanted to stay
Such a long way from
N'Djamena to LA


RPG's and Gunships
Cruise like sharks down below
Gala upon gala upon gala upon gala upon gala upon gala
At the Etoile

Roll of bed at gunfire
Crawl to the door
You don't need to be here
If you leave I won't see you no more

Never wanted to go
I only wanted to stay
Dusty roads of N'Djamena
Were like my hills of LA

Roads are all I have found
That leads me to you
Sea, sky and ground
Sea, sky and ground

Feel my heart pound
What was lost, now is found
Sea, sky and ground

Transforming Lions

A President’s Dream
by Carol Welsh (Honduras 1962–64)

WHILE I WAS IN COLLEGE, I wrote a small research paper on “The Youth Corps,” which eventually was named the Peace Corps. I was excited about the idea of being able to represent America in a foreign country not as an “Ugly American,” but as one who lived at their level. President Kennedy stirred my heart and resolve as he made the Peace Corps into a reality.

The day camp
I left for Honduras on October 1, 1962. Our group consisted of nurses and social workers. As a social group worker, I was assigned to a community center to help develop programs and activities. The first winter I discovered that the schools closed for 8 weeks over the winter months rather than during the hot, steamy summer months. That’s when the idea began to emerge to have an 8-week day camp program for the next winter. My Honduran supervisor, Blanca Estela, liked the idea but was pessimistic because of a lack of funds.
     “We could have a fund raising carnival,” I suggested. I explained that we could go to all of the businesses in San Pedro Sula and ask for a donation of one of their products that could be used for the prizes. The idea caught on and off we went. I was amazed at the generosity of the business community and merchants. Blanca teased that the people were so fascinated by this tall blonde gringa who spoke Spanish with a Wisconsin accent that they just couldn’t refuse our request.
     We ended up with a room full of wonderful prizes and some gifts that were so outstanding that they were saved for a raffle. But now for the rest of the story.
     The carnival was planned for November 26, 1963. But four days before, our world turned upside down. Another Peace Corps Volunteer and I were living with a widow and her three children. The widow also had a 13-year-old girl living with her who worked for room and board. On the Friday before the carnival, while we were eating lunch, the girl came bursting in the door babbling “asesinato – presidente.” She was laughing hysterically. Historically, military coups in Latin American countries where the president is assassinated were not uncommon. I felt terrible because the Honduran President and First Lady had invited us to Honduras to help staff the new health and community centers they had established around the country. The Hondurans loved them so I was puzzled by his assassination.
     The widow went up to the girl and slapped her hard to stop the hysteria. I was shocked until I heard her scream, “How can you laugh over President Kennedy’s assassination? How dare you insult these people by behaving in such a manner!” The girl began to sob.
     No! This can’t be true! This doesn’t happen in America, my mind screamed! Two other Volunteers burst into the house, crying. I turned numb. As I rode in the Jeep back to the Community Center, I wept quietly for a few minutes. The Center’s staff was wailing loudly when I got there. They have strong customs for grieving, including showing a great deal of emotion and rules of what you can and cannot wear. (Everyone knew the woman of our house was a widow because she could only wear black and white for the rest of her life.)
     Many of the Hondurans idolized the Kennedys and had pictures of them in their homes or shops. To show respect for President Kennedy, they felt they must cancel the carnival. How can we do something that is joyous and fun at a time like this? When I explained that the Peace Corps was a dream come true for President Kennedy and that the biggest honor we could bestow upon him was to go ahead with the carnival, they decided not to cancel it.
     $300 in nickels was made from that carnival along with another $150 from the raffle. This paid for the first 8-week day camp in the history of the country. Both children and adults participated. However, the monies earned from the carnival proved to be even more crucial.
     Two weeks after President Kennedy’s assassination, there was a military coup in Honduras and the President and his wife were exiled. The person who was going to be elected as the next president because the current President’s term was ending, was crazy — or so the people proclaimed. He would get on the radio and talk non-stop for 6 hours! The people were afraid that he would be another Castro. The opposition party could not win because then everyone who had a government job — the only good and secure jobs — would lose their jobs.
     By having a rapid coup with little blood shed, the military believed they were rescuing the situation. However, this immediately cut off the funds to the health and community centers since they were government owned. The money from the carnival helped to keep the center open for two months until the funds were restored.
     During a visit to Honduras, Sargent Shriver assured us that this news would have gladdened President Kennedy’s heart, had he been alive. Shriver stopped at the Center and shared this with the people. Some wept, others beamed proudly.

