BGuthrie Photos: DC -- American University -- Katzen Arts Center -- 2021A Spring Exhibit: Peace Corps at 60

DC -- American University -- Katzen Arts Center -- 2021A Spring Exhibit: Peace Corps at 60:

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Description of Pictures: Peace Corps at 60
Inside the Volunteer Experience
Presented by the AU Museum Project Space
On view through August 8, 2021
Limited timed reservation tickets are available for Tuesdays and Thursdays in June. Learn more and register.
From its inception the Peace Corps has offered an alternative path for advancing peace and promoting friendship among nations. This exhibition brings home and showcases objects and stories from 30 volunteers. They represent a sampling of the nearly 240,000 individuals who have served since the Peace Corps’ creation six decades ago.
Harry Birnholz with farmers outside Logozohe, Zou Province, Benin, 1977
Curated by Jack Rasmussen, Director & Curator, American University Museum, and Aly Schuman, CAS/MA ’21 art history and Alper Initiative for Washington Art Fellow.

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. KATZPC_210601_010.JPG: COCONUT BOWLS c. 1961-63. Negros Oriental, Philippines. Coconut shell, 2 x 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 in. each. Collection, Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. Gift of Elinor Dobbins Capehart, Philippines, Zamboanguita 1961-63. COCONUT SPOONS c. 1961-63. Negros Oriental, Philippines. Coconut shell, bamboo, twine, dimensions variable. Collection, Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. Gift of Elinor Dobbins Capehart, Philippines, Zamboanguita 1961-63. Before the road between Dumaguete City, capital of Negros Orientale, and our village of Zamboanguita was paved, before electricity, water, and sewers were available, we pumped water by hand to a storage tank on the balcony of the second floor of our four-room house. We were four women PCVs living together with the woman who owned the house. She also cooked, cleaned, and did the laundry. This was a village of fishermen, subsistence farmers, and small harvesters of coconuts. The first group of volunteers in the Philippines were all "teacher's aides" because the Peace Corps wanted to get a large number of volunteers into the country. My rural primary school students made coconut bowls and spoons from a coconut shell and bamboo for the handle. My roommates and I hoped our students might be able to sell the coconut bowls if we helped them. They lacquered several of the bowls to show the rich colors of the coconut shells. In the Mountain Province on the island of Luzon, artisans produced carvings of birds, animals, fruits, and weavings. I bought a wooden doll from a carver whose house was open to visitors. I asked whether he had anything he might have made for himself. He thought a moment, stepped out of the shop, and came back with a doll wearing a brass fertility symbol and carrying a baby. The symbol was in the shape of a uterus and fallopian tubes. I then committed a cultural faux pas by admiring the earrings of the elderly woman in the household. The earrings bore the same fertility symbol and were made from old Spanish coins. She started to struggle to remove one of the earrings. I tried to say, "No, please don't take them out' -- but we did not speak a common language. I later learned that in this locale, when someone admires something you have, it is a cultural obligation for you to give that object to the admirer. She told me through a family interpreter that she was glad to pass them on. She'd worn them since she was a girl, but her daughter had shown no interest in these old things. When I returned to the US, I had the earrings made into pins -- one for my mother and the other for me. After my mother died, the pair of fertility earrings was reunited.
2. KATZPC_210601_013.JPG: KAVANGO ART BASKETS c. 2011-13. Kavango, Namibia. Makalani palm, grasses, dimensions variable. Collection, Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. Gift of Alice Impraim, Namibia, Rundu 2011-13. I have always loved baskets, especially colorful ones. Before my Peace Corps service, I had collected quite a few from Ghana, the country of my birth, and other parts of the world. I viewed my time in Namibia as an opportunity to serve -- and to add to my basket collection. Basket weaving in Kavango has been traced back to the early 1900s, when Namibia was a German colony. The colorful baskets are woven from the makalani palm, along with local grasses that grow in the Kavango region. Basket makers use the traditional coil technique. To obtain the shades of brown, purple, and yellow, palm leaves are prepared and placed in boiling water with bark and roots of various shrubs and trees. Tradition calls for these baskets to be woven by women in a communal manner as they sit outside their homesteads. Baskets are used for harvesting, winnowing, transporting, and storing grain. As a Small Business and Entrepreneurship Development (SEED) volunteer, I worked with a group of 15 persons with disabilities -- blind, hearing impaired, or missing limbs. My goal was to help them set up a bakery as an income generating project. Fortunately my love for baskets turned out to be a big boost for my bakery project. My roommate, a Peace Corps Response volunteer, coordinated basket production with a local women's cooperative known as the Kavango Basket Weavers. She purchased the baskets from the cooperative to sell to trading companies in the United States. I bought and shipped baskets to the US and sold them to my church members, former coworkers, and neighbors in California. Each buyer received a beautiful basket in return for a few dollars, and they knew the money would go to a good cause. I was able to raise enough funds to purchase equipment for the bakery, and the rest was deposited in the bank as a rainy day fund for my friends with disabilities in Namibia. Today basket weaving continues in the Kavango region, providing jobs and incomes that support hundreds of families -- and even whole communities. The bakery also thrives. And just think: it was my simple love for baskets that brought these ventures together and gave them new vitality.
