February 22, 2005: Headlines: COS - Kazakhstan: Red Bluff Daily News: Joann Landingham says: There is only four months to go and I will be finished with two years in Kazakhstan and Peace Corps
Peace Corps Online:
Directory:
Kazakstan :
Peace Corps Kazakhstan :
The Peace Corps in Kazakstan:
February 22, 2005: Headlines: COS - Kazakhstan: Red Bluff Daily News: Joann Landingham says: There is only four months to go and I will be finished with two years in Kazakhstan and Peace Corps
Joann Landingham says: There is only four months to go and I will be finished with two years in Kazakhstan and Peace Corps
Joann Landingham says: There is only four months to go and I will be finished with two years in Kazakhstan and Peace Corps
Work started will be carried on by others
By Joann Landingham
Red Bluff Daily News
Red Bluff, Calif.
February 22, 2005
There is only four months to go and I will be finished with two years in Kazakhstan and Peace Corps. You know no volunteer here is alone in our work. In my case I know that Rosa at the Post Office in Maikain will have a lot easier job when I am gone. I have received over 600 books and 150-plus English videos from friends and letters of encouragement and support from Iceland to Korea to New Zealand and all over the U.S. and Canada.
I believe in my lifetime I have met so many good caring people and they all help me in some way to do the projects I have worked on here. We had a marvelous summer camp which is underwritten by Bogatyr Access Koymer, the largest open coal mine in the world and the summer English camp for 70 people served many purposes.
The camp was English practice and information for 55 students and training for seven teachers. One of the teachers was a young woman who taught English at Pavlodar State University. By being at our camp and with a recommendation she is going to go to a eight-week summer camp in the USA, get a salary for two months and travel for a month before returning to Kazakhstan. And last, the PCV's enjoyed Lake Jessaby and the camp.
This camp will also happen this summer and will be sustained in the future with other PCV's and teachers. We are going to include two university students because it then qualifies them to apply to camps in the USA.
I never thought I could do it, but with lots of help I wrote a grant. I sent it off in December and when they returned it they said "good idea but work on it."
Well, I worked but I write stories, I use adjectives, I make pictures with words, I have a serious grant writing problem! But I met Joe!
Joe Mennik is a part of our Kaz 13 group and I went to Almaty for two reasons the end of January for 11 days. One was medical; nothing wrong, don't worry. The other was I was determined to work on that grant down there if it took till my 70th birthday in September.
But Mennik was there and he said he would help me. After my literary style comes the fact that I am computer illiterate. He had everything, skills that I totally lack. So we sat down and he would read a paragraph or two and he would ask me the main idea. We talked about it then he put a bullet and a five-word statement and deleted my picture words. So it went for four or five days till a much smaller application was complete. And I got it!
When I returned to Maikain I got an e-mail. It was approved! My concept of a resource room will come true; maybe not complete in the next four months, but again to be sustained and working with the help of a new PCV.
So you see Peace Corps is not only the volunteer here, but the families and friends who help the volunteers and the Peace Corps people who will continue the work with their families and friends.
Wonderful people in Red Bluff like Viola Hill, Elaine Bethard and Marjorie and Bill, Dristin Hoskins, Marie Pettit and all the people who write and e-mail me. They keep me up on all the news.
Peace Corps week is Feb. 27 to March 5.
I'll be home after June sometime. See you all then.
When this story was posted in March 2005, this was on the front page of PCOL:
| The Peace Corps Library Peace Corps Online is proud to announce that the Peace Corps Library is now available online. With over 30,000 index entries in over 500 categories, this is the largest collection of Peace Corps related reference material in the world. From Acting to Zucchini, you can use the Main Index to find hundreds of stories about RPCVs who have your same interests, who served in your Country of Service, or who serve in your state. |
| RPCVs in Congress ask colleagues to support PC RPCVs Sam Farr, Chris Shays, Thomas Petri, James Walsh, and Mike Honda have asked their colleagues in Congress to add their names to a letter they have written to the House Foreign Operations Subcommittee, asking for full funding of $345 M for the Peace Corps in 2006. As a follow-on to Peace Corps week, please read the letter and call your Representative in Congress and ask him or her to add their name to the letter. |
| Add your info now to the RPCV Directory Call Harris Publishing at 800-414-4608 right away to add your name or make changes to your listing in the newest edition of the NPCA's Directory of Peace Corps Volunteers and Former Staff. Then read our story on how you can get access to the book after it is published. The deadline for inclusion is May 16 so call now. |
| March 1: National Day of Action Tuesday, March 1, is the NPCA's National Day of Action. Please call your Senators and ask them to support the President's proposed $27 Million budget increase for the Peace Corps for FY2006 and ask them to oppose the elimination of Perkins loans that benefit Peace Corps volunteers from low-income backgrounds. Follow this link for step-by-step information on how to make your calls. Then take our poll and leave feedback on how the calls went. |
| Make a call for the Peace Corps PCOL is a strong supporter of the NPCA's National Day of Action and encourages every RPCV to spend ten minutes on Tuesday, March 1 making a call to your Representatives and ask them to support President Bush's budget proposal of $345 Million to expand the Peace Corps. Take our Poll: Click here to take our poll. We'll send out a reminder and have more details early next week. |
| Peace Corps Calendar: Tempest in a Teapot? Bulgarian writer Ognyan Georgiev has written a story which has made the front page of the newspaper "Telegraf" criticizing the photo selection for his country in the 2005 "Peace Corps Calendar" published by RPCVs of Madison, Wisconsin. RPCV Betsy Sergeant Snow, who submitted the photograph for the calendar, has published her reply. Read the stories and leave your comments. |
| WWII participants became RPCVs Read about two RPCVs who participated in World War II in very different ways long before there was a Peace Corps. Retired Rear Adm. Francis J. Thomas (RPCV Fiji), a decorated hero of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, died Friday, Jan. 21, 2005 at 100. Mary Smeltzer (RPCV Botswana), 89, followed her Japanese students into WWII internment camps. We honor both RPCVs for their service. |
| Bush's FY06 Budget for the Peace Corps The White House is proposing $345 Million for the Peace Corps for FY06 - a $27.7 Million (8.7%) increase that would allow at least two new posts and maintain the existing number of volunteers at approximately 7,700. Bush's 2002 proposal to double the Peace Corps to 14,000 volunteers appears to have been forgotten. The proposed budget still needs to be approved by Congress. |
Read the stories and leave your comments.
Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.
Story Source: Red Bluff Daily News
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Kazakhstan
PCOL17834
32