The counterpati:B; ~at;onal;sm at the Volunteer level

Th~ \YhO ~ dkCUSS.~~tiation.n lsm in re ent Issues of T= VoL-

UNTEER appear to have assumed thatintegration of our hosts into our in-country stiucture can only occur atthe admi,}istrative level. This straight-line thinking has led to full e~osureof the pros and cons of host countrynationals on Peace Corps staffs and ofhost country administrative control ofPeace Corps programs.

However, the discussion also seemsto have furthered a trend which PeaceCorps, previously, has always been atpains to suppress: the natiral tend-ency of all bureaucratic it>stitutiollsto increasingly deflect attention, effortand money from the final productof the organization to the growthand perpetration of its own bureauc-racy, 1“ the case of Peace Corps, thefinal product is voh:nteer sewice.Therefore, it would appear that dis.cttssions of binationalism which do notconsider integration of the WO na-tions at the Volunteer level are atworst irrelevant to all previouslystated Peace Corps goals. At bestthese discussions become interestingbut essentially divert extensions ofprinciples to the staff level whichhad previously been applicable onlyto Volunteers.

It is tiue that btlreaucratic beliefin binationalism at the Volunteer levelhas long been demonstrated by PeaceCorps IVashington’s hsistence thatm.al development workers be as-signed host country counterparts. Re-cently, however, the counte~art ideahos lost popularity–especially amon~Vohtnteers. The term “counte~ati’implies an equality of outlook as \vell

By MEAD OVER

as function; a mutual sharing ofexperience, k]lowledge and support;the existence of an empathetic rela-tionship which sholdd pay high divi-dends in friendship as well as in effi-ciency. Tbe hope that the yollth,amateurism, idealism and short-terncommi~ent of the Volunteer \vouldstrike a respo,>sive chord in the “coun-terpart,” usually ch=acterized bygreater age, more training, profes-sional status at>d accol]ntability to thesystem, is nn optimistic one at best.At worst the so-called “counterpart”is either the patron xvho receives thesalary and the credit for \vhat is en-tirely the Volunteer’s \vork, or theobseqlzious and incompetent main<~oeuore, ~vho, like the old clog, re-fllses to learn even one new trick.

A misleading term

Voh,nteers must continue to seekclose, cooperative \vork relationships,vith the professionals \vithin the bestcountry. Sttch at> effort is inseparablefrom the commitment to animate thehost country from the inside. But theterm “counterpart” sholdd be dis-.~ssociated from this effort as inappro-priate and misleading. The criteriaby \vhich the Peace Corps Volunteeris chosen and those operative in thecase of his host counhy \vork-parhlerare so different as to make tbe term‘<counterpart” ludicrous in this con-text.

Why, on the other hand, has thecounterpart idea been more successfulat the staff level? Perhaps the selec-tion criteria l]sed are tbe beginning ofan answer. Because staff positions are

rather inflexible in theu demands onthe abilities of their occupants, thehost countiy national \votdd tend tobe chosen, just as are the Americans,for his youth, leadership pote,ltial,dynamism ancl ide,>tification with thePeace COTS idea. Th~ls the nationaIschosel> have much in common already,vith their American \vork partiers.Subsequently, the similarities of func-tion, ~i)d thereby of outlook, act to @

produce the very counterpart relation-ship that is so eh,sive at the level ofthe Volunteer,

But this step towards binationalismcotdd be achieved at the Volunteerlevel. Host country nationals couldbe follnd \vho xvould share the essen-tial Peace Corps Volunteer atkibuteof ha\,ing volunteered, as well as thesecondary attributes of youth, ided-ism and impermanence of commit-ment. These real counterparts wouldfrequet>tly fulfill the Volunteers’ ex-pectations as the other half of an em-pathetic, effective, binatio.al team of\,olttnteer development \vorkers.

In most countries these counter-parts coldd be recmited from amongthe local popldation of high schoolgraduates, so ]nany of whom find noposition \vaiting for them on gradua-tion, by the local Peace Corps oficewith help from appropriate gover-nment organs. Tbe government of thecountry \vould commit itseM in somedegree to furthering either the edu-cation or the career of each recmitednational at the end of his t\vo yearswith the Peace Corps. Training andselection of all cotlnterparts wo{dd ~take place as part of the regular trah-i“g program, Their function during

.

language tiaining would be tismction

●(they would be less ewensive thanthe present lan~age tistictors).They would prove ptiicularly ti-vduahle in an i“au~ tiaintigprogram centered on role.pla tig,

J.whereti the co”nte~tis would uectthe Volunteers in the daily drama ofthe peasants’ fife. Co”nte~ar& andVolunteers tvo”ld receive identicaltechnical tiahtig. Cross - cultiraltiatikg might include a period in anAmerican urban ghetto, where tbeVolunteer could wide hk counter-part a“d afterwards they \vould nna-lyze their emotional and titeUectualreactions.

Eventually those counte~arts 6-nally selected wodd be assigned withthe Volunteers. Tbe living allowancesof most countries would be cut toavoid paying the untiained nationalmore than his professional superiors.Following this procedure tbe Volun-teer living allowance would be cut byas much as half in some countries(Upper Volta, for example), a.d theVolunteer would be forced to learn tolive as his counte~ art does. Otherdetails \vould be \vorked out underthe general principle that Volunteers

●and counte~ arts always be treatedthe same.

‘Real’ counterpatis

1 believe that a Peace Corps pro-gram involving these native counter-part Volunteers would demonstratemany advantages in the short mn.First, traini,lg would be far more use-ful (and for less n camouflage forselection) if the trabees comprkedcitizens of the host country as \vellas America”s, Once the program ar.rives o“ site, the commitment of na.tional personnel ,vo”ld further involvebotb the cenbal government and’itslocal extension i“Peace CO~seffOrts.As a result, both Peace COTS Volun-teers and Peace COWS counterpatismight find more sympathetic ears fortheir problems nnd their brainstormsthan most Peace Corps Volunteersnow find outside the Peace COTSoffice. tiso, the presence of a nationalin the same predicament as the Volun.teer \vould help the latter to avoidthat “we-they” attitide \vhicb appears,vith increastig frequency in responseto Volunteer fmstiations-especially astermination nears. There is eve” a

v

ecuniary advantage; the extra costsof training more people would bemore than offset by tbe living auo\v.ante reductions and the savings onlanguage teachers.

It seems to me, however, that thelon mn advantage of adopting these

frea comterp~b k even more stiik-ing. After several yems aknd of hostcoun~ nationals with volunteer sew-ice e~erience \vould result. Under-developed muntiies have a perenniallyinsoluble problem in tbe gigantic riftbet\veen the peasant farmers and theeducated elite. The “retimed PeaceCo~scounte~atis.’ could play an h-portant part in their country’s futireby helping to bridge that gap, b-deed, these retimed Peace COTScounte~ arts could well find them.selves to be unique in tbek capacityto understand both sides of their coun.try’s problems, To the extent thatPeace Corps is committed to the de.

velopment of the people rather thanthe things of tbe host mun~, itshould commit itself to providhg vol-untary semice e~erience to hostcountiy nationals.

Peace Corps has always been apeople agency, but the people whohave tbe meaningful vol”nta~ sewiceexperience are all Americans. In afurther extensiorl of peace CO~s’longstanding poficy of people devel-opment, in a continuation of the Pres.ent trend towards binationatism, let’sextend the Peace Co~s sewice experi-ence to the host count~ nationak.

Volunteer Mead Over works in wEll-digging ond agrtiultural etiension inTenkodogo, Upper Volta,

2 Thecounterpart:Binationalism at

the Volunteer level

by Mead Over

Binationalism is for Volunteers

too, according to one in UpperVolta.

4 Peace Corps print

A special section of articles fromVolunteer newsletters aroundthe world.

16 Whatkind of peaceis this?

by George Conk

A Volunteer in India takes onwhat he thinks are some PeaceCorps, myths.

ON THE COVER: A collage of cover,from V. I.”,,,, newdette,,.

Published mo”thlybythe Omceofvol. ”,.,, support, Peace corps,

Washinzto”, D. C. 20525

Pat 8rown, editor: l.dy Thelen, a$soclateedtor; Lynn He””essey, editorial .sd$tant.

D,s18. by Paul Reed.

Correspondents: AFGHANISTAN: DO. cYaeer. BOLIVIA: Kevin Lvnch. BRAZ1bSt~ve” Totheroh, Mike McC.llo.8h. ERIT-ISH HONDURAS: 10. Hank.. CAME.ROON: F,ance3 Carroll. CEYLON: Eliz8-beth Howze, CHAD: lay Boekelheide,Tom Ma”.. CHILE: Charles Smith, jr.COLOMBIA: Scott lames. COSTA RICA:Roger Hamilton. DOMINICAN REPUBLICjona!han Lash, 8ill Wfite. WSTERN~RIBBEAN: Nlliam Carte’, Thomas AP-pel. ECUADOR: Chad,, Creesy. El SAL-VADOR: Ken Ho”deld. ETHIOPIA: S“s8.Heck. Fill: David Dow”,,. GHANA: A.Wlliam H.nslckcr, CUVANA: Paul %<h.rd. INDIA: Richard McWll iam?, lona! ha”Upsky, Charles Ryan. IRAN: WchaelSarka. IVORY CO*T: Wlliam P. Carpen-,,,. jAMA[~: Glenn Odd,.. KENYA:Ber”e Fllen50”. KORW: Aaron Cuwitz.LESOTHO: Stephen Lehm, n”. LIBYA:wctor G,amigna, Patrick Wllia rd. W.WWI: T, D. McClo, key, 1,., ]ohn Sha”-. . . . WMYS]A: Sh, ron Clarke, MICRO-NESIA: Chuck Freedman. MOROCCO:Kenneth Ag.ta, Roberta P,,,,. NEPAL:Io.atha. FOX. NIGER: R.sw lorgensen.NIGERIA: Bob 1,,$.”. PAWCUAk SU-. . . . . ~ngley. PERU: LUW Conge,, KarlLore.z. SWAZIUND: Mike Ascolese.THA[MND: Robe,t Carney, TONGA:10.11. Biiso.. UPPER VOLTA: Bob Sing-Iey. VENEZUEW Edward Thiele.

3

Peace Corps print

To review the Peace Corps newsletters and magazinesproduced overseas is to review a mixed bag—in format,

tone, substance and frequency-f Volunteer effoti.❑etween 15 and 20 countries have been represented by

these publications thus far in 1969, some of them on a con-sistent, monthly basis; otheffi, as their mastheads state,appear ‘<from time to time.>>

In cetiain inslances the In-countw Peace Corps staff readsthe newsletter as freshly as the Volunteer “subscribers,”never seeing it until it comes off the press or mimeograph

machine. Other publications operate with editorial boards ofVolunteers and staff reviewing the available COPY. Some

Peace Corps staffs sit right on top of the Volunteer wrilBrsand editors, and on occasion the heat felt by those editorsis generated from the U.S. Embassy. The last editor of❑oliviars Pues resigned from the Peace Corps In con”ectlonwith etitorial problems which brought the Ambassador Intothe picture.

The form of a newsletter and its editorial objectives seemto evolve from the personalities of the Volunteers and staffin the countw at any one time. And while most of the new8-Ietters undergo innumerable changes and wind up makingdesperate appeals for conttibufions (characterized by a state-ment such as: ‘sThe success or failure of this newsletter restswith you,’), a small number have had distinguished careea.

To mention a few:

. Porvenir in Colombia and The Mayan in Honduras, which

consistently present a good coverage of Peace Corps news;

8 Sholuq Nameh in Iran, which recently featured a 24-pagecollection of high-quality Volunteer photographs;

. Yobosayo in Korea, regularly filled with relevant, straight-

fo~ard atilcles;

● El Ecuador in Ecuador, with its sophisticated, bilingual

approach, and. A“g Bol””taryo, one of the oldest, professional-looking

Volunteer magazines, back in business in the Philippines aftereditorial problems closed it down at the end of 1968,

Many of the remaining newsletters make a living from:

m ‘HOW to make .S- columns about fllpchatis, flannelboards, and homemade fly swatters;

. Vocabula~ lessons, local proverbs, and quizzes on his-tow of the host countv;

■ Testing schedules, trav=l tips, and lists of stores and

companies which offer Peace Corps discounts;

■ Recipes (goatloaf, ,oast armadillo, Iguana pie, mangomousse and fhtger paints), end

■ Staff notices. ~VPurchases of horses or saddles must

fimt be approved by your area rep.,> Or, from a Peace Corpsphysician, ‘,Okay, gang, get your asses In gear. Gamma gobu-

Iin shots will be administered in the first pati of the month.,,)At one time or another, practically eve~ newsletter has run

faithful Jerome Olds’ notice of free subscriptions to CompostScience from Emma”s, Pa.

The lighter material aside, some of these overseas publica-tions car~ a number of outstanding evaluations and obsewa-tions of the Peace Corps itself and some excellent CUltUraldescriptions. This month The Volunteer presents a special

section with atiiclos from 1969 newsletters. For the most pati,the selections represent Volunteers reflecting on the cultureof their host countdes and their place in it.

