The seven-yearitchBy BRENT K. ASHABRANNER

,. ytdmytp th.,. h.v, bee,,scnttere re 0 ts in nexvsp~pers ancl

journals \\,hich ha\,e fed rltmors thatthere might he a rift bet\\,een thePeace Corps and the acnclelnic coLlI-mu,)ity,

Yott may ha\,e read, for exnmple,that \\,e disagreed ~t,ith a leading ut)i-versity abottt trainit)g operxtiol>s on itscalnplls. You lnzy have read also that,ve vlan a,] i,~creased elnphasis o]>training Peace Corps Volunteers irlne>v centers \vhich \ve \t,ill o\vn and

OPer~te.Some ma\, thi[)k that for a relative]),

youI1g it>sti(utio]), \\,hich relied hea\,i~,on academia i,> the begi,>,~ing, \~rehave gro,vn nlighty inclepc]lde.t.

1 aln inclined to agree tbnt tbchotleymoon is over.

Bllt 1 helie\,e that ~s,e nre in ]nanybvays closer becaltse of our differences.The Pence Corps is e,,teri,>g its sev-enth year. \Ve are suffering, 1 think,,vhat lnarriage coltnselors nlight call a‘<protracted relatio)lship syndrome”;i~>short, we hnve a czse of the se~.e,~year itch.

As >ve begi,~ the se\,el>th year ofour relationship \vith colleges nlldll)>iversities, \ve have jllst begutl tofind \vnys to i,~tegrate preparation> forPeace Corps service \\.ith fomal de-gree study. \Ve are experimentitlgw,ith five-year degree programs i,>~..hicb t,vo years of Peace Corps serv-ice is creditecl to,vards a college de-gree. At the State Uni,,ersity of Ne\vYork at Brockport, for example, stll-de,lts \vill e,lter the program aftertheir sophomore year, complete theirjl],>ior year and t\vO stlmmers, a,lclthe,, be assig,led overseas.

T\vetlty Hamnrd-Radcliffe seniorsinter,>ed this sttmmer i,, Panama,Se,le&?l and Ethiopia. They retl,r,lto Catnbridge for co,>ti,lued stlldyduril>g their se,>ior year. \Ve expectto Iearl> a good denl from them abolltindepel> dent stud}, as a traitling. .tech,>,que.

These are o,dy begi”ni,lgs. Othermoclels, other pntterns mtlst be de-

,,eloped. The Peace Corps \vill meet.~cadenjin half \\,.~y al~d more.

1 am s~tre ,s.e ,vill see in the nextfe,t. years a sharp decrease i,, the oldpatter,) of one-shot, ad hoc trainingprogra”>s sprinkled ,villy-nilly aroundthe IIatio”’s campuses,

lVe are goi,lg to set t,p x fe\vtnore Peoce CO~s-rtl,l trai,ling centers–our so-called “in-house” centers–,,,hich ts,ill concet>trate 011 preparingvol”,,teers for specific areas of the,vorld. \Ve \,,ill certainly contintle to,leed ol!r tlniversity frie,>ds i!> thesecenters,

\Vitb a small ,~llmber of \,,liversi-

ties I thit]k \ve \viIl also develoD a“i,]-depth relationship. Our ctl~rentplan ,vith the University of Ha\,,aiimay \t,ell sen.e as a model. It] thecoming year, the Utlit.ersity of Ha\s,aii,,,ill train over 1,000 VOluz>teers forprograms in East Asi~ and the Pacificon an l,nusual co,ltract basis \\,hichpro\.ides for a core professional staff.The u,>iversity \vill be preparing andbackstopping o~lr Volunteers \vho areto \vork in Lfalaysia, the Philippines,Thailand atld parts of Polynesia. Ha-,,,aii ,,, ill participate in :lcross-the-board program de\,elopment throughtraining, implementation, overseas sup-port, research and e\>aluation.

Such nt> amangement should makepossible tbe buildt,p a,>d supplicationof great :Irea expertise. I \vocdd hopethat tbe tlni\,ersities ,vith \t,hich IVedevelop such plans could almost be-come or contai,~ Peace Corps acad-emies. 1,, these ncademies the proc-esses of i,,ternatiol>al commt,nication,l!nderstal>dit,g and de~.elopmea~t \\,ouldhe st~,clied a,,d the results of thestudies applied in action.

fi”t I have o,>e concer,l that Iespecially \,,ant to share ,\.ith yo,t.

1 am very mttch afrnid that thePeat- Corps has not been gi\.en allespecially friendly receptio,l by ,nany,if IIot most, of the senior facldty mem-bers on American college and unix,er-sity campuses. 1 never expect to goonto a cnmpus anymore \vithout hav-

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il,g at least one professor or deanor acadelnic vice president say to,ne, “YotI jnust remember that thePeace Corps is only one of a grestlnnny gover,llnent nativities colnpetingfor ot!r time, atld the Peace Corps israther Inarginal to o[,r instittttion’sbasic iz,terests.”

This little speech co)nes forth \vithsuch regtdarity and \vith stlch a!)nmwzing same,less of \vording thatill my bleaker Inoods I suspect itstext ,vas agreed l]pol> at so]ne I>n-tion,vide secret co,lvel>tiol, cnllecl byacademicians for the sole p~lrpose ofputting the Peace Corps in its place.

There are of course notable ex-ceptions: 1 cotdd compile a distitl -g.ished list. But it \.ould still be alist of exceptions.

1 am s~,re there are se~.eral reasot,sfor this lack of friendliness on ollrcnmpt!ses. Some professors do(lbt-Iess feel a threat in the Peace COTS’demand for a ]>e\v kind of action-oriented edt]cation for its Volut>teers.They have their course o“tli,les, theirlectures, their research projects allorga1>i2ed and they dol>’t \.nx>t anyinter feretlce or embarrassing questiot>sfrom a]) upstart outfit that is)l’t satis.fied \vitb the ans\vers that it has thusfar received to the problems of corn.mu,>icatio!>s a,ld cross-cultuv.d under.stat, ditlg, Others o,, ““i,,ersity fscul.ties still profess to see in the PenceCorps :,)1 amo~hotls do-goodis,n.

A healthy skepticism is fine. 1think Inost Peace Corps staff jnem.hers had it ill the begi],ni,~c. I amIIot talking about tb~t~ 1 am- talkingabotlt ,1 lack of i,lterest or even afai,lt hostility \\,hich springs from nfnilure or refusal o“ the part of n>anyfaculty advisors to critically exa,ninethe Peace COTS as a valid option forthe gradllati,,g senior or the master’sdegree cal, didate.

Too Inany stttdents have come tolne to say they \vere interested in thePeace Corps btlt their senior profes-sor thollgbt they would be \vasting 4

their time or should take the depnrt-

—BBrenI K: Ashabranner, one of the first PeaceCorps stafl members to serve overseas and aformer director of training, has been nomina(edby President Lyndon B. Johnson as (he agency’sdeputy director, the No. 2 job ;n the Peace Corps.Ashabranner, 46, taught Engl;sh af OklahomaStafe University before going to A jrica in 1955with a forerunner of the AID program; he helpedset up the first Peace Corps program in Nigeriain 1961 and was later country director in India.This article was adapted from an address he made10 the American Psychological Association con-vention in Washington, D. C. as acting deputy.

mental fellowship being offered orhad better get o“ with their studyprogram if they expected to be takenseriously by the graduate school.

In some cases the student surelysholdd take the fellowship, but I be-lieve every faculty advisor today hasa real obligation to have somethingmore than a superficial understandingof what personal and career valuesare possible ill the experience of beinga Peace Corps \rOlunt eer.

1 k,]ow that the Peace COWS shoulddo more than it has done to foster thisunderstanding. A university president,vho is as co,lcerl]ed as I am aboutthis matter rece,ltly s~lggested that onas many campuses as possible semi-nars be held thmt would bring to-gether top-level Peace COVS officersand faculty members representing the\vhole range of disciplines. Theseseminars tvould explore the PeaceCorps experience, its validity for thegraduating college student, and tbemost meaningful relationship bet~veenthe tlniversities and the Peace COVS.We \vould be delighted to participatein such dialogues. \Ve would welcomen,)y other suggestions for the exchangeof views and information.

It seems to me that if there wasever a natllral partl,ership it is be-t\veen the universities and the PeaceCorps. 1 believe that our univer-sities have a fundamental responsi-bility in helping to solve the worl$spressing problems of communication,tlllderstanding, scarcity of food, over-population and disease. If \ve arehonest, we must admit that the battle

against these prOblem$ has barelystarted.

Tbe time has come to question why—i” spite of the wealth and resourcesof a nation \vhich will educate 60

million people ill wr own societythis year–the Pe*ce COTS is still al-most the only and certainly is thelargest provider of Iong-tem, action-oriented educatio,> designed to grap-ple ,vith the problems of tbe worUsociety in which we live.

But as yet not we, nor the devel-

opment exPerts, nor the leaders of thedeveloping ,vorld have many of theans,vers, We perhaps hai,e ,>ot yetex,e,, formulated the right questiom.

Some of the best brains in ouruni\.ersities—not enough, but some—are thinking about the questions andthe answers. At the same time thou-sands of young men and uromen areleaving the campuses to sewe in thePeace COTS, to work in parts of theworld \vbere the better ans\vers areneeded. Other thousands are retur-ning from the Peace COTS to thecampuses–and one of the reasons theyreturn to school is that they nobvknow how much more there is tolearn,

There bas never been anything re.motely comparable to the oppotiunitythe Peace Corps has provided for theteachers and those they taught (andfrom whom they can now learn) tocome together and work togetherwith the people of Africa, Asia andLatin America to find tbe right ques-tions and to answer them h action. Ifm,e do “ot seize this opportutiity,another may be too long and too latein coming.

And so 1 propose that \ve work ato,,r partnership and spend the com-ing year drawing up the questionsand beginning our search for theanswers.

I am told that people who \vork atit almost always suwive that mostdangerous seventh year.

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0CT~6ER 19fi7

Volume V Number 12Published monthly by the Wficeof Volunteer suppn, Peace tirps,

washin@o., D. C. ~525.

St”?ti Awb~ey, editofi Pat B~ow., a?-~?,ate ed,tor; M1.,res CallstO, eda-t.,nalassbstant. Des,gn by Paul Reed.

Cmrmsoo”dent,: BoTSWANA: RaY Ber-tram. BRAZlb Tom Grill, Bob Water-man, BRITISH HONDURAS ElliottChamizo, Frederick Johnson. CAME-ROON: Mamhall Mawelll. CHAo: Na-thaniel o“ti.. cOLOMBlb Dean M.Gottehre,. COSTA RICA: Gaw Kessel.man. DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: St..,Law,, ”.., John T. T“r”er, ECUADOR:Dennis Shaw. EL SALVADOR: MarkSchoe,der. ETHIOPIA: Mi.h.el D.Pmwitt, 5.$.” Biaslni, James M.Cat.few. GuATEMALA: Y..... Jeilitte, JimJaffe. GUYANA Michael KoePPer.HONOuRAS: Mike McMnney, Drew

INDIA GeO~e McLemOre,?;~as Sennett. JA AICR Jam,.Jordan, Cerolyn T!er.ey. KENYA: Les-lie a“d Sandra Gree.ber8. KOREAMargaret Wheatley. , MAUWI: John A.Osborn J,,, David V,ck. MICRONESIARobeti, Ev,,”s, Tom Goltz. MOROCCO:Joe Knmm!.s, C. Frederick Christie.NEPAL M,ckey H“m PhWy. NIGERIAGeo,~e Ch”zi, John Shaw, PANAMA:Bea Nyb”r8, PARAGUAY:Wrothy G~a.ham, JO. McGovern,, Sandra G,Il.sENEGAb James MOr,scatO.TUNISIA:Jerald Posman, !ames Herz.g. TUR-KEY Lawrence S,mmons, Jeff Th?mP-~~~m~n:NEzuELA: Jon Halter, Monk.

ON THE COVER: At “PDe, left, CarlPurcell-s photo of e Brazilian familyin a COmm”nlty development v,*gram. Below, a. ill.$tr.~On of FredEnglander,s obsewatio” (PaEe 9] thatwo,d$ .,, firmly imPlanted in a .“!.t“ral ..”text. The fisure at right is apreliternte t,lbal man, interacting witha m...,. patter,. of i“formatlon glvln~him instant .4s1.. of a ComPlex Pro...s$ [Pages 4-8). Below, .,ntage scenefrom Puerto Rico training (Page 181.

‘aTheyare the native citizens of the electronicenvironment;, Here tninees study Iang(

W;O;:;::Y,:?6:G::::::the electric ge,leration, Most of itsmembers are still doun there, in frontof the TV tubes. But ,,ery shortlythey \vill be ,veaned from the tubesand they will be up here. Tbe PeaceCOTS isn’t ready for them.