3. KATZPC_210601_019.JPG: DECORATIVE BOWL Elizabeth Bako, Sara Madjingaye, c. 1969. Sarh (formerly Ft. Archambault), Moyen-Chari, Chad. Gourd, beading, pyro-engraving, 3 1/4 x 6 1/2 x 6 1/2 in. Collection, Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. Gift of Marla Bush, Chad, Ft. Lamy 1968-70. I was probably one of the few Peace Corps volunteers who ever requested Chad. Although I had lived in North Africa, had a master's degree in African studies, and traveled extensively on the continent, I knew little about Chad. I just knew I wanted to go there. In one of my letters home, I quoted a foreigner working in Chad who said, "Chad does not have anything of artistic interest." That person must have overlooked the ubiquitous, humble calabash. A special 1970 edition of Jeune Afrique featuring Chad noted that calabashes were a major Chadian art form. Multipurpose vessels, they are used for storage, food preparation, and serving; as ladles, drinking vessels, containers for milk and other products -- even as part of musical instruments. They are decorated by women in a myriad of tribal styles and techniques and are a source of pride and wealth. I was immediately struck by their presence and beauty. From day one I started collecting and displaying them in my home. I ate out of calabashes in the homes of Chadian friends and used them as serving dishes in my home. My appreciation must have been noticed, as Chadian friends and students chose calabashes as gifts. Others I purchased in homes, from market women, or in the little tourist market. One special calabash came from a visit to Ft. Archambault where I stayed with a Peace Corps couple. A couple of students of a volunteer friend came to visit and one of them, Elizabeth Bako, gifted me this gourd. It has traditional pyro-engraved patterns, but it was personalized by Elizabeth with bead stitching and beaded cords for carrying. By the end of my time in Chad, I came home with a large collection of calabashes. Some of them now reside in the permanent collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art.
4. KATZPC_210601_029.JPG: MAMOKHORONG Basotho people, c. 1994. Maseru District, Lesotho. Metal can, stick, string, 10 x 21 x 3 in. Collection, Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. Gift of Betty Hiebert, Lesotho, Ha Tlali 1993-95. I had planned to travel after retiring from a long career in elementary education. At age 63, I volunteered for the Peace Corps. One of a group of 30 education volunteers sent to Lesotho in 1993, I served as a resource teacher in rural primary schools. I taught on a rotating basis at five different elementary schools, one of them a little mission school up in the mountains. I had to hike in along steep and rocky trails that turned slick when it rained and navigate a series of stepping-stones across a creek, with Doc Martens on my feet and a pack on my back. I'd spend the night on the mountain and hike out the next day. The weak economy had taken its toll on Lesotho's rural schools and attending was a privilege out of reach for many. Teenage boys, who under other circumstances might have been my students, wandered the hillsides, wrapped in colorful Basotho blankets, herding sheep or goats or cows. Herding was their contribution to their family's source of wealth. What was the incentive to go to school? If the country was poor, Lesotho has a rich heritage of music and dance. As small children, the Basotho learn their people's songs and dances. I loved their movements and their beautiful harmonies, and they would perform for me at the drop of a hat. You would hear music everywhere -- at home, in the village, at school, at church. The herd boys even had their own musical traditions to pass the time and calm their animals. They would sing and play the lesiba, a stringed wind instrument, and the mamokhorong, something like a one-string violin played with a bow made from cow or horse hair. The students would bring their instruments to school to practice and for show-and-tell. One boy let me buy this mamokhorong he'd made out of a can, a piece of wood, and a wire. I was fascinated by the handcraft, by their ingenuity, how they made things out of nothing. To have so little and to be so proud -- they didn't want you to see the hard part. The music was a gift, something they could give to me. I've been back four times. My friends here have donated money for libraries and tuition. Now we're supporting a soup kitchen that my friend is setting up in her village. It's been a big part of my life.