A day ii

By GEOM

4

i.,... -~’ -- ‘

,,,--

:he life . . . .

iUTHEN

Th::::a:;;:;;:E$E

r where didn’t; and the other roadtimed out to be the one I would t~eto such magic. places as Pae Jun,where U ,S. soldiers \vrote mwsageson tbe boulders with y,eUow paint

bombs or Ku Chun, bigb in the col-lateral valley \tith the crooked pinetiees and the thousand-meter gravellog ghssade or Mul-Un, where peo-

EIe don’t believe in D~ inoculationecause it hurb. Or you can gp that

way to Sa.Buk and Ko-Han wheretbe ma] mines are.

My big wall is covered in 1:25,000-scale elevation relief maps complete\vitb houses and swamps which 1 gotacross from the Foreigner’s Superma-rket, so I didn’t need to go. I w= ableto see where the one road went andremark on its elevation above sea levelif need be. In fact, I could probablyhave had my whole Peace COTS ex-perience right there on that map. Putit down on tbe flmr and use dice or agame of chance to disbibute TB pa-tiel>ts according to rates in the 1967Koreall TB Association Stidy, andthen have all-time, all-star teams ofpubhc health heroes competing to curethem. Albert Schweitzer, Tom Dooley,Martin Arrowsmith, Louis Pasteur,Axel ,Munthe and Jonas Salk versusJim Justice, Pony Bushey, ReubenBaybars, Doc Daneeka, Iwing Polin-gumptewa and Penny Stella. Some-thing like a J. Helly game played ona 1900 map of Eurasia.

But finally I went down the roadto case for a sputum samphng cam-paign. For 10 kilometers it ~voundserpel>tinely and chmbed, eve~rounded bend giving a dizzier, vistaof moul>tain tops beyond mountaintops and below the homes along amorosely puddhng stream cloggedwith celey greens and fragments ofclothes beaten a art by clubs. At theend of the val!ey it rose “p a“dpunched a notch in the ridgebne andgot into the next township out of myjurisdiction.

After a while–it takes a while tocross a vista–I got to the notch \tihereI left the road to get on the ridgehne.I climbed a 60-degree potato field andgot into. a Korean Co,,flict foxhole.From there 1 seemed to have tacticaladvantage over aggrmsors from eithervalley so 1 rested and \vatched somefamers ffaihng soya. Do\vn \vouldcome the flail and tio to three sec-orlds later would come the f\vop. I\vas tging to remember in the BoyScout Manual how you can tell howfar fighteting k off, but it kept get-ting confused \vith telfing time fromcrickets. I was sure one of the mn-cepk applied, and a plane came overa fexv miles off. ~ve actially tiedflailing since then and ako something

else which 1 think may have been win-noiting. In tbe first, I flailed but inthe second, 1 was the winnower. Har-roting experience, agricul~re, and anoccasion for much rice wine drinking.

Then a helimpter came over, roil=05, followd by another a few min-utes later. They were doing some-thing which we call “recon stripsearc~ at the War College. ( ~mlying. I don’t know what they callanything in war. I hate war. ) An-other ffe~v over, and tbe last one flewright over so close I saw into its ting-pits, but they made no sign they sawme. I later found out they were look-ing for the U1-Chin ifilhators, but Ihaven’t seen where they’ve found oneyet with a helicopter. (Ha! Anothermistake in \var. I can’t stand war. )

On up the ridge I came to thecross-coun~ high powerline pylonthat had been prominent on the sky-Une from five tiles 05. It was thefirst ~d ever had a close look at.Cross-country high powerlines aremade entirely of 2X x 22 x Z angleiron; and the spa!ls themselves, are% twisted cable,

The next knoll was the highest onthe ridge for miles, though I still can’tfind it on my maps. Do you remem-ber where either the new AnglicanBishop Rutt in his book or Osgood inhis told about ax) interestil>g way Ko-reans had of reverencing mountains,where they thought spirits dwelt?They also thought spirits lived up intrees. But whether they reverencedtrees ix>just this peculiar way as well1 don’t remember readit>g any placein the book list Peace COWS first sentus back when \ve’d only just learnedof our selection for tiaiting. Remem-ber how magic Korea was back inthose days? We should have all justbought 1 :25,000-scale Amy surplusmaps of Korea and stayed at GhostRanch tio years. Have a mind feast\vhereas no\v it is a fom of mind-Iuncheon. The ~vay Koreans rev-erenced mountains was not to defe-cate on them (acmally you can sayshit now in the Yobosayo; John Cush-ing did it Wice, but ~m not goingto, in order to preserve the spirit ofwhat Dr. Osgood, xvhom 1 reverence,said).

On top of the highest knoll formiles around, in a slight depressionpossibly left from the list war, andhavine no particular reverence for“.mountains, I shit, and \vent homefeeLng good from my Peace COTSday, –Yobosoyo, Korea

5

“When rape h ineoitabk,” says thephilosopher, “rebx and enjoy it.”

H~t~~ ~:k tie ~.w ~,~metems stop from the tillagewhere I have jut collected a gangof malaria-ridden blood samples, I an-ticipate, thoat gone, the cola glasstinkhng with smpect ice and the af-fectionate tig at my testicles await-ing me at the local tearoom. At thestop tbe last 10 kilometers scetch out

Theinto the heat and dmt shaping a roadthat s~vtis lost at the fint bend;parallel trees running guidelines lean-

busing \vitb the hot \tind to make mn-nels. All green evaporated by sun,hills and fields luke into wavw ofphantom water, melting. Come on,

homebus, you’re 15 minutes late.

Ancient road.Horn sound.Ma,) leap.Te,>dons filling my John Wa~>a-

maker sneakers puked on the nightbefore last, all legs head to feet, blackbag straddling limbs akimbo, manmasters machine in the 90-yard dmh.

By KEVIN MURPHY Problems lining up fike a ruler: alco-hol bottle tithout the top threateningflood, slide case compact, mind in-tact, on time; away. One bend \vith-out incident, and the medicine springlooms before me with its throng ofhealthy drinkers. Everyone out for aquick gulp of the underground min-erals balanced by a few chugs of thebest tbe ,~eighboring wine house hasto offer.

I \vait in the bus, poised Eke an

Alaskan husky bringing the boozeback to Nome. 1 am Fang; I Hll with

my teefi anyOne whO draws ne~ my 4bag with the chattering shale case andtopl~s alcohol. Oh Christ, here corn=the school picnic, timbling out of the,vine home to the chaotic tin- of ahamonica and flute. Into the bus,around, under, over me, hdies theonly reahty. Too late to reach for mystore-bougbt sunglass-, On tith thesubway face, eyes riveted to the bar-rel of the rifle strappd to the seat infront of me. Contorting my bod

1in accordal>ce with the Japanese hd:coun~ practice of Nu-Jibu, I &-guise myself as the back seat of thebus. Alas! The size-12 sneakers rehseto contort; 1 am discovered; everyone’sso happy I’m here, Motion. Din.

The bus fills the road Lke a snakegorle wild, kicking out stones, tiees,children, oxen with every twkt andhole before us. One more stop stabsPhysics by sucking still another bodyinto the bus, this time a fishermah, hisnet still jumping and dripping tithhis catch, bathing my crushed bagfillirlg with alcohol. The snake kicks,fives again, and the green tunnel spfihIvith our terrible speed. The skyhghtopens, clouds enter, and with eveqbolt bursting loose, we are fifing to 4the flute sounds of a melanchokcdrinkin6 song; fife mutely screamingits apocalypse of alcohol and music.In the terrific scramble of bolb andbodies, cosmic serenity approaches,oneness descends, I sing.

–Yobosayo, Korea

6

*Q ~+By JALLAL AL AHMAD

Thti & the firti ckpter of TheSchool Principal, a shoti novel by Jall-U2 Al Ahmd, a leading wtiter inIran. JoKn Newton, a former IranVolunteer who taught at the Unioer-tity in Mmhad iti became fZuent in

D

Farti, h trawhted the ~e.ingcbpters of thh work to ti’mulatepresent Volunteers to ac9wint them-selves with more of Iran’s contem-porary literature. Thk tiory ti beenappeafing in times of Sholuq Nameh,the magazine of Volunteers in Zran.Newton said “Those of us who havevent some time in Zran wizl see manyfamiltir faces mooing abmt in thesepages,” He k wtigned to the PeaceCorps’ Zran &sk in Wmhington.

A;r:::d;:::fkzoz:;:;seE to say “salaam.” For no reason atall, I felt like acting tough. The Chiefof Education granted me pemissionto sit, glanced for a lingering secondat my hand, and \vent about finishingwhat he had been writing. He wasjust about to &ect fi attention myway when I shpped the copy of theorder onto his d~k. Neither of us saida word. He leafed through the orderalong titb all of ik attached papers,sucked in his chin, and then re-laxed. With an air of serenity as ifhe were free of all anger. he said,“We have no openings, A~ha.”

o

The”, an o“tb~st: “What’s goingon around here? Eve~day they stickan order i“ somebodv’s hand and sendhim dew” to me! ~ Yesterday Itold the Director General. .“

I didn’t feel like hstening to this,Ionsense so I cut him off.

“M’{ 1 ‘eq”esf ‘~t ‘w’ ‘xce’-lency ,ndly put >t in Wrlhng at thebottom of the sheet?

At tbe same time I flicked my cig-arette ashes into the gleaming ash-tray on his desk. The desk top wasimmaculate. Just like a bridal suite.Eve~tbing in ik place. Not one speckof dust. Only the ashes from my cig-arette. Like spit in a freshly shavenface. He picked up bis pen,Mote something beneatb the order,si~ed it and out I \vent. Fitished.

I muldn’t take much of this fel-low. It was obvious from all his pre-tensions that he had just recently be-come Chief. He had a forced air ofpomposity about him. He spokeslowly into yow eyes. You \vould havethought that ears weren’t necessa~in order to “hear him! I had laid out150 tomans in the Cential PersonnelDepar~ent in order to get this papersigned. I had even brought remm-mendatio,ls. It \vs just WO monthsno~v that 1 had been chasing around.

‘y Ypers ““ ‘bso’”te’y ‘impe-ccable I knew that \vhether’ he hkedit or not the matter was closed. Hehimself knew it too. Certainly be alsoreafized that \vith all these protesta-tions he had only made himseZf lookmore foolish, What was done \vasdone.

All of this had come about becausethey had suggested in the CenhalPersonnel Depar~ent that just forfomality’s sake I should take a copyof tbe order to sho~v to the Chief.

After all, who would be able to over-rule an order from tbe Central Per-sonnel Department? This was a Min-ist~ and a Cential Personnel De-parmentl No joking matter. I hadbeen certain that I wouldn.t need re-course to these kinds of argments.To my mind all the blame for thislatest holdup could be directed at thisdamn cigarette which 1 had muntedon paying for out of the overtimepay from my new job.

Naturally 1 w~ utierly nauseatedwith teaching. Ten years of tea~ing“alef,” “beh,” ( Iratian a,b,c, .)and those blank, gaping faces of thepeople’s children. All for the shpid-est possible nonsense you can imagine

and “esteghna” is spelled titb“ghain” and “esteghra” titb “gha~and the Khorassani and the Hindistyles and the oldest poem in Dariand rhetorical devices fike anadiplosis

and similar nonseme. I reahzedthat I was timing into a donkey. Oneday I said to myse~, “YOU shouldbecome a principal, A. grade schoolprincipal!” I won’t teach another CIWS.My conscience till no longer be in-cessantly vacillating be~een givingout a 12 or a 14 and I \von’t need togive a 7 to eve~ s~pid idiot jut soas to escape from wmting my tiein the “tajdeefl re.examinations andthus preseme for myseZf tbe most de-Iigbtful days of the whole vacation,the last days of summer, Here laythe root of my motivation, I went outand asked somebody \tith the imidedope, n go-be~een who could fix meUP. He set things up >vitb the cen.

7

&al Personnel Deparhent, extiactedpromises, made agreements, and or-ganized a lobby of supporters. Then,one day, they gave me the address ofa school to check out to see if it stitedmy fancy. And off I went.

Tbe school \vas wo stories Mghand newly built. It stood alone at thefoot of the mountain facing the sun.Some rich education-loving ass badput up the btilding in tie middle ofbis own property and placed it at thedisposal of the Office of Educationfor 25 years in hopes that they ‘wouldmake a school oltt of it, that the areamight he frequented, that a roadmight be pounded out, and that thewhole scheme might grow and growetc., etc., until tbe heart of eve~mommy and daddy would bum somuch that they \vould all come out,buy up the land and build hom-around tbe school so that their chil-dren wouldit have to travel so farto get there! By that time his landwotdd have shot up from ot>e abbassper meter to 100 tomansl This char-acter had even had his name tiledinto the wall—with fine stylized writ-ing on a blue background surroundedby decorative squiggles and stirls.B“t of course the school was namedafter him! No neighbors had beenfound yet to argtte among themselves,pull ol,t their favorite lines fromSa’adi and Baba Taher, and poundanother page from the histo~ of poetsinto the corner of the kuche wall.

