Summer 2018: Smarter Farming Promises Food For All Vol. 31 No. 2

WorldView SUMMER 2018 Vol. 31 No. 2 worldviewmagazine.org

SMARTER FARMING PROMISES ENOUGH

FOOD

FOR ALL & PEACE CORPS DIGS IN A TEACHABLE MOMENT AT THE WHITE HOUSE

THERMODYNAMICS OF

MOTORCYCLES

BENEATH THE AURORA BOREALIS

PIE IN THE SKY & MOZAIC LADIES

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WorldView

Summer 2018 Volume 31, Number 2

Editor: David Arnold Publisher: Glenn Blumhorst Director of Communications: Meisha Robinson Contributing Editor: John Coyne Minnie Martin Jeffrey Marzilli Benjamin Morse Sara Moussavi Danielle Nierenberg Robert Nolan Pat Nyhan Meisha Robinson Zachary Rockwood Alex Schwartz Chris Shepherd-Pratt Peter Smerdon Don Spiers Michael Tewelde Gorna Tomasevic Isaiah Zagar

A magazine of news and comment about the Peace Corps world BASSAM KHABIEH/REUTERS

Contributors: Giulio D’Amado Glenn Blumhorst John Coyne Brady Deaton Gary Eilerts Richard Fiedler Patrick Fine Kimberly Flowers Elizabeth Genter Christopher Hartley Tony Hall Carrie Hessler-Radelet Mike Hutchings Peter Jensen Bassam Khabieh Ala Kheir Michal Matlejczuk

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WORLDVIEW ADVERTISING Address all questions regarding interest in advertising in WorldView or NPCA social media and other online opportunities to Scott Oser at advertising@ peacecorpsconnect.org WorldView (ISSN 1047-5338) is published four times per year (Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter) by National Peace Corps Association (located at 1900 L Street, NW, Suite 610, Washington, DC 20036-5002) to provide news and comment about communities and issues of the world of serving and returned Peace Corps Volunteers. WorldView © 1978 National Peace Corps Association.

Periodicals postage paid at Washington, D.C. & additional mailing offices.

POSTMASTER Please send address changes to

WorldView magazine

National Peace Corps Association

1900 L Street NW, Suite 610

Washington, DC 20036-5002 EDITORIAL POLICY Articles published in the magazine are not intended to reflect the views of Peace Corps, or those of National Peace Corps Association, a nonprofit mission-driven social impact organization mobilizing those whose lives are influenced by Peace Corps.

NPCA is independent of the federal agency, Peace Corps.

EDITORIAL SUBMISSIONS Send all communications regarding WorldView magazine to worldview@peacecorpsconnect.org.

We will consider article proposals and speculative submissions. We also encourage letters to the editor commenting on specific articles that have appeared in the magazine. All texts must be submitted as attached Word documents. For more details on writer guidelines go online to www.peacecorpsconnect.org/ cpages/submission-guidelines or email the editor at darnold@peacecorpsconnect.org.

SUBSCRIPTIONS In order to subscribe to WorldView magazine for $35 go online to www.peacecorpsconnect.org and click on Join Now. If you need to contact NPCA regarding a magazine subscription or other matters, call (202) 293 7728 ext. 15.

A boy carries freshly baked cookies from the ruins of a building in Douma, in Eastern Ghouta, during the Syrian government siege of the Damascus suburbs four months ago.

FOOD SECURITY

7

END HUNGER

15

BUILDING ASSETS

9

FEEDING THE FUTURE

20

A THINK TANK

21

HUNGER DRIVEN BY WAR

How Peace Corps Volunteers have dug in

By Minnie Martin

World Food Programme operations in South Sudan’s failed state

By Sara Moussavi

11

24

PREDICTORS OF FAMINE

PRUNE AND TEACH Peace Corps Volunteers implement Feed the Future projects in more than 40 countries.

Here's how a few have done it

27

AGRICULTURE VOLUNTEERS

Life lesson from one of America’s food security pioneers

By Tony Hall

Volunteers are part of a U.S. government foreign aid mission

By Chris Shepherd-Pratt

10

FIELD HANDS

THOSE WHO DIG, PRUNE AND TEACH

12

FARMING OUT OF FAMINE

Economic pathways for the world’s smallholders

By Brady Deaton

An interview with Food Tank’s Danielle Nierenberg

RPCVs drove technology to see the future

By Gary Eilerts and Jeffrey Marzilli

How and affiliate reduces food waste and hunger

By Katherine Braga and Christopher Hartley

Where foreign assistance contends with drought

By Kimberly Flowers COVER: Agriculture experts from India and Kansas apply digital technology to judge the quality of wheat plants at the Borlaug Institute and develop stress-resilient high-yielding wheat cultivars for South Asia. CREDIT: Daljit Singh/USAID FEED THE FUTURE WorldView ∙ Summer 2018 ∙ www.PeaceCorpsConnect.org | 1

THE PUBLISHER

Summer 2018 Volume 31, Number 2

The publisher of WorldView magazine is National Peace Corps Association, a national network of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, former staff and friends. NPCA is a notfor-profit 501(c)(3) educational and service organization which is independent of the federal agency, Peace Corps.

ADVISORY COUNCIL

A magazine for the greater Peace Corps community

DEPARTMENTS PRESIDENT’S LETTER

OPINION

GALLERY

3 Why Peace Corps matters

31 Pie in the Sky

38 Mosaic neighbors

An RPCV goes back to Guatemala to understand

By Glenn Blumhorst

Did foreign assistance make a difference in Dvokolwako?

By Patrick Fine

Isaiah Zagar creates walls of art of the streets of South Philly

OUR IMPACT

CASE STUDY

CULTURE NOTES

4 Peace Corps’ Third Goal is

35 Thermodynamics of motorcycles

40 Still without power

our first goal

By Meisha Robinson LETTERS

5 A teacher meets the President, Meeting the regional director in Samoa, A Missouri memorial to a couple of RPCVs.

A Cameroon PCV gets help from his alma mater

By Alexander Schwartz

A Zimbabwe school after Robert Mugabe

By Robert Nolan BOOKLOCKER

TRAVEL

36 Below the Aurora Borealis Five days dipping into Iceland’s hot and cold spots

By Elizabeth Genter

31

42 Bound in memory An editor’s pick of the Peace Corps library

By John Coyne

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Carol Bellamy, Chair, Education for All—Fast Track Initiative Ron Boring, Former Vice President, Vodafone Japan Nicholas Craw, President, Automobile Competition Committee for the U.S. Sam Farr, Former Member, U.S. House of Representatives, California John Garamendi, Congressman, U.S. House of Representatives, California Mark Gearan, Director, Institute of Politics, Harvard Kennedy School Tony Hall, Former Member of U.S. House of Representatives, Ohio; Former U.S. Ambassador to UN Food and Agriculture Organization Sandra Jaffee, Former Executive Vice President, Citigroup William E. “Wilber” James, Managing General Partner, RockPort Capital Partners John Y. Keffer, Chairman, Atlantic Fund Administration Virginia Kirkwood, Owner/Director, Shawnee Holdings, Inc. Richard M. Krieg, President and CEO, The Horizon Foundation Kenneth Lehman, Chairman Emeritus, Winning Workplaces C. Payne Lucas, Senior Advisor, AllAfrica Foundation Dennis Lucey, Vice President, TKC Global Bruce McNamer, President & CEO, The Community Foundation for the National Capital Region Gordon Radley, Former President, Lucasfilms John E. Riggan, Chairman Emeritus, TCC Group Mark Schneider, Senior Advisor, Human Rights Initiative and Americas Program, CSIS Donna Shalala, President, Clinton Global Foundation Paul Slawson, Former CEO, InterPacific Co. F. Chapman Taylor, Senior Vice President and Research Director, Capital International Research Inc. Joan Timoney, Director for Advocacy and External Relations, Women’s Refugee Commission Ronald Tschetter, President, D.A. Davidson & Co. Gaddi Vasquez, Senior Vice President, Government Affairs, Edison International Aaron Williams, Executive Vice President, RTI International Development Group Harris Wofford, Former U.S. Senator, Pennsylvania