5. KATZPC_210601_033.JPG: Peace Corps at a Glance 1961-2020
6. KATZPC_210601_036.JPG: MEDICAL KIT (1964) Metal, assorted medical supplies, 2 2/3 x 13 1/2 x 10 in. Collection, Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. Gift of H. James Whitaker, Iran, Sari 1964-66. I was issued the medical kit shortly after my arrival in lran in early 1964, just prior to being dispatched to my service site -- a small town called Fuman near Rasht, the provincial capital of Gilan Province. I was assigned to the agricultural extension service, which meant many visits to villages. I'd often notice children's appalling health issues, such as suppurating external infections, burns that weren't healing, ophthalmic infections, vitamin deficiencies, diarrhea, etc. There was no access to health care for the children -- only home remedies, which usually worsened the conditions. So ignoring Peace Corps Iran policy, which prohibited nonqualified volunteers from rendering medical assistance to local people, I began taking the medical kit with me on village visits. I treated whatever cases I could. I also arranged for leaflets to be printed in the local language explaining the location of minimal government health facilities available to the poor. I distributed these leaflets wherever I traveled. My rudimentary yet wide-ranging medical services were greatly appreciated and, to my amazement, often effective. (Was it simply a placebo effect?) I quickly exhausted the contents of my medical kit, so I began replenishing them with my own funds, buying medicine at pharmacies in Rasht. Soon these remedies were exhausted as well, so I appealed for assistance from a wonderfully personable Iranian physician in Rasht who had been enlisted to care for the area's Peace Corps volunteers. He started providing me with supplies, eventually, and unbeknownst to me, lobbying the Peace Corps physician in Tehran to unofficially ship replenishments for my medical kit. This arrangement continued until I contracted pneumonia and was hospitalized in Rasht's primitive provincial hospital under the care of that same Iranian physician. Upon my recovery, I was transferred to another province. With a bit of subterfuge I retained the medical kit when I departed from Iran. (Returning your medical kit was a condition for clearance to depart, but I simply claimed that my kit had been lost.) I included it in my allowed shipment for home. Amazingly, despite multiple upheavals and the loss of most of my possessions over the decades of my international career, my Peace Corps medical kit somehow passed from one safe haven to another. Upon completing my travels and life as an expatriate, I found this precious kit among stored possessions.
7. KATZPC_210601_045.JPG: PEACE CORPS AT 60: INSIDE THE VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE On January 20, 1961, President John F. Kennedy issued a challenge to all Americans: "Ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country." Two months later American University hosted a National Conference on Youth Service Abroad, organized by students from AU, the University of Michigan, and the National Student Association. Nearly 500 participants, representing 300 schools in 45 states, gathered in Washington, DC, to discuss the goals, mission, and methods of a new Peace Corps. The original 1961 legislation that created the Peace Corps laid out three goals: 1. Help the people of interested countries meet their need for trained men and women. 2. Help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the people served. 3. Help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans. The 30 individuals whose objects and stories we showcase here represent a sampling of the nearly 240,000 volunteers who have answered Kennedy's call to serve since 1961. This exhibition illuminates how the Peace Corps has offered alternative ways to advance peace and promote international friendship. Today we confront unprecedented global challenges, including the coronavirus pandemic, climate change, and an immigration crisis. In March 2020 the Peace Corps evacuated 7,300 volunteers from 61 countries. Now the agency has an opportunity to return volunteers to the field with a new sense of purpose. How will the Peace Corps, at 60, create positive change in our complex world? How should it address concerns around racial, economic, and asymmetrical power dynamics? The Peace Corps must find a way to remain relevant in an ever changing environment. Peace Corps at 60: Inside the Volunteer Experience explores these challenges through the lens of the third Peace Corps goal. The objects these volunteers chose to keep embody memories of their Peace Corps experiences. The stories behind those objects reveal the reciprocal relationships between volunteers and their country hosts. These relationships have always been central to the Peace Corps experience and essential to the agency's role and service. Micro-memoirs accompanying each object tell these stories, providing a window into the agency's past and lessons for its future. To all those who opened their hearts-and our eyes-we dedicate this exhibit. -- Museum of the Peace Corps Experience
8. KATZPC_210601_048.JPG: WHAT PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEERS DO The needs and priorities of every society change over time. Peace Corps assignments have evolved to meet shifting requirements of countries that invite the agency to work with them. During the early years-an era that saw the emergence of newly independent states in Africa and elsewhere-volunteers often were asked to help with nation-building efforts. Some taught alongside local educators to develop curricula in secondary schools and universities, some assisted public health officials to improve basic services, and others aided government staff in institutional development. Recent Peace Corps assignments favor projects related to the environment, youth, agriculture, community economic development, as well as traditional fields of health and education. Some involve information technology to extend the reach of services. In planning each project, volunteers and their host counterparts have had to consider questions of equity and sustainability. Beyond their primary assignments, volunteers today engage in grassroots projects-digital and traditional literacy, small libraries, community gardens, youth camps, arts education, or after-school sports. Most volunteers now live with host families. These changes enhance their integration into the community and their understanding of local needs and cultural concerns. If what Peace Corps Volunteers do has changed over the years, the basis for their work has not: Collaborating and living with local communities remain key to ensuring that their joint efforts are sustainable over the long term and after volunteers return home.