The schoo~s sign was a beauty,large a“d legible. From 150 metersaway it screamed out the motto,“Potver is (’Power is kno,vledge’–from Ferdowsi–tbe motto of theIranian Mitis~ of Education)whatever you want it to he!”, withib Lon standing “p there on threelegs ~ng to maintain his balance,with co””ected eyebrows, sword inhand and “Khanoom” sun ridingpiggyback.

Three stones away from the schoolon all sides \vas the desert—hmitless,waterless and desolate, On tbe e,]dfacing north, a row of pines whichbad collapsed on top of each othercould be seen over a m“d gardenwall, staining the sky with long darkspots, Certainly within 25 years thiswhole area would be filled with theblare of car hems, the wmmotion ofcbildrin playing, beet sellers’ shouts,newspaper sellers’ rings, a“d cries of“1 have fresh c“cumbersf This fel.low indeed bad it made,

“YOU know perhaps” he bought this

\vhole thing for not more than 10 or12 shahis, Maybe he even registeredthe land just as it is. UmmmV

“Idiot, what’sittoyou?. YYes, sti. I bad these ve~ tboughk

on that day I dropped in on theschool incognito. But, in the end, Icame to the conclusion that people doindeed have the right to feather theirown nests. I said to myseU, “If you’rea man, use you brains and becomethe principal ofthisvery school.’’ Andso I pursued tbe matter until it hadreached this stage.

On the same day as my inspectiontour I discovered that the fomerprincipal \v= in jail. Surely he hadbeen a suspected Commie sympa-thizer and, just is surely, he was nowatonill~ for sins \vhich be bad eithernever-committed or “the blacksmithin B~lkb had.”

Among the paperweights hangingarout]d tbe Chief of Edtlcation there,vasn’t a single soul who was pre-pared to exert the necessaV effort tosecure the principa~s position and col-lect the subsequent raise. Tbe jobdidn’t have the special post allow-nnce for out-o F-tbe-\vay places. I badobtained this information from thePersonnel Deparment.

Letter-written apologies hadn’t be-come tbe fashion yet, so I had noreaso,, to anticipate this fellow’s earlyrelease from the ctink, And I m“ldn’tthink of anyone else who \vould benll that excited about this place outin the middle of nowhere with itirugged \vinters and transportation

‘problems. This p“t my mind at ease,And, aside from all this, the Ce”halPerso]lnel Departent had agreed!

It’s tree, until the smell of moneyarose, they had follnd a few faldb\vith me and some legal technicalities,For example, they all said that therehas to besomething init forthisg”ythat doesn’t meet the eye. Why else,vo”ld be, rnea”ing me, want to be agrade school principal? According totheir interpretations, 1 had to be outof my mind to elect to wash myha”h of as honorable and as tipor-tant a vocation as the teaching pro-fession,]. Either that or eke I was apederast or some other kind of per.vert. Sti like that,

This was as far as my hopes hadgot until the go-beween made it clearto me that I would have to “loosena few purse strings.” And so I did.In those days tbe mo”tbly e~enseaccount of 150 tomans which went\vith the position of principal \vas no

8

small piece of change tvhich 1 couldoverlook. And if 1 did overlook it,the,, \vhat? 1 \vould have to retire to athose clnsses, those compositions, andthose readings, the “Chahar iiaghale~arlcl tbe “Chaboos Nameh,” the schoolvearbook and all, the rest of that ma-iarky.

All of these factors motivated meto go straight back from tbe Chief ofEducation to the Cen&al PersonnelDepartment a“d on into tbe office ofmy “agent.” 1 threw the copy of theorder down in front of him, toldhim ,vhat had occ”med, and ,valkedout. T\vo days later \vhe,l 1 returned,it was ob\,ious that my guess hadbeen correct. The Chief of Educa~tie]> had written, “1 don’t \vant anyof these arrogant Kcensees who gocigarette in band into ally room theyplease: And my g“y bad answered,“Oh, never nnd absolutely not!Such and such is this way al}d he’sthat \vay and indeed, be’s altogethertotally different than tbe others.” Onand on with this B.S. I was adtisedto put my mind at ease and go seethe Chief again next Thursdayand I did,

This time he stood up to greet me.“Ey Agha .:. why didn’t ye{] tell~ey, ,, etc., etc. After exchanging

apleasantries and smiles, he orderedtea, complained about his staff, and,i“ his “,v” ,vords, “hriefefl me onthe current local sitiation. Then, bedelivered me to thescbool inbis owcar, ordered the bell mng early, and,in the prese,lce of all theteacbersand the “nazem,” \vent into a longoration nbout the ~vox>defiul charact-eristics of the ne~v principal, mean-ing me. The)l he left. And there Iwas, with one nebvly founded six-classgrade school, one “nazem,” 7 teach-ers, and 235 stltdents. I had indeedbecome a genuit>e, bona fide gradeschool principal.

After this introductory chapter, thetiory detaik the anxieties of the

school principals job, with potiraitsof studelats, parents, heal ofictih,teachers, ond 8chool ianitors. Itieadof being the {dyllic haven the princi-pal imagined, the podtion tum outto be a night,nare of problems–onehurjdred times worse than teaching,Dozem of encothnters harms ther]rincipal throltghwt 170 pages, Fi-mlly, wbn faced with a protest

aguinst ljim bY irate PGr@nfs, the 1SC}LOOlprincipal resigm his j)o~ indi?g[tti.

En Cambio\

L ~~—. ~-

was there yesterday

By BOB KOMIVES

Th&v;,:,fl:tk:at:;a:W;is primitive, but simple and efficient.The only piece of equipment is a loopof rope closed by a strip of leather orcloth. There are nomally hvo strandsof rope, and the skip is. fashio,led to

● .fit comfortably across the top of theforehead The loads can be a q.intalof mati~e or a household of furnitireand pots stacked five feet high ai]dfive feet \vide. You see men caryingthese loads up steep moltntain roads,vhere yo(t don’t know how long agoyour bus passed through a town orhow many rises and tin>s it \till beto the next one. They learn the artwith the smile and energetic spurts ofa six-year-old boy. They continue re-signedly \vell beyond the time \vhenthe wrinkles and posture would seemto say no,

There is also a primitive al]d sim-ple method for \veeding the corn.One needs only a machete and stick,vith part of a s“bordil> ate branchleft as a hook at the end, The sticksupports and remova the grass asthe machete cuts it off at gro{lndlevel. The stioke begins high, but anagile ~mist and lo\v profile co,lvert itquickly to the horizontal-a totalmovement which confom perfectlyto tbe confines of the surroundingtom, me i,lherited short stature ofthe worker seems to be an ansxverto a plea from x bent-over body

@

vhich would “ever sbaighte” “p ifib hips \vere any higher.

There a~e fe\v men \vho have daily}veeded. com fields and carried these

heavy loads who live long enough tobe comidered old in years. And \vhenthey do, their body still ,Ieeds thefood which only bending the backagain will provide.

One such man can be seen eve~day in El Rosario. His constant com-pal>ions are a machete and a youngboy. I do,>’t know \vhere they livea,ld usllally don’t see ~vhere they\vork. 1 see them on the road be-t~veen. They come early to race theirday’s \vork against the sun’s rise tooppressive heat. But they come laterthan most. They might leave tbe as-ph~lt arid start their four t. eightkilometer trek OBIthe dirt road at thesame time as the other \vorkers, butthey are soon far behind

The old man doesn’t move too fast;a,]d the youl]g boy-mnybe his grand-soi>, his nephe~v or just his adoptedfriend–is in no hur~ to go faster.His pace is youthful, but ahvays re-

spectflllly a little behi!~d the Otller,The boy has someone to follo~v, andthe old man–he’s never last.

R’s hard to say \vhether it is theconstant \vork \vitl) a machete or thecarving of heavy loads that bent hisback and humped his shoulders–probably a lot of both. Bl]t as he\vah along no\v his \vhole bodybends for\vard such that his eyesfocus or) the grot,,>d just a couple ofpaces in front of his advancing feet.It is almost as if he \vere caqing asack of com on his tilted back, hishead fonvard and do\vn to receivethe lend. But he can’t car~ theseloads anymore. The machete in one

9

hand hangs heavily enough.1 sa~v them xvorking ill a field one

day. He was swinging his machete. Ionly looked for a moment, probablybecause I didn’t really believe it’spossible. He s\vtlng his machete allthat day and many days after, hisfrie,ld ,vorking beside him. I \vouldlike to think that the hoy does a fittlemore than his share, but it’s probablyjust the opposite.

They \valk home looking no dif-fererlt tha,l ,vhe!, they came. The boydoes l>ot reqllire conversation of hisold com anion. The first time I

ipassed, t e si,t,,ld of a gringo-ish“Adi6s” caused him, to tir,l his headto reply. NO\v sahltations to me arethe same as to the other famikarvoices on the road, uttered qtietlyin the rhythm of the resigned pace.On occasion I have passed tvithoutsaying anything—all irratio]>al fom of

sympathy—l~ut he passecl giving I~D,~otice to me, maybe a little refievedthat his attention \vas not divertedhis attention 011 the road jtlst wopaces a,vay.

Ho\vever, \vhy should I \valk byhim ill sympathy \vhen his compan-ion \valks \vith him in respect. It takes

a great man to have ~vOrked thathard for that long. Nlaybe, in reality,he ca” still cmr~ a good-sized loador, his back. And the boy, too, is look-ing just hvo paces ahead at tbe manhe \vanb to emulate.

You see him eh.eryday o“ the roadto Rosario. At least he %vas there yes-terday.

–E~t Canlbio, Gtlatemola

Sambodi NiwasayaBy DICK & DIANA FARIS

s~;oi~i;;~f;~~r~;o;~vate, orthopedic devices to design.There is SCUT, malnubitio,>, epilepsy,scabies, fever and infection to beat.There is physical therapy, speech ther-

apy, vOcatiOnal therapy, special educa-tion and general education to arrange.There are field trips, administrativesystems and vocatio,,al activities to or.ganize. There is ,>ational awareness,ul>derstal>ding and assistance to mo-bilize. Job satisfaction awaits the tin-can shower ideahst, the Schweitzerianorgat>k~ation man.

Sambodi is an education. There isunbelievable suffeling, dehumanizingretardation, inevitable death. There issimple satisfaction, unqualified love,mad joy. There is an exha \videspectrum of human emotion to ex-perier>ce and intemaltie. Relevancyand involvement are available formembers of the vicarious socie~, thepost-unhappitless generation,

I take more than I give.–Dick Fati

A“du/ama Roads inMagaIl~ theret the ‘unction of the Matara and

are hvo rambbng, \veatbered, tiled-roof houses. They are Sambodi. Bothold homes have cement floors and big,open squares \vith wide porches allaround. Each is sttrro”nded by spa-ciom, walled lawns, The house infront is the boys’, It is connected tothe girls’ home behind by a long ce-ment sidewalk lined with pah &ees.

B, R. Dissanayake is tbe founderand chief financial supporter of Sam-bodi. For the extiemely Cri pled, he

7had constmcted four-whee ed plat.fores on \vhich they go whizzing be-Neen tbe houses. As long w he isaround, the 84 physically and men-tally handicapped residenk of Sam-bodi mre in good hands. Ufiorti-nately, other business keeps him ve~busy.

Mrs. A<ouvlie Gunawardena, ourmation, does a ve~ competent job of

keeping both homes in runnin order.fSbe is resisted by hvo mo s, one

vegetable sticer, WO janitos, six fe-male attendants, and one dhobi. Sheis often hampered, at least in herbookkeeping, by wo Volunteers,

h40st of the 47 boys in the fronthouse are crippled from pofio, muscu-lar dystrophy, etc., and have no men-tal ‘retardation at all. However, thereare several boys who call \vak butare “severely” mentally retarded. By“severely” 1 mean they cannot carefor themselves and cannot be toilettrained. As they grotv older andlarger, their maintenance becomesmore di%cult, There are eight of thesecases in the boys. home, and theyare nlways found sitting 011 the backporch around the comer from thekitchen,

Me”tally retarded chiltien who aretrai,, able I caff “slightly” retarded.Us”ally they are a delightful bunch,having characteristics and habits dis-ti,>ctly their o,n and often quitenm”sing, Somadasa, one of tb~e,

greets all comers at tbe frOnt door.He conversa vitidly, titb hand mo-tio,u only, Two other colofi”l &ar-acters are Sir John and Budhadasa,They are both around 20, and notedfor their staggering wafks and stag-geri,lg speech. Tbe youngest of thisgroup is Wirara~a, age eight, whois also crippled with pobo. He onceasked me why I painted myself white.1 explained that 1 \vas born that xvay,and he ,Iodded sympathetically,

The young-t pobo boys, 7 to 12,who could manage to get around, re.gardless of the distorted manner, werenot given rolling carts; so, many wenton all fours or on their hands, draggingtheir useless legs behind, They alllooked fike little monkeys, b“t their

sPlrlt tO be mobile could “ot be de.riled. Thanks to 15 pairs of crotchesgiven by the Ship Hope, and the bracemaking effork of Dick and Volun-teer Tom Jacobs, most of the monkeysare now upright. The crotches alloived

10

seven more to attend tbe school nearSambodi. Gladstone, who walks on Whands, \vas too weak to use cmtchw. dWe hope to rig up a \vheelchair sothat he, too, can go back and forthto school.