BOARD OF DIRECTORS J. Henry (Hank) Ambrose, Chair Tai Sunnanon, Vice Chair Patrick Fine, Treasurer Jayne Booker, Secretary Maricarmen Smith-Martinez, Affiliate Group Network Coordinator Glenn Blumhorst, ex officio Randolph (Randy) Adams Keith Beck Sandra Bunch

Bridget Davis Corey Griffin Madeleine (Maddie) Kadas Chip Levengood Katie Long Jed Meline Mary Owen Thomas Potter Rhett Power Susan Senecah Linda Stingl

STAFF Glenn Blumhorst, President Anne Baker, Vice President Jonathan Pearson, Advocacy Director Kemi Tignor, Director of Development Meisha Robinson, Director of Communications David Fields, Special Projects Coordinator Kevin Blossfeld, Finance & Administrative Assistant Elizabeth (Ella) Dowell, Community Technology Systems Coordinator Cooper Roberts, International Programs Coordinator

CONSULTANTS David Arnold, Editor Lollie Commodore, Finance Teena Curry, Corporate Engagement Scott Oser, Advertising

NPCA FELLOWS Rebecca Taylor

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INTERNS Cameron Barr Katelyn Biolo Reed Golomb

2 | WorldView ∙ Summer 2018 ∙ National Peace Corps Association

Elizabeth Morehead Jessica Moultrie Braeden Waddell

Talia Pfeffer

VOLUNTEERS Peter Deekle, Harriet Lipowitz, Susan Neyer, Angene Wilson

LETTER FROM THE NPCA PRESIDENT

WHY PEACE CORPS MATTERS Doña Feliza of Aldea Dolores can tell you

By Glenn Blumhorst

I

knew there was a 50-50 chance of finding Doña Feliza at home on a Saturday afternoon. She could be anywhere—down in the market, up in the fields, over at a neighbor’s house.

And now I was now beginning to realize there was, at best, a 50-50 chance of actually finding her house as I wandered through a labyrinth of footpaths and hedgerows, crossing brooks and streams, zigzagging though the dense foliage.

Nearly 30 years after my first trek to Doña Feliza’s home as a Peace Corps Volunteer, here I was meandering once again through Aldea Dolores, a Mayan village nestled on the sloping hills of the central highlands of Guatemala, about five miles from my Peace Corps site of San Miguel Chicaj. With me was retired Associate Peace Corps Director Roberto Leiva, who had accompanied me on the visit, curious to see what the village folks had to say about Peace Corps Volunteers in their community.

One last switchback on the uphill pathway and suddenly Doña Feliza’s whitewashed adobe house appeared before us, the familiar courtyard and porch having stood still in time. Over barking dogs and a gobbling turkey the only Achi I could muster was the customary, “Utz a wach?” a greeting that literally means “how are you” and that lets anyone around know we were encroaching. Doña Feliza appeared in her doorway, dressed in traditional huipil, corte, and headdress, looking strikingly the same as the Doña Feliza who had been my Ministry of Agriculture counterpart three decades earlier. The years had been good to her.

Allowing Doña Feliza and me to catch up on everything from family to politics while he caught his breath from the

unexpectedly strenuous hike, Roberto seemed to enjoy being part of such a special reunion. Eventually, he quizzed Doña Feliza “So, what really did Glenn do while he was a Volunteer here?”

“Well, let me tell you,” responded Doña Feliza, with a hefty dose of confidence. “See that plantation of trees over there?” motioning across the way.

“Don Glenn worked with the men and women in our community group to set up a fruit tree nursery and we planted

Peace Corps Volunteers are having an impact around the globe.

Whether planting trees or teaching English, giving shots or digging pit latrines, we’re also building lasting friendships… orange, lemon, avocado and coffee trees all over this valley that have been providing food and income for the 60 families here. Doña Cathy almost always came with him to give shots and checkups in the health post. And everyone in Aldea Dolores remembers that Don Glenn was the one who helped bring electricity to our little village.”

Our visit with Doña Feliza could have gone on all afternoon, but the sun was already dropping beyond the ridge of a nearby mountain. Soon, Roberto and I were on our way back to Guatemala City. Along the way, we reflected on our visit to Aldea Dolores and Doña Feliza’s testimony to the value of Peace Corps.

“Now it all makes sense,” he said. “Even after 25 years as an APCD, I never fully realized what Peace Corps was all about. I could have never imagined what I saw and heard today.”

“PCVs all over Guatemala have been doing the same thing for 55 years,” I assured him. But what had struck Roberto profoundly was not the fruit trees or the vaccinations or the electrical project.

“The fact that you and Feliza both share such a deep and sincere friendship forged from a short time working together—it’s amazing. You connected like two old friends who just saw each other last week.”

Building friendships that transcend time and distance. Promoting a better understanding of each other. Helping others help themselves. Peace Corps Volunteers are having an impact around the globe. Whether planting trees or teaching English, giving shots or digging pit latrines, we’re also building lasting friendships that exemplify the Second and Third Goal of the Peace Corps.

“I’m so proud to have served with an organization that made such a difference in my country,” said Roberto. “We should have more Peace Corps here in Guatemala.

It’s all good.” I couldn’t agree more.

Most RPCVs may never have the opportunity to see the lasting impact they have made in their Peace Corps communities—changing lives forever.

But I have no doubts that the return on investment is unparalleled.

That’s why Peace Corps matters.

Glenn Blumhorst is NPCA’s president and chief executive officer. He served in Guatemala from 1988 to 1991. He welcomes your comments at president@ peacecorpsconnect.org

WorldView ∙ Summer 2018 ∙ www.PeaceCorpsConnect.org | 3

OUR IMPACT

PEACE CORPS’ THIRD GOAL IS NPCA’S FIRST GOAL Amplifying our community’s global and domestic reach

By Meisha Robinson

T

he grassroots mobilization of our community is vital to achieving Peace Corps’ Third Goal—to help promote a better understanding of others. National Peace Corps Association supports a network of over 175 affiliate groups around the country to better accomplish the Third Goal at the grassroots level. Toward that end, we deliver core capacity building support for membership platforms, website hosting, webinars, and an annual group leaders forum to affiliates and we mobilize resources through our Community Fund to support affiliates in Third Goal projects, programs and community outreach activities.

NPCA is helping to raise the cultural competence of Americans by collaborating on the major film initiative, “A Towering Task: the Peace Corps Documentary,” sponsoring our affiliates’ Third Goal events, and offering university students the opportunity for a taste of Peace Corps

life through our Next Step: Peace Corps travel program.

In Bolivar, Missouri, NPCA cosponsored with the Central Missouri Returned Peace Corps Volunteers a commemorative event honoring the lives and service of Larry Radley and David Crozier (Colombia 61-62), the first PCVs to die in service. Modest NPCA grants recently enabled the Boston Area Returned Peace Corps Volunteers to host a storytelling event that drew over 250 public attendees and helped the RPCV-led International Book Project in Lexington, Kentucky renovate their warehouse.

DAVID CROZIER & LARRY RADLEY MEMORIAL David Crozier and Larry Radley died in a plane crash on a mountain in the South American country of Colombia on April 22, 1962. They were the first Peace Corps Volunteers worldwide to die in service. On the 56th anniversary of their

deaths, RPCVs, NPCA and Peace Corps staff joined David and Larry’s families in remembering their sacrifice.

Larry’s brother, Gordon, spoke from the podium. "…the ideals that Larry and David gave their lives for emanate from our American ethos and Peace Corps service expresses who we are as a people.

"Maybe the best summary of our American ethos was actually given by President Obama in 2009. He said the rugged individualism that defines America has always been bonded by a set shared David Crozier values, an enduring sense that we are in this together. ‘That America is not a place where we simply ignore the poor or turn away from the sick. It is a place sustained by the idea that I am my brother’s keeper and I am my sister’s keeper. We have an obligation to put ourselves in our neighbor’s shoes and see the communal humanity in each other.’”