9. KATZPC_210601_050.JPG: DEVIL'S MASK Mende people, c. 1970. Kenema, Eastern Province, Sierra Leone. Blackened cottonwood, raffia fringe, 37 x 20 x Sin. Collection, Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. Gift of Michael Colombo, Sierra Leone, Bunumbu 1969-70. After two months of training, I was sent to the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone to the small village of Bunumbu, with a population of about 200 people. I was considered suitable as an agricultural development worker because of my experience with home gardening. It was not long before I found out that the villagers weren't really interested in learning new farming techniques. They were used to the way they had been farming and weren't about to change. Instead, I learned that a top priority for them was to get fresh, clean drinking water. I helped to procure pumps from the American Embassy and CARE, then helped to install them over existing wells where water was being pulled up by hand. Our next project was to create a new gravity-feed water system in the next town over. We met with town leaders, and with help from every able-bodied person in the area we built a dam and a reservoir, then laid a two-inch pipe stretching a half-mile to the village of Pejewa. It took us about a year to complete. The devil's mask has been used by the Mende people in Sierra Leone for thousands of years. I picked up a replica for a few dollars from a marketplace in Kenema, Sierra Leone, as the real masks are only worn by devil dancers. Devil dancing is a common feature of ceremonies, such as weddings, funerals, and the Islamic feast of Ramadan. These dancers are men from the Poro Society, a secretive social group common in Liberia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Sierra Leone. The typical devil dancer is dressed from head to toe with raffia palm straw and the devil's mask on his head. At a ceremony I attended, while the devil danced and spun around to the rhythm of the drums, women and children would taunt him and strike at the straw with their hands. The dancer would try to grab the arm of one of the menacing pranksters and knock them to the ground. Being caught by the devil scared the hell out of the mischief makers, who ran away as fast as they could. These escapades would cause the crowd to roar with laughter. When the new gravity-feed water system was complete, the town celebrated. A cow was butchered to supply food for the celebration. The sound of drums filled the air, along with the sounds of people dancing, laughing, and telling stories about their ancestors. The event required two devil dancers to match the joy of the occasion.
10. KATZPC_210601_057.JPG: SLING c. 1979. Lower River Division, The Gambia. Grass, dimensions variable. Collection, Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. Gift of Paul Jurmo, The Gambia, Pakalinding 1976-79. When I first saw the slings, I thought of David and Goliath. Young boys, probably 7 to 12 years old, would go out into the field, sit under a tree, and keep the weaver birds from eating the millet crop by flinging pebbles at them with handwoven grass slings. Protecting the crops was one of the jobs given to boys -- an example of the gender- and age-related responsibilities expected of Gambian community members. In this case, growing crops in a fragile Sahelian environment required a tremendous amount of work and significant financial investment. If weaver birds, beautiful though they might be, eat much of the crop when you're not looking, families have wasted their investment and lost an important source of food and income. The boys and their slings thus had an important role to play in crop protection. I told the boys that I thought the slings were cool, and they showed me how to use them -- although I attained nowhere near their skill level. Intrigued, I asked if I could get one of them to show my family in America. A few days later, the boys returned with a new sling made just for me.
11. KATZPC_210601_062.JPG: "MARIA CLARA" GOWN c. 1963. Philippines. Satin, white applique, other fabric, 64 x 60 in. Collection, Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. Gift of Ann Jealous, Philippines, Siniloan 1963-65. While settling into teaching with my Filipina co-teacher, Helen (whose family I eventually lived with), I noticed similarities and differences between our cultures. Filipinos embraced values I shared, including family, justice, friendship, community, hard work, and trust in God. I no longer felt the urgency of time: I carried a book so I could read while waiting an hour for a bus to arrive or a social function to begin. Filipinos value feelings more than things, and it was good to learn that I could be happy with few possessions. People tended to accept realities they could not change. As a tragic consequence of 333 years of Spanish colonization and 48 years as a US colony, light complexions were favored and Spanish ancestry was judged more positively than indigenous. This focus on skin color differences was very familiar to me as an African American. When I walked in the sun, a fellow teacher would hold an umbrella over my head so I would "stay beautiful." Of the two young children in my family, Anabel, the one with the lighter complexion, was pronounced "beautiful," while her darker-skinned sister Beverlyn's beauty was never mentioned. In December 1963, teachers in our district dance troupe surprised me with a Maria Clara gown. A traditional Filipino dress -- also known as traje de mestiza (mixed heritage) because it incorporates indigenous and Spanish influences -- it's named for the mother of national hero Jos� Rizal, who led the revolt against Spanish colonial rule in the 1890s. The dress, like me, is a mixture of Black and White heritages. I danced in that dress for nearly two years, and although I've worn it only a few times in the US, it is one of my most cherished gifts. Peace Corps training had not prepared us for the impact of leaving people with whom we'd formed such deep relationships. One image continues to break my heart. Helen wrote me that after I returned to America, Anabel left home on several occasions to nurse her feelings of abandonment. The family would find her standing in the rain at the bus stop, waiting for her Tita Ann to return. 'll always be grateful for the impact the Philippines and its people had on me. And I'll forever treasure the memory of folk dancing with my fellow teachers in my Maria Clara gown.