The older polio boys, 12 to 27,though they have little fomal edtlca-tion, are su~risingly talented. Theybuild anything and eve~tbing andhel with the cooking, cleaning and

\bar enng, Their upper limbs are tie.mendously developed, and there areany number of jobs they could per-fom. While jobs are being found,they are certainly not idle at Sam-bdi.

1 have never seen one of the boys,young or old, indulge in any seff-pi~. It is as if their isolation fromnormal society and lack of parentalcontrol has given them a seff-suffi-ciency, dignity and strength of char-acter which is not often apparent inph sically perfect youth, There is a

Jdi erent quahty about the Sambodiyouth, Tom p“t it this way: “NO mat.tcr what mood I’m in getting to Sam-bodi, after I get there, I feel good:

Their readiness to accept and as-sist anyone ‘new amazes me. Our “ew-est amival is Chantiasena, aged 27.He has the emaciated body of one inwhom pofio has wn ik full course. 4His toothpick limbs and deformedspine seem barely able to support his,>omal size head, which appearsgrossly enlarged. After o,dy one dayat Sambodi, Chandrasena \vas nick-named atld being kidded just fike therest, O“e boy even gave up his catito him.

We have several of Chandrasena’sdescription. Often, several cbildre” oftbe same family are afflicted simi-larly, We have Nandakir&i and hklittle sister Mahka, Sbe is too weakto speak above a whisper, but Nan-dakirthi is our most scholarly mem.ber and is regarded as the sage ofSambodi. Another of this type isParana\vitiana, also 27. He is theseco,ld loudest person here, bis deepbass \,oice boomine evewwhere as hegoes on his cart. - ‘

1 had better get on to the eir~

%:: t x;;pte;!t,eit;j$sitting on the porch. They range inage from WO to six. There is club-footed Nil, big-headed Sunil, am!ess.Kusumawathie, and Kanthi with theknot in tbe back of her sktdl andthe faraway look. t

Ako there is Ranjiti, a beautiful,visp of a child, whc, has, “ever

\valked because of rickets a“d scumy.All of these little ones are our

solace and our joy. We spare no fomof the ridiculous in am”si”g them.

The majorip of the 37 in the girls’home are menta~y retarded; ho\v-ever, there are several \vho are justcrippled. Auntie Harriet, our oldestat 45, has crippling arthritis. In-&ani and Seelawathi, both 19, areold polio cases. They get around onfoream crutches and do all of Sam-bodi’s sewing. Rani and Sriyala re-ceived corrective surge~ and, exceptfor crooked calves, are quite nomal.

We have 10 bdridden, “severely”retarded children in the girls’ home.Because of spasticity and a tendencyto lie curled up, most of these chil-dren resemble babies. Actially theyare anywhere from 3 to 14 years old.Given intensive care and physicaltherapy, they might not be as totallydepender>t as they are.

Along with the babies, there is agroup of ,vaking “severely” retardedgirls. They do not respond to a5ec-tio” and etist purely in worlds oftheir o,v”. They, above all, need (orrather, needed ) constant personal at-tention and encouragement. As theyare imtititionalized, they quickly for-get the little they Ienmed at home.Eve~one tends to neglect them be-caltise getting any response seems sohopelas. But they come and standaround the table \vhen they are hun-g~ and they c~ in pain. Perhapsthere will be staff and time enot,ghfor them someday,

The oldest mentally retarded girlsare only “sfightly” so. Each is some.,vhat delighti”lly “ma& and their ex.pressions and manner of speech aremost amusing. 1 have a grand timescreaming and playing with them,Unfortunately, being strong a“dhealthy, most of the dirty work ispt,shed 05 on them, I fight this con-stantly, to no avail. After all, does itbother them? These big girls are in-valuable to me and to the brai”-damaged babies ,vhom they cuddleand sing to ns if they \vere theirown, It is beautiful, really, the ,vaythey love them. The children’s de-pendence and interaction tith eachother is the only advantage in thelack of staff at Sambodi,

Damika, 7, and Puspa, 10, arecerebral pal:y ctildren \vhom \ve taketo the hospital three times a \veekfor physical therapy. They are dif-ficult to categorize, 1 kno~v there isbrain damage, but sometimes they

are so smart. Puspa, an o~han, isvev strong-wifled and has taughtherse~ to sew, feed and groom her-self with her feet, .NOW we are wingto get her to use her hands, \vbichare usually wound tightly back be-hind her neck. She can now standand eve)l if she dean.t \valk before\ve leave, she \viUsomeday.

Damika is n much prettier childthan Puspa, having no spastic facialexpressions. Perhaps because of herparenb’ overindulgence, she is satis-fied to sit in her fittle chair all day.She loves the things she accom-plished in therapy, but she hmn’tPuspa’s till. We seriously tvonderhow we can leave these ~o.

It is ticuit to measure the effectwe are having or the progress thechildren are making, but one girl isveq much chariged, Cbandrawathi isa shin; lovely girl of about 19. Herleft leg has been amputated abovethe knee. When \ve arrived, \ve foundher, head shaved, sitting in a chairday by day, her left fist comtantlychnched. She was in the “no toilettraining” class, which meant sleepingnude on the concrete floor tith theothers of that class. She had re-gressed as far as she had been ne-glected, \vhich was drastically far.

Our first move was to get all ofthe “sitters” \valking and out on theporch. This meant their “messes”

spread over a much larger area, anInconvenience not immediately accep-table to the staff. Dick lengthenedChadra,vathi’s crotch, and right offshe responded to our attention andaRection. At first, she becamenaughty, holding food in her mouthuntil I \vas in spitting distance. Ofcowse, I indulged her maweloussense of hwor. She flaunted my

failwe with her toilet baining, chuck-ling and pointing to the urine on thefloor. On some days she would taw,especially to Dick.

The attention \ve had time to giveher did not extend into the tight. IfI forgot to walk her back to the din-ing area, she \vas &agged to it.Then eve~ rooming we had to lookfor her crotch. Last month a ve~lucky thing happened. The school-children brought the mumps to Sam-bodi. Chandrawati got it and \vasput i)> the isolation room \titb the“cleaxl” girls. There she was given abed, pillo,v nnd sheet, and she be-gan using the toilet chair and bucketwe put at the end of her bed.

One day Lahtha left a netvspaperOT1her bed. When she went to takeit, Chandrawathi said, “Leave thatthere, I’d fike to read it: And nowshe reads, writes, sews, draws andtaks to eve~one, She also attendsclass at Sambodi, A youtlg volut>teerteacher, Miss Perera, comes eveyday. With no training in special edu-cation, she teaches in one class chil-dren from 5 to 27 years of age, eachtith va~ing de~ees of learning abil-

i~. MISS perera will “ever know ho,vmuch she means to those children.Even after she bas gone home,Chandrawathi stays in the classroomdoing her homework. Yesterday, af-ter I had finished piercing her ears,sbe told me she was going to prac-tice opening that left hand.

Who knows” how many others arementally ill and not retarded? I wel-come anyone’s adtiw. The best ~vayto get a true pictire of Sambodi is tocome and see the children. They areahvays at home.

–Diana Farti–COmpOti, Ceybn

YOUR DHOBI

‘It’s such a comfoti

to escape by bus

and leave all the

washing to US:

A!::b:n;:o:?::::th?::ti;devues ivays to min yaw cloth=.While wasting your clothes he pro-fessionally remov= .11 buttons andtippers, thus reducing you to a stateof cleanly dependency.

As soon as you nrnve in the til-Iage, titb a bag full of clothes ofdefinite shape, color and size, onwhose surface buttons appear in tidyrows and whose openings and venbglide smoothly to a close on silentzippers, he has plans for youplans that ~vill eventually make a jum-ble of your plaids, stingy remnantsof your undies, and permanently di-vorce your socks one from the other.

While you are still a novice in thevillage, your cook ,till bring thisfriend in dhobi’s clothing to yourhome, “He till be glad,” he chirps,“to wash your gaments.” He canhardly wait!

“Excellent,” you think. “A cook andnow a private laundry man, HowsplendidY He counts the gamenb,and in neat rows of unreadable hiero-glyphics be enters the result of hiscount on a small scrap of paper, addsa whimsical notation after each en~,jots down a finished price, and handsthe unreadable result to you.

Soon in a tight little bundle, yourprecious Western clothes are whiskedaway to the Never-Never-Land-O f,-Soiled-Clothes-Creen-Water-and-Char-coal-Irons.

No one has even seen \vhere theirclothes are washed, however, every-one has seen where other Volunteers’clothes are laundered.

You t~ to think positive tboughb:spinnil]g washers, gleaming laclndro.mab, whiting dyers, sno~~ shirtsflapping in the sun, stacks of laundqcrisp from the electic mangle. Youeven remember the smell of freshlylaundered sheets. But it’s a bit dif-ferent ill Never-Never-Land.

Here the dhobi shar~ his tank orroadside pool with water b~lffalo,naked boys and other dhobis. Yourgreen algae-encmsted gaments areraised shoulder-hgh. and smackedwith great force against roch of vari-ous shapes and siz=. After this pun-ishme,]t they are draped on pricklycactus, barbed-~vire fences and juttingrocks. While d~ing in the scorchingnoon-day sun, a crow may use your

12

By MARJORIE GILBERT

a

shp for a landing field, a goat maytibble at your bra, or a sleepy scor-pion may curl up in the pocket ofyour blouse.

Perhaps your gamenb have allbeen numbered 17 and have beenjoined by batches marked 23, 51, and72, Dhobis ~)se red pencils for thistiick and place the numerals in themiddle of yo(,r blouse, the collar ofyour shirt or the seat of your pants.

I have heard that when yourclothes are retied and instead ofall being marked 17, you can mme

‘P wi~ a sequence of 17.18.19.20.21, you get to keep the freshly ironedand folded sco~ion in your blousepocket,

If your garmenb have been laun-dered in n private home, the stoneon which our clothes are beaten may

inot have een so jagged and perhapsthe \vater used is ladled from an opensewer.

Regardless of the method used in,vashi”g clothes, the pressing is ac-comphshed in the same manner mosteverywhere. Several thicknesses ofcloth are placed on a flat surface, andthe iron, dating back to the last cen-tu~, is loaded ~vith hot charcoal, thetop clamped o,], and further destic-tion begins. Any buttons that havemiraculously survived the beating areeasily removed by this charcoal-eatingmonster, zippers allergic to heat areshriveled, collars scorched, sleeves ac.cordion-pleated, and pleats laid flat.

111dtle time the dhobi retires \vitbgaments only faintly resemblingthose taken three or four days back,Tbe dress was blue Madras. It hasbled badly, The blouse wm ,vhite notIndian red. The S“X wouldn’t fit mysister’s young~t daughter; the slips,no straps, “o lace, Total destictio”.No b“tto”s–crippled zippers–mldr\vhere color wasn’t—pale where color,Vas,

1 complain. The dbobi refers meto my sb of paper. I can’t read it

xand now e remembers he can’t readTamil, though he clatis to tite it.The SD he asks doesn’t agree withthe price he quoted,

He smiles “Five mpees Sfty paise;I scowl and give him five mpee andfifty paise.

“See you Thursday, madam,” he 9says. And he depafi.

–The Dracidian, Indti

Who’s afraid of

P::YP:;.B72 ‘:&:b&!all buan relatiom can be under-stood in terns of a complex set ofgames that we all play. Since rela-tions be~een Peace Corps Volun-teers and Ecuadotians can often, butnot always, be classified as “human,”I have tied to catalogue and learn toplay tbe exciting gambi~ that tkeplace eve~ day oukide tbe Mister’shome.

I have classified these games as‘rGalos” because they are cross-cul-tiral. They can conveniently beplayed by any NO players, providedthat one is a Mtiter and the otheran Ecuadorian. No materiak are nec-essay, except in some of the wmplagames, such as Dirty Capitahst ‘andChe, \vhere escalation often owur,which require stields, razor blades,kmate, or dynamite, Luctily, tbe sti-ple gains are not so dangerous, andmany of you have probably playedthem ,vithout reatiting it.

In any cae, folloting the matithat howledge is fun, I protide youtith the following analysis in the

By JOHN ROTHCHILD

hope that it \vill develop into moreLaughs With Mister.

A Mister, for those uninitiated, isthe son of a laborato~ who h=beady eyes and comumes vast quan-tities of tins fish and petroleum. Forthe sake of simplici~, he till hereafterbe refereed to z Player 1. An Ecua-dorian, who is anyone who wears Bos-ton-made suits and goes to AnnetteFunicello movies, till be calledPlayer 2. Groups till be refereed toas Players 1 or Players 2.