A school in Jardín that David started building during his service was completed with money sent after his death by his family. It still stands as a testament to his service, his commitment, and to his sacrifice. David understood the risks of going to distant lands with the Peace Corps but he also understood the value and impact of his service. He had already written to his parents, “…if it should come to it, I’d rather give my life trying to help these people, than to have to give my life looking down a gun barrel at them.”

Turn to page 6 to read more about the memorial service.

STORYTELLERS OF BOSTON

Angene Wilson (Liberia 62-64, Sierra Leone 66-68, Fiji 70-72) and Mariana Colten (Ecuador 81-83) box another set of free books being shipped to a PCV's Jamaica classroom by the Knoxville RPCVs community project.

4 | WorldView ∙ Summer 2018 ∙ National Peace Corps Association

The Boston Area Returned Peace Corps Volunteers hosted “Building Bridges: Sharing Your Cultural Experiences” at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Over 250 RPVCs and members showed up to hear six RPCVs share cultural experiences of their Peace Corps service. All stories were different, but at the heart of each was a common theme: bridges that we build and those that we cross to connect

us to others.

The audience even had an opportunity to participate by answering the question: “What is the most embarrassing experience you have had in another country?” It brought back memories and a chance to remember and laugh. Check out BARPCV Storytelling on YouTube to see video footage from this event.

INTERNATIONAL BOOK RECYCLING “Where’s Ghana, dude?” a lanky, high school student asked another volunteer.

“Dunno; somewhere in Africa” was the response as they carefully packed books in a box marked “Ghana.”

The setting was the warehouse of the International Book Project in Knoxville, Kentucky where every afternoon and weekend groups of young volunteers drop in to unload, sort and repack donated books destined for countries around the globe. A quarter of the books go to Peace Corps Volunteers who are working with libraries and schools in their host communities.

This book project is a flagship community service for Knoxville RPCVs. Kentucky’s global book recycling project celebrated its 52 years in March with a grand re-opening of its beautifully renovated warehouse, bookstore, and offices. NPCA sponsored a pallet rack in the warehouse and NPCA President Glenn Blumhorst was there to help cut the ribbon.

Moments later an RPCV approached the geographically-challenged students as they packed their Ghana boxes. “I lived for two years in Africa, as a Peace Corps Volunteer. It’s here,” and he pointed to a world map on the wall, “on the West Coast of Africa.”

The young volunteers asked questions, and they talked with the RPCV about Ghanaian geography, economy, language, and culture—Third Goal in action.

Meisha Robinson is NPCA communications director. She is also the founder of I Am, We Are, a youth empowerment organization in South Africa’s Royal Bafokeng Nation. She served in Benin 2000-2002 and as a Peace Corps Response Volunteer supporting Special Olympics South Africa in 2012.

LETTERS

A TEACHABLE MOMENT

President of the United States. Still, one Rwandan girl called Trump out on his When I met Mandy Manning on a characterization of African countries as breezy April morning in Washington D.C., “shitholes.” She had written, “You can’t she was eagerly looking forward to a week say things like that. Since you said that, of meetings in high places. President more people are being mean to me, telling Trump, Education Secretary DeVos, me to go back to Africa.”

Vice-President Pence, and members of I wondered what Mandy would say at Congress were on her itinerary. As the the White House. That was before I saw 2018 National Teacher of the Year, she TV coverage of her wearing tiny was also sought-after by the political buttons for Peace Corps, news media.

Women’s March, and transgender She was easy to recognize students at the ceremony. When as she got off the elevator at the President spoke, I noticed her Embassy Row Hotel, a tall, that he made a point of not smiling woman with a distinctive mentioning that she taught swept-over hairdo styled by one refugees and immigrants. of her students. During our walk Although she wasn’t allowed to Kramer’s Bookstore & Café in to give her prepared remarks at Dupont Circle, she struck me as the ceremony, her silent message surprisingly relaxed and jovial for of solidarity with refugees and someone with only a few hours Mandy Manning immigrants spoke for her. With a of sleep after her flight the night wry smile for the cameras as she accepted before. her award, Mandy set off on her year of During the next two hours over advocacy. breakfast, a group of RPCVs heard Mandy’s glowing stories of her refugee Patricia Nyhan writes for Peace Corps and immigrant students’ successes at Community for Refugees and served in the Spokane Public Schools’ Newcomers Afghanistan 1970-71.

Center where she has taught for the past seven years.

“My kids are brilliant,” she declared.

UNDER A SAMOAN ROOF “They’ve gone through so much and they In 1983, my husband Steve and I come here and say, ‘Oh, I can do THIS.’” were not sure what to expect when we Mandy’s first teaching experience was learned that the Peace Corps regional in the Peace Corps in Armenia from 1999 director for the North Africa, Near East, to 2001. Since then, her professional life Asia and Pacific region was coming to stay has been spent entirely in the classroom. overnight in our home in Samoa where Wasn’t she apprehensive about beginning we served as Peace Corps Volunteers. We a year of media appearances and possible were a little nervous to be honest. Were anti-immigrant backlash? Meeting we good enough Volunteers? Were we President Trump? Not Mandy. integrated enough into our community?

During our visit with her, I learned the Were we good role models? secret of Mandy’s calm and ever-positive However, the moment we met the manner. Like the compassionate, wellregional director, Jody Olsen, our fears prepared teacher she is, she maintains a disappeared. She was easy-going and kind. single-minded focus. “My students are at We felt comfortable telling her about our the heart of everything I do,” she said. “I joys and our challenges. She listened should be the conduit for people to tell with respect and asked good questions. A their own stories.” friendship was born that night that has So Mandy carried student letters to lasted for decades. Certainly neither of the White House and asked President us would have guessed that in the small Trump to read them. She told us the village of Leulumoega, Samoa, that night, letters showed proper respect for a two future Peace Corps Directors were

WorldView ∙ Summer 2018 ∙ www.PeaceCorpsConnect.org | 5

Carrie Hessler-Radelet is president and chief executive officer of Project Concern International

A MEMORIAL IN BOLIVAR David Crozier grew up in West Plains, a town in southern Missouri’s Ozark country. He graduated with a degree in nuclear physics from Carnegie Mellon in 1961 and flew to Bogota, Colombia with 61 other men who had joined Peace Corps. Eight months later he and another Volunteer, Larry Radley, spent their Easter break helping a botanist pick exotic species of orchids at Bahia de Solano on the Pacific coast. For their return flight to Medellin, David and Larry were urged to take the last two seats on a DC-3 flight to get an aerial view of the tropical rainforests of Choco province. Their plane crashed into a mountaintop in the Baudo range.

Back home, the Crozier and Radley families were notified of the crash that day, but the deaths were not confirmed for a week. They were the first Peace Corps

Volunteers to die in service and their bodies were never recovered.

In 2011, Radley’s younger brother, Gordon—with security escorts from Colombia Air Force and U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency—visited the crash site which was in a zone of violent conflict between the government and Revolutionary Armed Forces John Lewis, Larry Radley and David Crozier at Bahia de of Colombia.

Solano, Colombia on the weekend before the plane crash.

Fifty-six years after the crash, in Israel, began with a Hebrew prayer, David Crozier had not been honored thanking God for keeping us alive for in his home state of Missouri. Doyle this important day. She recalled that Childers, a former member of the Missouri when she volunteered to go to Colombia House of Representatives who served as a year after the crash, many Colombians a PCV (Costa Rica 65-69), suggested we recalled the tragedy. “I experienced how change that. Our Central Missouri RPCVs my brother’s sacrifice was felt, appreciated, joined David’s sister, Nancy, in planning acknowledged, and honored by the a memorial service in the small Missouri Colombian people,” she said. town of Bolivar, where Crozier’s parents In addition to NPCA’s Glenn Blumhorst are buried and not far from Nancy’s home. and members of Missouri RPCVs, three David’s name and his Peace Corps service men who served in Colombia with David are inscribed on his parents’ gray marble and Larry attended: John Arango from tombstone.

