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Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-049
Pat Spencer served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tunisia from 1994 to 1996 as a special education teacher. She recalls her desire to join the Peace Corps from an early age and her family's reaction to her decision. Spencer describes various challenges in Tunisia, including with her health, her youth and inexperience, the culture, and her placement, but describes how her solutions contributed to her current career. She also talks about a local family she connected with and their warmth. Finally, Spencer explains some of the difficulties she encountered upon returning to the U.S., and gives her views on the importance of the one-to-one relationships she and others develop in the Peace Corps. Interviewed and recorded by Candice Wiggum, January 22, 2019. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2020-015
Richard Harkrader served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Tunisia from July 1969 to February 1971 as a tourism development and urban planning specialist. His training program allowed him to become fluent in French. Harkrader's work took him to every part of Tunisia as he helped the Ministry of Tourism to better position its foreign tourism industry. After returning to the U.S., Harkrader worked briefly as a Peace Corps recruiter before starting construction and solar energy businesses and marrying fellow RPCV Lonna Dole. Harkrader returned to Tunisia in 1995 to reconnect with friends and observe the current state of the tourism industry. Richard and Lonna later set up a long-term development and education project in rural Nicaragua. Interviewed and recorded by Robert T. K. Scully, October 21, 2019. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).
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).
Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2019-110
Nancy Janus served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Tunisia from May 1967 to September 1970 as an English teacher. Nancy and her husband decided to join Peace Corps around the time they married, in order to avoid her husband being drafted. She had some fluency in French and believes that led to an invitation to serve in North Africa. Janus trained at Brown University and studied Arabic. The couple was stationed in Monastir and Nancy taught English at the boys' high school. She discusses the living conditions and her relationships with students and fellow teachers. She extended for a third year and was given the option of moving to Morocco, or staying in Tunisia and working in a different capacity. She chose Tunisia and worked on birth control outreach. Interviewed and recorded by Julius (Jay) Sztuk, June 21, 2019. 1 digital audio file.
Collection
USPCPC
Photographs, 1961-1968 and undated. Black-and-white images of United States Peace Corps administrators and staff, both at headquarters and in the field, as well as images of volunteers working at their duty stations abroad. Photographers include Rowland Scherman, Paul Conklin and Abbie Rowe.