(Twenty-five years later, our Honduras I group had a reunion up in the mountains of Mexico where our Peace Corps Director for Honduras now had a home. As we were shopping in the tiny little tiendas, we all stopped and looked. There was a big faded photo of Jack and Jackie Kennedy proudly displayed in the back of the shop with a black ribbon framing their photos. The memory was still carried in the hearts of some. And I have the memory of the happy faces during the day camp activities.)

Bridge building
The military stayed in power in Honduras for decades.
     Right after the coup they began to approach Peace Corps Volunteers to see if they could work with them. They knew the Volunteers were liked and respected even though the people were often curious as to why we were there. I was asked frequently as to why in the world I would want to come to Honduras? Their theory was we had everything in the United States and they were poor. Many thought everyone in the United States was rich. At least that’s the way they saw us in the movies.
     Out in one of the rural barrios, one Volunteer was helping the people build a wooden bridge so that they could still get their sugar cane to the market during the rainy season. The military thought this was a wonderful way to win favor with the people. “We will build the bridge for them,” they proclaimed. The Volunteer was able to show them that by helping the people to build the bridge themselves rather than doing it for them, they would be able to build future bridges by themselves. We have photos of the village people, the military and the volunteer standing proudly on the completed bridge.

A new water supply
Next the people wanted a water spigot in their village so the women wouldn’t have to haul the water all of the way from the river. The military eagerly said they would get the equipment and dig the trench so the village people could have the water. Once again, the Peace Corps Volunteer showed them the pride the villagers were feeling as they saw the spigot getting closer and closer.
     The villagers held little fund raising parties, mostly selling warm beer. When they had the money to buy a length of pipe, they would celebrate with another fund raising party and make a big fuss over how much closer they were to their goal. They didn’t dig a trench. They just laid the pipe with great pride on the ground. Then they would step back and see how far they had already come. By the time our two year tour of duty was complete, the spigot was in the middle of their village and more photos had been taken.

Outhouses
The next project was to build outhouses so the villagers no longer would have to use the bushes. This time the military supplied shovels and lumber at a reduced price. They didn’t try to do the digging for them. They finally understood the concept of community development, “Feed them fish and they will be hungry the next day. Show them how to fish, and they will never be hungry again.”

The Peace Corps has been in Honduras since 1962 when we arrived and the locals wondered who we were? Missionaries? Peace Corps — Cuerpo de Paz? Peace group? What does that mean? And who were these Norte Americanos who were always broke? They walked or drove Jeeps, not those big American cars that could barely negotiate the narrow streets.
     Now they know.
     Now they know we are people who care, people who laugh with them and speak their language. People who are fulfilling a dream that started with a President’s Dream — send our best to these developing countries. Were we the best? I don’t know. Each of us had our own reasons for joining the Peace Corps. My experience changed my life forever. I thank my lucky stars for being an American. How good we have it. We are the envy of the world. Freedom. I will never ever take it for granted again.

Carol Welsh is the author of When You’re Seeing Red…STOP! and the forthcoming Push Here to Start: A Practical Approach for Diffusing Hot Buttons.

Being First


A Memoir of Ghana I

by Robert Klein (Ghana 1962–63)

THE PEACE CORPS BEGAN to be organized soon after John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in January 1961. the President assigned his brother-in-law, R. Sargent Shriver, to head a task force to develop proposals for the new agency. Shriver met with academics, heads of voluntary agencies and old mentors such as Father Theodore Hesburgh, the president of Notre Dame, but it wasn’t until he encountered Warren Wiggins that the roller coaster began its ride. Wiggins came from the International Cooperation Agency (ICA) [which later became the new Agency for International Development (AID)], and brought with him like-minded colleagues who wanted to get new development programs into the field quickly under what they perceived were the innovative approaches implied in the name, Peace Corps.
     It was a conceptual paper that Wiggins had written, “The Towering Task,” that, in late February, jump-started the Peace Corps study group. [This phrase “The Towering Task” was borrowed from Kennedy’s 1961 State of the Union message in which he had said that the response to the towering challenges of the noncommunist world “must be towering and unprecedented as well.”] The paper recommended massive (1000+) programs such as teachers’ aides for the Philippines, and proposed that the new agency directly operate overseas programs. Co-author William Josephson suggested that the new agency start work immediately under presidential executive order and not wait for specific enabling legislation. Shriver reacted enthusiastically to their ideas and Wiggins and Josephson’s “Towering Task” became the engine that drove the creation of the new agency, and they were among the first handful of men to shape the Peace Corps.
     Bill Josephson, who became Deputy General Counsel and later the General Counsel for the Peace Corps, would recall those long days and nights spent in a suite of rooms in the Mayflower Hotel drafting the “Report for the President,” and detailed the process for Coates Redmon in her book, Come As You Are: The Peace Corps Story. “The final draft of the Report was done with Charles Nelson sitting in one room writing basic copy, me sitting in another room rewriting it, [Harris] Wofford sitting in yet another room doing the final rewrite, and Wiggins running back and forth between the three rooms delivering pieces of paper along the chain.”
     The Report was given to Kennedy on Friday morning, February 24, 1961. Five days later, on March 1, President Kennedy signed the Executive Order creating the Peace Corps and appointed Shriver as its first Director. [Executive Order 10924 gave the Peace Corps $1.5 million from the president’s discretionary funds, along with the sixth-floor space in the Maiatico Office Building at 806 Connecticut Avenue across Lafayette Park from the White House.]

