My own two years (1965-67) as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru were a life-changing experience. When I graduated from college with a BA degree in history, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. The Peace Corps experience gave me the direction that I lacked and it was the beginning of the preparation for a career in international development working and living in other cultures - primarily in Latin America.
Mahlon Barash writes: My own two years (1965-67) as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru were a life-changing experience
Peru Peace Corps volunteer gives ode to Sargent Shriver
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Volunteering in Peru's highlands
My own two years (1965-67) as a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru were a life-changing experience. When I graduated from college with a BA degree in history, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. The Peace Corps experience gave me the direction that I lacked and it was the beginning of the preparation for a career in international development working and living in other cultures - primarily in Latin America.
My first two months in Peru were spent working with Peruvian and American archaeologists at the ruins of an Inca administrative center, known as Guanuco Pampa and Huánuco Viejo, on one of the main highways between Cusco and Quito. I lived in a tent on a plateau at 14,000 feet altitude. It gave me the opportunity to work with local people on a daily basis and to acclimatize myself to highland culture and to the altitude.
At the end of those two months, I began working for a Peruvian engineer from a community development agency of the Peruvian government known as Cooperación Popular. It was one of the flagship projects of the president at the time, Fernando Belaunde Terry. The program was designed to reestablish the Inca practice of communal labor I worked with another volunteer (civil engineer) in developing community projects, many of which were schools built of local materials in the sierra Province of Huamalíes in the Department of Huánuco. We worked with caserios (very small indigenous rural communities) in ten districts of this province in the construction of schools made of adobe and tapial with communal labor.
During our time in Llata nearly 45 years ago, we lived a very simple life. Many times in the morning the comuneros from one or more of the caserios would arrive with horses, mules or donkeys to take us to their community to survey for a school or to observe the progress of the construction. Sometimes we would just walk - it was faster. The life of the comuneros always made me feel very humble. They were very hard workers; they struggled against many difficulties and sufferings and were very poor. In spite of all this they had such dignity and pride. I always had great respect and admiration for them.