12. KATZPC_210601_063.JPG: HUIPIL Dofia Tomasa Sique Mulul, c. 1988-91. Baja Verapaz, Guatemala. Cotton, approx. 19 x 22 in. Collection, Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. Gift of Catherine Blumhorst, Guatemala, San Miguel Chicaj 1988-91. Guatemala is a country full of iconic postcard images, from the smoking volcanos to the colonial-era cathedrals of Antigua. The most iconic image of all is a Maya woman proudly wearing the Huipil (WEE-peel) -- a traditional woven blouse worn by indigenous women of Guatemala. The huipil was the most individualistic piece of a woman's ensemble. Weavers produced the garments on a backstrap loom as a single panel, which was then doubled over and sewn up the sides, with room for the arms. A hole was cut into the fabric for the head. In addition to the huipil, every Maya girl would wear a corte (skirt) from the time she was able to walk. According to Maya tradition, people were taught to spin cotton into yarn and weave fabrics into textiles by the Maya moon and earth deity. The goddess is often portrayed in carvings wearing a traditional backstrap loom. Weavers wear the loom strapped around their back and waist and then fastened to a tree or similar object. Maya women consider it their sacred duty to continue the custom of weaving their own clothing as wearable art. As time has passed, each region has customized the huipil, creating gorgeous diversity with colors and patterns. Each town and village invented its own patterns of eagles, spiders, flowers, and other natural themes, sometimes with lace or embroidered edges. When a woman wears a huipil in Guatemala City, it is obvious to all which region she comes from. I never was able to master carrying baskets on my head or patting out tortillas, but I thought I should at least try my hand at weaving. I sat for long hours on a rush mat in the courtyard of the family compound with Dofia Tomasa, one end of the loom strap circled around my back and the other attached to a tree. Chickens pecked away at my feet while children crept up behind me to touch my blond hair. Dofia Tomasa patiently guided my fingers to lift the warp to allow the threads of the weft to create a design. Eventually I produced a small weaving -- certainly not enough for a huipil but enough to satisfy me (even though Dofia Tomasa said my weaving looked like it might have been made by a drunken spider). I cherish this huipil that I wore while Glenn and I were Peace Corps volunteers in Guatemala.
13. KATZPC_210601_066.JPG: RUANA Andes Mountains, c. 1962. Lenguazaque, Cundinamarca, Colombia. Wool, 32 x 42 in. Collection, Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. Gift of Kay Dixon, Colombia, Medellin 1962-64. Ron Atwater, a Colombia One volunteer, organized a rvana cooperative at his post in Lenguazaque in the Departmento de Cundinamarca in the Andes Mountains. These ruanas of 100-percent virgin wool were perfect for the Andean climate. The process began with raising sheep for their wool. The sheep were sheared and their wool spun into yarn. Then workers dyed the yarn with natural dyes. Finally artisans wove the yarn into a ruana using a special loom. A totally manual process! At that time, the best craftsmen could complete about five ruanas daily. The final products in an adult size weighed about five pounds and were sold in open markets in Medellin. Ruanas from this co-op were sold at the Hotel Tequendama, Bogota's premier four-star hotel. I placed an order, with crossed fingers, and was thrilled when my order was fulfilled. It became the ultimate keepsake from my time as a PCV. It was perfect for my Antioquia lifestyle: a shawl for cool days or chilly nights, a blanket for my bed, a pillow, a picnic blanket, a seat cover when riding in a chiva (open-sided bus). Easily stored by tossing it over the single Adirondack chair in my apartment, it's also a room decoration. The one-size-fits-all feature is not to be underestimated! During the 1960s ruanas were exported and sold at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City for premium prices. Today ruanas in multiple fabrics and colors are worn all over the Western world. The word "ruana" is now part of the fashion lexicon. The Colombian people have survived many years of civil war and violence. The ruana reminds me of their persistence, courage, and tenacity in their struggle for progress and development.