Maiatico Mafia
On March 2, 1961, the Peace Corps staff, like determined squatters, took over the offices formerly occupied by the International Cooperative Agency. Shriver took more than desks and offices from ICA. Led by Warren Wiggins, a group of ICA officers had joined Peace Corps staff. Some of the early participants gave descriptions of the chaotic character of the beginning and Shriver’s role as ringmaster.
Harris Wofford, Kennedy’s special assistant on civil rights, as well as advisor to Shriver on the establishment of the Peace Corps, recalled early discussions on the establishment of the agency, that the Peace Corps not do any projects directly but that they be contracted out to universities and other agencies. “There was not much chance of that with Shriver running an agency. Sargent Shriver clearly tended toward a fast moving, hard hitting, core, central organization. He put enormous weight on speed and the more he saw of the complaints about the State Department and AID particularly . . . how long it takes in their pipeline to get anything done; how, in many projects, the time for them has passed by the time the experts and the money arrive — he was determined that in four months we’d be able to produce volunteers to fill jobs that took fourteen months in the old agencies. He just felt that with Kennedy’s backing he could build a corps that would do it.”
     Four months was just about right. It was April 24 when Ghana requested Peace Corps teachers. On August 30 Ghana I arrived in Accra.
     Ed Bayley, the first Director of Public Information, remembers those days right after Kennedy’s Executive Order: “All hell broke loose, of course. And we really didn’t know what the Peace Corps was at that point . . . . There was a sort of division there between the bureaucrats and the people coming in from outside. And Wiggins and Josephson and Charlie Nelson, a couple more of that bunch, they came over from ICA. And they really thought they knew all about this, and we were a bunch of amateurs.”
     To staff the new agency, Sargent Shriver had attracted and recruited two dissimilar groups. One was the “hard-headed,” practical ICA types; the other “soft-headed” visionary politicos, attracted to the Kennedy presidency. They all shared Shriver’s enthusiasm for the Peace Corps but had divergent views of the yet-to-be defined role of the volunteers. One side felt that the Peace Corps should serve as a catalyst for change in the developing world according to the model described in the book, The Ugly American. The volunteer was to be an exemplar of American entrepreneurial values, live and work in the villages, not the capital, sleeves rolled up, boots muddy, cheek-by-jowl with host country counterparts, agents of change. The other view was less dramatic. It looked to modest, concrete successes in programs which would draw on foreign aid experience but with the enthusiasm and idealism generated by the Peace Corps dynamic.
     In these early days of the Peace Corps, both groups were ultimately hostage to the reality that it was the early volunteer recruits, like Ghana I, who would decide what a Peace Corps Volunteer was by actually being one.


Cable Traffic
As reported in Shriver’s memo to the President, there were four potential Peace Corps programs as of late March 1961: Chile, Colombia (in cooperation with CARE) ; Tanganyika (a modest request from visiting President Nyerere for some road-builders); the Philippines (Warren Wiggins’ favorite as originally proposed in “The Towering Task”).
     However, by mid-April no country agreements had been signed and the enabling legislation was just beginning to work its way through Congress. Ed Bayley remember: “The Peace Corps was a precarious idea and we felt that it would be much less precarious if it were a living body instead of just an idea. The risky thing was that Congress might resent this, however. The second risk would be that something bad would happen in the first months that would let Congress say, ‘It doesn’t work.’ But against that was the gain of momentum and the feeling that in the first hundred days we did have the power to do things. Shriver was itching to go.”
     And go he did.
     Accompanied by Bayley, Wofford, and Franklin Williams, Shriver began a quick tour through Africa and Asia in late April. He was a worldwide salesman for a product whose design had not yet been established nor whose production facility had been built. Peace Corps application questionnaires were not available until the end of April and the first Peace Corps Qualification Examination was not given until May 27. However, there were thousands upon thousands of letters of eager interest from potential volunteers that were being sorted through by a thoroughly confused and overworked Washington staff.
     But Shriver pressed on. His first stop was to be Accra, Ghana, where he hoped to be able to meet with Kwame Nkrumah, the President of Ghana. On April 18 the U. S. Embassy in Accra had cabled about his visit:

[The Embassy] welcomes the opportunity discuss PC with Shriver and introduce him to key GOGhana officials. Have requested appointment Nkrumah morning April 24. Reaction GOGhana unpredictable.

