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Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2020-061
Kevin Dixon served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Colombia from 1962 to 1964 in a physical education program (Colombia IV). He discusses being recruited by Peace Corps while in college through an athletics magazine, and training at Texas Western University and at the Outward Bound facilities in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. He was assigned to set up a physical education program at the University of Antioquia in Medellin at the request of an American faculty member who wanted him to play baseball on an American ex-pat baseball team. Through this team, he got to know American consular staff and other ex-pats. In the second year, he traveled throughout the country setting up teams in conjunction with Colombian baseball and basketball leagues. He met his wife Kay, a fellow volunteer, in Colombia, and two of his daughters also served in the Peace Corps. Interviewed and recorded by Evelyn Ganzglass, March 4, 2020. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2020-060
Katherine (Kay) Gillies Dixon served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Colombia from 1962 to 1964 in an urban community action program (Colombia III). She discusses language and cultural training at the University of New Mexico, Outward Bound training in Puerto Rico, and the eye-opening experience of working in a slum in New York City during training. Stationed in Medellin, Colombia, she distributed CARE provided food out of a health center in the Antioquia barrio, a large red-light district. She also trained people in use of powdered milk in rural areas and helped form clubs for neighborhood university students. Dixon discusses interactions with the U.S. foreign service community and visiting members of Congress. She also talks about reaction to President Kennedy's assassination and her subsequent involvement in Colombia with Partners in the Americas. She married a fellow Colombia volunteer (Kevin Dixon) and two of her daughters also served in the Peace Corps. Interviewed and recorded by Evelyn Ganzglass, March 4, 2020. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-088
Charles F. (Chic) Dambach served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Colombia from 1967 to 1969 in a community development program. Dambach talks about leading a strike when two of his fellow volunteers were about to be deselected during training. One Peace Corps trainer, Sam Farr, was fired because he opposed the deselection, and the volunteers went on strike in support of Farr and their trainee colleagues. (The strike was successful. Farr later became a U.S. Representative and a staunch supporter of the Peace Corps.) In Colombia, Dambach lived and worked in the Albornoz barrio on the outskirts of Cartagena. He discusses the work he did with the barrio's squatters to get the government to open a school to serve this community, and how he helped the villagers organize fishing cooperatives and improve their fishing practices. In addition, Dambach discusses the influence that Peace Corps service had on his career as community organizer and advocate for dialogue and non-violent solutions to conflicts. In this regard, he talks about his term as director of the National Council of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers from 1992 to 1999 (now called the National Peace Corps Association), and the program he started to provide teachers with resource materials to use in promoting intercultural understanding. Dambach also created the Emergency Response Network of RPCVs and staff to work on conflict resolution and crises in the countries in which they served; this now operates as Peace Corps Response. In addition, he discusses his conflict resolution activities in Ethiopia, Eritrea, and the Congo as well as his role in founding the Alliance for Peace Building. Interviewed and recorded by Evelyn Ganzglass, May 31, 2019. 1 digital audio file.
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2016-058
Gale Gibson served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Colombia from 1962 to 1964. He and a Colombian colleague organized community track and field teams and high school basketball teams. Gibson was stationed in Manizales, a city of 150,000 people that had a university and many cultural events. He reflects on how the Peace Corps experience positively influenced his life. It is how he met his wife, Elonia, to whom he has been married for 52 years; it also opened him up to working on low-income economic and social issues. Gibson talks about his life-long connection to Colombia through his wife, the people he has met there over the years, and finally the Friends of Colombia group of PCVs of which he is a member. Interviewed and recorded by Evelyn Ganzglass, August 31, 2016. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2016-057
Jeremiah (Jerry) Norris served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Colombia from 1963 to 1965 on a cooperatives project (Colombia VI). He was stationed in La Plata. Through his initial work with the community, he ended up visiting El Congresso, a very remote village in the rain forest. He gained the confidence of the villagers by using his Peace Corps medical kit to treat simple maladies. Norris helped them develop a timber-marketing cooperative which is still functioning 50 years later. The initial success of the El Congresso cooperative led to the development of five more cooperatives in La Plata, where Norris and other volunteers contracted with the poorest family in town to do cooking for them. He is still in touch with children from that family. After his official tour of duty, Norris served as director of co-op volunteers in Colombia, and then worked at Peace Corps headquarters in the International Organizations division. To conclude the interview, Norris reflects on the high energy and somewhat chaotic environment in PC Washington at the time, and shares his belief that much of Peace Corps' success is individual rather than organizational and happenstance than design. Interviewed and recorded by Evelyn Ganzglass, August 24, 2016. 1 digital file.