A glance around the halls finds thePeace Corps stti lined up for Xeroxmachi,> es, reading case histories in anexpa]lding library, \vriti”g memoran.dums, repairi,,g typeivriters, compos.ing thesis-length eval”atio”s, shufflingcables, dummying a proposed Pe@ceCorps Journal and answering letters.A ce”s”s of Peace Corps headquartersreveals only t,vo television sets in thehouse, neither in operation.

All this is “hot” activity and every.thing in, on a“d around it indicatesthat the Peace COTS staff is still veryturned o“ and super sincere about thedepression babies, who p“t the showon the road, ar,d the \var babies, whoare currently making it run,

But just over the literary horizon,beyond tbe mountains of memos andbooks a“d circulars and brochures a“dmagazines, lies the next generation 01Volunteers, \vho will be post-literate,Their emergence is heralded by Mar.shall McLuban, Though socio-c”l.tllral theorist h3cLuhan has not di.rectly cataloged the Peace Corpsi“ his delineations of the “ew age, tismessage is easily and appropriately

applicable to tbe volunteer movement.He IS full of words like Participation,Roles, l“volvement, Discove~–char.ter members of the Peace Corps lexi-con, Insofar as it is possible to readMcLuha”’s philosophy in context, animportant mwsage develops. It isthat the generation nutiured on elcc.tronic media ~vill force the PeaceCorps to accelerate its motions towardmass cultire and the global villagei,lspired by electronic circuitry, Acorollary message is that the PeaceCOTS has bee” “COOYin tbe past andto stay that way it is going to have tobemme cooler to accommodate itsfuture Iegio”s.

This speculation that Marshall Mc-Luhan has chronicled the SecondComing of the Peam COWS Act ispredicated on t~vo suspicions. One isthat McLuha” is right about tbef“tire. The other is that +e PeaceCorps is perched precariously beween

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By STUART AWBREY 4and PAUL REED

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the “hot” cultllre of the past and the“COOYculture of tbe future.

h$cLuban contends that societieshave been shaped more by tbe natureof the media by fvbich men communi.cate than by the content of the corn.munication, and that tbe media them.selves are extensions of some humanfaculty, psychic or physical. Thewheel, for example, is an extensior> ofthe foot; tbe book of the eye; clothingof the skin; electiic circuitry, of thecent ral “ ewous system,

A lCOO1’Peace COVS

Until today, the dominant mediumhas been print, logical and linear–a“hot” c“lt”re of movable type. B“t a“COOYworld of mass communicationhas challenged modern man and theresulting conflict, says McLuha”, hasproduced tbe “Age of Anxiety,” alien.ation, apathy.

The antidote lies i“ awareness thatelectronic media are constantly alter.ing man’s perceptual se,>ses. Theserial logic of print is giving way tothe i“tiitive “mosaic” patterns of

videotape at Da fimouth, In the globalviIlage, they will be ‘,agentsof communication;’

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instant, enveloping, communication.Books “contain,” telex,ision “involves.”The ne,v vision is mythic, tribal, de-ce,ltralized. Man lives in”a global vil-lage and is returned to the values andper=ptions of a preliterate cldture.

Media are hot or cool. Movies, forexample, are hot, television is COO1;radio is hot, the telephone is cool.\Vhy? A hot medium is one that ex-tends one single sense in “high defini-tion,>,”that is, the state of being \vellfilled with data. Both the televisionand the telephone are low definition,because so little information is givenand so m,lch has to be filled in by thelistener, whereas the movie and tberadio project images and messages thatdo not leave so much to be filled inor completed by the audience.

The Peace Corps under these cri-teria is essentially mol. Some mightchallenge the old saw about it beinga “24-hour-a-day” job but few, willdeny its continued evidence of highparticipation (Volunteers demand it),or its continued defiance of definition,especially on the part of individualVolunteers, Even the Peace COTSAct defies explicit definition (“bigenough to drive a tmck through,”chief programmer Sol Chafkin used tosay) and this has left Volunteers, ad-ministrators and programmers plentyof operating room. On these terms,

then, the Peace Corps is a coolmedium.

Yet the dilemma of the Peace COTSis that it has al~vays ken on the fencebet\veen the old, print-oriented cul-ture, the hot one, and the new, elec-tronic-saturated culture, the cool one.One of the more obvious illustrationsof this dilemma is seen in the peren-nial “image” problem faced by Volun-teers.

Shriver’s high definition

In its early years the Peace Corpsdemonstrated huge inclinations to-\vard print. Sargent Shriver stackedthe agency with nebvspapermen, la}v-yers and social scientists, \vho in turn

applied their not inconsiderable tal-ents \vith prose to a mountain of de-scriptive material about what thePeace Corps was and what it wasdoing, (It is interesting that agencyradio and television dkect.ors have al-\+.ays been writers; tbe educationaltelevision director is a la\vyer. ) Towin appropriations from Congress,halos from editorial writers, recruits

for the cause and permissions from themothers of America to let those re-cruits go ox,erseas, the Peace Corpsrequired a definition. The people \vhoput it together did such an effectivejob that tbe Peace Corps developedwhat an annual report later referredto as “an engaging folklore of attrac-tive yourig Americans piping the way-\vard masses of the underdeveloped\vorld to the paths of progress andenlightenment.”

In rest.respect, the print-enteringfounders (assisted by m willing pub-lic) put out a hot message abollt acool program. Theu Peace Corps washigh defi”itio”, Yet, even as they\vrote, the Volunteers were establish-ing something completely remote fromdefinition, intensely personal and self-discovering, individually filling intheir o~vn definitions of that ultimatelycool term consisting of “Peace” and“Corps.” Inevitably, their personaldefinitions clashed with tbe definitionswhich showed up in the hometownnewspapers, the letters from motherand the latest recruiting brochures.The staff, in effect, \vas heating up thePeace Corps. The Volunteers werecooling it off.

The Peace COTS has learned somelessons in this area, but the tensionsof definition persist. David Elliott’ssearch for the “reaY Peace Corpstouched off the latest series of high

definition responses \vhich for themost part w,ere rd”ced, character.istically, to paper and print. This wrasanother sign that the high literacyPeace COVS has a latent tendency to..vard hot media,

We must note that no value judg-ment can be rendered on the relativemerits of hot or cool culture, or media.The jttdgments come into play overtheir applications. McLuhan suggeststhat it makes n great deal of differe]lceu.hether a hot or cool medium is usedin a hot or cool cldture. Sample: “Thehot radio medium used in cool or non-liternte cultures has a violent effect,quite unlike its effect, say in Englandor America, \vhere radio is felt as en-tert:iinment. A CW1 or lo\v literacyculture cannot accept hot media likemo~.ies or radio as entertainment.They are, at least, as radically up-settil>g for them as the cool TVmeditlm has proved to be for our highliteracy world.”

Agenb of communication

More b~sic than these relative ap-plications of hot and cool media is thefact that the U,,ited States has pavedthe way in the de~,elopment of elec-tronic medin and the Peace CorpsVoh!nteer, ,vho is comir,g of age \vitbthe ne\v technology, is able in \,aryingdegrees to understand and inte~ret it.As n lnedium itself the Peace Corpsis a,, extension of tbe America” ego

idenl, or at lesst of its political expres.siot> i!> the Kennedy era.

The Peace Corps is very much onthe front lines of the electronic n6e.volunteers ha,,e speeded up the ex-cha,>ge of information and they haveexpanded the global \.illage. We cana,lticipate a“ acceleration of theircOllecti\,e communicative influenceo,,ce the electric television ge”eratio”comes to dominate the Peace Corps.Where the Vol”l>teer hns in the ~~st

been referred tO aS an “agent Ofchange,” it may & more accurate tocall him an “agent of commun ication, ”He is a carrier of the new media, amedia missio,>ary,

By the McLuha” text, i“sta”t,\vorldwide i“formatio,> has tribalized

100K

“.. . and then when I finally did talk my tribe into learning

to read, they read Marskall McLuhan V

men \vherever it has been received.h~en are involved \vith one another.Electronic circuitiy provides a mosaicpattern of information \\.hich gives in-stant \,ision of a complex process. Thisreturns man to the tribal emotionsfrom ,t,hich he has been divorcedby a fe\v centuries of literacy, tothe preliterate ability to have myth-ical instant \,isiOn of complex prOc-esses. The result is the electronicglobal .\,illage, a “simultaneous bappen-i,,g,” non-national and interdependent.

In this process, the Peace Corps\Iolt,”teer as an agent of communica-tion> has often been a first resident illthe global village, He renders s{lchphrlses as “cross-cultural experience”or “transculturation” obsolete, for theglobal village transcends culture.Everyboiky is in the sflme tribe, thesame culture.

Of couse there are variations onthis theme. A most stiiking one is inpreliternte Africa, \vhere many peopleare leapfrogging earlier Western mediainto the electronic age, To the degreethat they are still tribal, they have anadvantage over the Westerner, who isonly begin>,~ing to detribalize. Thisshortcut has proven somebvhat confus-ing to Volunteers and propammerswho are just emerging from thelinear, print cycle. McLtlhan notes

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that “backward countries that haveexperienced little pemeation with ouro\!m mechanical and specialist cultureare m“cb better able to confront andto llnderstand electric techno]06y.”The Peace Corps has to keep that inmind in preliterate societies where it

Operates.This is but one of many contradic-

tiot)s that keeps the Peace COTS sensi-tive to variable applications overseas.Inter]lally, ho\vever, the most crucialcontradiction lies in the fact that thePeace COTS remains a print+ rientedsociety \vhile its dra~t,s increasing sus-tenance from an electronic a6e. Thesenior staff belongs to the lost-in-the-library generatio,l, The 1961-67 Vol-unteers mamred under print-riented,hot rote teachit>g in high de finitio!lsurroundings. They leamd bw toread and write and reproduce (theXerox machine users in headquartersare hardly confined to the over-30 -year-old group). This Peace Co s

Thas always been more attuned to t eCongressional Record than to ABC,CBS, NBC and ETV put together.

But by 1970 or thereabouts nobodybut nobody at the A.B. generalist levelwill even know that the CongrestinalRecord exists (exbeme pessimistseven wonder if the electromagneticbabies will be reading at all), Listen

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to McLuhan: “The young people whohave experienced a decnde of TVhave naturally imbibed zn urge to-ward involvement in depth that makesnll the remote visualized goals of usualculture seem not only unreal but irrele-vant, and not only irrelevant butanemic.” Total sound, total vision–participation, dialogue and depth. Isthe Peace Corps ready? “The TVchild expects involvement and doesn’twant n specialist iob in the future. Hedoes want a role and a deep commit-ment to his society.”

Information robbing

They will be the first Peace Cor sfgeneration to have grownup with te e-

vision. As John S, Culkin, S.J., direc-tor of the Fordham University Centerfor Communications, has noted: “TheTV set -s waiting for them \vhenthey got home from tbe hospital andthey liked it enough to clock 15,000hours of vie,ving by high school grad.uation, Their psychological intake~ystem,,is programmed for the movingImage. Then he adds: “They areplugged into tbe ‘now’ a“d they wantto experience it and be i“volvd withit, They are the only people who arethe native citizens of the “e,v elec.trollic environment,”

There are sig,ls that the PeaceCorps sees the electric futire and\vants a slice of it, It has bought acompllter, for example, which is

capable of storing memories for im-mediate and total recall. In an in-stant, it will tell how many 23-year-oldmen with degrees in agriculture area~,ailable for Uttar Pradesh. Again,\ve have instant vision of a complexprocess, a myth, or mode of simul-taneous awareness of a complex groupof causes nnd effects, Tbe patternsare not detached.

Cables will be getting a similartreatment, The Peace Corps generatesa fraction of the 15 million \vords thatflow in and out of the Department ofSttte each month. A new electronic

system Of cOmputers and high speedprinters will absorb messages at nrate of 1,200 lines a minute, 12 timesfaster than teletype.

Every\vhere in the global village,Peace Corps people are picking up in-formation, When they get together–at conferences, forums, cOuncils–in-formation is bmsbed against informa-tion, and the results are occasionallystartling and often effective. Thisprocess is involving the participants

love to fill in the huge gaps of informs-tion. The same rubbing of informa-tion against information operates simi-larly in senior staff meetings, in thePeace Corps Forum, in training pro-grams–something is usually createdout of the friction. It never happensin a lectire, but lectures (bet) arealien to the Peace Corps. Vohlnteersand staff have always been at theirworst lecturing or listening to lectures.Peace Corps people demand high par-ticipation, fill-in,. “COOYseminars, dis-cussion groups, sensitivity training.Even Harris Wofford, the most print-conscious character in Peace Corpshistory, thollght of the agency interms of a “Socratic seminar.”

As an agent of communication)>, Vol-unteer information carries t\vO \vays—one message about the ne\v mass CUI.ture goes to the ~vorld in \vhicb beOperates, the other message aboutwhat he sees and feels and lives getsback to the United St~tes. Hence,there is feedback from the communi-cator at the frontiers of the global vil-lage. Tho~lgh t>ot alone in his poten-ti~l for such feedback (every citizenof the oge is feeding back something),the Volunteer’s unique contribution tothis process is in his geographical locn-tion, \vbich few Americans can match.