New Mexico, Darrel Young from Texas, On a rainy April day, both Gordon and Jack Kuhns from California. Glenn Radley (Malawi 68-70) and his sister, introduced Brady Deaton (Thailand 62-64), Elana Radley Rozenman (Colombia 63-65), chancellor emeritus of the University of attended the service. Gordon said David Missouri, and Nancy Crozier’s grandson, and Larry were the first Americans to give Will Sonheim, who is studying film in their lives fulfilling the American ideals of London and shot a video of the event for Peace Corps service. He quoted the words the family. of John Kennedy and Sargent Shriver to Darrel recalled Larry’s enthusiasm. describe how those ideals of Peace Corps “David was so earnest, so gentle-minded, service bind us together as Americans. so gentle-mannered. Both had shining eyes He read Shriver’s 1963 argument – bright eyes brimming with intelligence justifying Peace Corps service. “Guns both so young, wide-open to what life has won’t change the world. That is one of the to offer, loving Colombia and so into Peace greatest lessons of this bloody century.

Corps.

Dollar bills won’t change the world; “Peace Corps, my friends, is a gift, a nor will simple good will. Peace Corps rare, precious gift… This wonderful gift Volunteers are living examples of the most was not wasted on either David or Larry; powerful idea of all— the idea that free both embraced Peace Corps fearlessly!” and committed men and women can cross, Representatives of Peace Corps and even transcend, boundaries of culture members of Congress presented flags to and language, of alien tradition and great the families. The rain stopped and over disparities of wealth, of bold hostilities the Crozier family tombstone we draped a and new nationalities to meet with other wreath with symbols of Colombia and the men and women on the common ground United States united by the name “Peace of service to human welfare and human Corps.” A video of the event is at morpcv. dignity.” org/crozier-memorial.html Gordon called this Bolivar gathering a testament to the power of the Peace Corps.

Don Spiers, Venezuela 73-75, advocacy chair “Larry and David live on in the service of for Central Missouri RPCVs each Peace Corps Volunteer,” he said.

Elana, who flew here from her home

6 | WorldView ∙ Summer 2018 ∙ National Peace Corps Association

RICHARD FIEDLER

sleeping beneath the same roof.

I am so thrilled that Jody is now the 20th Director of our beloved Peace Corps.

Frankly, there has never been a Peace Corps Director as qualified or ready for the job as Jody. She has held almost every possible position of leadership within the Peace Corps over her formidable career.

We know her history. She started as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tunisia. She later became the country director in Togo before becoming the NANEAP regional director. Later she served as the chief of staff, deputy director, and even acting director during the transition between Presidents Bush and Obama.

As director of the Center for Global Education Initiatives at the University of Maryland, she nurtured the lives and careers of countless young professionals.

She is a supportive friend, a phenomenal story teller and a strong leader. We are so lucky to have her at the helm.

When I was Peace Corps Director, I counted Jody as one of my most trusted confidants. Her wise counsel from years of deep experience with the agency was invaluable. That is the dedication and expertise she will bring to the Peace Corps every day as director.

FOOD SECURITY

END HUNGER

‘You do the thing that’s in front of you’

By Ambassador Tony Hall

I

found itself in a famine that was exponentially worse than it had to be. I realized that politics, as much as a lack of food, was what killed those children who would now never grow up to be future doctors, national leaders, educators, non-profit founders, and entrepreneurs. The Ethiopian famine of the 1980’s deprived the country, and our world, of a future with those promising young people.

My personal drive to address hunger and poverty in the United States and around the world is very much rooted in my own personal faith. I believe strongly in the directive given to me through a parable delivered by Jesus, in which a king tells his subjects that whatever they do for the ‘least of these’ in his kingdom, they were also doing for the king himself.

I believe this parable also works on a secular level. Whatever we do to help the poor, hungry, and vulnerable people in the world is not only for their sake, but for the sake of all of humanity. Human well-being and the progress of our global society is not a zero-sum game.

The prosperity of all of us—including those

WFP/PETER SMERDON

f you have ever heard me speak about global food security, you will know about my life-changing experience in Ethiopia. While in Congress, I chaired the International Hunger subcommittee of the House Select Committee on Hunger. In this capacity, I travelled to the country on a factfinding mission in the mid 1980’s during the peak of a terrible famine.

One day, I found myself in an internallydisplaced person’s camp. The scenes I saw there would shake me to my core. Mothers, thinking I was a doctor, would try to hand me their severely emaciated children. In many cases, there was nothing more the medical staff could do for these children. In other cases, these children were already dead. I witnessed the deaths of some two dozen children that day.

After leaving the country, I came to realize that the tragedy I witnessed in Ethiopia was not only one of starving and dying children—it was a tragedy of a country starving and killing itself.

In the midst of civil war, and in no small part to criminal government policies, the country

Ethiopian families in Danan in the nation’s Somali region wait for food relief under a tree in the geographic epicenter of the 2017 drought.

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I realized that politics, as much as a lack of food, was what killed those children who would now never grow up to be future doctors, national leaders, educators, non-profit founders, and entrepreneurs. of us in the United States—is ultimately tied to just outcomes for the world’s most vulnerable populations. This is the moral obligation the United States has to root out hunger and poverty around the globe.

Meeting in Calcutta This conviction, my faith, and my commitment to root out hunger in the world culminated in many opportunities I had to meet Mother Teresa. This small woman—helping the biblical “least of these” in the impoverished streets of Calcutta—had a tremendous impact on my life. Her words transformed my own perspective on the world’s hungry, as well as those in need in my own back yard of Dayton, Ohio.

During one of my visits, I asked her for advice based on her extensive experience. After looking around at the immensity of what she was tackling on the Calcutta streets, and considering my own experiences of what I had witnessed, I asked how she can even decide how to make any impact on such a vast problem.

She looked at me and simply stated, “You do the thing that’s in front of you.”

I have had a lot of time to reflect on that experience, and that conversation, and I believe that what she said to me was even more important than what I first interpreted. When she looked me in the eyes and told me to “do the thing that’s in front of you,” her words were not only relevant to my personal life. She knew that beyond being a person of faith, I was also a government representative from the most technologically and economically advanced country on the planet. Doing the thing in front of me was not simply dropping a coin in a poor child’s hand or dishing out soup at a charity – what I had in front of me was the power of legislation, and the power of the pulpit of elected office.

As a nation, for the United States

to “do what’s in front of us” means that we can end poverty and hunger within a generation, if only we have the will to do so.

If doing the thing that’s in front of us is Mother Teresa’s advice not only to us on a personal level, but also on a national one, then there is one heck of a lot that in front of the United States. But ultimately, we will not do all we can unless we have the public and political will to follow through on our potential; and we will not obtain the will unless we realize our moral and practical obligation to root out the causes of poverty and hunger once and for all.

In the Hermit Kingdom Now, fast forward to the present, and we see that we are still struggling to learn the lesson of this moral imperative.

Consider the current predicament we find ourselves in with North Korea. I have had the opportunity to visit the “Hermit Kingdom” many times over the course of my career. While much of the media’s attention has rightly been focused on the regime of Kim Jong-un —and his

…we see this play out over and over again: in the brutal civil wars of Syria, and Yemen, and South Sudan. In the collapsing economies of countries like Venezuela. iron-fisted rule over economic, political, and military aspects of the country—we do not hear much about the regular, everyday people of North Korea. I have had the rare opportunity to visit some of the rural areas of the country, and once again, I witnessed the debilitating and wasting effects of malnutrition on

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a nation’s—and our world’s—future members of society.

Look around a little more, and we see this play out over and over again: in the brutal civil wars of Syria, and Yemen, and South Sudan. In the collapsing economies of countries like Venezuela. And yes, even in the policies that ignore the most vulnerable and disadvantaged populations right here in the United States.

We can accomplish a lot by doing the thing that is in front of us. But while there is much to despair over, there is also hope.

Not the least of this hope is delivered by the likes of those reading right now. Many of you either are or have decided to help boost the United States’ leadership role in the work that you have done overseas through the Peace Corps.

