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Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2015-023
Martin R. Ganzglass served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Somalia from 1966 to 1968 as a lawyer. He served alongside his wife Evelyn. Their Somalia IV training group at Columbia University Teachers College included both teachers and lawyers. As one of the lawyers, Ganzglass would help the newly independent country translate laws into English and integrate the diverse colonial legal systems. Assigned to the National Police Force headquarters in Mogadishu, Ganzglass advised officials in the interpretation and enforcement of laws. Working closely with police leadership, Ganzglass faced numerous challenges, including several with potential international repercussions. He and Evelyn, who was teaching in a girls school, taught English informally in their home and socialized with Somalis and fellow volunteers. The two years in Somalia formed the foundation of their strong marriage and resulted in life-long friendships with several Americans and Somalis, including a family of political refugees. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia Wand, February 25, 2015. 1 tape (web streaming files combined into 1 file). Note: Audio skips due a technical problem with the original tape.
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2015-036
Stephen Clapp served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nigeria from 1962 to 1964. After attending Harvard College and working as a journalist for the New York Post, Clapp decided to join the Peace Corps. He trained at Columbia University Teachers College in the secondary education program, which included learning Hausu and Nigerian history and culture. In Nigeria, he taught boys from both Christian and Muslim families in a selective provincial boarding school located in Yola. He also discusses the Yolo Club, the center of social life for expatriates. Clapp later developed a successful career in food policy journalism, and also wrote a book about his Peace Corps experience, "Africa Remembered: Adventures in Post-Colonial Nigeria and Beyond" (2008). 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file). Interviewed and recorded by Patricia Wand, July 31, 2015.
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2015-028
Evelyn Ganzglass served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mogadishu, Somalia, from 1966 to 1968, with her husband Martin. They trained with the Somalia IV group at Columbia University Teachers College. After a brief in-country orientation, the couple was assigned to Mogadishu where Martin worked with the National Police Force and Evelyn taught English to elementary school girls in Primo Julio School. After the first year, Evelyn worked with the ethnographic National Museum to prepare for its re-opening, and conducted educational programs for school children and visitors. The couple taught English informally in their home and socialized with Somalis and fellow PC volunteers. Evelyn states that the years in Somalia formed the foundation of their strong marriage, and they made life-long friendships with several Americans and Somalis, including the Farah family whom the Ganzglasses sponsored as political refugees. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file). Interviewed and recorded by Patricia A. Wand, April 22, 2015.
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2015-021
Sam Farr served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Colombia from February 1964 to February 1966 in an urban community development program. He trained at the School of Social Work, Columbia University, and was assigned to the barrio of Castilla in Medellin, Columbia. Tasked to work with the newly formed government program Accion Comunal, Sam's first project supported the barrio in the construction of a soccer field. That introduction to rudimentary but effective construction techniques and the dynamics of local culture led to more projects and eventually to his offering community development training to Colombians in the office of Accion Comunal itself. Witnessing the "culture of poverty" in Columbia, and suffering the deaths of both his mother and his sister during this period, profoundly affected Farr and left him committed to a life of service. After the Peace Corps, he was a budget staffer in the California Assembly before winning election to the Monterrey County Board of Supervisors in 1975. In 1980 he won a seat in the California State Assembly where he served until his election in 1993 to U.S. House of Representatives for the 20th District of California. At the time of the interview, Farr had just been elected to his 12th term in the House. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia Ann Wand, 2 December 2014. 1 tape (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-085
Elizabeth (Liz) Kenton served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mauritania from September 2000 to February 2004 in an agro-forestry project. She grew up with stories from her father, Stephen Kenton, who taught mathematics as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria (1962-1964). After graduating from college, she met her training group in Philadelphia then flew to Mauritania. She describes the equipment issued to volunteers, the language training, the desert climate, and the low-key but persistent religious pressure. Kenton encouraged families to grow kitchen gardens and use mud stoves. She also worked with gardening cooperatives to promote the Moringa oleifera tree. She struggled with despondence and bad dreams that in retrospect may be associated with the anti-malaria drug mefloquine. Kenton stayed a third year to complete a girls mentoring center, experiment with bio-gas production, and continue Moringa tree production. Peace Corps service left her with lingering doubts about international development, but with the confidence to face difficult situations. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia A. Wand, May 4, 2019. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-045
