Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-148
Josephine (Jody) Olsen served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Tunisia from 1966 to 1968 as a teacher. Subsequently, she has held numerous Peace Corps positions in the field and in headquarters culminating in her being appointed agency director in 2018. As a volunteer in Sousse, Tunisia, Olsen first taught English in an all-boys secondary school and later taught English to adults in the evening. She served alongside her husband, who was in a separate architecture program. Olsen talks about her struggle with learning French during training and the negative impact of the de-selection process in place at the time. She describes her close friendship with the family of a fellow teacher who taught her Arabic. She muses about the personal vulnerability and risk-taking that enables such deep cross-cultural friendships to form, and believes that this has been the essence of the Peace Corps experience over the years. Olsen also discusses the impact of her service on her career in and out of Peace Corps. Interviewed and recorded by Evelyn Ganzglass, August 26, 2019. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).