1973: Jim Carr served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Samoa in Luiflufi beginning in 1973



Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Jim Carr can be contacted at jamesdcarraarsdusdadgov

Country of Service: Samoa

Training Group: 11

Cities you served in: Luiflufi

Arrival Year: 1973

Departure Year: 1974

Work Description:

Taught science at Anoamama J.H. School for two years

Other Countries you served in, Training Group Name Arrival Year, Departure Year, Work Description:

Worked in the Solomon Islands, came in with training group 9 I think it was. I was the District Census Superintendent for Malaita District. For a time they called me a District Census Officer but decided that would mean I had police powers. Bad Idea. My job was to map Malaita District and over see the first national census for my district.

Bring us up to date on your life after the peace corps:

After Peace Corps I went to work for the Agricultural Research Service of the USDA here in Hawaii. Liked it because it was a lot like the Peace Crops life back in the beginning. Since then I've moved from experiments on sugarcane on all of the major islands to being in a lab working on DNA and RNA.

Any thoughts you have now looking back on peace corps days?:

Ever read Louis Becke? I feel that I've had a life like the ones he wrote about. Samoa changed me. That change really effected me in the Solomons where the locals kept calling me "nother kind white man" - in a good way. Living in Samoa with a Samoan family didn't allow me to live in the Solomons as a part of the white community (apart and above). That same training has followed me for 30 years now. I finally found what was missing all of these years in Hawaii - after leaving the islands. I now live in a tiny house in the middle of a rain forest. Decided that I don't even need the couch and am much happier than when I strove to "live the American dream".

Anyone you are looking for or would like to hear from?:

I would love to hear from people I knew in Samoa or the Solomons. I'm really interested in where their readjustment took them. Have they fit back into American culture or they forever stained with the knowledge of a different way of life?

Any message for returned volunteers?:

Not that I am such a wise sage, but my advise would be, "don't fight it". If you fill different when you get home it is because you are. You've pulled the curtain back and seen behind it. You will never again be who you where before you went overseas - thank God. Enjoy the trip.



Originally posted: 12/1/2008

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