Predictably, one popular form offeedback among Volunteers is .Iec.tronic tripe, recorded on site \vith aportable recorder and for\varded to

-—!+1~. Peace bros oeoDle hate lectures, Drefer high Datiicipation discussion group+,,

kl information ‘b;ushing a’@inst infoliation, as ~n the Tutis ia council meetin”g below... ;1

parents nnd friends. It is still one-\vaycommltnication, heard instead of read.But, like the cool telephone, it nllo~vsa different kind of fill-in.

As Bill Boast of the India staff hassaid, Peace Corps people are non-national. This means that they are in-volved in the centralized village \vhichcuts through archaic wncepts of cul-ture and ]>ational states. Volunteerarticld ation of thzt involb,ement,though occasionally inhibited andsome\vhat uncertain to date, may be\vhat the third goal of tbe Peace CorpsAct \vas all about. The retllrt]ed Vol-unteers seem to be trying to say sOme-thi”g abotlt the global village, mostrecently in political expression. Onereason they have ,>ot bee” too effectivemay be because they ha~,e chosen tocamy their message in the arena ofprint, by position papers, petitions andletters to The New York Times. Mc-Luhan says nationalism as an imagestill depends upon the press, hut theelectrol>ic media is against nationalismas an image. Non-nationalists, bar.bi,]gers of the globml village, \vill

never make it through letters to TheTitnes.

The five-year limitation on staff~ppointments will probably preservea good segment of the “COOYPeaceCOTS untfi the television generationgets its hands on it. In anticipatingthat day, the Peace COTS \vill have tokeep in mind that its gre~test threat isahobgoblin called experience, namelyits o\vn experience. The tendencynmong the older types eveywhere isto march back~vards into the future,to look at that fuhre through the renr-vie\v mkror. As McLuhan notes, oE-cial cultire isstriving to force thene\vmedia todothe ~vorkof the old, Thatis telling a Pea= Corps Volunteer toltse a specialized job to teach peopleto read, by rote, so they can exerciseindividual \vill on the nation-state.Alns, the Volunteer knows better. Then>ewen\.irOnment requires new tOOls—involvement, discovery, roles (notgoals) andpatiicipation. Keeping theshop tooled for the television cro~vdand its global village is now the mostchallenging task before tbe post-Shriver, pre-McLuhan Peace Corps.

q

Someday there will be a tele-vision set in eve~ booklocker andthe agency will communicate liv-ing memorandums via its own

will put’ THE VOLUNTEER, {~~communlcatkons =telllte.

Handbook, Staff Minutes, TheJournal, PECTO and TOPEC(agency cable codes) and lettersto The Times out of business,..

Before that happens, and whilewe are still lingering in the twi-light of a logical, linear and lit-erate print-oriented Peace Corps,THE VOLUNTEER would welcomefutiher thoughts on the coming ofthe electronic age and the Peace

‘Corps role init. Theakveafiiclerepresents but seveml applica-tions of the visiona~ concepts ofMarshall McLuhan. There aremany more.

A hsic primeron McL”hanismis now bcoming available free ofcharge to Peace Corps membe~.Understanding Media, one of Mc- 9Luhan’s more popular books, isconkind in the new Moklockersbeing distributed around thePeace Corps village. ●

“Therea resiQnst hatthe Peace CorDssees theelectric future andwants a slit; of it:’ Below, Volunteers in ColomMa ETV studiO.

B

6

B

Ameficaafresh

Asthe big jet flying direct fromLagos to Ne\v York transported

me from one \vorld to another in a

s~~n Of fifteen hOurs, I cOntempl~ tedhow hvo years abroad \vould alter myreactions to my nntive environment.Settli,lg onto the Kennedy Airport ru,~-\vay, I observed my first clue throughtheplal>ebvindow. Conitrtlction,vork.ers proceeding with manual laborseemed otlt of place to me. In Africa,the roles of all Westerners and EtIro.peans rarely ia~volved getting theirha,]ds dirty.

Seeil>g these workers led me toreflect llpon the reactions of tbeNigeria” sttldents while they observedme doing ma,,”al \vork on the schoolcompound, I can no\v better t,nder-stalld u,hy they regarded me withsuspicion rnther than ,vith tbe open-ness I expected, They bad rarely seen.I ,vhite ma” dirty his hands before,This fact of their environment influ-enced their co,,cept of social status.As a foreigner insensitive to theirpatterns of social mobility, I \vas

myself responsible for arousing theirsuspicion.

As 1 co,lsidered my o,vn surpriseat witnessing \vhite men engaged inmanual ,vork in Ne\v York I came torealize that 1, too, could have a similarreaction after living in the Africanen\,ironment. I regretted my hastymisjudgments of the students.

AS I walked through the ai~ortterminal, Iwasdistinctly aware of theso””d of the English la”g”age, Awaitress shouted: “Thro,von abt,rgerwith a side of french, a“d a coke togo,” These \vords,, though perhapslacking in elegance, nevertheless re-minded me of a universal fact of lan-guage: namely, that words are firmlyimplanted in a cultural context—a con-text tremendously important for inter-preting their meaning. Take a phrase

like “fulfillment of responsibility;That phrase and others like it hadpassed through my mhd o“ manyoccasions in the preceding months, Ihad termed actions of my colleaguesas “irresponsible, lazy, and waste ful,”But 1 had used these words to charac.terize bebavior i“ another c“lt”re asthough it \vere behavior in my own.I had ,Iot taken cultural context intocor)sideration, and made judgments Iwns ,>ot yet qu~lified to make.

In consideration of how words takeon meaning, I \vondered how one canco,nmunicate accurately when he hasnot lived i“ the cultire of the lan-guage he speaks for an extendedperiod of time. A speaker is oftenguessing n.hen he has not experiencednll the en~.ironments in which the,vord he utters ca” appear.

‘These obstacles confronted me as I&ied to learn Yoruba, the languagespoken at my station, But little bylittle, 1 was able to pursue the mean-ings of words as I heard them used intheir ctdt”ral context, On the otherha,,d, the African learning English inAfrica ,vas limited to texts and dic-tionaries. Noappropriate culturalc on-text \vas provided for him. Conse-quently, I felt obliged to learn hislanguage, rather than to expect him tocotnmunicate with me in mine.

Back in New York, after leaving theairport I was again distracted by thecorltent of a dialog, this time behveena taxi driver and a passenger, I over-heard the driver interrogate tbe dis-tinguished looking gentleman, “Whereya goin’, mists? Here the languagewas a cue to the vertical interchange

BY tiED ENGLANDER

9

bet~veen social classes \vhich is corn.mon in America but lacking i“ thetraditional society I recently had left,I realized that an “inside view” ofEnglish allowed me to grasp meanings,vhich might be lost i“ translation,

The cab roared off and 1 endeav-ored to cross the street through anarea I vaguely remembered as a pe-destrian cross,valk. With anxiety, Itvondered if oncoming cars \vouldacknowledge my right of \vny. Theydid and a signal of my environment%s thus reinforced.

The next day, I \vas overwhelmed\vhen I considered the mastery of com-munications accomplished by modemsociety, At 6 a.m. I collected milk ntthe door a“d ~ ne,vspaper \vith the

spOrts ne~rsOf~baseb~ll game pl~yedonly six hours earlier. The phonebrought news of a shuttle flying hourlyfrom New York to Washington. Imshed to the airport wondering ifI could get a flight that day. At theticket desk, I was instructed to tskea yellOw ticket frOm a machine. boarda plane through gate five in ten min-tttes, and to fill out the ticket on theplane, In a state of disbelief I fol-lo~ved instructions, h{y suspicion van- ~ished ns the stewardess collected mytravelers’ checks in flight.

Ironically, these conveniences trou-bld me, They impressed upon methe great power ,vhich the Americanindustrial society bas created. Withthe tools and abilities to organize thatwhich \ve have produced, we have agreat control over tbe material worldi“comparko” tocitize”s of “o”-indus-trialized. nations,

Unfortunately, making these tools,vork else~vhere is a complex process,as many Peace Corps Volunteers havelearned. There is no straight linebetween the realm of the comfort ofthe shuttle flight bet~veen W~shington

and Netv York, and th3t of the ull-skilled farlner, for example, standingbeside. tractor brought to a halt be-catlseit \vasn’t provided \vi&oil. TXVOyears i,, the Pence Corps reinforcedmy rc:dti<ntion that n tractor it, thehal)ds of an tlnskilled farmer is nomore fu,>ctional than a jet \vould h\vith an tlntrnined pilot.

Ir,cidents like the above awaken inthe rettlrning Volc,tlteerane\v llnder-sta,lding of his ou.nl cultire, He gainsax) a\voreness of the comforts of hissocicty and u,>derstnnldingof thediffi-culties inherent iII introducing tech-nological innovations to a non-indus-trializecl society. At the same time,the mar\,el of an electiic stove stimu-lates his concert) for untold nllmbersof ,vomen ancl children who dailystiaill l,llder hesvy loads of firewoodnecessary for cooking. Thus the PeaceCor]?s Volunteer who ,vel>t overseasns on “agent of change” returt]s in thevery sa,ne role. lIe may fil]d himselftaking a more active part in his ownsociety dtte to \vhat he has learnedo~,erseas.

At home 1 was distinctly aware ofman’s imprint ltpo]~ nature, u,hereasin Nigeria it seemed that natureplaced its imprint on man, I wasoverly conscious of neady shoulderedhighw~ys, paved stieets, trill out-growths of cement and parking lots.Ani,nals bvere rnrely visible. In Ni-geriathey roamed freely, \VhiIe pass-i,,g a grocery store, I recognized thatI had gone six months without eatingchicken in Nigerin, h my remoteto\v” lneversa\vchickenh the cello-phane packages I had taken for theirplacenta at home,

During my two years overseas,man’s dependency upon na~re \vnsahvays in vie\v. Most members ofa non-industrialized society devote agreat part of their energies to obtain-ing food and shelter. Back home, na-mre is disguised h “synthetics” of allsorts. The average daily task in tbecity is far removed from the agricul-tural toil upon \vhich our life is based.The goals of the developing societyIre generally relatd to fulfilling basicneeds. In America, however, leisuretime created through our industrialpo\ver frees our energies for othertasks. At the same time, as I recallusing an electronic device to changethe channel of the television set with-out getting lnp, and then using a set ofweights to obtain more exercise, 1 rec-

Ogl~ized that technO1Ogical advances,vere”’t easily directed toward theirmost conskuctive use.

I sought to examine how two yearsin a Nigerian school would affect myview of a New York school, 1 \vaskeenly aware of the diversity of thestudent body including Puerto Ricnns,Jews, Italio”s, Negroes n“d Orientals.This e“viro”me”t recalled a memoryof the difficulties I had encounteredin making the “cross cultural scene”ill Nigeria, where I was also con-fronted ,vith stide”ts of differenttiibes and cultural backgrounds. No\vI sensed an abflity ,vhicb Peace COWSVolunteers cultivate at their overseasstations. A Volunteer who spends twoye:trs in a foreign environment isforced as a means of suwival to smdy

10

the social customs, economic struc-tures, political systems and a~Om-

4panyi,lg probletns of a new subcul-

ture, In> detecting, analyzing and ad- Jjusting to new ways he can gain afacility to recognize and cope with e

structirallv similar situations existine,,in the United States. It k this ne~facility, applied in one’s own environ-ment, which can be the greatest assetto a Volunteer nnd to the UnitedShtes; it insures that the benefits ofthe Peace Corps experience extendbeyond two years.

Even if a Volunteer shies awayfrom the best culture, and tries to bidein a conclave of his o\vn, he cannotescape all the inthletlces of the hostenvirot,ment. The Volunteer mayclaim he came to do a job :tnd thatas such he does not have time to delveinto the culture. B,,t be too \vill ex-perience “cult”re shoc~ tvhen retur-ning to the United States. This is thegreatest dividend offered by the PeaceCOVS, The tension created throughan immersion in a ne\v culture is notonly a measure of the color, depthand fascination of another way of lifebut also a source from which Volun-teers dra\v the energy to improvetheir own society.

9

Fred Englander taught in Nigeria.until lti ~ring, and detielq]ed o ●vecbl intsreti in the Yoruba lan-gu~e, Flctinow working on a grad-uate degree in lingu~ics atMichiganState University.

.

A newCDdesign

for the, generalist

b By BE~ ~TC~NMN

San Salo&or. El Salu&or

Costa Ricans work on road linking their towns. “A crucial part ofCD skill is. . . how to understand oneself in relation to a group?