14. KATZPC_210601_072.JPG: SADDLE, BLANKET, PILLOW, STIRRUPS, AND STRAPS Kanembu people, mid-twentieth century. Lake Chad Region, Chad. Wool, leather, cotton cushion pad, iron, dimensions variable. Collection, Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. Gift of John Hutchison, Chad, Doum Doum 1966-68. I was introduced to my horse, Balzac, upon my arrival in Doum Doum. Doum Doum was a village of 200 where I was assigned as part of the Peace Corps' first project in the Republic of Chad. I was one of a group of about a dozen generalists who were expected to turn the region into the breadbasket of Equatorial Africa. Balzac was provided to me by the government of Chad for transportation during this project. Several months later, in the Massakori market, I purchased a camel named Gunther for the equivalent of $40. I parked Gunther next to Balzac in my zanna-mat courtyard. I also became the owner of two oxen and two $5 donkeys who carried water from a well to my house three kilometers away. The Chadian government, in collaboration with the French organization SEMABLE, wanted to grow wheat in the reclaimed Lake Chad bottomland to supply the national flour mill in Fort Lamy. We were challenged to introduce the oxen-drawn plow into the agriculture here. Even though Monsieur Grimal, the director of SEMABLE, proudly referred to our group as agents de modernisation, we did not succeed in transforming the agriculture of the region. (Lake Chad has diminished in size by 90 percent since we were there in the 1960s due to climate change, population growth, and unplanned irrigation far beyond the lake's shore.) My neighbor El-Hadj Mbodou Wuli became my super-farmer colleague. He gave me part of his farm to work on, installing a small well with a water-lifting chadouf apparatus. He and his family became my family. When it was time to do a plowing demonstration in a neighboring village, El-Hadj's family would ride on our two oxen, I rode on Balzac, and El-Hadj would walk alongside all of us. My Chadean government counterpart, Mohamed Djibro, would ride my camel, Gunther, along with the plow that we used for our demonstrations. We arrived at each village appearing to the residents as a veritable traveling circus. El-Hadj was also my patient tutor in the Kanembu language. With him I learned of the wisdom and humor that permeate their language and culture. After my service I became a professor of African languages and linguistics at Boston University. I often think of the curious fact that my academic career in and about Africa began with my four-footed housemates Balzac and Gunther.
15. KATZPC_210601_075.JPG: COAL POT c. 1970s. Choiseul Quarter, St. Lucia. Clay, assembled, 10 x 8 x 8 in. Collection, Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. Gift of Deborah Manget, St. Lucia, Choiseul 1978-79. In 1978 the Peace Corps sent me to St. Lucia to teach home economics to middle school girls. I felt confident in my ability to teach three of the four subjects. Textiles and sewing, interior design, and child care were familiar to me. The fourth subject, cooking, was going to be a challenge, however. I was not familiar with St. Lucian fruits, vegetables, or protein sources -- most of which were prepared with a coal pot, an implement I had never seen before, let alone used. They seemed mysterious to me, ancient compared to the charcoal grills I used in my backyard. Coal pots are used throughout the Caribbean, but the Choiseul Quarter of St. Lucia is considered the original home of this cooking style. Soon after I arrived, I noticed the smells of charcoal cooking were evident everywhere I went. Women shape the pots from clay along riverbanks, leaving holes in the lower section. Charcoal is placed in the top bowl of the coal pot and lit from under the holes (page 52). Once the coals are red hot, a cooking pot is placed directly on top of them. Ashes fall through the holes to cool in the lower lip, and more coal is added as needed. The deep, rich flavors of the ingredients mixed with earthy, smoky overtones guarantee a delicious meal at any time of day. My concerns about teaching culinary arts were relieved by my students, who taught me the intricacies of preparing meals with a coal pot. I was glad I turned the tables and allowed them to become my teachers. This improved their self-confidence and created a special bond between people of very different backgrounds. Thanks to my students, I have become an accomplished cook using the coal pot method.
16. KATZPC_210601_079.JPG: WINE JUG Early twenty-first century. Georgia. Clay, 10 x 4 x 4 in. Courtesy of Rebecca Madden-Sturges, Georgia, Sagarejo 2005-07. My Georgian family's house sits amid lush vines of watermelon and grapes. After more than 8,000 years of winemaking, farmers here still ferment grapes in large earthenware vessels called qvevri, which they bury in the ground until the wine ages to perfection. Most families, like mine, grow grapes and make their own wine. And they still serve it out of clay jugs. If these earthenware vessels distinguish the winemaking tradition in Georgia, the rituals around wine drinking are a big part of Georgian social life. I especially loved the communal supper parties. A supra (tablecloth) begins with the host laying a cloth on a table or on the ground and setting out abundant platters of food. Every supra revolves around multiple rounds of wine toasts. The designated toastmaster, or tamada, proposes the first toast and topic for discussion. Guests may respond, one by one, around the table. And then the tamada makes another toast, followed by more discussion, and the cycle repeats until late in the evening. I attended many supras, but one in particular stands out. It was a birthday celebration for me hosted by my family and attended by my Georgian counterpart, Sopiko. The conversation around the table that evening took a turn that would set the course of my Peace Corps experience. I had an idea, which I proposed to Sopiko: why don't we help renovate the obstetrics-gynecology wing of the local hospital? It was badly in need of restoration and new medical equipment. Sopiko took my idea to the doctors. The hospital community was ready to commit to find funding. And so was I. The lead surgeon and I met regularly to plan what the US embassy dubbed the "Grand Project." I wrote a grant requesting funding to implement our plan. Our efforts paid off: the nonprofit Counterpart International donated $250,000 worth of slightly used hospital equipment, and the US State Department awarded $10,000 towards the renovation. My Georgian counterparts worked cooperatively and community organizations in Sakartvelo and government offices joined forces to complete the project in fewer than six months. Today the new hospital wing is equipped to ensure the safe delivery of babies and protect the health of all women in the community. I propose a toast to all those, especially young women, who will take their big ideas to the supra table one day and discover, as I did, that they can change the world.