My own life trajectory was certainly influenced by my decision to do the same when I volunteered in Thailand through the Peace Corps. Now, with that kind of experience, you have opened yourselves up to a whole lot more of “what’s in front of you.” Not the least of which is the advocacy role you can play in building the public and political will I mentioned earlier.

Many of you have valuable stories to tell, and I would even go so far as to say that the biggest contribution you can make as Peace Corps volunteers actually comes after your service, through how you choose to apply what you observed and your experience.

I challenge you to continue to strive to do what’s in front of you for the sake of the most vulnerable people in the world.

But more than anything, I ask you to continue to strive to do what’s in front of you for the sake of all of us.

While a member of Congress representing Ohio’s 6th District for 22 years, Tony Hall chaired the Select Committee on Hunger and founded the Congressional Hunger Center.

He later served as U.S. Ambassador to the UN Food & Agriculture Organization. He is now director emeritus of the Alliance to End Hunger. He taught English as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand from 1966 to 1967.

FOOD SECURITY

FEEDING THE FUTURE USAID, Peace Corps and the world’s most vulnerable

By Chris Shepherd-Pratt

A

surrounded by people who know a great deal about agriculture. I no longer teach physics. I work on policy issues for USAID, which leads our federal government’s global food security initiative, Feed the Future, by leveraging the strengths and resources of 10 additional federal departments and agencies to help developing countries increase inclusive, agriculture-led economic growth; build resilience; and improve nutrition among vulnerable communities to establish a foundation of food security that will help communities escape poverty. This includes partners like the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which implements a range of food-security focused programs and research studies, and agencies like the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, which helps the private sector invest in agriculture across the developing world, in addition to the Peace Corps.

Agricultural-led economic growth and nutrition are foundational elements to the escape from poverty. Growth and nutrition are both threatened by unpredictable shocks, such as droughts and floods, and by longer term stresses such as dwindling natural resources. We often hear about communities that were previously self-sufficient succumbing to shocks like drought or flood and then needing humanitarian assistance. Unfortunately, these shocks are increasingly frequent and intense, costing those communities and countries more and more each time.

This is why Feed the Future places so much emphasis on building the resilience of vulnerable communities and countries, not only to shocks, but also stressors like corruption or dwindling natural resources. By building resilience we can ensure PCV Calder Bethke in Burkina Faso repaired a run-down pig farm while monitoring a West Africa Food Security continued progress.

PEACE CORPS

ccording to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, more than 60 percent of the world’s population depends on agriculture for survival, many of them among the world’s poorest communities.

The agricultural sector in Fiji, for example, makes up about 10 percent of its economy and employs about 200,000 Fijians who, much like hundreds of millions of other people around the world, depend on agriculture for their livelihood and, in the most extreme cases, for their survival.

When I was a Peace Corps Volunteer teaching physics on the island of Taveuni in Fiji, the boarding school where I taught had a small farm attached to it where secondary students were taught lessons in agricultural science, and where harvested food made its way into the students’ diets.

I didn’t know it at the time, but my work on the school farm was a sign of things to come.

Years later I find myself at the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Bureau for Food Security,

Partnership for Feed the Future.

The Peace Corps plays a unique role in this effort. Peace Corps Volunteers are able to deliver life-changing information directly to the heart of the communities in which they serve over an extended period of time. The Volunteers share agricultural practices and techniques with farmers to improve productivity, teach families how to prepare more nutritious food, and train their community members to learn new skills that empower them to branch out in new income generating areas. They are uniquely positioned to work at the community level to improve food security and provide information tailored to their particular community to do so.

In closing that last mile— bringing information directly to their communities—Peace Corps Volunteers perform a vital service and play a critical role in Feed the Future. But I think they offer another, equally important contribution.

Peace Corps Volunteers bring a particular awareness and a sense aspiration with them, an American perspective that inspires hope and opportunity. They instill their host families and their communities with ambition and a focus on planning for the future that we know—backed up by research—is a key source of resilience in vulnerable areas, and an important aspect of getting out of poverty.

For example, to date Peace Corps Volunteers have trained thousands of caregivers on improving child health and nutrition; they have helped thousands of farmers apply new technologies and management practices; and they have helped hundreds of small- and mediumsized enterprises access credit. With the Feed the Future initiative entering its second phase under the U.S. Government Global Food Security Strategy, their impact will only increase.

Chris Shepherd-Pratt is Policy Chief at USAID's Bureau for Food Security. He also served in the Agency’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, as Director of Humanitarian Assistance and Emergency Relief at the National Security Council and as Senior Policy Advisor to the USAID Administrator. He taught school in the Republic of Fiji from 1994 to 1997.

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FOOD SECURITY

FIELD HANDS Peace Corps helps put food on the table and in the market

By Minnie Martin

W

Volunteers who feed the future In the beginning I didn’t realize that as a Peace Corps Volunteer I was contributing directly to the U.S.

government’s Feed the Future initiative.

I later learned that every year since 2012 about a thousand Peace Corps Volunteers in at least 40 countries implement Feed the Future activities that each year benefit over 40,000 people.

BENJAMIN MORSE/PEACE CORPS

hen I was assigned to Niger as a forestry and natural resources volunteer in 2010, I had no idea what to expect. All I knew was that Niger was huge, incredibly hot, mostly desert and one of the poorest countries in the world. My work in Niger was short-lived, though, and the program was suspended in 2011 for security reasons. Thankfully, Peace Corps transferred me to a Senegal program where I served as an agroforestry volunteer through 2012. Then I extended for a third year to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer Leader.

Senegal is also a sub-Saharan country in West Africa threatened by massive loss of forests as desertification of the Sahara creeps ever southward. I worked in a small community in the Kolda region in south, one of the poorest regions in Senegal. Most people in Niger and Senegal are subsistence farmers depending on agriculture for survival. These communities suffer from high rates of infant, child, and maternal mortality. The children who survive have very limited access to education, health services, and basic infrastructure.

Experts at the World Food Summit say food security exists “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life.” I worked in Kolda with local farmers, community groups, and households to increase their food security by planting trees to support food production, improve soil fertility, and enhance agricultural harvests.

Benjamin Morse in Maycado, Ethiopia demonstrated fruit tree pruning for a Feed the Future distribution project that introduced more than 16,000 orange, avocado, apple, papaya and guava trees to 1,000 households.

Peace Corps Volunteers who work on food security in these countries focus on evidence-proven strategies that deliver the greatest return on investment. They prioritize behavior change in their host communities, target the most vulnerable among their neighbors, and deliver educational programming focused on nutrition, financial literacy, and cultivating nutrient-dense foods. They also develop activities that empower women because evidence shows that when women achieve greater access to

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services, including capacity building and improved seeds, there is a corresponding increase in overall food production and nutrition.

Peace Corps Volunteers conducting agroforestry projects in Senegal also train their neighbors to increase crop yields through fruit tree orchard management, live fencing for crop protection, and inter-planting trees with field crops to improve harvests. Beyond agroforestry, they contribute to Feed the Future through an integrated approach to food security, with Volunteers working individually and cooperatively with other projects in agriculture, community economic development, health, and the environment.

Eight years later, I support these crucial Feed the Future goals in the Peace Corps Office of Strategic Partnerships and Intergovernmental Affairs serving in the agency’s ongoing efforts with 10 more federal agencies contributing to the U.S. government’s global food security and nutrition initiative.

As part of Feed the Future, Peace Corps and Peace Corps Volunteers contribute to food security efforts on a global scale, developing new, innovative, and contextually relevant program resources and materials for use throughout the world to reach communities at “the last mile,” or some might say “the first mile” of development.

Feed the Future provides families and communities in some of the world’s poorest countries with opportunities to lift themselves out of poverty and improve their food and nutrition security.

Minnie joined the Peace Corps’ Office of Strategic Partnerships and Intergovernmental Affairs in 2014 and manages the Peace Corps’ partnerships with USAID and other U.S. government agencies. Minnie also serves as the interagency liaison for the Peace Corps under the whole-of-government Feed the Future initiative. She served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Niger in 2010, and in Senegal from 2011 to 2013, where she learned to speak Zarma and Pulaar.