I have &tided the games into cate-gori-, depending on their complexity.The best way to enjoy is to startplaying.

SIMPLE GAMES(1) Espanitch

Thk h the easiest and most com-mon game, played by any Player 1who knows a fe~v words in Spanish,and a Player 2 who kno\vs someEnghsh. It is best played outside, withan audience present to provide hec-kling for the defeated player.

Game begins with Pla er 1 ad-1dressing Player 2 in Span]s Player 2

Mister?

follows, after wrinkhng his brow as ifhe is making great efforb to under-stand, by answering in English. Gameis continued in this manner until oneof the players answers in his nativeton~e, and thus becomes the loser.

The game is complicated by WOimportant muntemoves.

a) Countermove l—Que DiceThe success of this wuntemove

depenh on the opponent’s coddencein speahng the foreign ton~e. AfterPlayer 2 has answered Player 1 inEnglish, Player 1 can me ttis coun-termove by saying “que dice” thuscontinuing the gambit. Player 2 cancomespondingly counter titb “whatsay.” The process is usually repeateduntil somebody s\vitches to Counter-move 2.

b) Countermove 2—Machinegun

The first player to stitch to ma-chine~n must be sure that his op-ponent does not speak the foreignlanguage \vell. For imtance, Player 1may at any time s%ritch out of “quedice” and answer Player 2s “whatsay” by timing on a macbinepn

Beatles are freely used. It may endin Player 1’s expukion, or in an S-calation to Dirty Capitalist. .a

burst of E,lghsh, such as “youlousy-foolwbydoyouthinkyoucan talktomeill-e]lghsh when you do,>t.” If Player 2 un-derstands this, then Player 1 is de-feated, If he does not, then his onlydefense is to switch to Ametralladorain Spanish, thus ending the game ina draw.

(2) Nueva York

TMs game is played betieen anewly-arrived Player 1 and a Player2 ,vho has just returned from theUnited States. Ol]ly materials neces-sa~ are a hst of city names, mem-orized ar,d ready to be used.

Game begim when Player 2 asks:“you know New York?

If Player 1 answers “yes,” thenPlnyer 2 goes on to other city names,‘<you kno~v Los Angeles?, “yo~~knowBoston?, “you know Corn, Okb-homay until he fi,~ds one that Player1 does not know. His final move is theremark: “1 know more about tbeUnited States than you do:

Player 1, to avoid total defeat, isleft with hvo choices.

(a) Countermove l—Never Heard

of ItThis tricky gambit can only be used

if Player 2, hy efiausting his list ofcities, was forced to name some in-si~ificant toxvn. Player 1 can thenremark: “I’ve been to all the impor-tant plnces in the U,lited States, butI’ve never even heard of that place.Did you spend a lot of time there?

Player 2 mmt be able to defendthe unkno~vn town’s importance, orbe beaten.

(b) Co.”termove 2—Gee, You Do

In this gambit, Player 1 admits toPlayer 2 that the latter knows moreabout the United States, handing b

I \ i-

‘>

the victory in this battle with theho e of later besting him at Che or I

1To d YO” So.This game can be played on Ecua-

dorians by Misters who have bav-elled extensively in Ecuador. Ako,names of authors, motie stars, CXS,or musicians can be substituted forcities, to diversify the above-men-tioned form of Nlleva York,

MORE COMPLICATED GAMES

These games take more skill. Theycan be played on any level, evendiplomatic.

(1) Awful

Player 2 shakes his head slowlyatld tries to cry. I1e then says: “Awful.They killed Kennedy. Then Bobby.Then Martin what’s his rime. Nowthey riot in the stieets. They smokemarijuana. They mar~ fat Greeks.They say dirty words. They don’t goto church. They wear beads. Barbersare committing suicide, Awful.”

This dramatic monologue is fol-lowed by a dirge-like silence. Player1 mmt respond equally dramatically,or be beaten. His possible counter-attacks include:

(a) Reveme Awful

Player 1 starU to CV. “Awful. Badthings in the Utited States. A2motis bad as Congressmen \vho shoot ateach other, policemen who kill cam-pesinos, rich men \vbo don’t paytaxes, and roads with pot holes inthem. The United States is getting sohadl’d almost rather live ill Ecuador.”

This gambit, \vhich is thmst homewi tb the word “akost” Usuauyevinces a full fight, in which Mare,the Bible, Hen~ Ford, The UtitedFmit Company, Che, Monroe and the

14

(b) Yes,lt,s Awful

In this move, Player 1 agrees withAwful, thus taking the implied stingout of the criticism. Player 2 mustthen think of more awful things, P-il>g to force a stionger reaction fromPlayer 1.

.(2) lTold You So

PIayer2 invites Player 1 to a dark,romantic bar. Player 2 proceeds to getdrunk, order 15 Pikeners more, andprodllce the following monologue.“Most gringos are cold. They don’tlike our cultire. They have no heart.But you (imert name of Player 1)are different. You are my friend. Ilike you.”

Player2 thej> renchesout and slob-bers all over Player 1. This play goeson for several hours, until Player 1cannot stand it any more and de-cides to leave. As he is ready to gohome, Player 2 makes the secondmove. Grabbing Player 1 by the coat,he yells, “1 told you so. All Ameri-cans are cold. I just wanted to have ahttle beer \vith VOU. and vou \vant toget away. You ~obot. Yo~pig. I hateyou.”

Player 1 has no @cape from this 4

cleve~ gambit.

(3) coolIn this reverse fom of I Told You

So, Players 2 make sure Players 1are never invited to parties. At theparties, Players z can remark aboutho\v cold and egotistical Players 1are for never coming to Ecuadorianparties.

(4) Ugly Stick

This is tbe most complex form ofI Told YOU So. Player 2 gets dm~and says: “We Ecuadorians are awful,aren’t ~ve? So poor, so ignorant, sodrunk. YOU Americans, you are al-ways comect, developed, intelbgent.Things are so had here. Ugly us.”

Player 1 tlsually falk into the count-ermove of Ugly You, agreeing tithPlayer 2, which brings on I Told YouSo from the latter, who then com-plains about how Ployer 1 has a lousyattitude about his cou,>~.

The only safe counterattack is UglyMe, in which Player 1 correspond-ingly criticizes race problems in theUtited States and the war in Viet-nam. He should be careful only tocriticize an equal amount as shownby his Ugly Stick opponent. Toomuch might be consoled as brag-

ging. In Ugly Stick, you should nevera~ee \vith the se~-criticisms of YOU

OppOnent.

(5) The Only Good In&an Is A

Dead Cholo (variation 1 of Ugly Stick)In this game, Player2, who is wu-

ally well-off financially and from thecity, criticiz~ Indiam, mtic Me andgoing barefoot as un-Ecuadorian. “WeEcuadoriam,” he says, “have the rightto choose ou OM fom of develop-ment, which means tice movie housm,can and long landing sti s for jet

fplanes. You outsiders (reernng toPlayer 1) have no right to work,titbun-Ecuadorian elemenb who wantforeign values, such m equah~ or,ewnomic sticiency. Ecuador is forEcuadotians.”

Player 1 has wo possible gambik.He can bring a campesino friend intothe conversation, who will then de-fend campesino righb m Ecuadorian,commonly called Take A Cholo ToLunch. Or, he can quote from Ve-lasco speeches.

COMPLEX GAMES

Only the most dating should un-dertake these games. Some of them,such as International Gotcha, areplayed by nations who expropriategoods, followed by such responses as~11 Take My. ToP And Go Home.Others, such as those below, can beeasily played at home, and not neces-sarily at the international level.

(1) CheThis game is opened by Player 2

asking Player 1, “What do you thinkof Che (also Havana, Peking, or Mos-cow)”? Player 1 must quickly decide,by looking at his o ponent, whether

Ethe latter is pro-Pe lng, Mosmw, orWashington. The only way to do thisis by age, since bereti reprsent bothWashington and Che. If Player 2 isunder 17, he will probably be Pe-king, If he is 17-25, he till be Mos-MXV, and over 25, he will undoubt-edly be Washington. Player 1 mustchoose beween the foUowing gam-bi&:

(a) Yea, Che

Player 1 munters titb “Che wasgreat” which k a good gmbit butusually countered by You Guys KilledHim, entering the opponenb intoDirty Capitalist. Also “Che wasGr=t” can bring repercussion if op-ponent happem to be pro-Washing-ton. This usually starb a phase dGringo Hippie Commutist, a sub.&-

tiion of D~ Capitakt, and some-times ends in the expukion of Player1 from tbe count~.

(b) Che Was AJeA

T& gmbit is unaccep~ble at thistime in Latin America.

(a) Che May Have Been Great, ButHe Would Roll Over In His Grave

A most effective arguent forPlayer 1 to use with students, Player1 praises Che, then bemmes saddenedbwause all of the Players 2 who arefollowers of Che are ri& sbdentsand will be capitalist pigs in 5 years.Quoting Cbe on this point can beve~ effective, except when Players2 munter by quoting Eisenhower aspubhshed in Selecciones.

(2) DiW Capitalist

This k anall-pu~ose game usedby Players 2, in groups or alone, tointimidate Players 1. It takes variousfores, such as Fuera, or Gringo Hip-pie Communkt, or the most recentand excitig 007 Karate Chop.

In all fores of this game, Player 1is placed on a tightiope, in whicheither response he gives quahfies himas a Dirty Capitalist. Such games al-ready described, such as Cool, fall intothk catego~.

Inthisgame, a Player 1 who makesmoney is a Dirty Ca itahst. Con-

{versely, a Player 1 w o does notmake money is either a bad DirtyCapitalist, or else a Lazy Rich Capi-

tahst who doen’t have to work.A Player 1 who work for a com-

pany is a Dirty Capitalist Pig, andone who wandes around alone is aDirty Capitahst Revolutiona~ Com-munist Hippie. There are unbitdfores to this game, but we till de-scribe only Fuera and 007 KarateChop.

(a) Fuera!

Players 2 approach Player 1 on theskeet. Game opens by yellin <<Fuera

tLos Yanquis,’’ If Playerl wal son, heis a cold robot. E he answers, he isimperialistically interfering. The Onlypossible gambit left, is ‘Fuera hsEcuatotianos” ,vhich usually leaveseve~body laughing, except Player 1,who was probably serious.

(b) 007 Karate Chop

Player 2, announcing that he knowsPlayer 1 knows karate, forces the latterinto a fight. If Player 1 wins, be is an

aggressOr and miktant murderer, If herefuses to fight, he is a spy, hiding hiskarate skills under a Clark Kent dis-guise. The only way to beat 007 Ka-rate Chop is to lose tbe fight, whichmay be the clue to the entire PeaceCorps success in Ecuador.

If none of th=e gmes seems ti-teresting, there is always the ultimateweapon at the disposal of any Player1. And 1 don’t need to explain howyou play 10 o’clock Bratiff.

–El Ecw&r, Ecu&r

15

By GEORGE CONK

What kind of peace is this?

I this recent ad (right) for the p,,cenherent in the few short tines of

COTS are, I think, many of the prob-lems of Peace Corps–problems in i~theom of what it is doinc. Droblems-. .in its rhetoric.

First of all. tbe tone: “The PeaceCorps doesn’t shout, ‘Come, makepeace.’ “-one of the most outrage-ously proud statemenb ~ve read in along time, just stiffed full of self-congratilation, “The Peace COPS hasno delusions of grandeur’’–Right,CbarLe. “YOII call say anythit>g youwant about the Peace Corps. Thatit’s just do-gooders. That it doesn’thelp peace. That it hasn’t made anydifference.” In other words, we arealreadv so sure of ourselx, es. we E1OWill the’dark.

Second. the \vork involved. \vhatyotfd be ~oing over there. Again out-rageollsly pltt: “. if yo,i coulde!ljoy feeding children. (HOTV can youfight Motherhood. ) Or repairing atractor. Or teaching birth mnbol. Orb{,ilding a school house.” Warn,xvomby feefing seeping in all over,roses a,]d lolhpops, little non-whitecbildrell loving you to death, So ro-mantic, as if tbe problems of the thirdworld co,lsisted of stich iimple thingsas child feeding, tractors, and littlered schoolhouses alone. No mentionof cormption, pohtical revolution,misely, bureaucracy, and tbe fact thatPeace COTS in ik essence \vorkswithin the established system andnecessarily fosters or supporb theevils of the system.

“It’s for someone who would rathecdo something, Anything.” WheeeeelFreelancing!!! Me out there saving the\vorld!

hlo ~,elltion of where you \vould be

going–what kind of count~, Asia,),African, Latin American. No mentionof the fact that tbev could be differ-ent–places \vbere people don’t seethings in terns of U.S. and outsidethe U. S., where the et)tire third worldjust mns together in one big mass of

dehcious broivn skin with big whiteeyes sticking out \vaiti,lg for redemP.tio,l.

Finally, “There are ellougb people\vbo come out of tbe Peace Corpstitb things they’ve learned they can’tforget. Good thit>gs.” What about,vhat you’ve done for tbe coun~ youhave so presumptuously bied to seinefor hvo years. What did they think?Breathed a sigh of retid when youleft, did they? Hated the supervisor’s~ts, didn’t you.

