July 7, 2004: Headlines: COS - Guinea: Black Issues: NIA Online: Katrina Mathis, who fulfilled one of her keenest desires when she became a Peace Corps volunteer, spent two years (1994 to 1996) in Guinea, west Africa. Although people there were aware that many slaves taken from the west coast of Africa hundreds of years ago had ended up in America, notes Mathis, they were awestruck to see and talk to a descendant of one of those slaves--and to find out what it was like to be a Black person in America.
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July 7, 2004: Headlines: COS - Guinea: Black Issues: NIA Online: Katrina Mathis, who fulfilled one of her keenest desires when she became a Peace Corps volunteer, spent two years (1994 to 1996) in Guinea, west Africa. Although people there were aware that many slaves taken from the west coast of Africa hundreds of years ago had ended up in America, notes Mathis, they were awestruck to see and talk to a descendant of one of those slaves--and to find out what it was like to be a Black person in America.
Katrina Mathis, who fulfilled one of her keenest desires when she became a Peace Corps volunteer, spent two years (1994 to 1996) in Guinea, west Africa. Although people there were aware that many slaves taken from the west coast of Africa hundreds of years ago had ended up in America, notes Mathis, they were awestruck to see and talk to a descendant of one of those slaves--and to find out what it was like to be a Black person in America.
Katrina Mathis, who fulfilled one of her keenest desires when she became a Peace Corps volunteer, spent two years (1994 to 1996) in Guinea, west Africa. Although people there were aware that many slaves taken from the west coast of Africa hundreds of years ago had ended up in America, notes Mathis, they were awestruck to see and talk to a descendant of one of those slaves--and to find out what it was like to be a Black person in America.
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Katrina Mathis, who fulfilled one of her keenest desires when she became a Peace Corps volunteer, spent two years (1994 to 1996) in Guinea, west Africa. Although people there were aware that many slaves taken from the west coast of Africa hundreds of years ago had ended up in America, notes Mathis, they were awestruck to see and talk to a descendant of one of those slaves--and to find out what it was like to be a Black person in America.
"One of my fondest memories was walking through the open-air market and hearing people whisper to one another, 'American noire, American noire' [Black American, Black American]," recalls Mathis, who had dreamed of serving in the Peace Corps since eighth grade. She recently moved from Atlanta to Washington, D.C., to work with Americorps, a network of national community-service programs.
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Story Source: NIA Online
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Guinea; Black Issues
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