Candice "Candy" Diehl Wiggum served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Macedonia from September 2009 to December 2012 in a business development program. After retiring from a career as a mental health counselor, Wiggum entered training in Macedonia where she learned the Albanian and Macedonian languages and about local non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and grew close to her host family. In her assigned city of Gostivar in Western Macedonia, she worked with her counterpart and local sheep breeders to secure grants, facilitate an annual 5K run, organize sheep festivals, and get involved with rural tourism. Wiggum discusses many cultural distinctions, including how local culture and customs impacted business. She served a third year as a volunteer leader, splitting time between the Peace Corps office in Skopje and continued rural development activities in Gostivar. She continues to serve in her local New Jersey community in multiple ways, and frequently advocates for over-50s becoming Peace Corps volunteers. Please note: Due to a technical problem, the last portion of the interview had to be repeated. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia Wand, November 5 and 30, 2018. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-044
Christine "Christie" Pearson Musa served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone from 1981 to 1983 in an inland fisheries program. Musa trained for 10 weeks in a self-directed program, learning fish farming in Oklahoma. Training continued in-country near Makeni where she worked on local fish cultivation, studied cultural characteristics, and learned the Krio language. She was assigned to Yarya, a village in Sando Chiefdom in the northeastern Kono district of Sierra Leone, where she introduced fish farming. She convinced the locals to let her help dig ponds by supplying so many shovels that they ran out of people. She learned how to navigate the basics from nearby Peace Corps Volunteer Evelyn Higa. When Musa fetched the closest medical professional, a pharmacist, to save the life of a village woman, she had no idea that he would eventually become her husband. At the time of this interview, Musa was president of the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of New Jersey. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia A. Wand, November 5, 2018. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-018
Courtney Roberts Arnold served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ethiopia from 1964 to 1966 as a secondary school teacher. She trained at the University of California at Los Angeles, where she and her new husband David joined a dozen other married couples among the 200 trainees. The recruits prepared to teach English as a second language while learning Amharic and being concerned about the selection process. After a brief orientation in Addis Ababa, they traveled to Asebe Teferi, a town of 10,000 people with no electricity or running water. The volunteers enabled the school to add 9th and 10th grade classes. Arnold taught large classes of 7th and 8th grade English and 9th and 10th grade geography with no textbooks, no resources, and few supplies. She and the other volunteers joined Ethiopian teachers in organizing clubs for science and girls' health, as well as summer projects. She describes a special project to open a shuttered school library. Arnold reflects on relationships with the local teachers and community, her appreciation of the U.S. and Ethiopia, and the fatigue, frustrations, and lasting rewards. She remains in contact with former students and fellow volunteers. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia Wand, September 3, 2018. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-017
David Fryar Arnold served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ethiopia from 1964 to 1966 as a secondary school teacher. As newlyweds, David and his wife Courtney trained at the University of California at Los Angeles where they studied Amharic, Ethiopian history and culture, teaching methods, and endured physical training and selection-related evaluations. After a brief orientation and an introduction to Ethiopian food in Addis Ababa, they traveled to their assigned village, Asebe Teferi, where they shared a house with two other volunteers. Their arrival allowed the school to offer 9th and then 10th grade classes; David taught 8th to 10th grade English, social studies, and math. In the interview, he describes the surrounding natural environment, riding in local buses, being required to take students to watch a public whipping, going on weekend camping trips with students, and difficulties learning the unspoken cultural differences between local Oromo and Amhara ethnic groups. Arnold relates numerous stories, including those of several students who made notable contributions and have resurfaced in his life. After the Peace Corps, he established a career in journalism and is now editor of WorldView, the quarterly magazine of the National Peace Corps Association. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia Wand, September 10, 2018. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-016
Julius (Jay) Sztuk served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Fiji from 1974 to 1976 on an architecture project. Sztuk resided in Loloma Flats while training in the Fiji capital of Suva. He was assigned to the Public Works Department in Suva as an architect co-worker. He gradually earned the respect of colleagues as he helped design the maternity ward for the hospital and several rural community medical clinics. Sztuk discusses his initial difficulty learning Hindi but spending time with local men helped him to assimilate and become close to the community. Storytelling, card playing, and drinking kava were important forms of entertainment. Sztuk visited local families in his neighborhood, hosted friends for meals, and met his future wife. He also had opportunities to tour other islands in the country. After returning to the U.S., getting married, starting a family, and working full time, he earned his architecture license in 1983. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia Wand, September 3, 2018. 3 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-015