A ueteran staff ntentber takes a comprelwnsiue look at com-

mtmity deuelopntent—Peace Corps style. Her candid views on

all (lspects of the sublect appear on the follotoing pages,

T F Co:ps commits the tasksmmu,]lty de~.elopment pri-

marily to you,,g liberal arts grad~,ates,vith little experie,lce, and \vith onlythree lnonths of training cro,vded\vith mi,]utiae. These generalists areexpected to perform it, a foreign coun-try ancl in a foreign language ~\.ithvery little support or direction fromeither Peace Corps staff or host coun-try ,lationals. It is little wonder thatat best o,dy 50 per ce,>t of the Volun.teers i,>~,ol,,ecl i,, sltch programs haveany significa],t success. The averagevol”,,tee, si,nply does not lla\,e theexperie,>ce, training an! backgroundto carry out as diffictdt x task as corn.Inllnity development \vith the se,lsi.ti\,ity and org.lnizational ability thattbe job reqt, ires.

This cloes riot mean that the PeaceCorps ~l,>l,ot succeed ill communitydevelopment. B~,t the ,vay x,,e goabout it requires modificatio,l if \veare going to ha,,e a sign fica”t impact\vorthy of the effort and money ptltinto it.

The Peace Corps should ,vork o“tits o>vn definition of community de-velopment, 1,, most national commu-nity development programs the fieldworkers are citizens of the :>ation,and many times come from local cOm-

11

lnunities. They have received spe-cialized tiaining, and are usually paidgover]>ment employ es. The PeaceCorps places foreigners as field work-ers, Volunteers \vho are free to leaveif they \vish, and \vho represent the\\.orlCs richest and most po}verful nA-tion. This fact alone necessitates a

special definition,The Peace Corps should establish

a task force which would have thetime and freedom from other responsi-bilities to analyze various definitions,philosophies and experiences in orderto develop a satisfactory definition and

apprOach ‘The task fOrce shOuld in-clude national and i“ter”atio”al e~.perts, and retllrned staff and Volun-teers \vith demonstrated successful. ex-perience i,> community development.The task force 31s0 should developg~lideli,nes for training, programming,s“perv,s,o” a“d quantification, allstemmiz,g from a com”on de fi”itio”.

Prq-mhg

Programming involves the difficultprocess of pln,>ning the job to be doneby Volunteers i]~ cooperation \vith thehost country agency, The Peace COWSsholdd develop CD programs onlyin countries where there is a nationalCD agency or ministries utilizing orplanning to utilize CD as an integral

The tasks of

community

development~ TO study his community andits people so that he under-stands its interests and isye;f of its stage of develop-

■ To identify the felt needs ofthe people as well as otherneeds.

■ To, establish and maintaincordial and constructive rela-tionships with government of.ficials and other members ofthe power structure.

W To promote the paticipa- ition of all in the problemanalysis and decision makingprocess through democraticprocedures.

~ To help the people considerall aspects of a question, toplan and to implement a proj.ect and to evaluate the con-sequences of the decisionsand actions they undertake.

■ To maintain neutrality andobjectivity in the face of pres.sures and factions and yetremain accessible to all,

■ To stay in the backgroundand yet be available for adviceand reinforcement of positiveand constructive ideas andmoves.

W To help the people take thelead but recognize the mo-ment when it becomes neces-sary to assume tempora~leadership.

■ To be familiar both withgovernment and private sectorresources and sewices.

■ To seek and help the peopleuse available technical advice.

■ To help technicians relateto the people of the commu-nity so that their technicaladvice is dispensed in an ac-ceptable and usable manner.

■ To stimulate and train lead-ers; to encourage responsibil-ity and planning, use of localabilities and talents to en-courage and spur on; to warnand advise,

part of their obvn programs, Manycountries i,] Latil> Alnericn bnve tom.munity devcloplnent agencies, Theseagencies vary in their effectivenessand interest. Any agency \vhich be-lieves i“ community det,elopmentand, as nearly as can be determined,has a gent!ine interest i,, usi,lg and\vorki,]g \,,ith Volunteers sho{dd beinvestigated for the possible develop-met>t of projects \vith mldlnally ac-ceptable goals.

One conference to set up a pro.gram is IIot enough. Good program-mir>g reqLtires constant discllssion, re-

\,ie\ving and \vorking out of problems;it requires titne and patience to clnrify\,,hat the Voh,!lteer’s joh is to be andto help the host country officials ac-quire a rtidistic conception of \vho aVoh),>teer is nnd \\,hat he can do.

It is i,nportant to let host countryofficials kno\v that most Vol[lnteersare not technicians, l\7e only crenteill \vill a,)cl disilhlsion by raising falseexpecktitiot>s and make a difficult jobe\.en hsrder for the Volunteer.

It is \,ital in the planning stage toclarify ,~,hat the actual job of the Vol-ttnteer \,,ill be \vith both top nnd localofficials. 1,1 the plnfining process withthe host cotllltry agencies, the lo\vtna,l o,> the tote”l pole, in the longrun, may be more ilnportant for theeffectiveness nl>d satisfaction of the

l?ol”,,teer than the top officials. It

is on the local firing line \vhere theproblems are n]ost opt to come upand more apt to be ]Ieglected. Vol-tlnteers frequently represent n threatto local officials and both need totlndersta,ld each other st>d their roles.

Also, the host country agencysholdd have one person at the nationallevel who has a genuine interest in theVolunteers and \vith ,,,hom the PeaceCorps cal> \\.ork. There should be onePeace Corps individual the agency callmaintain contact \vith so the ngencycan be assured of attention in \vork-i,, g ottt problems. Peace Corps staffshotdcl bear in mind that it is a PeaceCorps responsibility to trike the initia-tib.e a,ld meet ,,,ith the host cottntry,>ationals,

Volunteer job =iWment

A specific job that CO]Ibe defineda,>d t,,lderstood by Vohtr>teers, hostcountry nationals and Selection andTrnini)lg is essential. \Vbat are theexpectations of the Peace COTS?\Vhat kind of remonable goals can beset? Hotv \vill the Volunteer \vork\vith the host country agency? }Vhatis the stlpewisory relntiotlship? \Vhntis the host counky agency’s responsi.hility to\vard him? \Vhat is the PeaceCorps’ responsibility to the agency?These responsibilities should be

worked out in advance and at alllevels, A“ understanding of the re-sponsibilities in \vriting is valuablefor future reference i“ view of fre-quent changes of personnel and as-si~ment of new Volunteers, It alsois tlseful for the Volunteer in descrih-i“g n“d explaining his function,

It is my belief that Peace CorpsCD progams will be more successfulif Volunteers are trained in a specficskill i,>stead of “generil communitydevelopment.” If the .Volunteer is,vorki”g i,] agriculture it helps if hecall say he is going to sho\v the useof fertilizers. If he is placed \vith. health agency it might help if becan say: “My job is to teach betternutrition,” To he nble to say in afe\v words \vhat he is going to do isreassuring to the people in his siteand to the Volunteer, The Volunteerhas a specific ftl”ction a“d forestallsthe s,lspicion aroused by a gringo ,vhomoves i,ato town \vith 1>0visible occu-pntiol> or ,vay of earning a living.?rague phrases such as ‘-1 ha},e cometo help you” or “1 have come to workin mmmu”ity development” do, nothelp the people in the site understandthe Volunteer, and the Volunteer gen.erally cannot make an adequate ex-planation in Spanish of the ho,v, xvhyor what of comm,lnity, development,at least in the beg’nning. A specific

function also gives the Volunteer atask on \vhich to focus, Not know.ing \vbat to do is one of the most in-tolerable aspects of the Volunteer’searly months on his assignment.

Tmhing

Training, in’ many instances, hasbeen a hodgepodge of subjects andmaterials which in the long m“ basnot added up to anything specfic,Community development tiaining pro.grams have been designed to cram toonluch theory i“ to the VOIunteer, Inmany ,vays the field is guilty of con,tributing to this hedge-podge with itsshopping list requesting that Volun-teers get tiaining and experience ineve~ kind of skill and situation. Ter-minating Volunteers add to this \vbenthey say: “\Ve should ,bave had train-ing in this,” etc. Such advice comesout of their individual situations andtbe inadequacies they have felt. Theirgeneral comments, given repeatedly,of more language, fewer lectures andmore practical training should beheeded. Apafi from that, threemonths of training can only accom-plish a fe,v things ,vell,

This training should encompass

language (a number one priority)and a thorough ~ounding in theprinciples a“d methods of communitydevelopment.

A crucinl part of CD skill is howto study a community; how to locateand use technical and material re-sources, hobv to work ,vith groups,how to motivate people, how to de-velop leadership, ho~v to understand“oneself in relation to x ~oup: Thiskind of le~rni”g trikes, place throughtheoretical principles plus the op.portunity to put these principles titopractice under supervision in a fieldsituation, Many Volunteers \vorkingin communities carry out isolatedprojects \vith no discipline or con.sciousness of \vhere they are going,atld ho,v the proj~t relates to. theoverall de~.elopme”t of the commu-nity, The use of audiovisual aids aslearning devices and a kno\vledge. ofgroup dynamics are tools of the tradeof the community developer,

Field \vork is an essential part aftrai”i,>g. It makes theoretical con-cepts come nlive and it gives thetrninee a chance to test himself

against a reality that may be similarto the one he \vill encounter. It alsb

In Salvado{, Brazil, Rose Ma~ Hooper (left) obsewes worker ina locally f!nanced costume jewelv factov which she helpedstart; Jeff Boyer (below) walks with neighbor. “The Volunteer

must learn to analyze a situation, set reasonable goals andpriorities and follow a conscious plan toward their achievement:’

gi\!es Traini,,g and Assess,nent per.sonnel a chance to see I1o,v a“ ir,-dividt~~l reacts to the pressures hewill encounter Many trainees selectthemselves out after having had theexperience of li,.i”g i“ at, area simi.lar to that in which they \vill \vork.Field experie,>ces i“ h4exico, Spanish-spenkitlg city slums and Il>dia!> reser.\,ations are extremely vah,ab]e andshould be i[lch,ded i,> all trainingprograms. Disctlssion a“d case studyn>ethods, role playing and other dy-I>atnic Iear,]i,lg techniques should bec]nphasked rather than lectt~re lneth.ods ,,,hich pcrpet”ate the strtlctttredcollege experience of lnost of thetrainees.

Prxctical skill training is also a pri.ority. The skill should be related tothe agetlcy t“ ~~,hich the Volunteer,,,ill be attached or to the focus ofthe commtl,lity de\,elopment program:ogric”ltural skills for an ag programor ngrictdt~,ral extensio,> service prO-gr>~m; heulth skills for health agency\roh,,lteers: co-ops for co-op fOrma-tion a,ld edt~catio”,

If the program is generalized com-mtl,lity devclopme”t ,vith ,>0 par.lictllar foct,s arid “I>dcr the auspicesof a co,nmtlr>ity clevelopmer>t mi”istiyor go\,er”nlental agency, the,, a deci-sion should be made by the fieldstaff and the age,lcy as to \vhat skillshotdd be tal,ght to the Volt],>teers toserve as a,> el?trbe to the co,nmunity.Sir>ce lnany of the VOht,>teers will notbe able to proceed beyond this start,a fairly thoro~,gh grounding ill o!leskill sholnhl be gi,,e” so that they ca”do it ,vell :It>d ,vith a c“”fide,>ce,vhich \vill give them ;, rolo i“ theircommunities. It> a general CD prO-

Rram, perhaps the traitlees can bedivicled into small gcotips, each tolcar” n specific skill i“ keeping ,vithits past experie,lce .I>d interest.

The Volt,,ltcer Int,st Iearr> that hecat,a>ot do c~ecti,,c CD if he doesnot k,,ow his comm,, nity. He mt,st gothrot~gh the co,>scio,ls and disciplinedprocess of gettit,g the facts x,,d xnn-lyzitlg them,

Of eqt,al importa,,ce to the Volu,,.tcer is knowi,>g I>o,v to proceed oncehe has finished his study of the co,n-mt, ”ity, or ,\,hile he contint~es hisstudy, as Iear,>ing abollt a communityco,lt;nt!es throughout the process ofIivil>g in a“d. ,vorking ,vith it. Hemllst learn to analyze a sittlntion, setreasonable goals a“d priorities andfollo,v a conscious plan to\t,ard their

Combined effotis of villagers, Iocat government, Peace Corps and AID led to reconstruct.tion of “Bridge of the Cr,cket’, north of TegarI, Afghanistan, ‘,The VOlunteer WhO takeS

achic~,ement, The Volunteer ]nust ac-quire the understanding of comm”-nity de,.elopment as a“ integratedprocess and not x,) accumulation ofisolated projects.