FOOD SECURITY

THOSE WHO DIG, PRUNE AND TEACH

Peace Corps Volunteers implement Feed the Future projects in more than 40 countries. Here's how a few have done it

Mt. Elgon coffee camp Uganda’s Mt. Elgon is famous for growing Arabica coffees, but local youth

Raised beds in the highlands Andrew Kaiser (17-18) surveyed the dietary habits of his neighbors in the

Youth signed up for a five-day Coffee Entrepreneurship Camp in Kenya to assure the future of Mt. Elgon’s famed Arabica beans.

western highlands of Guatemala and found they were high in carbohydrates from eating eggs, beans and chickens but the few available vegetables didn’t offer much. He met the director of a NGO who wanted to expand model raised-bed gardening, a system that doesn’t require much water. Kaiser and some colleagues led their neighbors to a nine-hour course at the model farm featuring raised-bed gardening. Weeks later, neighbor women were hauling 100-pound bags of peat moss uphill to their own raised-bed gardens.

With help from the local government and an NGO, “more than 150 families have received gardens in my municipality.”

Kaiser is building four of his own model farms to promote more raised-bed gardens elsewhere in the highlands.

PETER JENSEN/ PEACE CORPS

didn’t care about the business. Michal Matejczuk (16-18) and another PCV created the Coffee Entrepreneurship Camp to change that for 70 young men and women. The campers toured a smallscale organic farm, learned about crop husbandry, and roasted beans over a charcoal stove. They studied exporting, financial literacy, grinding, packaging and labeling, and took a coffee cupping practicum to evaluate coffee premiums and taste the results of drying, storage and even fermentation. After five days of camping over coffee, all 70 completed a business plan. A student told Matejcuzik, “I plan that after 10 years from now I’ll be the leading producer of coffee in my subcounty.”

MICHAL MATEJCZUK

Goats in translation Winrock International sent goat reproduction researcher Bill Foxworth from Prairie View A&M University to explain artificial insemination to Nepal’s Okadi Goat Raising Group trainers. The researcher says his English was flawlessly translated by PCV Garland Mason, who has a degree in animal science and agriculture from Cornell. “I had a sense of what concepts might be familiar and what might be new for the participants,” Mason said. She and her partner, Ollie Gerlines, then won a Peace Corps small assistance grant to bring an expert from the Bayarghari Livestock Center to introduce two improved breeds to goat raisers in their own neighborhood.

New Nepal trainees learned how to intensify production of high-value, high nutrition vegetables in small spaces of Nepal’s terraced farms.

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FOOD SECURITY

FARMING OUT OF FAMINE Where foreign assistance contends with drought AFP/MICHAEL TEWELDE

By Kimberly Flowers

Young boys tend to herds of goats in an arid Ethiopian landscape.

T

he Peace Corps recruiter said my assignment was Ethiopia. I was ecstatic. At 22 years old, my ambition to serve was driven mostly by naïve altruism and the adventure of tough living conditions in a rural African community. This was nearly two decades ago, when Ethiopia was at war with Eritrea. Security concerns pushed Peace Corps to shut down the program in 1999, before I ever arrived.

Peace Corps sent me to Bulgaria instead. I finally made it to Ethiopia in 2006 where for three years I worked in Addis Ababa for the U.S. Agency for International Development as a development, outreach, and

communications officer. The Peace Corps program reopened in Addis at the same time, and the staff became my friends.

With my Peace Corps and USAID background, I now focus my attention on global food security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C. think tank where I direct work that analyzes and highlights U.S. policy and foreign assistance to address global hunger, poverty, and malnutrition, as well as efforts to increase humanitarian access to reach the most vulnerable.

Ethiopia comes up frequently in our discussions with policy makers about ongoing food security emergencies, as both a country in crisis and a country that

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has made remarkable progress. Indeed, Ethiopia has a unique set of circumstances compounding the increasingly common experience of climate change’s impact on agricultural growth and hunger levels. It is also an example of how political will and development investments can improve lives.

A farming nation at risk Agriculture is the economic backbone of East Africa. Nearly half of Ethiopia’s gross domestic product is tied to the industry, as is 80 percent of its workforce.

Smallholder farmers and pastoralists depend on rains for their livelihoods, and there has been little rain for consecutive seasons. Rain is like gold, particularly in

a country where innovative agricultural irrigation technologies are far from standard. The prolonged drought in Ethiopia, the worst it has had in more

Government programs decreased child mortality rates by two-thirds, meeting the Millennium Development Goal three years ahead of deadline. than 50 years, is responsible for crop failures and livestock depletions which in turn have decreased incomes and caloric intake for a large swath of the population.

From rising temperatures to extreme weather events, climate change has severe impacts on agricultural development the world over. In a country like Ethiopia, that means that it also has a direct bearing on hunger. Right now, 8 million people in Ethiopia depend on emergency food assistance, including U.S. food aid that is shipped—inefficiently, I must add—from American farms.

The U.S. government has committed nearly $620 million in humanitarian funding to Ethiopia for 2017-2018, seven times more than any other international donor. It isn’t enough. Unless there is a sustained increase in humanitarian assistance, Ethiopia faces famine conditions in 2018. The U.S.-funded famine early warning system, FEWS NET, currently lists five countries, including Ethiopia, that it monitors as “high concern” for tipping into catastrophic conditions.

Ethiopia has struggled to separate itself from the word famine and from the subsequent image it provokes of a starved child, since the highly publicized 1984 human-caused tragedy that took the lives of more than 400,000.

Unfortunately, famine is not a relic of the past. Although many fewer people die from mass starvation today, famine resurfaced on a global basis in 2016 through an unprecedented crisis in which protracted conflicts drove more than 20 million people to the brink of famine. The United Nations officially declared famine in South Sudan in February of 2017 and

stated that three other countries were on track to follow: Yemen, Nigeria, and Somalia.

The common dominator between the “four famines” is protracted conflict, although Somalia has the compounded problem of drought. Civil war, insurgent factions, lack of free press, and corrupt governments create an environment where food is used as a weapon of war, much as Mengistu used it to isolate northern Ethiopians in 1984. Indian economist and 1998 Nobel prize winner Amartya Sen astutely observed that “no famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy.”

Despite the rural unrest and political protests this year that prompted the government to declare a state of emergency, Ethiopia is not currently dealing with a civil war like Yemen or militant groups on the level of Boko Haram in Nigeria. Yet food is not available, accessible, or affordable for eight million Ethiopians, which is about eight percent of the population. And the government of Ethiopia—while far from a fully democratic state—has proven that it understands the value of lifting its population out of poverty.

Despite Ethiopia’s many achievements Ethiopia has been held up as a success for its extraordinary development progress over the last two decades in many areas, from education to health outcomes. Its leadership deserves credit for these achievements. Government programs decreased child mortality rates by two-thirds, meeting the Millennium Development Goal three years ahead of

those in need who participate in public works. The program is credited for lifting seven percent of the population out of poverty since 2005.

The government has also demonstrated political will and a commitment to agricultural development, which the World Bank says is 11 times more efficient than other sectors in poverty reduction in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Ethiopian government created the Agricultural Transformation Agency in 2010, the same year in which Ethiopia became a target country for the U.S. government’s flagship global hunger and food security initiative, Feed the Future.

By the way, Peace Corps is one of 11 U.S. agencies that implement Feed the Future. Every year approximately 1,000 Volunteers around the world support Feed the Future by building local capacity to promote sustainable agricultural development and better nutrition. In Ethiopia, there are currently more than 50 Volunteers working to improve agriculture, health, or nutrition.

Changing Washington priorities When I was living in Ethiopia a decade ago, agricultural development was not a top priority for the U.S. government.

Back then, a mere $7 million a year was allocated for an area of development that touched the lives of 69 million Ethiopians. At about the same time, over $500 million was spent on food aid. Even without the cost difference between longterm development and immediate lifesaving humanitarian programs, this is an illogical imbalance.

