Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Alan Kurtz can be contacted at akurtz44aaoldcom
Country of Service: Ecuador
Training Group: University of Montana
Cities you served in: Pinas, Zaruma
Arrival Year: 1967
Departure Year: 1969
Work Description: Swine husbandry, Heifer Project
Bring us up to date on your life after the peace corps:
Taught secondary school science, first in a traditional junior high near
Philladelphia, then in an alternative school in Westen Mass. nent to Cuba
with the Vencermos Brigade (1971). Briefly active in local theater in early
'70s. Got masters in education at UMass, then doctorate in couseling
psychology ('75). Work as psychologist in a mental health center serving
mostly latino clients in Western Mass, and have a private practice. Married
in 1981, and later adopted two children from Peru, now 12 and fifteen. Am
a weekend drummer in middle-aged rock bands.
Any thoughts you have now looking back on peace corps days?:
The Peace Corps certainly changed my life. As a kid growing up in South
Jersey, I was attracted to what was to me the exotic language and culture
of the Puerto Rican's settling in the '50s in my little town on the edge of the
pine barrens. The Peace Corps allowed me to follow this facination with
how different and simultaneously similar two world views can be. I still
enjoy the process of entering, with permission, another's world view. Each
person or family that I work with as a therapist allows me to re-experience
this. And I am aware today, just as I was in Ecuador, of my role somtimes
as a bridge between cultures.
Anyone you are looking for or would like to hear from?:
The Michaelsens, Ed Goff, Larry Parrot, Mark Bruce, John Rengstorf.
Originally posted: March 14, 2002