Training for CD in 12 to 13 \veeksis a Herc”lea” task. If \ve are toco!>ti~ue and perfect commlln>ity de-,,elopme”t the training cannot stop,vl>e” the Vol”,lteers arrive overseas.Cotltin.ed in-service traini,lg shouldbe provided through readi[,g nndsmall-group discussions led by ak,,owledgeable staff person or corn.,nunity development expert. Croupcor)fere,lces shotdd be devoted tofurther seminar-type lear”i”g, pos-sib!y led by a CD expert or by thetra]ni,>g institution. The Peace Corpsshotdd employ CD experts o“ a co”.st)lta,>t basis, both to provide consults.tie,> for staff and Volunteers and tolead seminars in the co””try for both,

Selection

It used to be, and still is to ncertai,> extent, that if one ~O”IcI “Otfit i,, any,vbere else be could do CD,The applicants ,,,ith tbe strongestrecord of group \{,ork, organ k~atio”ala)]d leadership abilities sho,,ld bc as-signed to general CD. Volt] nteers\,,ith less dri,,e a“d orga~>izi,,g abilityore acceptable for assig,, metlts tomore specific jobs !,,ithi” the co,n-ml,tlity develop,ne,>t program.

For comm””ity development pro-

g~ams the pe~c~ Corps needs aggres-s,vc, dynamic, i“tl,itive, self starters\vho are not reluctant to take the ini.tiative, to seek o“t people, to starttalkit>g a“d relati,>g, and \vho are mbleto use the information they gather to

14

develop and carry out a plan of action.The recent college graduate, if be hasnot ,vorked or nsstlmed initiative nl>drespo,}sibility in some kind of activity,is not going to be able to do this,

People \vith the follo\\,ing back-groltr>ds lend themselves more readilyto community development \vork:Iozyers (they h~ve to get informs.tie,), atlxlyze it, corlvince ]?eople,etc. ); arlthropologists (they are in- aterested i,, culture, curious, a“d haveoften done field ,vork in remoteareas ); social workers (they are used ●to gatherit>g facts n“d trying to “unde-rstand why people bebave the \vaythey do and trying toinfluence peopleto help themselves–the best social,vorkers are group ,vorkers or mm.munity organizers); recreation workers(they ore used to working with pee.ple it, grollps a“d promoting coopers.tion and team ,vork); exte”sio” work.crs ( they are clsed to promoting ne,videas o,,d methods); politicians ‘(theyare t~sed to ,vorking ,vitb people,organ+~it,g them a,)d i“fl”enci”g them–they ,~eed not be high ranking poli.ticians bttt may have \vorked i“ cam.psigns ); teachers (they have experi-ence i“ dealing \vith people a“d knowho,,, to get across ideas effectively);health od”cators (they are a,vnre ofthe effects of c“ltt,re and attittldesnnd have a community-wide approachto their \vork).

Trainees should be co””selled o“tof a training program if it becomesobvious that they are not going to heable to do the CD job, Anyone who ,does riot demonstrate initiative, whoneeds support to get along, who is &immatttre, or makes “o progress in tbeIang”age is doomed to failure or at

P

best to sitting out tlvo years as n“drone,” Some of these people might\vork out in other types of more strllc-tured al]d specific assignments andshould be put into them. All Volun-teers classified as “high risk-highgain” sholdd he given a chance togo overseas.

SupewkiOn

All Voh]nteers are caught in thedifficult situation of trying to pleasetwo sets of hsses–the ones ~,.ith theirhost country agency snd the ones\vith their Peace Corps staff. Intheory, it is the host country agencysupervisor who is responsible for theVolunteer’s daily \vork. In actual fact,the Volunteer is subject to pressuresto perform according to ~vhat may betwo opposite points of \,ieu,. In somecommtnnity development situationsthe Volll,>teer may have relati~,e free-dom from both staff and host countrynationals, Bttt he is apt to have amuch closer daily cot>txct \vith hostcountry natio,>nls than> with peat?Corps stfiff, and the effectiveness ofhis \vork, in the long run, \vill bemore dependent on his getting along\vith host country nationals than ivithhis associate director.

The \vhole matter of supewisionand control of the Volunteer requiresa sensitive balance of interest, statusand authority. While the country di-rector cx”not guide the day to daywork, neither cxn he abdicate hisresponsibility for the \vell being ofthe Vohinteer. This requires under-standing, constant discussion andworking out problems case by case.Helping the host countiy agency un-derstand the natire of voluntarism

and explaining that the Volunteer ISfree to go home if he is dissatisfiedmay help the agency put the Volun-

teer in versvmtive and help him \vorksatisf~cioril~.

The Peace Corps st~ff person has toget the” stuck ,Volunteer started, helpthe Volunteer think of and use re-sources. help the Voluntwr see \vhenhe is runn~ng the shobv instead ofhelpit]g the community run the sho~v,,vhe,> he is harming host country :e-Iations and kno\v \\,hen be needs to beleft alone and \vhen he needs help.The stnff member mltst hive pntienceand time for prolonged and thought-ful discussion. This means a reason-able rntio of Volunteers–30 to 40–toeach staffer, He has to help the VoI-unteer see \vhere pro~ess has beenmade and understand the value of theSIOXV,frustrating approach. He hasto help smooth the \vay bet,.een theVolunteer and host count~ nationals.He has to be able to spot tbe Volun-teer who really doesn’t have it to doCD, btlt \vho muld make out in astr,,ctured and more spectic assign-ment, a,ld get him moved. It is notenough to tell a Volunteer \vho can-not get started to “get moving” healso has to be able to tell the Vohln-teer hobv to move, \vhat to try, and,vhere to try.

One of the staff member’s impor-tant responsibilities is that of obtain-ing special skilled help for tbe Volun-teer from host country or Peace COVSsources. The staff member cannot bean expert in everything, but he shouldknow where the Volunteer can get theexpert in forestry, in rabbit raising, inconstruction, in irrigation, etc. Manycurrent projwts include plans for spe-

15

cialists such as engineers, architects,co+p and agricultural experts to back.stop the Volunteer when such mid isnot available from the host agency.It is an excellent way to help A.B.generalists work more effectively andwith greater confidence.

The ability .of a staff member tostimulate initiati\,e, develop individualability and to inspire a Vohlnteer togive his best is of far greater valuethan having a series of practicol skills.Traini,~g in techniqtles of supervisionand personnel development is essen-tial for staff members. Staff, too, needsto learn and develop through seminarsor short courses \vith CD experts \vhocan focus on the stlpewisory nspectof sltccessful programs. Staff memberscannot give to Volunteers oltt of avacullm. They mltist first hsve knou,l-edge and skill and confidence to befible to pfiss these qualities on toVolunteers,

Use of matetil rwOurc-

Staff needs to help the Volu,>teermail>tain a balanced point of viewto\vard the use of material resources.h{ost national commllnity develop-ment programs eventltially provideso,ne sottrces of ftt,>ds for specinl proj-ects. It is unrealistic to nssll)ne thntimpo\,erished communities are goingto be able to raise all the funds neces-sary to meet project needs. The\loI~,”teer ,Vho takes ~“ exaggerated

attitllde agai,lst outside assistancemay be a detriment to a commu]>itythat, \vithout the Volunteer’s interfer-ence, might be able to get badlyIIecded help. OJI the other h~nd, theVoh,nteer \vho by his o~vn effortsgets material goods besto\ved o,, thecommunity perpetuates the notionthat it takes a,> influential outsider todo things for the community.

Generally, CARE and Emb*ssyspecial project help is available tocommunities at>d has been long b-fore the Peace Corps appeared on thehorkon, It \vill continue to be nvail-able should the Pence Corps be \vitb-drawn from a country. The importantfactors to stress are: ho~v to help thecommunity learn about resour~s, andto meet the requirements for them andhow to apply for assistance. TheVolunteer \vho helps a communitylearn these facts has opened a chan-nel of wmmunication to sources ofhelp \vhich can continue long after hehas left the scene. hleeded resources,vhich fit into an integrated plan in-volving the people do not destroy in-

dependence any more than federalgrants to states and communities inthe U.S. for roads, \vater supplies,se}vcge systems and poverty programs.The tailoring of nvailable resources tocomlnunity needs fulfills the U,N,definition of community developmel>tby uniting the efforts of the people~vith those of government and theprivnte sector,

Urban vs.mral CD1,1 ~ny opi”ior> the basic process

of CD is the sa,ne ,vhether i,> rt,rnlor tlrbat~ areas. The same skill in,vorki,,g ,vith people is ,,eeded. There~I>oy be a difference i]l emphnsis inthe city, certxi”ly greater difficldty it]defi[litlg n comlnclnity, greater clivi-sive,less :]lld confusion on the part ofthe people, a different pace andtinling. It is harder for the Volun.tecr ill the city to be accepted, a“dfor him to find \vbere to take hold.Ele,nental needs are not .Itvays e,,i-del>t. There :dreacly is some organ.kation. It takes gre,ter drive, skilland persistence for the urban CD vol.ut>teer to sltccecd, It is i“ this area\t.here a specific skill can he most use-ftd to the Vohtllteer in establishingcredibility a,ld gii,ing him somethingcollst ructi~,e to do \vhile he gnthersit~fornlatio”, sorts it o“t and is able to

\vork out a strategy of action. Tbemore sophisticated the urban area thegreater the ability and drive require-ments of the Volunteer.

Urban CD has proved to be moredifficult than mral CD in the ,PeaceCorps experience. Therefore, it re.quires greater care in programming,selwtion, training and supervision.Only strong Volunteers from nmongCD types should he placed i“ such aprogram. Each Volunteer shouldhave a specific, practical skill besideshis CD skill. The ratio of staff toVolunteers should be lo\ver–1 stafferto 20 or 25 Volunteers.

The “atltre of the urban CD process\~,ill he complicated by the fact thatit is harder to detemi”e felt needs.There may be too many co” flitti”gneeds, People are abvay from thecommunity nt \vork and it is harderto get them together in group meet.ings. There may be a great need ofestablishing a commu,xity iderltitya]no]lg sl[spiciolls people \vho do IIotkno\s. each other. This may requirede fini,]g sex,eral communities \,,ithi” alarge t)rba” area. The job may i“.volve coordit>ating already existingorganizations rather than, creatingne,v org~,>izxtions. In any case it re.quires m~>ch more thought a“d prac.tice to decide the best \vays to “se

Volunteers i“ community developmentin urban areas.

Evduatfon

One of the most difficult tasks istd evaluate the results of communitydevelopment activities and to measuretheir effects, At present tve do nothave n“y precise nays of quantifyingresults. One can count miles of roadsbuilt, schools built, etc,; they are theeasiest to see and both staff and Vol-unteers fall into tbe trap of judghgCD \vork in terms of hotv much of thiskind of work bas been accomplished.But community de~.elopment hastaken place if people are p~rticipat-i“g, if more children attend schooland more people use the heolth center,if people have been able to go to ago,,ernment o~ce to discl,ss a prob-lem or ask for a service, if literacyteachirlg is under ,\,ay.

Some means of evahlating the re-sults of CD \vill have to be devisedthat does not plnce ~.alues on ma-terial accomplishments oxdy. A tom.bination of statistics, such as tbe ]Ium.ber of meetings held and gro,vth ofatte”dnnce at them, school attendance,number of visits by governme]>t tech-nical officials, amount and volue of ma-terial resources coming into the corn.munity, participation in elections,

) agricultural production figures, realvalue of construction projects in termsof materials a[ld donated labor at the

*., go,ng rate of wages, use of health sew-Ices and morbidity statistics, etc., wille,ve an overall nicture. Such facts0.

must be judged’ periodically to de.termil>e how the community rated atthe time the Volunteer arrived andho~v it rates St the time of his depar-ture. Finally, is the communityaffwted by two or three generationsof Volunteers?

How to measure results in CD ksomething that both staff and Volun-teers \vill have to learn and experi-ment with. Prodllcing results in orderto get appropriations is increasinglymore necessary. The task forceshould make recommendations as tohow this might be accomplished infl]ture CD programs, For the timebeing we should make an nttempt tomeasure what is happening no~v.

Betty H!ttchimon k the PeweCorps diretior in El Salvador. Shehol~ a B.A. in wciology and anM.A, in wcial work. Her preoiomPeace Corps e~erience includes sero-ing m msociote director in Gobmbiaand deputy director ill El Salotior. ‘She * one of the first two women toseroe as coti ntry directors.

●

From the Dominican Republic: Rick Kauff-man (left) vaccinates child against TB. Be-low and at right, Dominican citizens. “Somemeans of evaluating the results of CD willhave to be devised that does not place val-ues on material accomplishments only~’

Photosb, Job” TcrenceTurner

Theimportanceof guiding

trainees

~ .I,st;.ted trpgpr.gam isnot t e same t lng as an unad.

mi,listered training program, That isthe b~sic lesson the Peace Corpsshould learn from its experience ,vith“unstrtlct”red training in Puerto Rico.