At once echoing the smug sopbisti-catio” of a “Villager” dress ad inThe Neto Yorker, ar>d the hober-tban-tbol!,WASP, you-don’t-know-because.yet,-have,,’t-tied, Ben Franklin, WildWest, frontier ethic, the ad aims atthe student radicals and would-be stu-dent radicals of the campuses, (Agovernment organization tying toebminate its opposition maybe?) Theattempt is rather ludicrous sincenearly all stidellt radicak have comeor are coming to the conclusion thatguvement of any sort is not to hecooperated ~vith, and that the actionis defi,litely not in Nagp~,r or anyother blirg on tbe ~vrollg side of the,vorld. Either Peace COVS is naive,or it is going after the riot-so-hard-core disaffected. Both are tree; per-haps dishonest \vould be a better temthan naive.

Eight years ago, the Peace Corps\vas the thing, the avant-garde. Inthose eight years, the avant-garde hasmade the great tick Iefhvard, leavingPeace COTS there, or even \vatch-il~g it move righhvard by virtie of ik,.eV existence. Some\vhat like anabandoned lover, the organization hasreacted a bit scbizopbrenically. Whiletrying to prove it xvas right in estab-lishing itself, in etisting, it bas alsobied to pick up the rhetoric of thefar left, the disruptive left, the Mp-pies, SDS, etc. We use terns hke“doing our o\m thing,” “love” in thesame se]ltence with “best wunt~ na-tional,” “temination in the field,” and

16

other such leaden bweaucratic terns.‘Every director, directive and memois haunted by the ghost of Christ-mas past–the glories of Kemedy andtbe early sixties. We must be rote,

Open, helittle Ofier b~eaucracies, re-cmit the radicals, and deprecate all,vho call the Peace Corns the Estab-lishment.

Face it, Charlie, the Peace COTS* tbe Establishment. Tbe final proofis that no one feek threatened byPeace COWS; it can be show to Sen-ators, \vho will then make speechmon the Senate floor. We aren’t tbemibta~-industial com lex

!either,

but we are there to ba ante off thenastiness of tbnt complex, and we areonly there because that complexwn”ts “S to be. @

We are throueh and tbroueh a bu-reaucracy–an o;gatization ~ti~ allthe mind-boggling problems of a bu-reaucracy with a 25,000-mile fine ofcommunication. From the day you fillout tbe 16-page application to thecompletion of sewice conference, youare doing the bureaucrat’s thing.

Peace COWS, ako, if it is at all seri-ous about itself, is simply an organi-zation to sewe the third world, AVolunteer doesl,’t teach family plan-ning; he teaches Indians or Pemti-ans or Tanzal]ians about family plan-til]g. The latter emphasis is too oftenlacking, In fact the element of seK-enrichment for the Ameticam has be-come so predominant in the rhetoricthat I \vould like to see it wiped outaltogether. It is obvious that tbe Vol-unteer \vill have a fantastic experi-ence. \Ve forget how outrageouslyprot,d it is to send Volunteers tosomeone else’s coun~ \vitb minimallanguage ability to \vork at all. ~mafraid only Americans xvould have thegall to t~~

Tbe job–tbe nemesis of PeaceCOTS! Why? Because of the dis- 9crepal>cy behveen the dream and thereahty. Tbe dream—the Supewolun-

D

B

teer out here creating, doing Mting, posing for all those wa~,touching pictia that appear eve~month in Tm VOLUNTEER. The re-ality-at worst, o“e S“pemol and tenbombs; at best, one S“pemol and tenplodders. The discrepancy is the keyto the whole balled-up organization,the ~vhole balled-up rbet?ric of atti-tude change, job sitiation, o enness

!and love. Look at the xvor s–ath-tude change–the unchallenged end,the purist goal of the organization.I* recent roob are in the fiberal so-ciological litera~re of development,the sacred opposition to the “techno-logical ivay” of AID. But is roots goback further to re-echo tbe nineteenthcenti~, Protstant justicatiOn ofpoverty: “A man is poor because heis morally deficient. To improve kyou must give bim morabty, theword,” The ~vorld of “Dickens, theWCTU, the missiol~aries, Not It allthe world of Max: “The tvorker is adecent human being. He has beenvictimized by man and society.”Listen to Peace Corps: “The realchange is changing someone’s mind,making them aware, self-sficient,

Opening ~em UP.” A pinch Of existen-tiahsm, but never the realization thatthe peasant is being scre~ved to thewall, that revolution is a large pos-sibility. The Peace COWS preachesawareness, but only tlp to a point—thus the essentially consewative castof tbe organization, why Nixon canlove us.

But the conflict, the dialectic. TheAmerica!> WASP ethic, i.e. the Amer-ican ethic because it overruns us all,also demands performance, accom-phshent, tangible results. The Cal-titist could never know his prede-termined fate; he could only \vorklike hell and pray that he ~vas some-how madly in tine \tith bse~. Theorganization must produce—becauseproduction is one of the stiongeststrings Nanging in the Americatl @t,and also incidentally because the hostCOUIIQ logically demands some smallresulh from this most innocuousbranch of American imperialism. Andhere is tbe conflict. The hippies havedecreed that love, doing one’s ownthing, making you o~m peace, areoutlandishly, dismptively unproduc-tive. “P~oduction” and “doing yourown thing,” the terms, lead not onlyto conflict, but to confusion, apolo-gies, guilt pangs, and do\vnrightschizophrenia in those \vho \vould

seek to unite the ~o. The Ne\v Left,tuting on the organization that hasso gfibly picked up i~ rhetoric, hwkits most contemptiom epitheh.

I have an obtious bias. But at hpoint I would rather make a smallplea only: The Peace COTS must faceik own rhetoric, face it seriously and+k \vhether it is tie to the sitiationthat exists, whether it is tme to thesitiation that it \vants to efist. It must

ask \vhat it means to “make your OWIIpeace” at all.

George Conk ad hk wife, Margo,have been working for o year and a&lf in a mll town wtti~ Bombay.She work in a nutrition ~oject, andConk, wb spent a year in the sameproject, mw work in “tb sabs de-patiment of a government bacon fac-tory and skughterhowe.

got.Andyo~lcozddh right. Yol~cansayanythingyorLwant alw~ltthe PeaceC+J. That iti jtat &gm&s.That it dmn’t be~pce. That it baJn’t~)dany dffwa.Th Puce C*S hn’t dtiaping, Tbati notwhat iti ab~lt. The Pu C@J hn’t sboz~t,“Cwzetnake~ce.” Puce&n)t concethat miiy. Iti ~m ofa

sqavatepce. Mayhyozlrs.No bannws.No band. Non~tia[s.The Pwe C@s ?nightk fw yotl z~yo~~cotddmjq f~zng cbi[dm. @ @sin’ng a trdrn,. or tub-ing biflb contm~.& bzlildinga scb!bol~se.~w lfno

one end I@ ?~~ingit. (Don’tthink it bmn’tbappend.)The PeaaC@J”ba no delzuiomofpanhir. Ask any-onewhoi & in it. B~itth a%enot~gbpmp[ewhoco~)zeozttof thePtiz C@s with thingst~w [umed~~ Can ’tfwget. Gwdtbrngs. Tk a%nmv waysthanyorlcanfind tobe~ themid The PeaceC@J h jtt~tomway. Itif@rsmneonewbozwzddratkdo sw]zetbing.Anvtbin~. [mtd of notbin~.It cozddk VOZIVwav.

17

stacle cowses smng in the tie- was

Old s~le trainingcamps close

They’re closing the Peace Corps“boot camp.”

The ~o-part baining center in theforest south of kecibo, Plterto Rico,is phasing out in favor of a new cel>terin Ponce, the islan~s second largestcity.

Tbe demise of the camps–Crozierand Radley–may be lamented bymany of the 10,000 trainees whohave passed through them, b“t it sayssomething about the mat{lration oftbe Peace Corps.

Established in 1961, the first campwas called Rio Abajo and renamedfor Dag Hammarskjold after he diedin a plane crash during his sewice as

Secretary General of the UN. CampHammarskjold became Camp Crotierand \vhe” the second site opned up,it \vas r>amed Camp Radley after Co.lombia Volunteers Datid Crotier andLnwrence Radley died i“ a plane ac-cidel>t in 1962, tbe 6rst Volunteers todie dxlring Peace Corps sewice.

In its earliest years, this isolatedtr:lini,lg center embodied part of the“nebv frontier” concept and charismsof Peace Corps, namely o“~ardI>o””d training stressing physical fit-r>ess al>d sutival techniqltes as ameans of I)tlildi”g confidence, But by1964, rappefing over dams and co”.qllering the rope and robber tire ob.

passb.As the field began to request more 4

soecific skill tiaitine and Peace Corns,.found the utivemiti~s many times u~-able to respond, Crotier and Radleyadopted the “in-home center” wn-cept, providing practical experienceand a setting in which the haineecould acquire the pe~pective to as-sess himseK.i” terns of his futire Z-signmen t overseas,

Evenmally, the isolated rain for~tlocation was seen as a drawback fora number of reasons: lack of com-munity contact, creation of depend-encies among staff a“d tiai”ees thatwere unrealistic for overseas sewice,and the fact that la”~age motivationand c“ltiral immersion had to bemanufactured. The high staff t“mover(attributed in part to lack of priva~),absence of commercial transportation,undependable utdities and mainte-nance problems resulted in Crozierand Radley being a “high-cost cen-ter.”

Once [he fra;n;ng center moves 10 Ponce, trainees will practice Spanish w;th their host familiesIn th;s eady Peace Corps photo, tr.>inees headed 10, Asia study /a”g”age i“ a tent classroomat the isolated camp “ear Arec;bo.

D

1“ this UPI pho[o take” i“ fate1967, a t,ai”ee completes aph~e of ou[wa,d bound tra;ningat the P“e,to Rica” camp

In September, 1968, the baitingcenter staff began to stidy altern-atives.In October, they met with PeaceCOTS personnel from Washingtonand Cenkal America (where the bukof the Puerto Rico tiaine~ go). Apilot effort was run during that tiettitb a Pem teacher tiaining projectin Ponce. The bainees Uved withfamihes and met together only forlanguage and to review their prog-ress in teaching. Peace COWS \vaswell satisfied with the resulb,

Last Janua~, the stidy group rec-ommended that the traiting center“should concentrate on certain de-fined knifing objectives and have a“organic flexibi~ty which allotvs it tochange style and shape as it matiresand gains experience.”

The choice for the move, Ponce, issimilar in appearance and environ-ment to many cities in Cenkal andSouth America, according to LatinAmerica Traiting Director AntonioDuran. It will furnish c“lhral im-mersion for trainees—who tvi11not fiveat the center b~lt with Ponce fami-hes–and adequate resources to thecenter and its staff. Duran said thelong-sought opportunity to take ad.vantage of Puerto Rico’s technical, re.sources will be possible in Ponce\vbere n large co”ce”tiation of gov.ernment agencies and private special-ists are CIUStered,

Camp Radley is closed now andCr[,zier will be by Jan”a~, 1970. mefirst tiai”ing group to go to Ponceofficially will be Pem education at theend of the s“-er. Eve”tially tiai”-ing at the “ew center will mnsist ofan eight-~veek “cycle in language,cross c“lbral and interpersonal skills.(The trainees \till commute therefrom their individual hving sites, )Tech”icnl skill trach \vill be taughtin counhy or by an oubide contrac-tor in Puerto Rico or eke~vhe~e,

The Ponce site, know as the Lar-rain Center, is a Spanish style btild-inc in the center of the ci~, Thepr;sent o,v.er, Catbofic Uti;e&i~,has wed it to train oriesk and lav

Jpeople hound for ~ork i“ L?ti~hetica, With renovation, it will ac.commodate instnlctional facihties for120 tiai”ees and could handle 550trainees a year,

Tape-slideRetimed Volunteen in several parts

of the cout>tV nre contributing to aneffort to supply U.S. high schools withtape recordit>gs and slides about theforeign couti>ties in \vhich they have\vorked,

The Peace Corps regional recruitingoffice in Chicago is one place where theproject is un~emay, ieeking to tellaspects of fife which the textbooksleave out–imighk into family andschool life, customs, styles and teen-

agers’ daily routines.Depu& of6ce director, Mrs. Pam

McHugh, said that \vithout su~ anaid, teachers have a dific{dt time in-chlding anything of the human ele-ment in teaching about Africa, Asiaand Latin America.

Some returned Volunteers have in-cluded music 01> their tap- and sentaccompanying slides. Host collnt~ Ila-tional recmiters have made tapes andVolu,lteers currently in sewice Over-seas are invited to contribute to theres””rce bn~.

Arrax~gements have been made toreproduce sfides and se]>d blank tapesto any interested party or reimbursehim for a tape of his own. It is hopedthat n good-sized bank of tapa ~ndslides \vill be ready for the comingschool year. Anyo,le \vishing to con-tribute should contact Mrs. McHughat the Peace COTS office, Rm. 1008,536 So. Clark St., Chicago, 111.,60605.