17. KATZPC_210601_086.JPG: MANY FACES OF PEACE CORPS Peace Corps volunteers in earlier years did not reflect a true representation of this country's diversity. Applicants consisted primarily of college graduates, most of them White and middle class. The agency assigned them to communities where they served among people whose ethnicity differed from their own. For some critics, this disparity between volunteers and host community residents provoked questions about US imperialism and racial dominance. Over the decades Peace Corps has recruited a broader spectrum of the population. These underrepresented individuals sometimes confront racism in their host communities, among fellow volunteers, or in the agency itself. Some stories in this exhibition reflect the experiences of volunteers of color and how they handled these challenges. Events of the past year-especially the worldwide pandemic and national demonstrations against systemic racism-have deepened conversations about equity in the Peace Corps. To encourage discussion, the Museum of the Peace Corps Experience worked with American University Museum staff to curate this exhibition with assistance from members of Many Faces of Peace Corps. The project collects volunteers' stories that reveal complexities of race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, and disability, as experienced during service abroad. Listen to stories, recorded and produced in partnership with the RPCV Oral History Archive Project on your smartphone, via this QR link.
18. KATZPC_210601_092.JPG: SLIPPERS n.d. Thailand. Silk, embroidery, leather, 3x31/2x10 1/2 in. Collection, Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. Gift of Karen Schmidt, Thailand.
19. KATZPC_210601_109.JPG: SLEEPING MAT c. 1967. Weno, Chuuk Lagoon, Micronesia. Pandanus fiber, 76 1/2 x 36 1/2 in. Collection, Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. Gift of Richard Sundt, Micronesia, Rongelap Atoll 1967-69. In much of the world people take their furniture for granted. In the Pacific Islands, people take for granted the unnecessity of furniture. I discovered this when I met my first challenge as a Peace Corps trainee on Udot Island in the Chuuk Lagoon. We lived in a spare little western-style cabin. A utilitarian mat covered the floor. There were no beds. I was unprepared for sleeping on the floor, especially on that rough mat. When I learned that the local Udotese slept on well-crafted mats fashioned from plaited leaves of the native pandanas tree, I found just the right one in a local shop so I could sleep like a native. After three months of training, I boarded a field ship in Majuro that would take me 400 miles northwest to Rongelap Atoll. In 1954 the US Navy evacuated residents of Rongelap after fallout from a hydrogen bomb test on nearby Bikini Atoll contaminated the islands; three years later, some of them began to return home. In 1967 the atoll's main and only inhabited island had a population of about 120 residents who lived on three square miles of land. My assignment was to start a coconut rehabilitation project. I began adjusting to living -- and sleeping -- in my new home. One day a woman from the neighborhood came to my door with a gift. She had made me a pillowcase embroidered with flowers and leaves. An inscription, written with a marker, said, "Ememlok ijen ko a6, ilo jen ne ij babu" -- "My place is better with this pillow when I go down to sleep." Indeed, it was! Several months later the owners of the house next door returned to Rongelap. As a gesture of friendship, the husband offered me a foam rubber mattress that he had brought home. He said it would help me sleep like a ribe/le -- a foreigner. I immediately placed it under my mat. Who needed a bed? In 1985 the people of Rongelap had to evacuate again. The land remained too irradiated for human habitation, a determination that came too late for the many islanders who suffered radiation illnesses. If human-generated disasters have made life difficult for residents of these low-lying atolls, the Marshallese long ago learned to adapt and harness their limited resources to fashion a sustainable and self-sufficient way of life -- something I learned from them, something we all aspire to achieve.