The failure to replace leadership,vith guidance p“t the Peace Corpsin the positio,> of the father ,vho ,vasso disnppoi”ted \vith the preparationfor life his first dat]ghter obtained i],conx,ent schools th~t he told heryounger sister to make her o\\,n wayi,, the \vorld as SOO,>as she \vas toilettrxi,,ed. All i,,-bet,veen approach,,vhere trai,,ees recei,,e guidance asthey make their o,vn decisions, ,vouldsee]n to be called for,

Bl,t the message the trainees got\vos: trail] yet, rself as you \vish. There\.as no curriculum. Staff memberscould he used as resources as thetrainees created their own program.Bt~t whet, trainees asked to share inthe stzffs kno>vledge of co-ops theywere rebllffed. In an unstructuredprogram, they were told, one lookeds“cb things ttp in books, Ohvio”slythe progr;lm \vas as ““defined as itW’IS unstructllred. Tbe essential partof the q“estio”—informal b“t tom.petetlt gtlida”ce–\,,as missing. Thustrainees \vere given a chance to findthemselves. But if they became lost,some staff members ,vere willing to>vait indefinitely to see if they wouldget back on the right track. If theydidn’t, their erratic course \vould “Iti.mately be terminated,

This ,vait-and.see attitude ~a~ ~vi.

dent in field tiai”ing. Like the entireprogram, the f“zzify-defined goal wasgood and the execution was shabby.Erich trainee spent tbe~ ~veeks \vitha rural family teaching himself aboutcommunity de\,elopme”t by makingsurveys a“d examining local prob-lems. Those ivho started off on theright foot grew with the experience.Those \vho made a desultory startnever caught up,

One tiainee spent a very relaxedtime until his first “reg”lar staff visit”finally occurred at the end of thesecond \veek. By this time he had\vosted t,vo-thkds of the experience.The staff member, apparently an ad-mirer of Calvin Coolidge, said nothingabout the debacle. “The business oftraining is tbe trainee’s,” he seemedto believe. B“t all was not lost, Twodays before the end of field trainingthere was another visit, this time by amore o“tspoke” staff ma”. The &ain-ee performed well for the remai”i”ghVO days.

He had been ignorant. It is theduty of the staff to mold such tiain-ees into Volunteers, not by \vaiting““til there is hardly any time left topractice \vhat is preached,

The primary prerequisite for a suc-cessful training program is a staff thatunderstands a“d appreciates what isbeing done, In Puerto Rico, as tbeco-op example shows, the staff did “otunderstand the program, Not under.standing it, staffers were as “nmm.fortable as the trainees a“d made nosecret of their dissatisfaction. They

18

sa~v that trainees were give,, e“o”ghrope to hang themselves. They didnot realke that they %vere supposedto suggest bo,v one could escape be.fore the noose became too tight,

Trai,>ees should he allo\ved to ex.plore blind alleys, This is relevant 9to \vhat they will experience as Vol.unteers. On the other hand, theyshould not be allo\ved to stay in u“.nrnfll,otive ruts i“defi”itely. ●,.. .-=..

The trainee approach ;O coops isindicative of the problem, Seeingthemselves as comprising a comm””i.ty comparable to the rural sites theywould be assigned to, the traineesattempted to organize one anotherin co-ops. The tvbole concept wasriddled \vith fuzzy thinking, Theireffort was wasted, A commtl”ity de.veloper ca””ot expect to fom a cO-Op as an opener, for it is a lengthYprocess. \Vhat tbe “ew Volunteerneeds is a fe~v opening gimmicks (likehow to improve local crops quicklyand cheaply) to wi” comm”r,ity con-fidence and make later, larger proj-ects, like co-ops, feasible. Behvee”the time initial interest is indicatedand a co+p is created, the Volunteerhas enough time to take a co-op cramcourse,

The trainee effort was invalid onother grounds. Each member of thegroup \vas tqing to be a non-directive

By M JAFFE SOW, Cuutemala4

I

I

leader. There was a SUWIUSof lesd-ers. Further, these college-educatedpeople could not hope to respond tothe suggestion of a co-op like illiteratecampesinos do. They could nOt react

~ ~,~j~~ F ‘r~inees =3 Peop,ea Volunteer who is inoutsider in their communities and hasdifficulty with their language. If

B, 1the Vo tlnteers could have accuratelysimulated campesino reaction, thetrai]>ing would have been unneces-sary, And what Volunteer has everfailed in his attempts to form a co-opbecause all the potential members\vere already so involved in otherco-ops that they bad no time for the,,e~v effort?

Granted that the trainees werelearning by doing. This would alsobe true if they had tried to assemblecomputer memory cores and such anexperience would have been onlyslightly less relevant.

The newous staff committed tbesame sin as the eccentric parent did—it was not consistent. While somefollies were allowed to run theircourse, others were guillotined. Thishappend when the women \vere toldto create their own domestic skfllstrain>ing program. Their schedulewas receivd without comment, butwas suddenly revised two weeks laterwhen the staff made its displeasure

h

known by issuing. a new schedule.Moderation was seen as a quality

to be avoided. Either the staff or thetrainees would mn things. But Kav-ing trainees create their ow pro~am

A scene from Puerto Rico (1965}The trainee needs to t~ his wingsbut he must be helped toavoid repetitive crash landings.

,vith guidance from the staff wassomeho\v out of the question. Per-haps the staff did not want to puttheir proposals on the line and risktrainee rejection.

Trainees shared this all-or-nothingvie}v. Some became enraged whenthey were told to 611 out peer ratingforms just a few weeks after learningthat they could conskuct their o\vnprogram. They thought they badbeen conned. At best, the policy ofpainting a black-and-\vhite picmrehad left them misinformed. The pro-gram should have been better definedfrom the start. The definition shouldhave included a precise statement of,vhere raponsibil ities lay, Withoutsuch a definition, the program w,asdoomed,

Community developers are left totheir otin devices \vitbiri generalguidelines defined by country staffs.A Volunteer who seems to be founder-ing is

fiven guidance rather than

being al owed to meander for monthsand then suddenly receiving an au-line ticket to Washington.

In a realistic tiaining program, thetrainee should be put in the sameposition, He needs tbe opportunityto by his wings, but be must behelped to avoid repetitive crash land-ings.

Jim Ja%e, a VOLUNTEERcorre~ond-ent, and hti wife, Vicki, are “dumn~of the utimctured training programin Fuetio fl~o. They have been inGu&emda for dmti a year.

19

Volunteers leave .Midwest Nigeria

Peace Corps operations in the Mid-western State of Nigeria were sus-pended in mid-August. Tbe evacua-tion of 127 Volunteers and 11 staffmembers followed by three \veeks thePeace Corps withdrawal from thebreakaway Republic of Biafra, whichborders tbe Mid\vest.

Peace Corps officials in Lagos or-dered the withdrawal from tbe Mid-west because the “uncertainty of thesituation put the safety of the Vol.unteers in jeopardy.” This decisionfollo~,ed the closing of schools and.gro\ving problems. in maintainingother projects, which left most of theVolunteers without jobs. Country di-rector John ~McConnell said he re-garded tbe ,vithdrawal of the Vol-unteers with regret but expressedhope that the Peace Corps \vould beable to return to the Mid\vesternState.

After they were evacuated to Lagos,most of the Volunteers accepted as-signments in other African nations.A total of 329 Volunteers continuedsert,ing in the Western and NorthernStates of Nigeria..

Meantime, two groups which badtrained for service in Nigeria duringthe summer were posted in othernations, and two fall programs slatedfor Nigeria \vere cancelled

Bomb injures threeRuy Ribeiro, 40, a Brazilian em-

ployed by the Peace Corps, lost bisright hand and suffered abdominalinjuries \vhen a bomb exploded ok tbeentrance to the agency’s office in Riode Janeiro on August 1. Two Volun-teers were slightly injured by the blast.

An unidenti6ed passerby depositedthe bomb ti an innocent-looking pack-

age ‘Outside headqua~ers and Ribefiowas hurt as he picked it up. It waspresumed to be a politically inspiredact dkected against the Peace Corps,but authorities were unable to find thepe~etiators.

Helen Kelm, a Volunteer in Brazil,and Patricia Yander, a former VoIun-teer from El Salvador who was tra-veling tkough the count~ at the time,were hospitalized with minor in Itlries.

~ LEVVERSVoVMEWOLMNVEERBe yourself

To THE VOLUNTEER:

I’d like to express agreement \f,ith

David Fraley (hiay) that the Volun-teer is an i“di,,id~lal and should betreated as ol>e. I think the persol]\+,ho is permitted to be hi,nself \vill be

a great aid to the people arolt”d him.At this point the question arises, canthe Vol.]lteer be himself? If he ,,,a”tsto try a project that has l>e\,er bee,lconsidered, he realizes that he’s un-con\.etltiol>al it> the eyes of the PeaceCorps society; be becomes consciollsthnt the spotlight is on him. The pos-sibilities of faih]re, pl,blic ridicule,ancl perhaps being terminated earlyocct,r to him. lVhy should he feelthis \vay?

I do,l’t thitlk you cat] poi,lt to .any-o,le in particldar, bllt to the \~,hole

Try anexistentialapproach?

By LEN~ tiTA

Peace COTS society–the offices, tbehierarchy of officials, the conferencesand in a fe\v \vords, that \vhich ksymbolic of the Peace Corps establish-ment abroad. You realize the need tobe silent about \vhat you \vould liketo be pri\,ate. “JVbisper,” as x grand.lnother ltsed to say, “the neighbors,t,ill hear, ”

I thil]k better conditions for it]divid.uality \\,ould come \,,ith a reductionof this gross aspect of the Volunteer’slife. h> short, 6i\.e the Volltnteermore freedom.

JESSEROS,XBLW>%LIadras, h,dia

Who needs definition?

To TSIE 170LnTEER:

The Peace Corps is endlessly beingde fi,led, n,>d \vriters ha\,e become ob-

~ ~ paying Americar, publicos ,11the Peace COTS coutltries,

Peace Corps staff and Volunteers mn-tinlte to seek a credible expression of\,,hat the Peace Corps is. The attemptsto provide this expression have beentlnstlccessful, primarily because mostdefinitions of the Peace Corps arepersonal ones.

The problem does not lie in theabsence of definitions, for compre-hensive and well informed ideas about,,,hnt tbe Peace Corps is exist in theminds of many persons. Instead, tbeproblem arises from the lack of acommon statement, or perhaps thelack of an expression that is seman-tically shared. At present, mostattempti at definitions or statementsof goals are drawn from indii,iduals’experiences. If we consider the

myriad Of alternative definitions, it isno xvonder that little agreement canbe reached on these statements.

On another plane, general andcomprehensive definitions of the PeaceCorps, such as those offered by DavidElliott, ha\,e amomplished littfe in theattempt to accumulate our ivide ex-perience into clearly defined expr=-sions which hold relevance for theVolunteer and for the tax payingpublic.

20

sessed \vith such words as “’image”and “role,” suggesting of course that 9

there k no one ima6e, no one role.~.And I don’t think we need apologize

for this lack of definition, for w,e aredealing \t,ith many mu.tries and com-]nunities, all with unique problemsthat require distinct approaches.

Your publication wotdd be of great-er i,lterest if it concenled itself moreu,ith accou!>b of specific prolectsaro”,ld the \vorld than ,vith theseinnoctlolls Ineanderillgs, these intan-gible definitions \vhich inappropriatelyrepresent the mentality of the class-rooln.

Kerugoya, KenyaJOSEPH LUI!IE

On femininity

To THE VOLUNTEER:

There are a few thin6s I \vould liketo say about femininity ill female Vol-unteers.

1 find that my enjoyment of andtendency to \vait for the man to open

For example, the Peace Corps hasde fil,ed itself as a vehicle to furtherthe understanding by Americans of ●other people and them of us. Also,it is said that a pu~ose of the PeaceCorps is to contribute to the socialand economic development of nationswhich have chosen to Inunch such onattempt for themselves. In addition,the Peace Corps has been describedas an or6anized and functional expres-sio,l of human love, And some of usfeel that our efforts will result in theestablishment of a peaceful interna-tional community.

These expressions are inclusivestatements of the long-run results ex.petted from the e50rts of many in-dividuals \vorking in di5ering projectsin \,arious muntiies of the world.Those efforts precede the realizationof the goals, The stated goals arestatements of the expected cumulativeeffect of the efforti of many individualVolunteers who pursue a more spe-cific set of objectives or sub-goalswhich over time will lead to the re-al ization of the 6enerally stated goals.

Therefore, any tenable and tem-poral de6nition of the Peaw COTSwill have to be phased in a set of 4objectives and sub-goals which indi-vidual Volunteers pursue and which

o c,oors,hailcabs, b”ythe tickets carrythe heavy things, etc., is on the in-cre.lse the longer I nm here. I was

*,.pcrbaps a little 011 the independent~,de ,vhen I arrived, due tlndoubtedlyto the training syl>clrome of “Dutchtrent.” No\tr, I expect the Volunteeror situation to definitely indicate thatit’s a p~yyour-\\,ny movie or \vhat.ever. With the host count~ na-tio,lals, this procedttre doesn’t existatld I think th.nt lmost of the m.qleVoh!nteers are slo\vly getting thepoint.