Unpredictable, indeed.
     Several days later, on April 22, the Ghanaian Times had an editorial headlined, “Peace Corps: Agency of Neo-Colonialism.” A cable to Washington and Shriver quoted the editorial:

As world told on paper, and as Mr. Sargent Shriver will want us believe, PC meant offer voluntary aid to so-called needy countries. Under it, USG will send scores young yankee graduates to Africa and Latin America as teachers, social, and industrial technological workers and the like. We reject all twaddles about its humanitarianism and declare this nothing short of agency of neo-colonialism, instrument for subversion less developed countries into puppet American economic imperialism.

That same day Nkrumah urgently requested a meeting with the U.S. Ambassador, Francis H. Russell. The Ambassador would cable Washington after his meeting:

Nkrumah said he deeply regretted editorial attacking PC. Agreed would be desirable receive Sargent Shriver and hear his explanations PC. Nkrumah commented press often got out ahead of the government and made unauthorized statements. He would be happy to receive Sargent Shriver. Added obviously nobody had to accept Peace Corps if he did not like it and whole question should be judged on its merits.

This ambivalence about utilizing Peace Corps assistance continued throughout the two years of Ghana I’s service.

Shriver Meets Nkrumah
On April 24 Shriver and Kwame Nkrumah finally did meet face to face.
     Ed Bayley jotted down notes of the meeting which would become an interesting snapshot of what was to happen to the Ghana I project: “Nkrumah — splendid idea / teaching schools /electric & water engrs & sanitary / Shd be subject to Ghana Govt direction /Need 270 secondary teachers.”
     A follow-up cable reported:

[The Ghanaians] stressing desperate need secondary schoolteachers in science and mathematics. Need 270 secondary teachers by next September. Stressed importance August arrivals for orientation prior September school opening.

On May 1, 1961, Ghana formally requested Peace Corps Volunteers and set two conditions:

1. Peace Corps was in Ghana at the invitation of the government and will be responsible to government of Ghana and take their instructions from its ministers.
2. Ghana expects Peace Corps members to accept and carry out operational and executive duties in the field, and not regard themselves in the role of advisers.
   Neither Shriver nor Wiggins could have given a better description of how Peace Corps was going to be different from previous U.S. foreign aid programs.

Neither Shriver nor Wiggins could have given a better description of how Peace Corps was going to be different from previous U.S. foreign aid programs.

Ghana I prepares to depart
After the discomfort of the selection process at UCal/Berkeley [early Trainees were subject to “deselection” while going through training on U.S. college campuses, usually by psychiatrists and psychologists hired by the Peace Corps or the college], we were glad that training had been shortened by one week, ending on August 21. Next, we were told to report to Washington on Monday, August 28 for a White House event and then to board our Pan Am charter to Accra.
     As early as July 23, I was writing home, “Good news—Our training program is being shortened by one week and we are being given leave from August 21 to August 28…. “We are being flown to Ghana by chartered plane from Washington and will be allowed up to 216 pounds of luggage [Why 216?]. We have to report to Washington by 11 AM on August 28. There are rumors of a White House reception.”
     I think Peace Corps/Washington was happy to give us a few days at home before flying to Ghana because at the time the Peace Corps legislation was working its way through Congress. Having us in our hometowns could and did generate local news stories such as: “Young Wilmette Man Leaves For Ghana; “Graduate To Teach with Peace Corps in Ghana”; “Miss Vellenga In Ghana, West Africa”; “Plainfield Teacher Chosen for Peace Corps in Ghana.”
     We scattered from Berkeley for the brief leave to say goodbye to family and friends (and to buy our weight allowance of 216 pounds of clothing and supplies, trying, for example, to figure out how many handkerchiefs would be needed for two years).
One of the more memorable farewells for Ghana I PCVs happened to Alice O’Grady. Alice had continued through training to perform in San Francisco on weekends with a musical troupe, the Lamplighters, which was presenting Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado”:

We did a show the night before I left for Chicago, and then onto Washington, D.C. and Ghana. The director, who was also in the cast, at the end of each performance would step forward and say, ‘Thank you for being such a good audience; we would li