20. KATZPC_210601_114.JPG: SHIFTA'S HAT c. 1969. Arabsiyo, Northern region, Somalia (also known as Somaliland). Sewn burrs, black feather, 2 x 6 1/2 x 8 1/2 in. Collection, Museum of the Peace Corps Experience. Gift of Jeanne D'Haem, Somalia, Arabsiyo and Hargeisa 1968-70. Ona truck from Hargeisa to my teaching post, I sat on a crate. "Your mother must have offended a jinn," a woman said. "Only a jinn would make a person white like the devil!" Later I felt hot air on my ankle and peered into the crate. It was a lion, suffering and nearly unconscious. The Somali would not sit near the lion, nor would they offer it food or water. Several men on horses appeared. They stopped the truck and shouted something I didn't understand. After everyone got off the truck, I pried the crate open, wet a corner of my scarf with water, and lowered it to the suffering animal. Angry at the abuse of this poor lion, I shouted, "Wham-a hii?" CWhat's going on?") One horseman rode over to me. "Muga-Ah?" ("What's your name?"), he asked. "Jeanne," I replied. Revived, the lion began to sit up. "Muga-Ah?" I asked him, enjoying his surprise when he saw the lion. "Shifta, Wa Shifta," he replied. He handed me his hat of brown burrs, signaled his men, and they quickly rode off. When I got home to my village, headmaster Abdillahi visited with two teachers, Subti and Abdul Kader. "Everyone is talking about you, Jeanne," Abdillahi said, shaking his finger in my face. "Do you Americans know about the Shifta? They are bandits. These Shifta were planning to rob the truck. Didn't you see the guns?" Then he laughed. "This Shifta had never seen a White woman so closely before. He saw that you were not afraid, and you were sitting on a lion. He thought you might be a jinn and ran away!" "That's not what happened," interrupted Subti. "The Qur'an tells about Mohammed and a prostitute at a well. She saw a thirsty dog and dipped her shoe into the water for the dog. Mohammed said her sins would be forgiven because of her kindness. The Shifta thought you brought a message from God." "No," said Abdul Kader. "The Shifta saw this White woman. The passengers said, "That's Jeanne." He thought they said jinn. He gave you his hat so you wouldn't put a spell on him." This hat reminds me that we see through the lens of our own culture. Even under the bright African sun, we walk in darkness.
21. KATZPC_210601_120.JPG: PEACE CORPS AT 60: INSIDE THE VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE On January 20, 1961, President John F. Kennedy issued a challenge to all Americans: "Ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country." Two months later American University hosted a National Conference on Youth Service Abroad, organized by students from AU, the University of Michigan, and the National Student Association. Nearly 500 participants, representing 300 schools in 45 states, gathered in Washington, DC, to discuss the goals, mission, and methods of a new Peace Corps. The original 1961 legislation that created the Peace Corps laid out three goals: 1. Help the people of interested countries meet their need for trained men and women. 2. Help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the people served. 3. Help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans. The 30 individuals whose objects and stories we showcase here represent a sampling of the nearly 240,000 volunteers who have answered Kennedy's call to serve since 1961. This exhibition illuminates how the Peace Corps has offered alternative ways to advance peace and promote international friendship. Today we confront unprecedented global challenges, including the coronavirus pandemic, climate change, and an immigration crisis. In March 2020 the Peace Corps evacuated 7,300 volunteers from 61 countries. Now the agency has an opportunity to return volunteers to the field with a new sense of purpose. How will the Peace Corps, at 60, create positive change in our complex world? How should it address concerns around racial, economic, and asymmetrical power dynamics? The Peace Corps must find a way to remain relevant in an ever changing environment. Peace Corps at 60: Inside the Volunteer Experience explores these challenges through the lens of the third Peace Corps goal. The objects these volunteers chose to keep embody memories of their Peace Corps experiences. The stories behind those objects reveal the reciprocal relationships between volunteers and their country hosts. These relationships have always been central to the Peace Corps experience and essential to the agency's role and service. Micro-memoirs accompanying each object tell these stories, providing a window into the agency's past and lessons for its future. To all those who opened their hearts-and our eyes-we dedicate this exhibit. -- Museum of the Peace Corps Experience
22. KATZPC_210601_126.JPG: WHAT PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEERS DO The needs and priorities of every society change over time. Peace Corps assignments have evolved to meet shifting requirements of countries that invite the agency to work with them. During the early years—an era that saw the emergence of newly independent states in Africa and elsewhere-volunteers often were asked to help with nation-building efforts. Some taught alongside local educators to develop curricula in secondary schools and universities, some assisted public health officials to improve basic services, and others aided government staff in institutional development. Recent Peace Corps assignments favor projects related to the environment, youth, agriculture, community economic development, as well as traditional fields of health and education. Some involve information technology to extend the reach of services. In planning each project, volunteers and their host counterparts have had to consider questions of equity and sustainability. Beyond their primary assignments, volunteers today engage in grassroots projects-digital and traditional literacy, small libraries, community gardens, youth camps, arts education, or after-school sports. Most volunteers now live with host families. These changes enhance their integration into the community and their understanding of local needs and cultural concerns. If what Peace Corps Volunteers do has changed over the years, the basis for their work has not: Collaborating and living with local communities remain key to ensuring that their joint efforts are sustainable over the long term and after volunteers return home.
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