Returned Peace Corps Volunteer patricia eileen peterson can be contacted at eileenchgoahotmaildcom
Country of Service: afghanistan
Training Group: afghan 8
Cities you served in: lashkar gah, kabul
Arrival Year: 1966 (half training in country)
Departure Year: 1968
Work Description:
secretarial trainer & steno, helmand valley authority(bost/lashkargah); taught English grade 7, typing to students at Bost High School (coed); summer transcription work 1967 for Peace Corps in Kabul
Other Countries you served in, Training Group Name Arrival Year, Departure Year, Work Description:
none other
Bring us up to date on your life after the peace corps:
attended college, won awards as newspaper reporter for Rockford IL Morning Star/Register-Star 18 years; freelancer;homeless outreach worker 1994 in Washington DC with VISTA/Americorps; immigration legal assistant 7 years, helped win asylum cases including 3 refugee afghan sisters now living in DC; now enjoying semi-retirement living in laurel MD, looking for more excitement
Any thoughts you have now looking back on peace corps days?:
changed my life; gratitude and sadness for afghanistan's amazing people, worry that we contributed more harm than good; dismayed that nixon's '68 pre-election plan to eliminate peace corps autonomy has been all too successful despite the warnings...
Anyone you are looking for or would like to hear from?:
we had a great reunion at Lake Geneva WI August 1981, but have lost touch with too many old friends...hello to all still breathing out there!!!...
would love to be able to plan another in afghanistan...to god's ears...
Any message for returned volunteers?:
use what you've learned...don't waste any of it...it's all a part of YOU now, good or bad, our real purpose was to learn and share it back home
Leave a message here if there was an incorrect or duplicate e-mail address for you in the "Directory of Volunteers":
haven't seen it yet...whatever you have is probably from my registering in DC back in 1986-7 on the mall...
Originally posted: October 5, 2005
