It is people like Jackie, an African-American Volunteer in Nepal, who helped her village understand that not all Americans are white, blue-eyed, and blond. She realized that the children were curious and just trying to make sense of someone who was very different than anyone they had ever met before when they found subtle ways to find themselves next to her so that they could rub their fingers along her arm to convince themselves that the color would not come off. As they came to know her better, they would also ask if they could touch her close-cropped hair, marveling at the texture that was so different from theirs. Her willingness to allow the exploration paved the way for her acceptance into the village as a neighbor and a teacher.
Nepal RPCV Donna Fiebelkorn writes: Peace Corps is people
Viewpoint: Peace Corps experience -- Nepal, Ukraine
Published: Tuesday, March 29, 2011, 4:41 AM
The Muskegon Chronicle
Caption: Donna Fiebelkorn is shown during her Peace Corps assignment in Nepal.
To mark the Peace Corps' 50th anniversary, The Muskegon Chronicle is featuring a series of essays by former Peace Corps volunteers who have West Michigan ties. More than 430 area residents are former Peace Corps volunteers. The essays will appear several times a week throughout the month. Learn more about the Peace Corps at www.peacecorps.gov/
By Donna Fiebelkorn
FIEBELKORN.jpgDonna Fiebelkorn is shown during her Peace Corps assignment in Nepal.
Peace Corps is people.
It is people like Marat, the Krygyz language trainer who, in the middle of a conversation about the future of his country, paused, shook his head, and said "I can't believe that I am actually talking with an American". This was in 1995, shortly after the break-up of the Soviet Union, and brought home to me how much stronger the Cold War had still been for the people in the Soviet Union than it had been for us in the United States. He had still seen Americans as the enemy up until the early 1990's and now, suddenly, was living and working with Americans.
It is people like Lamas, the fifth of eight children of one of the wealthier families in Diktel, who even though her test scores were never as high as her younger brother, who was in the same class, actually did her own work, instead of cheating off the first boy and second boy as he did. During my second year as a Volunteer teaching in Diktel, Lamas began talking about wanting to be a Miss (the title used for unmarried teachers), rather than getting married at age 18, or younger, as her sisters had. She and her friends had the village tailor copy my ‘maxis' (the long skirts I wore instead of a sari) so that they could be like Miss Donna. Lamas did go on and finish secondary school and completed campus, the two-year post-secondary school, and began teaching at the primary school in Diktel.
It is people like Jackie, an African-American Volunteer in Nepal, who helped her village understand that not all Americans are white, blue-eyed, and blond. She realized that the children were curious and just trying to make sense of someone who was very different than anyone they had ever met before when they found subtle ways to find themselves next to her so that they could rub their fingers along her arm to convince themselves that the color would not come off. As they came to know her better, they would also ask if they could touch her close-cropped hair, marveling at the texture that was so different from theirs. Her willingness to allow the exploration paved the way for her acceptance into the village as a neighbor and a teacher.
It is people like the Ukrainian headmistress who always had a request in for a Peace Corps Volunteer to be assigned to her school as a teacher trainer. Why, I would ask, would you want someone who barely speaks Ukrainian, with only a bachelor degree, to come and work with your master-degreed veteran teachers? Her reply was always that Americans bring a willingness to try, a readiness to work hard, and a sense of joy about living that are essential for Ukraine and Ukrainians as they struggle to establish their own country.
It is people like the dairy farmers of Vermont, who were not quite sure where Nepal was or why anyone would want to go there, but who could identify with the dilemmas that Nepali rice farmers were facing when their land was worth more to build a house on than to farm. They realized that the impact of a changing economy was similar for people on the other side of the world, as both sets of farmers struggled with the loss of livelihood and changing future for their children.
The three goals of Peace Corps were established 50 years ago by the late Sargent Shriver, Harris Wofford (more recently of the Corporation for National Service), and a handful of others, and have guided the work of more than 200,000 volunteers in 139 countries around the world. With the overarching mission of promoting world peace and friendship, the agency works to accomplish the following:
1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.
Each goal balances with the others – a focus on providing what host countries need and want in terms of building the capacity of their own people, at the same time establishing a people – to – people understanding and ability to work together across language, culture, religious, age, race, gender, and economic differences.
The ultimate goal of Peace Corps is to work ourselves out of a job – to completely meet that first goal. The second and third goals will never end, however. Certainly one of the strongest legacies of Peace Corps is the impact that returned Volunteers have in their home communities within the United States, in terms of the technical expertise they bring back and, especially, in helping Americans understand the people of other countries.