Por example, stlppose you’re \\,ith ayol,llg man ~t,bo speaks terrible Span.ish. \Vho ,,eeds the experience i,,speaking more? He does, of course.WI1O,vill take the most pride ill beingthe one to do the tolki,,g?–,>o ques.tion, really, After,varcls yo~t ca” co,n.I]>e,lt o“ his man,elo~ls handling ofthe situation and his pride shoulclnlnke up for any ,ni,>or i“corl,,eniences,,,hich ,night have res{llted. After all,sit>ce \,,hen does a x,,o,nar, ,,,ant to bethe Inodel of a~lthority?

A,,other problem lnentiol>ed by

remail) common throughout the manyhost commtjnities irl \\.hich Vohlnteers● ,Vok. Such ~ .omtno” denomi”at?r,vo,dcl provide n mode of expressionthat all Peace Corps members couldshare. This denomi,>ator \t,ould alsoplace the agency’s long-rl,tl goals ina perspecti~,e of rele\,ance to the im-!nediate and persox>al experience ofthe Voh,,, tecr.

I“ order to formulate such an ex-pression, 1 sllggcst that \ve examinethe circL, n>stances t!,bicll lead to a re-qllest for \Tohlnteers and the n>an”erin \,,hich Volunteers accomplish theobjecti~,es ol,tlinecl in x host nation’sreqltiest.

A reqtlest for Voh,nteers impliesthat the inviti,lg govcrtil,nent is insy!npnthy ,\.itl~ the loa~g-rl,l, goals ofthe Peace Corps ;l,,d has Iatl,>chedprogra,ns of self-help i“ ,vhich VoI-t~t>teers coldd participate it~ a col>trib-ltting and substnnti\,e manner. Thef~ct that the Peace Corps is in\,ited tohelp people help themsel~,es suggeststhnt its assistance to host communi-ties cotdd answer needs or fulfill wants

b

which they have defined for them-selves. The Pexce Corps seeks tohelp in the attainment of the objec-ti\,es of satisfying host count~ needsor fulfilling wants. The successftd

Ros~lie Le Count (July issue) \vasthat of living alone and having tomatlage the daily routine. k{any girlsdo not feel this is n problem whenthey keep in mind that there areus{lally one or more caballeros in thecro\\,d \t,ho \vill notice ho\v suavelythey are managing even though theyappear to be so helpless.

When I first arrived I \vas annoyedby the men who spoke to me in thestreets. I didn’t nppreciite beingtold 1 \vas be~utiftd \vhen I’m not.No\v, \\.hen ~m \valking along ab-sorbed by the busy rolltine of the d?y,it gi,es me n man.elous feeling ofheit>g ali\,e to I>a\,e a man take aseconcl look, and ~vith admiration in

his eyes, tell me hoiv ~ve impressedhi!n. We kno\,, ,vhe” he speaks thatI“m tlot really beautiful, but somethingill ,ny appearance, my \valk, the dressI’m \,.earing, is being appreciated.This alone is enough to encouragenr>y girl to look femi,>ine, \vear attrnc-ti,.e clothing and to ,valk gracefully.

1 think that in Latit~ American cul-ttlre n woman ca)>’t help .kno,vitlg

ans\\,ering of those l~eeds, i.e., the ac-co]nplishme,>t of an objective, \villcolltrib~lte over ti,ne in the realizationof goals \,.hich Pence Corps and some)latio,~s ha~,e adopted.

I propose that the present inabilityto define the Peace Corps except in\,ery general tertns can be compen-sated for. hy defining ourselves intertns of the ivay \be pursue our goals.1 \vill demonstrate the possibilities ofthis lnethod by citi,>g the similarity ofthe approach of Volunteers towardthe accomplishment of theu objecti~,estinder apparently dissimilar circum-stances:

1“ one itlstance, a Volunteer is in-,,ited to India to de~.elop a smallpoultry industry in a commuriity\vhicb \,,ants or needs small poultryprojects. The community responds tohis efforts by raising successful units.The conseque,>ce of his efforb is thata ,,eed or a \vant is filled.

In another case, a Volunteer is in-vited to Latin America to work incommunity development. Upon estab-lishing himself in the community, hebecomes attnched to a communityorganization which requests his helpin the mnstmction of a statue of thecommunity founder, The Volunteeris able to organize their resources and

21

she’s a \\,oman and, may I add, thefello,vs seem to be acculturating pretty,,,ell, too,

DIANA WILSONGllayaqt,il, Ecllador

An oldster’s experienceTO T1<E VOLUXnER:

The July article, “AI> oldster speaksout,” has e~,oked a response from meas at> oldster. When n,> Indianapolist>e\s,sp~per came oltt \vith the an-,Io,t”ccme,>t of the “elderly” hfrs.A$atthe,,.s \,olurltcering for PeaceCorps ser\, ice, some of my frie,lds\\,rOte me ill protest. “YO1l nre notelderly. We resent that \vord,” theysaid. But \\,he!l i,] training at

Bra,,deis Ul]i\,ersity last summer \ve\,,ere asked to give otlrsch,es x nick.“xme, I, as n joke, \\,rote Ab[fclita(gral,dma). No otle hmd e\,er cnlledIne that b~,t surely, I thollght, 1 am anabttelifa amo]lg these 113 yotlt>g peo-ple. 1 thought they \\,otdd SISOIearalto recognize the S~n,lish \vord. Bllto,]e trail>ee thollght this \\,as ncttlally

the statue is bllilt.In both cases the resolution of a

need or ,vant \vill contribute to therealization of goals \\,hich a host com-lnllnity has set for itself and isattemptil>g to secllre along \vith theparticip~tion of the Volunteer

Although o myrimd of possibilitiesexists for mtltribcltit>g to the realiza-tion of Iong-mn goals of the PenceCorps and its hosts, the pursuit ofit>dividual Volllt]teers has the temporalsimilarity of helping people accom-plish objectives that they have selectedfor themselves. The cumulative effectof accomplishing those objectives, i.e.,the resol~,ing of IIeeds and \vants, willcontribute to the realization of thelong-run goals of the Peace Corps andits hosts, Finally, this process willallow the Peace Corps to define itselfin the ,vay that it \vorks in the pur-stlit of the long-inn gosls.

Lenny Kata, fornlerly a tiaff mem-ber in Bombay, India, and Wmhing-ton, is a rrogram oficer at thenew Peace Corps training center atEscond{do, Calif. He wm rreoiouh

da Volunteer in Indti, and ho holdegrees in psychology and btuinessadmintiration from the Unioer#ty ofConnectkut.

my I]ame and asked if I’d mind if shecalled me Abby.

So began my contacts \vith yollngpeople in the Peace Corps, tvhicb hasproved to be o“e of the most enjoy-able and reiv~rding periods of mylife, For those ,vho love adventureand have a]] intense ct,riosity and10VC people, there is nothing that

gives greater satisfaction ATOyOungpersot, has ever made me feel that Ibelol>g to another generation, or t\\,oback They seem to respect thespirit and overlook the obvious bodilychanges \\,hich the years are bound tomake, 1 have since bee,l calledAbuolifu by the governor of Tolimaarid heads of departments bllt all sayit ,,,ith a smile, I take it as an hon-or that they have accepted me as oneof the family. iVo\vhere along theline have I beetl refused participation,et,etl ill sports, \\,hich have tlever beer>my forte. Btlt I can out-m,alk anyof ~ny yot,ng companions or keep tlp,vith them i“ exercise,

Si,lce the langtlage ~t,as ]Io barrier,havi,lg taught it for some 30 years,1 cotdd soon ide,ltify \vith the peoplehere u.hom I love and appreciate.The Lati,,s are warm and friendly a,ldone SOO]l ideiltifies \t,ith the existingculture if he hns Iearnea through theyears to bells rather tha,> break o,,whst cannot be changed.

My \vork in literacy has been \,erychsller>ging. There remains much tobe aotle but for a person \vho hasexperienced the joys ana privilegesof life ana sharea i,, its frt,stratio”sa“a trageay, a “e,,. aave”t”re ,Iotimposes b“t sought after is most re.\,,xrai8>g,

REm MA~EXVSb~ariqllita, TolilnnColombia

The ‘unstructured’ slumTo TJIE VOLUXTEEH:

I j,ist finishes reaai,,g Steve La\v-re!>ce’s article, “The quiet aeath of ntrair>itlg concept” (July), As anahlnlnlls of a similar training programhehf last year i“ Puekto Rico, I ,vishto say that in almost every way thetrai,>ing experie.cea there is releva,>ttoaay to the problems that I face i“Sooth America.

Tbe end resldt of a training pro-granl shouhf not be tbe obtainmentof data,. facts, or information, butshould be to gi\,e to the trainee the

~YI~,eOf environment which will haveI“ ]t as many cxperie”ces as possible

\vhich are similar to those that he orshe \vill encounter once h the coun~.

The Peace Corps need not continueits senrcb for a stmcturea type ofenx>ironment \\.hen eh.ery country inthe \,,orla has alreaay pro~,iaetf us,vith one. It’s not callea a mile e

tor u,liversity—it’s callea a slum, an ]tdoesn’t have much of any “sbuc.turea programming.”

RONALD CEiAsE IVEEU GOFFLima, Peru

The teaching challenge

TO TIIE VOLn-TEER:

Co,>gratulatiotls on your Jldy issue,particldady the article “\Vantea!Peace Corps Teaching in Africa,” byJob” Coyne, Teachers in Ghana haveoften cog,>plainea that THE VOL>Y,-TEELt tenas to hai.e a O“e.~iaeaemphasis in fa~,or of community ae-,,elopme,>t, to the aetriment of teach-ing. Thus it is refreshing to see anarticle \vbich, ,vhile recognizing thedifficulties inherent in teaching, ac-cepts these difficulties as a challengerather than dismissing teachers assecona-class VOhnl)teers~

TI~COTH>Accra, Ghana

A complex issueTo THE VOLUXTE.R:

\v. CRAINE

1 LVnSso,ne\t,hat troubled by Mr.Engelberg’s article, “Professio,lalismvs. imsge,” ,,,hich nppeared ill tbeJuly isst,e, LVy reaction, probablysharea by others, \,,as that bis co,lfer-e,lce group oi,ersimplifiea the isstle.Eve,l if they did come to the con-clusion he suggests about “profes-sionalism,” several variables seem toha~.e beeu overlooked.

First, he suggests that all PeaceCOTS assignments are specific in thatthe Volunteer can go right to \s,ork atone task upon arrival. Acttlally, manyjobs are ,Iebulolls. Often tbe primaryjob is all outgro)vth of a totally differ-ent assigt>ment, ana being “the manof the people” helps to get the em-ployment.

Seco.a, his group aissticiates “theman of the people” from the job-orie”ted Volunteer. This approachaOes not begin to work in ma,>y situa-tions. Although n teacher or an

Letters on sjbjects of general in-terest to the Peace Corps are welcome.Letters are mbiect to condensation.

z

agency worker may ‘have better re-SUIS by detaching bim or herselffrom the stuaents or business asso-ciates, a rural community develop-ment Volunteer, for example, mostlikely v,ill “et. All Volunteers shouhft)ot be lumpea into the same categorybecause one social worker ill Mr.Engelberg’s group maae frienas fortwo years ana nothing else. Thatsoun,as like her problem. \Vhile some“professional resewe” has its meritsfor all Volunteers, it is dangerous togeneralize that all Volunteers arejeopardizing their job status by being“the man of the people.” Often theyare enhancing it.

Thira, his group feels that after,vi”ni”g “strictly professional relation-ships, the frienas w,ill follo\v naturally,for what is a more solid basis forfriendship thal> mutual resuect? True,some for~igners respona ;avorsbly tothis approach but others ao not.\Vhereas “blufing” competence nnarestrai.i,,g friendships are profitable\\,ithin certaitl social and cultural set-tings, these tactics employea else-\vhere mieht be tantamount to pro fes-sional sui;iae.

Thus, let us take another look St theA.B. generalist, \vhere he goes, what

●he aoes ana mhont he \vorks \vith will,to a large extent, actermine his be-havior, but ultimately he has to figure ●it out for hilnself.

ANI>I*E\vD. COHENFormer Vohltlteer

Stanford, Calif.

Legal office needed

To THE $70LUXE..:

As a Peace brps la\vyer, currentlysewing in the Somali Republic, 1 read\vith great interest Mr. Salacuse’s ar-ticle e“titlea, “La\vyers have a Vol-ttnteer role” (July). 1 agree ,s<thhis co”ch,siot, that Ia\vyers ao belongi“ tbe Peace COTS. Hotvever, 1 aon’tthink that the Peace Corps is provid-it~g thetn \vitb the pro fessiotlal sup-port necessary to make their contribu-tion to the host country as meaningfulalla effective as it colds be.