Agriculture and food security has become a top development priority

Ethiopia is not currently dealing with a civil war like Yemen or militant groups on the level of Boko Haram in Nigeria. Yet food is not available, accessible, or affordable for 8 million Ethiopians. deadline. The government doubling its spending on education resulted in access to primary school leaping from 26 to 95 percent, making free education nearly universal. Ethiopia operates Africa’s largest program offering cash transfers to

since then. Around the world, dozens of urban riots against 2008 food prices captured the attention of policy makers who turned their attention to global food security and its link to political stability and national security. When in 2009,

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President Obama pledged at $3.5 billion over three years at the G8 Summit, his commitment spurred an additional $18.5 billion in investments from other donors to support agricultural development and food security. While the inequity is still wide between development and humanitarian dollars, USAID now spends six times what it used to on agricultural development in Ethiopia. The results speak for themselves. Last year alone, over half a million Ethiopian farmers and producers applied new practices and some innovative technologies—including drip irrigation, high-yielding maize seeds, and milk cooling and storage—and earned nearly $35 million from agricultural sales.

Poverty has gone down 12 percent in the targeted area.

No one wants to see Ethiopia on the famine watch list in 2018. A sustainable solution to their food insecurity requires a combination of humanitarian and development programs funded by the international community and, most importantly, committed leadership by the Ethiopian government to continue to invest in its people. Critical steps will be climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts such as ensuring that droughttolerant seeds and precise irrigation technologies are accessible to smallholder farmers.

When my Peace Corps assignment to Ethiopia was redirected in 1999, I remember feeling deeply disappointed.

I didn’t know, of course, that my subsequent Peace Corps experiences would eventually lead me on a path back to Ethiopia and to a career that focuses on the well-being of the developing world. I hope my work will remind our leaders in Washington that foreign assistance is a powerful, necessary tool to improve the lives of those less fortunate.

Kimberly Flowers is director of the Humanitarian Agenda & the Global Food Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. She taught English as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Varna, Bulgaria from 1999 to 2001 and worked in youth development as a Peace Corps Response Volunteer in Kingston, Jamaica from 2004 to 2005.

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FOOD SECURITY

BUILDING ASSETS

Economic pathways for the world’s smallholders

By Brady Deaton

D

WFP/MICHAEL TEWELDE

The postwar history of U.S. There is some economic development eveloping the agricultural development programs also demonstrates good news. We've experienced decades sector is the key to broader the need for countries to coordinate their of steady progress in reducing extreme social and economic macro-level policies with community- and poverty, down from 1.85 billion in improvement in most household-level decisions that increase 1990, but the UN Food and Agriculture poorer countries of the productive investments across the Organization reports an increase in world. Over the past 30 years, extreme entire value chain from farms through undernourishment over the recent three poverty has declined from 42 percent marketing and distribution. Dedication to years. Some sources estimate that 60 of the world’s population to 10 to 12 improving both the human and physical percent of this increase is most likely the percent. Even with such success, the assets of any community is essential, result of increasing violence and political World Bank estimates that 767 million and one without the other is doomed to instability. Such conditions challenge the now live in extreme poverty, earning failure. efforts of the United States, international less than $1.90 per day. Eighty percent agencies and other organizations of these extremely poor live in rural Building farmer resilience to enable collaborating countries to communities and depend on small-scale The 2017 Global Food Security Act strengthen their institutions, reduce farm operations. Sixty percent actually passed by Congress reaffirms the U.S. risks for new investments, strengthen farm. Accordingly, further reducing the foreign policy of improving plight of these poor families the conditions of the most will require extraordinary vulnerable members of policy measures at the society— beginning with national, as well as women and children—in household and community countries that demonstrate levels. leadership commitment We have the scientific and sound governance. The capacity and the technical Board for International and financial know-how Food and Agricultural to achieve continuing Development on which I improvements among the serve is a seven-member poorest people, but effective advisory board appointed governance, sound policies, by the President to advise and economic understanding the U.S. Agency for of sustainable and resilient International Development. productive systems are We strongly support and essential to progress in this encourage USAID to assist stressful “last mile” of effort. cooperating countries My own Peace Corps in building human and experience teaching in physical assets to become vocational agriculture more self-sustaining. We in Nan, Thailand, in the A farmer carefully spreads fertilizer on freshly planted crops by hand using an also affirm that leadership early 1960s fueled my empty water bottle with the cup cut off. and governance in partner career-long enthusiasm for countries must also be committed to their educational systems and otherwise exploring alternative and complementary supporting these efforts. improve themselves to achieve and approaches to economic and social The merits of development sustain economic growth. Reasonably development. Over my career, I continued programs—including the use of food stable conditions are necessary to this exploration in university-related assistance when needed—are determined incentivize on-farm investments by technical assistance and collaborations in by the extent to which they strengthen smallholders themselves.

Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.

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and sustain the capacity of people and communities to improve themselves.

USAID is now giving more attention to strengthening the resilience of families through programs and support systems that improve self-sufficiency. Countries and communities must possess the political leadership to withstand and recover from disruptive shocks and stress in their food and health systems, whether caused by droughts, diseases, or violence.

USAID is emphasizing development strategies that help countries transition away from dependency on donors to achieve national self-sufficiency.

experiences. Joining in this effort are cooperating universities around the world, collaborative non-governmental organizations, private business, and the consortium of 15 research centers in the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, and other supportive UN agencies. New knowledge from such research can lead to long-term success that enables recipient countries to become less dependent on external assistance.

However, sustaining these efforts means that each partner country must find its own ways to govern effectively,

These constructive international efforts are challenged by growing political and military conflict, the vicissitudes of changing climatic conditions, pests and plant and animal diseases.

Building resiliency at the community and national levels is key to this strategy. With the support of private voluntary organizations, businesses, and government agencies such as extension, USAID programs demonstrate that agricultural development, innovative programs of finance, new solar and electrical power, and improved nutrition and water development can liberate the energy and creativity of even the most limited resource farmers.

Trusting smallholders U.S. foreign assistance programs must be based on respect and faith in the people—in farmers and their families who struggle daily to improve their own lot.

Extensive research has demonstrated that small-scale farmers will take advantage of a resource-enhanced environment if given reasonable access. So the challenge to donors is to design programs that provide reasonable hope that social and economic conditions will improve and enable farm families to be more productive and supportive of their families.

Development strategies to improve smallholder productivity rely on new scientific research in agricultural sciences, nutrition, and water development, new findings from diverse academic disciplines, and extensive field

build a civil society, educate its populace, conduct research, and adapt technologies.

In doing so, scientists, educators, and entrepreneurs within each country can then work effectively with international partners toward mutually beneficial goals. Building such institutional capacity is costly and is threatened by growing political and military conflict, the usual stresses caused by changing climatic conditions, and the constant threat of pests and plant and animal diseases. These challenges call on every known policy tool and often require food assistance programs as well, both for short-term emergency food needs and to support long-term development and growth.

The renewed emphasis on resilience draws on old economic ideas of capital accumulation that include education, human capital, farm-level productivity, and marketing efficiency. But many other disciplines and organizational structures are now being coalesced into common strategies that incorporate needed organizational adjustments and psycho-social understanding in program design. Thus, as efforts are made to cushion producers and consumers against shocks and disruptions in production, the nutritional needs for children and employment alternatives for other family

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members must be accounted for in intervention strategies.

USAID and other donors are increasingly recognizing that farm families must have the productive assets—both human and physical—to bounce back and build pathways to sustained growth. Cooperative business structures to purchase inputs, market and process product for domestic and international markets, and finance expansion, will likely play an expanded role in the future. Emergencies created by human and natural disasters may require additional aid. Meanwhile, current aid programs should create the conditions that eliminate the need for continued regular assistance from donors.