Thomas Michael McMahon served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) from 1961 to 1963 in education and irrigation projects. He was part of the first group of volunteers in mainland Asia. McMahon trained at the Experiment in International Living site in Putney, Vermont, with 31 recruits and studied the Bengali language and the social life and history of East Pakistan. He faced a medical problem and possible de-selection after training and was greatly relieved to enter the country with his group in November 1961. After homestay in Dacca and training in Comilla, he was assigned to teach electricity and physics in a technical school in Rajshahi where he helped to rewire emergency lights and became known as an electrical troubleshooter. In the second year, McMahon served as engineer advisor on the Ganges-Kobadak irrigation project and later became a volunteer leader. After the Peace Corps, he worked as a nuclear engineer and served 8 years as the mayor of Reading, Pennsylvania. McMahon continues with international projects and has two daughters who also became Peace Corps Volunteers. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia Wand, August 25, 2018. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-014
Bonnie Jean Campbell served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Azerbaijan from 2008 to 2010 in a community economic development project. Campbell was one of 15 seniors (age 50+) in her training group and brought many applicable skills from her prior career as a librarian, researcher, and computer educator. After 11 weeks of cultural orientation and intense language study in Sumqayit, Azerbaijan, Campbell was assigned to Ganja where she worked with administrators in a vocational training center where a quarter of the students were internally displaced people (IDP) from the border conflict with Armenia. Campbell helped develop management practices through focus groups, strategic planning, accounting, and grant writing. She discusses the personal friendships that developed with her home stay family and her impact on the lives of two young people. Being outside the U.S. while listening to President Obama's inauguration speech left a lasting impression. Campbell further reflects on the difficulty she had leaving Azerbaijan and how the Peace Corps experience radically changed her life by opening her eyes to the world beyond her home town of Port Huron, Michigan. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia Wand, August 24, 2018. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-013
Robert C. Terry, Jr. worked as a Peace Corps contractor from 1961 to 1963 to establish the program in East Pakistan, which was the first in mainland Asia. As a representative of the Experiment in International Living, Terry attended the March 1961 student conference at American University to plan the Peace Corps and then, as a contract staff member, began recruiting volunteers. In August 1961, he welcomed 33 Peace Corps recruits to their training on the Experiment campus in Putney, Vermont. As Peace Corps Provincial Director in East Pakistan, Terry set up, oversaw, evaluated, and revised the placement assignments of volunteers working on a wide variety of projects. Due to his participation in the early days of Peace Corps formation, Terry knew the key players and shares historically significant stories. After his time with the Peace Corps, he built a career in development, including the founding and promoting of service and learning organizations. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia Wand, August 23, 2018. 3 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2018-018
Nicola Dino served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador from 1993 to 1997 in a public health program, then joined the training staff in Ecuador in 1999. Dino was a mid-career registered nurse and the mother of grown children when she decided to join the Peace Corps. During training in Tumbaco, she focused on "how to do rural public health in Ecuador." But it was not until she was working in the village of Juan Montalvo side-by-side with the local nurse practitioner (Mercedes) did she finally grasp rural health care, and along with it, the Spanish language. With Mercedes, she practiced health care and initiated health and hygiene education for schoolchildren, whose infectious enthusiasm lead to regional health education. She and her community petitioned to extend her service so she could finish projects and provide country-wide leadership in Peace Corps public health programs. After the Peace Corps, she completed a masters in community and economic development at Illinois State University and moved to Portland, Oregon, where she provided health care services to immigrants. In 2002, Dino became president of the Committee for a Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia A. Wand, April 23, 2018. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2018-016
Rolly Shaner Thompson served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Peru from 1964 to 1966 in a rural community action project. During training at the University of Oklahoma, she met trainee Wayne Thompson, whom she married after Peace Corps. During her early months in the Peruvian Andes, Thompson worked in a community in a variety of "Cooperacion Popular" projects. Following that, she spent a year in Yucay, in the Urubamba Valley, where she started 4-H clubs, taught health and sanitation, and encouraged gardening. She moved to Chacan for her final six months and worked with women embroiderers, helping them produce marketable products. After the Peace Corps, Thompson made her career in education and counseling. Along with Wayne, she owns a sheep and alpaca farm in Eugene, Oregon. Four decades after her Peace Corps service, Rolly is once again involved with textiles in Peru, and travels annually to the Puno region to work with drop-spindle spinners of alpaca yarns. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia A. Wand, May 7, 2018. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combine into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2018-015