1 suggest that the Peace Corpsestablish a separate office, staffea bya Ia,vyer, to morainate the entirePeace COTS legal program–from thepla,>”ing a“a training stage throughproviaing in-counby suppofl. SOme-thing certainly has to be aone about 4the planning of legal programs. Itwas so “eglige,ltly ana haphazardly

Ilalldled for lny OLV,lprogram, thatt\vo of the three la\vyers sent hereqllit ill frustration after a little unaeri,>e yetot,dly

.lr’s sewice:mislcnding

having been give,]

a,]d illnccurate iobdescr,ptiolls from the outset.

The really projects that Jfr. Sala-cltsc n>entiolls require fina,lcial assist-:k,>ce. In l>lost cases, the Peace Corpskl,vyer has bee,~ sent to the host count-ry precisely because there is a lackof trainea Iegsl personnel, accentcottrtrooms, j{tdges, la~v teachers,Iibrlries, la\\, journals ~lla court re-,>orts, Hamperea by the more press-

i,,g ,]eeds, the host cott,~try cnnnotgive the. judiciary the priority it de-

serves i]> the buihfi,lg of a I>ation.The Peace Corps may not be able toprovide airect financial support ~ll>aer

its existing Ia\v of establishmeilt, butit certainly cn,l do more then it isIlO\<. doia>g. The creation of the

ORCC of Peace Corps Legal Coorain-:Itor ,X,o”la be a big step i“ the rightairection. He could persuaae localbar associations, book publishers, la\vIihxlries and courts to contribt,te la\vbooks. He colds approach i,]ter,la-tio]>al la\v ch)bs of vario~,i la,v schoolsto a. specifically neeaea Iegll re.search projects for Peace Corps la\\,-ycrs ser~.i!jg \\.here ln!v library fncili.ties are i,>adeqllnte. He cotdd orga-[Iize conferences bet\vee,l Peace CO~sar)d other Alnerican la\vyers ser\,ing:tbroaa tt,>der Ford Follnaatio,> orSAILER al,spices, These conferences,,,otdd “ot o,>ly aad to the exchangeof legal materials bet\\,een col,ntriesht,t also bllild t]p co,>tacts bet\veen,ne,,]bers of the legal commlln ities ofthe host cot,,ltries. He coula solicitfft>al]cial st,pport from Bar Associa-tiol]s and pri\, ate sol,rces for \vortb-,,,bile legal programs to be st,perviseaby the Pence Corps la,vyers in thefielcl. In ge,>erai the legal office couhfser,,e as 8,1 i,>itiator ancl coordinatorof the mazly actib.ities th~t the A]neri-cat) legal profession \vould be ablea,,d ,villil,g to proviae, to sllpportPeace Coq>s Ia,vyers sewing ~bro~a.

MARTIN R. GANZGLASSMogaaish~,, Somali Rep~]blic

Phase Ill

‘ro THE VOLUNTEER:

1 finishecl my t\vo-year tour \vith thePeace Corps i“ Iran in June. At leastI thollght I hna fil)ishea. But \vhenI got ho,ne, I fo”na that my tour haamerely enterea another phase: thatof the Rett]mea Volunteer.

1

MemorandumTo : The field DATE: October, 1967

FROM : The editors

SUBJECT: Signing in, and out

The complicated future: A publisher is co,ning out this fall withn 320-page book on Peace Corps Placement Exams. An advertisementfor it says “\7aluable ‘ho\,. to study’ sections help the candiaate enter thePeace Corps.”

❑ 00

nieantime, tbe Peace Grps receit,ed its 200,000th application. AndOBIthe negatix,e side, someboay ill the planning office figures that so]ne-time this year the 10,000th person aroppea out of a training program.

❑ 00

Four score and then so,ne: The Peace Corps has taught about 120languages to trainees, Vohlnteers, staff ]nembers ana st~ff \!,ives. TheIntest aaaition to the list? No,>e other than Etlglisb. Marlene “Betty”Bott, a l]ative of b4anta, Ecl,aaor, who marriea a Peace Corps Volunteer\vho st,bsequently became a,> associntc airector in Venezuelx, studiedEnglish l:nder the agency’s allspices ill \Vashi,lSton \vhile she ana herh{isballa, Tera”ce, preparea to go o,.ersexs sgait>. She co]ltinuea Englishstlldies it>17enezuela.

❑ UD

After con,pleting ser~ice as a Volunteer nurse in Turkey, LynneCourtemanche \\,ent off to help refight the Crimean \Var as a kind oflatter any Florence Nightingale. She sigrled up as n nurse \vith a Britishfihn troupe ,vhich i,>cluaecl To,ly Richaraso”, Sir John Gielgt,d, TrcvorHo\\,ara, D~vid Hemmings and 3,000 Tl]rkish solaiers, tvho \\,ere outsiseAnkara recreating “The Charge of the Light Brigaae.”

❑ 00

Footnotes on married life in the Peace Grps: Mr. and MIS. RalphNeil, n retires fsrm couple ~~,ho haa been Vohlr>teers for 10 months,celebrate their 3Sth \veading anniversary nboara the open river barge\\,hich carried Volu]>tcers ana staff me]nbers o“t of Nigeria’s h~idwester,>Region, “kiost exciting anniversary \ve’ve ex.er had,” saia &frs. Neil. Andreturnea Dominican Republic Volunteers Roma and Luther Elmorereport that in 49 years of marriage, the years \vith the most m?[!t?I

sqllabbles \~rere thO$e spent i7~the pence COrps

❑ 00Here are some gems about applicants reportea hy the Office of

Public Affairs:

■ A kinaly person Iistea as a referetlt by a youth &yi,lg to get intothe Peace COVS reported helpfully that “eve,> police p~trolmen tbnt.Irrestea him in past years statea they likes him, ”

■ One hopeful got this glo\vi,lg report; “I have seen her react favor-~bly \vhen her hana \vas smashecl in a car aoor.”

■ Other references: .

–“About emotion, he can take it or leave it.”—“He can carry on a con,, ersatio” \\,ith anytbi”g that comes up.”

–“Although he shrikes a little, I feel he is emotionally stable,”

■ One reference reported about an ~pplicant: “Recently her folks have

been \\,orking, but before that ber father was a minister.”@

Q

\\

It had al\\,ays beet] lny theory thati \~,ell ndjllstcd pcrso]l at ho]ne couldbe \t,ell adjustecl overseas and otl hisretttr!l still he that \!,oy. I ha\,en’tch:lngecl nly ll?i,ld. I can oldy addth~t the cxperiellce gi~,es the flexibleilldividclal t\\,o points of \,ie\t, for look-itlg :It the \,,orld—fron> the U.S. look-i,>g ollt, :IT>CIfrom ouer there lookingback. \Ve hn,,e three phases of ref-erence: ( 1 ) trxil]ee cot>siclerir>g the,, fhole tbi[>g, (2) VOht,>teer partici.patirlz, o[]cI (3) retllrrled Volltrlteercxa[l>itlinlg the cotnplete pictllre. 1slq]posc 1 have c[)tered Phase III “I]ytlo\\,. Atld I thiljk it is, perhaps, lnoreill>portar]t tha,l the other tnore te]n-

por:lry stages.Phase 1II is for good. It’s by far

the ,nost c)ljoyablc of the three. It’sso effortless. Btit it has itltricate pat-

terrls that rcql! ire deliberate thol[%bt—occasions for recollntinz acl\,etltl,rear]cl obser\,a,lces. Ho\v to tell t!leho,ne f[dks ,vhat it’s really like it> the“rnl,d IllIt” or mosaic palace. h4yIIo,neto,,,)] has gi,,e,> n>e the cha]>ee,sonle sir]ccrc a])d sonle Riling a pro-Sratll. Bitt 1 got the cha!,ce. A,Id 1took it. Todtly, I spoke to lny, seco,,dgrOtlP this \,:cck–lny fathers ~i,,i~I1lCI1s grollp. At first I ,,,xs surprisedto see I>tnsy nlc,l sta,~d Lq> for thePlcclSe of Allegi;)t,ce–the!, 1 began tofeel that ,,,as part of xt,hat hacl sLlp-

ported ~>>y trai,>i,>g a,>cl tour–thosettlx payi,lg \Vorld \Var 11 \etera”s,,,,ho sar>s Arrterica atld ,nea”t it. They]l?ay t>ot hn\,e made A“,erika perfect

0 by their o\\,t> efforts, bt!t they tried;I]>d they ,Ire still tryir, g. The ot>ly\\,ay for then> to kI>o\,, the resl,lts isfor us to tell, the”>. I’ll try.

P,<XIELA DL,\N SPENCEnBro[l\\,ood, Texas

PeaceCorps honorsC. P;~yne Lttcas, clepttty director of

Peace Corps operations it> Africa andformer country director i,> Niger, isa recipie,>t of the 1967 Preside~lt’s

A\!,ard for Distinguished FederalSer\.ice.

Lucas \\.os cited for leadership con-tributions to the Peace COTS in Africax]ld FVashingtoll, ~~,here he is alsoDirector Jack VaugWs Special As.sistant for Eqllal Emplo~ent Oppor.tlt,>ity. He xvas one of six governmentofficials ~,,bo recei,,ed the 1967 z,vard,the highest honor that ca” be con.ferred OZIa federal employe,

Alexa,>cler Shako\~,, acting directorof traini,>g, has recei~.ed n meritoriousa,vard for nchie,,eme”t i,, public ad.lni,>iitratio,l fro~n the \Villiam A, JumpFot~,>dntiol>. He ,,,as honored for hisIendership in developing and imple.Illelltil>g ir>-cotllltry training programs,

Volunteer diesPeter hi, Nelso[l, Zj, died Septem.

ber 1 of a brain hemorrhage resultingf,-om injuries st,stained in a motorscooter accident on the Greek islandof Rhodes \vhere he :I,ld his ,vife,Barbara, ,s.ere ,,acatio”ing, 3trs, Nel-SOI1i\.as )lot seriollsly it>jured in the:Iccide,>t.

The Nelsol,s had been teaching’Etlglish i,] Iran for almost a year.

1,> additio,> to his ,vife, Nelson isstlr~,it,ed by his father, John R. Nelsol,of Har,,,ichport, hfass., xnd brothers.l?lltlerxl services ,vere held September6 i,, Har,,ichpo~t.

Raymakerlostvol”,,tee~N4~rk C. Raymnker is

Inissing arid presumed dead in Tan.zat>ia. He vanished AuSust 9 \vhileht,nti”g it, a re,note area het,,ily pop-ulated \!.itb \vild Same. An inte,lsivenir and gro~,nd scorch failed to ttlm,q] any trace of him or his equip!ne”t.

Raymnker, 24, of Green Bay, \Vis.col>sin, L,ZXShunting game for a groupof 50 Vohlnteers \vho \vere xvorking

.—— ———————- ———————————________________

CHANGE OF ADDRESS‘ PEACE CORPSwASHINGTON, D.C. 20525

NameOFFICIAL BUSINESS

Street or P.O. Box

City, State, ZIP Code

Effective date

Please send with mailing label at right.

OL>a stlmmer \,acation health project

il>volvit>g the inoculatio,l of )Iomadic a

Masai herdsmet) against smallpox nnddiptheria. According to companions,he XV.Sstalki~lg n gazelle ,vhen he dis- *appeared into the dense bush near tbeVolunteer base camp at Kibay~. TheVolunteers \,,ere living off the landand had orgal~ized daily hunting par-ties to obtain meat,

Large groups of Vohlnteers, stafflnembers, b4asai trackers and Tan-zania police and Same \vardenscombed the rtlsged territory, \vhilehelicopters a“d light plal>es sc;lnrled a450-sqlltre mile area for the missingVoluz>teer, A retvard of 30 co\vs \vasoffered Masai tribesmen for helpfulinformation. Their \%,ealth is measltredin terms of cattle. After t\vo fmitless\veeks the search \vas abandot>ecl, andofficials indicated that there is \,irtuaRy]1o hope of finding Raymtker. Ho\\,-ever, the tribesmel> continue to lookas the re,,,ard still stands.

Allowanceaverage dipsThe cstimnted average Volu,lteer

monthly living aOo\vance during the ccurrent fiscal year is $98.33. That’s83 cents less than the estimated a\,er-age last year (fiscol 1967).

Durine fiscal vear 1966. ~vhich ran ●from J1l~ 1, 1965 to Jtt,,e 30, 1966,tbe average monthly allo~vance \\zas$106. The averages inchlde a one-time settlit>g-in allowatlce.

As of last Aiarch 31, \vhen the lateststatistics \vere compiled, \701unteersill r!lral Korea and Nepql received lessill allowances thnn anybody else inthe Pesce Corps, Their dollar nRo\t,-ances stood at $45 per month,

Ve”ez”ela ral>ked at the top of thescale, \vith allo~vsnces ranging from$156-167. Generally, aRo\vances \vereIo\$.est ill the East Asi~ and PacificBegion, a,>d highest in the Africa Re-gion. The subsistence allo\\,ances vary\vith local co”cl itions.

-——————-———-—————-POSTAGE AND FEES PAIO