The School Partnership Program o“t

19

bank openof the Washit]gton Peace Corps oficealso develops cultural slide and tapeshows for loan to schools and othergroups. Peace Corps will pay for anymaterials accepted for ttse in this \vay.

Foreign volunteerdirectors meet

At Director Joe Blatchfor&s invi-tation, seven directors of foreign vol.Ilnteer-se,>dil>g organizations met inWashington in late J“”e to discussfuture steps for the U.S. Peace Corps.

The four-day conference \vas or-ganized by the International Secre-tariat for Volu,lteer Sewice (ISVS ),a Vpe Of cleari,>ghouse for all majorvolunteer orga”k~ ations, The meeting\\,as part of Blatchfords attempt toseek advice about Peace Corps plansand programs from kno\vledgeablepersons outside the agency. Volun-teer organizatior>s from Crest Brit-ain, Germany, the Netherlands, S\tit-zerla”d, S\veden, Indonesia and Ar-ger>tina \vere represented.

The group discussed many aspechof voluntarism, inch, dit>g domesticprograms, tech,lical skills, altern-atives to military sel~ice, volunteer de-cision-maki!lg, phasing otlt programs,i,>ternatio,lal cooperation, ;>nd the roleof the returned Volunteer,

Letiers to the vo/unteer

Ask no favors

To THE VOLUNmEm:I am a black Volunteer and would

hke to see more blacks in PeaceCorps; but I don’t want to see anincrease because blacks are suddenlygiven a lot of breaks. Many blackshave hang-ups and feel that theworld is il~debted to them. Nol Comejoi,l Peace Corps, hut only if you canqualify and possess the inchoation toserve. Don’t look for special favors.

Black Americans who suddenly be-gi,] identifying themselves with Af-rica should be a\vare of her needs.They should be ~vilhng to contributesomething to her in the name ofpeace, brotherhood a,]d progress. Isn two-year tol,r too much to bedonated?

VERNON L. WASHINGTONLeribe, Lesotho

Distate for edicts

To THE VOLUNTEEH:1 \vant to comme]lt on the rlew

directi\,es by Director Blatchford.1 can urlderstatld that staff would

like to redtlce its administrative llur-den, but I don’t think that a lumps“m \vbich includes all living expensesor the limit of baggage to 80 poundsper. Volunteer is a good idea.

IIOW is tbe new V“lunteer supposedto kllo\v if and IIOLVto purchase suchcostly items as motorbikes or re-frigerators? Perhaps one Volunteeriells them to the next. In any case, I\vas happy to settle into a house \vhichalready had dishes, pots and pans,etc., because I had never set up akitchen ill the U.S.

Tmthfully, I do,]’t think my buyingthe httle that \vas available in Togo,vould have cemented me in withthe local population, and the itemssupplied \+ere sewiceable–nothing toincite Togolese envy–and were bought,vith U.S. dollars.

I ho~v that if I \vere a staff mem-ber, I wouldn’t like to handle theVolul>teers’ luggage; but o,] the otherhal~d, 1 do,,’t see hoiv an 80-pou,ldlimit \vill stice for NO years. It

severely hmik a Volunteer’s basic believe \ve would be less able !0 learnequipment and keeps him from being and adapt, and thus less able to do aan avid African ati collector, like good job.

myself I used UP my 250-pOund sea If technicians are to be recfiited,freight allo\vance upon leaving Togo. they should be recmited as Volun-1 happened to fike local \vood sclllp- teers \vith the same low pay scale astire and \veaving, ?nd I got to know at prese,>t. This would ensure theirthe artisans as well as contribute to et>thmiasm and wilbngness to learntheir incomes. at>d adapt at the local level. We he-

Tbe deparhre of the booklocker lieve our experience of the effective-nlso strikes me as odd. 1 never agreed ,Iess of no,>-technical Volunteers herewith Volunteers who sat home atld i,~ Mala\vi is applicable to much moreread instead of ~etting out and ~vork- of Peace Corps, and we swongly llrgeing \vith the people, but it was nice the retention of the low paid, non-to have a supply of reference atld technical Volunteer.fictiox, bmks on hand both for myself We believe that an essential partand for my stider>ts. Even though the of Peace Corps is the interpersonalnew, adjllsted allowance is supposed et>cot),>ter al]d communication thatto include mo,>ey for books, where is occurs on a perso,l-to-person level.the Volut,teer to obtain them in a non- We think an over-co,lcem ,vith highEnglish spemking count~? technical skills and high ply may lead

Going back to Togo again, it \vas to a reduction in this interpersonalour director who decided such mat- contact. We are very much con-

4ters as vehicle policy and use of the cemed \vitll cOncepts such aS “Pe~ce”hostel, and I thit)k he \vas right. I and “friendship,” and \ve \vant to con-distrust Peace Corps-wide edicts tvhicb tinue to be able to seine these idealsemanate from Washington. When all through the Peace COTS.h(,stels \vere ordered closed, that might SICNED BI, 33 VOLUNTEERShave \vorked for Sol,th America, but Blantyre, lMala~vinst for West Africa. ‘rogo’s ~vasfinallyreope,led. Bitt why make the blanket Making theo~ workdecision ill the first place?

Mm S.= To T.E \70LUN=ER:Fomer Volu,lteer Reference is made to the article

Kimhasa, Collgn by Deborah Joxles, “Looking at thetrail,..: ’68 mode~ (,May VOLUN-

In defense of BAGs TEER). This i,>teresting article con-tail>ed some important ideas, but s

To TIXE VOLUNTEER: is frequently the case when goodWe health Volunteers ii Mala\vi

have heard some reporti about chang-ideas nppear, there is no existingmechanism through \vhich such ideas

it>g policies in Peace Corps Wash- can materialize.ington. Some of these reports have The section of the article pertainingdistirbed us–in particular, proposed to tech,lical stidies states that suchpoficies or, reducing the role of B.A. training should take into account thegeneralists and recrlriting more tech- indim’dttal experiet>ce nrid needs of thenicians at higher pay. tiainees.

We feel that the B.A. generalist’s I am one of several people involvedrole is essential in Peace Corps. In \tith planning the agriculture portionour health program we have found a. of a summer training. program in thenon-technical background ve~ impor- h4arshall Islands, Micronesia. Awaretant. h{ost of our \vork is done nt the of the importance of the above point,~,illage level where \ve must be ve~ tve attempted to obtain informationadaptable and wilhng to learn from on experiential and educational 9

the villagers. If \ve entered this job backgrounds of the approximately 20with a high technical background, we trainees. Such information was not

20

D

B

available from the director of thebaiting pro~am, nor from PeaceCOTS Marsbalk nor from Peace CoqsMicronesia. I wrote a letter to theperson in W=hington who was sup-posed to have rectited the agricul-ture kainees requesting some itiOr-mation on their backgrounds so thata more pertinent tiaiting pro~ammight have been formulated. With~o weeks remaiting before thetrainees \vere to ative, no word hadbeen received.

As one tiaining coordinator statedin the preface to Miss Jones’ article:“The report is thmlogical, rather thanoperational. And we akeady havea lot of theologians in the PeaceCorps.” Amen.

LE\vls CLE~Maj”ro, Marshall Islands

Mistaken identity

To Tr= VOLUNTEER:There is just one mistake in “YOUI

actions speak louder ? (June VoL-UNTEER). My original article stated“we identify tbe channels of non-verbnl commul>ication as the kinesic,proxemic, chronemic, oculesic andhaptic”. It was changed to read “1have identified five such channels.”

N“”e of these has been identifiedby me, “Proxemics” is Ed Hal~s temused in The Silent Langwge andThe Hidden Dimention; “kinesics”was fist systematized by Ray Bird-}vhistle; “chronemics” is a term bor-rowed f~om Don Larson, thott h for

#him meaning something & erenk“haptics” is being stidied by SidneyJourard; “oculesics” is a tem coinedby my wife, LaDena, although thearea k being i,]vestigated hy Ed Halland many others.

My only claim to these areas isapplying a tiaining technique to sen-sitize hericam to these channelsduring interc”ltiral comm”tications.Anyone who is kno~vledgenble aboutthis field kno\vs that I have not iden-tified them.

MELW SC~APPERWasbingto”, D.C.

Peace. Corps amnesia

To Tm VOLUN~ER:There is aninaccltracyin the Deb-

orah Jones’ article (June VOLWN~ER)on the language materials for tbe Pemco-op program. Special audito~ tiain-ing tapes and cross cultiral satia-tions were xvorked out by the assist-

ant language mordinator; but thetopical materiak xvorked out in thefom of stictire drik and dialogueswere developed by a comultant, aretied Volunteer from Pem experi-enced in writing materiak and inteacher tiaiting, under the directionof the center’s language dtiector,Anna Acitelfi, (Language materialsare not something that can bewhipped “p behveen prog~ams andpohshed up in the midst of HILT. )

For some reason, the inaccuacy isrelated in my mind to the lack of“memo~” of the Peace Co s, even

?in tbae computer days. T ere ap-parently is .0 way the Peace CO~scan find out what retimed Volunteerhas ,vhat skill that might be availablefor some specific progrnm. Cetiainwell- ublicized names ore remem-

Jhere ; but under a specific programneed could the Peace COTS come upwith the,)ame of, say, Sue Kirsh Knoxwho did ocapational therapy work,vitb retarded chihben in fiequipaand no\v is a graduate occupationaltberaDist?

talking of no memoV and

forever re&scovering the \vheel–no\vthat Acitelli has gone, I understandthat center has abandoned the inte-grated materiak approach and re.timed to a textbook-centered program.

ELnmEmI BAR~RTFomer Volunteer

Los A“gel~

We can be both

To T= VOLuXn,n:“The ambivalent mti it’s the

nebulous nature of tfis sharing andloving. We mwt go about it in ouro\w soft way.” With tb=e~vords Jackvaughn r&ected on his Peace Corpsexperience. And a beautiful reflectionit is.

Several recent articles inTm VOL.WNTEER as well as many current dis-cussions have centered around the de.bate of whether communication andpeople-to-people relationships or tech-nical aid is ,vhat Peace Cows shouldbe all about, 1 think Peace Co~s ca”a,ld should be both,

Peace CO~s caj] increasingly se-

Life seems idyllic these days at [he Virgin IslandsTrai”;”g Cente, on St, C,o;x—awayirom thepush-butfonro”ti”e. No whirri.g .washingmach;ne, rumbling air-co”dit;one, o,,oa,ing lawn mower needed. And best ofall: no housing shortage.

lect the highly motivated, ideahsticB.A. generalist who exhibits em-pathy, r=ponsibihty, communicationsblk and the abihty to relate on apeople-to-people bask. Then bainingshould prepare the Volunteer to doa specfic job that is really needed inthe host wun~. What he needs iss ecific technical training for a jobifi e mbewell development or polll-

W; not agtic.ltire, or Wmm”tity de.velopment, for these are too broad.Specific training, if tborougb, will de-velop tbe c~nfidence tbe trainee needsso that he knows he bas somethingimportant to offer when he gets over-seas; be knows he con make a mean-ingful conhibution.

The tiaiti of the successful gen.eralist shouldn’t vanish as he acquirestechnical expertise. Rather they arethe perso,lal, private vehicle whichcan transport “in our own soft way’.needed technical skills to people sin-cerely set on solving their problems.

LARRY RUBLEETikamgarh, India

‘A good place to live’

To Tm VOLUNTEER:I was pleasantly su~rised to read

Kevin Kane’s letter (June VOLUN.TEER), in wbicb he spoke of hisexperience as a “quasi-staff member”in the Botiwana 111 traiting pro-gram last fall. h> response to hiscomments, I should Eke to add thoseof a quasi-trainee in the Botswana111 program.

1 agree with Kevin on many of thepoints he mentions. I couldn’t behevethe logic which said that since thetraining staff doesn’t know tbe traineeswell enough to judge them, the wholematter should be packed off to Wash-ington, where the staff is even furtherremoved from the tiainees.

I agree with him that this businessof

‘<inte]]ectl’a’ conflick~ ‘s Pttys~pid. Tm VOLUN=ER ]s choc fullof this conflict, none of which has theshghtest relation to the job of theVolunteer in country. The photos arethe only parts of tbe “Volunteer Geo-graphic” that make it approach beingworthwhile.

As Kevin says, tbe Peace COWS isa “nice” side of a U.S. foreign policythat many of us deplore. This criti-cism, though, is ifi own justiScation,and I wonder if Kevin really fails tosee this,

Finally, even though our “s~-in”last year failed to gain is ends as fw

as I ,vas concerned, 1 came to Bot-swa!la, not because I cared a damnfor the Peace Corps–it’s tily not\vorth worrying about—but becauseBots\vana is a good place to Uve and\vork for two years and the PeaceCorps is paying me to do it.

I won’t make any maudlin com-ments about Kevin’s ho e that the

\Peace COTS dies during t e next fouryears; in a ~vay, it died tith Presi-dent Kennedy. That Peace COTS canIlever come back, but if Nixon andBlatchford are as business-hke as theyseem to be, they’ll see that anotherone takes ib place.