Charles Wayne Thompson served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Peru from 1964 to 1966 in a rural community action project. He was stationed in the Peruvian Andes, not far from Cusco and above the town of Calca, in Yanahuaylla, a small Quechua community of farmers who raised potatoes, wheat, corn, and cornnuts. They taught him traditional techniques for farming above the tree line at 9,000 feet, which was very different from the pear and peach orchards he knew back home in Medford, Oregon. Thompson worked with leaders in two communities to solicit money to build the first school and later earned money for an Allis Chalmers thrashing machine, which unfortunately never functioned. A medical emergency forced his departure six weeks early; unable to say goodbye in 1966, he returned in 1990 and found friends and a fully functioning school. After the Peace Corps, Thompson taught high school social studies until 2001. He and his wife Rolly, whom he met in Peace Corps training, own a sheep and alpaca ranch near Eugene, Oregon. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia A. Wand, May 7, 2018. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2017-028
Amanda Silva served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Indonesia from 2013 to 2015, in an English education and youth development program. Her cohort was the third group to re-enter Indonesia after an absence of nearly 50 years. (Previously, Peace Corps volunteers had served in Indonesia from 1961 to 1963.) Silva's training was conducted in-country in the cities of Surabaya, Bandung, and Malang. She was then stationed in Cikedung, Indramayu, West Java, where she lived with a host family, taught English in a vocational high school, acquired a bicycle for the hour-long commute, and became involved in the community. Working with the children of Indramayu Javanese backgrounds, Silva developed after-school clubs and regional leadership camps for both boys and girls. Challenges included adjusting to various counterparts, changing host families, and enduring dengue fever. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia Wand, January 5, 2017. 2 digital files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2017-004
Patricia "Patti" Wilkinson Garamendi served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia from June 1966 to July 1968, along with her husband John Raymond Garamendi. Immediately after completing their undergraduate education at the University of California, Berkeley, they entered Peace Corps training at the University of Utah and on the Navajo reservation in New Mexico. They learned the Amharic language and how to teach English as a second language. Three days after arriving in Ethiopia, Patti and John were assigned to Metu, a town of 2,000 people in the western province of Illubabor. They lived in a hut with no electricity or running water, and quickly integrated into village life. They worked with villagers to build a bridge, imparting concepts of collaboration. Often using her guitar and songs, Patti taught English to 7th and 8th graders, with 60 children per classroom. Besides teaching, she set up a school library and offered sewing classes, Girl Scout meetings, vegetable garden demonstrations, and small pox immunizations. After the Peace Corps, Patti earned a law degree and worked in various state and federal government positions, including as Associate Director of the Peace Corps (1993-1998). Three of her six children have also served in the Peace Corps. Currently she assists her husband in his position as a U.S. Representative for Northern California. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia Wand, September 26, 2016. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2015-037
Ivan Carroll Browning applied to Peace Corps after serving as a VISTA (Volunteers In Service To America) volunteer in a youth services program in Idaho. After joining the Peace Corps, Browning was stationed in Colombia. After training in Bogota, he worked in an adult rehabilitation program in Neiva where he offered athletic activities to prisoners. He served in Colombia from February to September 1974. Thinking he could be more effective elsewhere, he accepted a new assignment in Kenya as an audiovisual specialist in the Nairobi Hospital Medical Training Center. The first months were slow but over time he became engaged with the University of Nairobi African Studies Institute where he did photography and audio recordings, helped publish a scholarly research journal, and participated in various research and medical projects. Browning was in Kenya from January 1975 to December 1976. He states that "the Peace Corps inspired me to be a life-long community volunteer." 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file). Interviewed and recorded by Patricia Wand, August 1, 2015.
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-132
Edwin Fuller Torrey served as Peace Corps volunteer in Ethiopia from 1964 to 1966 as a staff doctor. He applied after medical school and completed two days of orientation to tropical medicine at Columbia University, but no language training. Torrey initially flew to Dire Dawa and began volunteering in local hospitals and visiting the remote sites of other Peace Corps volunteers. After three months, he was assigned to Addis Ababa where he continued supporting volunteers in remote villages while learning Amharic with the help of a tutor. Working alongside Ethiopian and missionary medical practitioners taught him which doctors were reliable to assist sick volunteers in remote villages, introduced him to viable local practices, and awakened his interest in mental health care. Torrey's other projects included organizing the first health program for 7th and 8th graders using closed circuit TV, a two-week workshop to train biology teachers in secondary schools (resulting in an Ethiopian textbook), observing local witch doctors and results of their practices, and conducting an extensive medical survey and vaccination initiative in the remote reaches of the Blue Nile Gorge. Through the two years, Peace Corps volunteers remained the healthiest of his patients, but nevertheless one volunteer died (eaten by a crocodile). Torrey's experience in Ethiopia prompted him to become a psychiatrist and researcher in mental health. Interviewed and recorded by Patricia A. Wand, August 31, 2019. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).