If the Peace COVS is good, it’s onlybecause it shows that the bureaucracyis still willing to subsidize individual-ism, even if that only comes by chance,once in a while,

DAN DOUGLASGaberones, Botswana

You understand, John?

To THK VOLUNTEER:I was quite su~rised at reading

John Rothcbil&s article in the MayVOL~TEER. What is happening to theVolunteers of today? What has be-come of the understanding dialoguebetween Volunteer and host coun~national? Most important, what hasbecome of tbe flexibility of tbe Vol-u,lteer to adjust to adverse condi-tions–the touchstone of a good Vol-ur>teer?

Our group went through an ex-perience here in West Bengal simi-lar to those in Ecuador mentionedby Mr. Rotbchild. But did that deter~~? Ob, no sir! We had a mea”i”gftd dialo~e with our staff and llat-tlrally we realized that it was just atempora~ lull. So what if two-thirdsof our group left Bengal right afteroltr con ference. swearing that the nexttime they mme here \vill be at thehead of an amored column \vith allgulls blazing. They were just quit-ters, right?

S“ what if the block developmentofficers (our local supervisors) Jo not\vant anything to do with us for fearof reprisals from other “brothers” ofsociety. So \vhat if I get imulted andaccused of being a CIA spy eve~time1 ride a train or bus or go to a bigto>vn.

However, these are merely cultiraldifferences and if any Volunteer isnow experiencing a similar circum-stance, he should just be that much

22

more Retible and r=ourceful andaditi. It is a mark of a tily greatVolunteer to persevere and smile a,vhen faced tith problems from yourhost coun~ “brothem.” All that isneeded is absolutely no cbaracter—this is the greatest virte that a Vol-unteer can possess. Most importantof all, eve~, prospective Volunteershould be made to memorize tbePeace COTS Handbook, ca~ it ttitbhim at all times, and refer to it al-ways. It is not often that such an un-enbghtened and misinformed publica-tion comes ~lo”g and, therefore, itshould be greatly cberisbed.

Actially, ~vhat prompted me towrite this letter was a combinationof events. This morfing I was “ghera-oefl for the second time in tiomo,>ths by some of my host coun~‘<brothers.’ Tbe demonstration infront of my house only lasted a hakhour this time and there were only200 demo,lstrators. They were alsove~ kind in their in flammato~ re-marks towards me. They only toldme that I was a CIA spy and Ishould get out. They also told the vil-lage people I>ot to collaborate withme, Then ill the afternoon, TmVOLUN~ER magazine arrived and Iread Mr. Rothcbills article. TV as Imight, I just can’t understand what ahe is ta~ng about. So therefore, Iam writing to clarify these things forMr. Rothchild and the rest of PeaceCo~s. You understand, don’t you,John?

BARRY ALmHULEC,alcutta, India

Less talk, more work

TOTME VOLUNTEER:In “Less Peace Corps, more James

Bond (May Volunteer), JObn Roth-child makes the statement: “If tbePeace COVS hm sewed any functionhere, it has been inperpetiating thesemyths” (that Volunteers are spies,etc.). It appears that he is not reallya\vare of or involved in the grassroots operatiolx of Peace Corps inEct,ador or of what Peace COPSshould really be about. It seems tome that Mr. Rothchild has beenspending too much time ~vith the“aristocracy of the poor” and notenough time with the rank and file.Nor does it seem that he is a\vareof some of the constructive, person-to-person work that Voh]nteers haveand are doing in Ecuador. Therehave been and are Volunteers wbo

ha\,e had more hon~t a“d hetterun-

8

derstood relations \tith “ationak thanthose Mr. Rothcbild mentioned, andthere are n“mero”s Ec”adorians whofeel that they are the better for hav-ing worked with some of these peo-ple.

Recently, however, there seems tObe an increasing feeling, especiallyamong some of the newer Volunteers,that if ol,e works \vith host coutrynationak on any material problem,you are not interested in the personhimself. That is, if you help a mangrow m<)re food or resist him incarting a better living, you are ti-terested only in material goods andare not only less interested in theman hut are demeating him. In spiteof this, mat>y of these same peoplehave a ho~er-than-tiou attitude anda somewhat arrogant aloofness thatdoesn’t coincide with the expressedphilosophy.

I quote from the article: “. anEc”adoria” law student characterizesVol””teers as cold, in-groupish, un-willing to mix tith Ecuadoria”s a“ddisdainful. .“ Imagine, then, ho~v

a persOn \vhO is nOt accustomed tOdoing much abstract thinking (sirIce

D

he is daily more concerned withproblems in his physical existence)might vie,v someone ,vbo does nodefinable work, is aloof, talks pri-marily shout abstractions, has no ap-parent income, ffoats about tbe,com-munity, and yet “s”ally has as muchmoney (or more) as he does. Con-clusion: The character must be somekind of a“ agent or spy!

Mr. Rothchild states, “The Volun-teer feels a lack of effectiveness. Thepeople do not. They view the prob-lem as a Vol”llteer’s lack of interest

or lack of drive (he is lazy,doe:n’t think we are xvotih it,)” But,vhy ii the Vol””teer feefi”g a lackof effective,less? In many cases, Iwould be inclined to agree with thepeople, because 1 have seen too manylazy Volunteers a“d Volunteers whoreally felt that the peo Ie they ,veresupposedly ,vorking f or or withweren’t worth all tbe time, trouble,and psychological psi” a“d stiess that~vo”ld have bee” involved if they,Vere to have been effeCtiVe workers.

I don’t think that the~e is any Vol-unteer, past or present, (myself in-

r

eluded) who could honestly say thathe ,VIS “ot guilty of this “lack of ef-fective”as” to s“me degree at sometime. It seems that the problem isthat we “fte” fail to admit ol,r om

Memorandum .TO The field DATE : August, 1969FROM ; The editorsSUBJECT: Traveling i,> the Peace COTS

What constitutes the ,,re-ent~ crisis,’ is a subject Peace COTS philoso-phers have been debating for years. A Volunteer in Afghanistan has come

uP \vi~ a new am~ver—at least for the girk. Her plaintive recko”i”g isrecorded in the following S.0.S. she sent to the Technical ResourcesDivision at Peace Corps headquarters: “This letter is speaking for myse~but I am sure it ethos the feelings of my fello\v female Volunteers. 1 \tillbe leaving here to retire home in three months and I have gained mkostthe traditional 20 lbs. Dieting is a horror but exercises are worse. What 1am requesting is a small pamphlet with exercises for ove~eight females(or the address where I muld quickly get one). This \vould be of tre-

mendous help to the morale—if it \vorks.”❑ 00

Language-wise, Thailand Volunteer Richard Davis is one in about 1300.He is the first Volunteer–of all the Volunteers and staff ,vho have seinedin Thailand—to score a “~ (“educated native speaker” in Foreign SemiteInstitite terns) in spoken Thai. Davis, ,vho has been teaching English illNan, Northern Thailand, for four years, scored a ‘<~ in spoken NorthernThai last year.

❑ 00No matter what your faith, religion and bus riding are completely com-

patible in Iran, according to Volunteer Jim Belcher \vho writes of anin-countV trip in Irin’s Volunteer magazine, Sholuc/ Nameh. He describesthe “take-off: “The departire of an Iranian bus is an especially movi,>gexperienm, what \vith the benediction in Arabic and all. 1 donut consider

myse~ Overly rekgiOus, but there’s sOmething ~bOut d~partir~g that urgesme to cross myseE on the sly. 1 can’t expblirl it rationally; all I ca,> say isthere’s no such thine as an atheist in an Iranian bus.”.

❑ ❑ 0Colodul ,,beach buggies,, are a common sight in tile Virgin islands,

but Peace Corps trainer Gerard C. DeBalyoI1’s psychedelic auto does thebuggies otle better. Islinders and tourists alike stop to stare as D:Balyonskeaks (slo\vly) by 01) his way to, as he puts it, “the closest beach tia“the smoothest road.” The reason for the careful pace: riding is as shock-ing as looking. But DeBalyon, n French cittiell of Mauritius who taughtlanguage and coordinated techtical studies for a recent group of Guineamechat)ics trainees, was rewarded by his “students” at the end of tiaining.They presented him ~vith a ne\v set of shock absorbers, installed by them.

23

limitations (lack of inter-t, drive, orknowledge of how to do any type ofinte~ersonal work) much less face

UP to We challenges Of interpersonalwork. So instead of going out anddoing anything, we sit around withour peers and philosophize, thus mak-ing talk our oal.

fThat is \v y I don’t agree tith Mr.Rothchild that the problems he dis-cusses “may be solved by honst dia-logue about our images of each otherand \vhy they doxl’t reach.” I thinkit is quite egotistical to presume thatthe typical Ecuadorian laborer orcampesino has so much time and ef-fort to devote to the problem of ourimages of each other and why wegringos are emotionally unmmfOrta-ble, \vhen he, himseU, is often wor-ried about how he \till clothe andfeed his family.

If anything constructive is to re-sult, we had better spend more timehonestly and humbly Iisteting to him,the typical Junn Campesino, and htiproblem?, atld fb]ding with him if wecan (or want to) help him with them.Honest dialo~e isn’t enough, buthonest and humble work with hostcourltry nationak in addition to dia-logue might produce some “real un-derstandil>g” as \vell as other results.

NORMAN HOFFMANFomer Volunteer and

staff member, EcuadorValmeyer, 111.

A two-way street

To THE VOLUN=ER:I enjoyed reading the article “Less

Peace Corps, more James BonW byJob” Rothcbild (May VOLUNmER),and agree that exposure to the LatinAmerican cultire makes a person less“sta~-eyed.” Mr. Rothchild does notbeheve in the premise that personalcommunications leads to increased

emotional closeness and understand-ing befiveen peopl=–as etidenced byhis experience in Ecuador. Instead,a Volunteer should adapt tise~ tothe preconception and misconcep-tion harbored in the Iabyrintbs ofhost WU”V nationaX mi.&.

This is where I take issue withMr. Rothcbild, for he makes the fun-damental mistake of cod~ing. factwith idea. The idea that the grin~o isno more than a rich pahon and ‘ thusunsuited to Eve in poverty” is a toughpill to swallow. But the fact remainsthat the rich pakon gringo still hvain the “comfortable mud hut” andalthough he does not lose his formerwealth, at least in spirit he becomesequal.

This should not be discountedlightly, as Volunteer credibility is en-hanced by liting tith host coun~nationak.

Some blame goes to Mr. Rothchildand Peace COTS Ecuador for thefaulty establishment of communitycredibility. He mentioned that anEcuadorian law student characterizedVolunteers there as “cold, in-groupish,unwilling to mix titb Ecuadorians,and disdainful,” He then focused at-tention on the mkconception of thatsame law student when he associatedPeace Corps Volunteers with CIAage,~ts, What Mr. Rothcbild glaringlyomitted xvas a defe,lse agaimt thecharge. It seems thel~ that the blameis rightfully due Mr. Rothcbild andhis compadres if they are “cold:

Association can work both wap.If you associate with Latins and theiridew, you lessen your gringo poinhand holster their confidence. You mightargue you are selfing out hy titingnative. But aren.t you in Latin Amer-ica tio years to learn; and if so, thenavail yollrself of the opportunities.

Rece,>tly 1 \vas plunking around on

my gttitara @Tano~ and a hOst

mun~ national dropped in. He saidhe played, so I gave Mm the @tar,and he proceeded to teach me thesong “Greenfields.” an berican fok 4

song made popular by The BrothersFour. The lesson ended. and = hewas leaving he stid: “Nosotros so~su.cinos” (We are neighbors.) Whathe mea,>t stiply was that both of usmuld learn in this experience.

DAD JommSanta Rita de Copan, Hondwas

Expanding our image

To Tm VOLUNTEER:Peace Corps advertising is excel-

lently done, but I feel it is too lim-ited.

Vol”nteen are usually pictired insome remote environment, sw-rounded by poor, local people. It istrue that many, if not the majority,of Peace COTS jobs fit this stereo-type, but there are many that do not.There are Volunteers presently work-ing in satiations where they deal al-most entirely with middle class na-tionals in various agencies. Others arein big cities \vhere conditions pre-vent getting to know the people aseasily as one might in a ma] site.Many live in housing with rentingwater, electrici~ a“d other mnven-iences.

If the Peace Corps would expal!dthe images it projects to include thevariations mentioned. then 1 feel it~votdd be doing a sewice to fuhreVoI~”teers. It \vould sbo\v them thegreater number of possibihties andsave them from being disappointed ifthey one day find themselves as Vol-unteers working in R big city withmiddle class people and not in a mralsite sumounded by the poor.

CA~Z DO~MKingston, Jamaica

CHANGE OF ADDRESS POSTAGE AND FEES PAID

PEACE CORPS

NameWASH INGTON, D.C. 20525

OFFICIAL BUSINESS

Street or P.O. Box

CiW, State, ZIP Code

Effective date

Mailing label at right must be sentwith all requests for changes of

address.