Best American values The U.S. experience in development assistance emerged from the Marshall Plan after World War II and included significant food assistance as a critical element of U.S. foreign policy for economic as well as diplomatic and humanitarian reasons. Food aid remains an important tool today, but its full potential for building resilience is not recognized. Public skepticism about the effectiveness of food aid persists partly because U.S. food aid programs developed during a period of agricultural abundance, leading to criticism that U.S. food aid programs were “dumping” surplus food production. Concern also emerged about potential price and policy disincentives for local producers that may be created by food aid programs. However, most research demonstrates that recipient governments and agencies found ways to offset potential disincentives by creative offsetting policies. Understanding the cropping cycle, the local labor needs, and periods of local food shortage led to creative policies to increase farm-level production while insuring that the mostneedy members of the community are fed. The earlier experiences of Brazil, India, Korea, Tunisia and Ethiopia provide country-level examples that demonstrate the power of such policy tools.

Nevertheless, having sufficient food to share with those in need embraces and reflects the best of the American spirit and values, the scientific achievements of

WFP/GIULIO D’ADAMO

Stacks of bags of split yellow peas from donor countries arrive for distribution by the World Food Programme in regions suffering from famine.

our farmers, the research and education conducted at our Land Grant universities, the abilities of our corporate sector, and the volunteer spirit of our citizenry.

Research has demonstrated that food aid ultimately contributes to significant growth in commercial trade between recipient countries and the United States,

as has occurred in many significant cases ranging from South Korea and India to Brazil and smaller countries.

For hungry recipients, there is no substitute for food. The desired outcomes of better health, restored dignity, and the pride that come from the ability to feed one’s family are building blocks

in a resilient society. Whether it is the floods that have plagued Bangladesh, the political violence common in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or the horrors of the earthquakes in Haiti, emergency food assistance has saved millions of lives and given countless children and families new opportunities

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WFP

savings; foreign exchange savings; and for improved health and renewed dignity. human capital improvements stemming Along with emergency feeding programs from nutritional gains, skill training for Haiti and many other countries, and work experiences. Clearly, the U.S. and UN food aid efforts provided impact of a school feeding program food-for-work in road reconstruction, varies significantly from a food-for-work reforestation, water harvesting and project, though both may improve human irrigation projects that significantly nutrition and provide more energy for improved recipient country productive learning and work. capacity.

Foreign exchange savings result from Most likely, food aid will continue the reallocation of funds away from to provide emergency support and, commercial food imports that are replaced when effectively programmed, be an by food aid. Those scarce funds can be effective part of U.S. development efforts, particularly in strengthening resilience through sustained capital formation, or asset accumulation, if you will. Food aid can be a positive tool to transition countries into selfsustained growth whenever it is programmed to improve the productive potential of farmers by creating useful capital assets, improving human nutrition, and building community infrastructure.

My earlier research found that food aid programs were particularly effective for sustained development when their inherent investment streams were mobilized to achieve social and economic objectives. In this manner, food aid policy and program design Smallholders in Mozambique carefully plant a field of groundnuts can strengthen resilience and support the transformation reallocated to other high-priority needs in of a country’s economy. Implementing the agricultural and other sectors of the practical strategies of food aid to improve economy. Three other investment streams small-scale farming, soil conservation, were identified that created economic and family diets helps build more resilient benefits in a household- and communityeconomies and improves human capital. level impact analysis in Kenya’s Rift So, the findings from this research Valley. demonstrate that food aid can be one Collaborating with faculty of Egerton among other tools that help address the University in Njoro, Kenya, a study was fundamental needs of the more than 767 conducted of the impact of an ongoing million people living in “extreme poverty” Food-For-Work Program on the families in some of the most challenging and of 330 smallholders in a food-deficit environmentally fragile eco-zones in the region of Baringo District, a semi-arid world. area devoted to millet and livestock production. The UN/World Food Food for work succeeds Program provided commodities as a cash Four investment streams that build substitute to pay smallholder farmers resilience are imbedded to varying as laborers to work on water harvesting, degrees in food aid programs: new and irrigation, road building, and other improved capital projects; household

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public works as part of an integrated rural development project in the District.

These efforts created new and improved capital projects and access to improved pastures, with water harvesting and improved irrigation systems. The capital constraint for local producers was relaxed, resulting in a 52 percent increase in net farm income. Production improvements on smallholders’ two- or three-acre subsistence farms were supplemented by more water for their farms, more food for their own energy, and crop and marketing options for their agricultural production.

In a purely economic sense, household income is spent on consumption or savings.

The savings in Baringo were translated into purchase of new tools, improved fences, and new inputs such as improved seeds and fertilizers, leading to greater efficiency in the use of labor, land, and tools. The farmers’ diets provided more energy to improve fences for livestock management and harvest more of the available rainfall or stream flow for crops and livestock. These are gains in household savings that had a profound effect on the resilience of the farm family.

We also found that as lowincome farmers improved their management practices, they hired their neighbors and local employment increased 93 percent above the direct employment in the Food for Work project.

The food aid commodities these smallholders received represented increased household income and improved family nutrition. Compared to other Baringo families, their consumption of fat increased by 42 percent, calorie consumption by 26 percent, and protein consumption by 16 percent. The field workers in this food aid-supported project were all men. Women prepared family meals supplementing their own production with the commodities earned by the men in the household resulting in more nutritious diets.

Road to well-being?

The poorest households benefitted most of all. Lower income members of the community participated more actively in the food for work project, resulting in more equal patterns of income distribution and improved nutritional intake across the community. The lowestincome quintile of our sample consumed 32 percent more nutrients than the average of the sample. We concluded that poor families understood the value of food for their children. Food aid improved the nutritional intake of participants more than would its cash equivalent.

More resilient local production capacity is complemented by household nutritional gains that lend optimism for the long-term consequences of food aid. Farm-level productive capital accumulated and small family-operated production was stimulated. Consequently, the need for food assistance could be eliminated if such capital formation continued, but that will likely require other investments in marketing and processing infrastructure to sustain the growth and provide employment to some members of the community. Labor displacement is a likely consequence of such transformational patterns of development. So, broader aspects of resilience for the health and well-being of women and children especially must be determined.

Nevertheless, the evidence suggests that properly managed Food for Work programs can play an important role in the long-term economic development of food deficit regions, providing a cushion for the nutrient needs of families, while generating community infrastructure and supplementing family income. Local social and economic conditions must always be taken into consideration, and the nature of household decisions about production, consumption, and employment of own and hired labor are important contributing factors.

The results of our studies reaffirmed what Nobel Laureate T.W. Schultz argued: that farmers are rational and will make efficient and worthwhile decisions when they are given the chance to do so.

We need to trust that their cultural and social norms are programmed for survival

of the family, they will attain efficiency in managing small-scale agricultural operations to feed their families and insure healthy diets for their children, and they are capable of selling their products in local markets. These are beginning points for successful programs of resilience.

Food represents more than just its value in the market place. Food production, marketing, and consumption reflect critical cultural values for which equivalent money is no substitute. The words “Food for Peace” reflect a U.S. foreign aid policy that is committed to more than simply nutrient adequacy for our brothers, our sisters and “all our children” in countries in need. Many advocates for peace agree.

In his 1970 acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, Norman Borlaug said, “Food is the moral right of all who are born into this world.” Borlaug went on to reframe his argument. “If you desire peace, cultivate justice, but at the same time cultivate the fields to produce more bread; otherwise there will be no peace.”

Food aid satisfies important humanitarian values. It can be an important tool for building economic resilience at all levels. Ultimately it leads to strong trading partnerships with donor countries. History tells us that when food security is threatened, the family and community are threatened. The moral and political challenge remains for us to recognize that food is fundamental to building a sustainable society, which requires that we establish and implement development policies that address the needs of the most disadvantaged.

Dr. Brady Deaton serves as a 2011 Presidential appointee to the USAID advisory board on food and agriculture in developing countries and recently completed his term as chairman. He began his career in agriculture after his sophomore year in college in 1962 and joined Peace Corps as a vocational agriculture teacher in Nan, Thailand. He later completed doctoral studies in agricultural economics at the University of Wisconsin, and taught for 17 years at two universities before joining the faculty at the University of Missouri in 1989 and retired as chancellor in 2013.

WorldView ∙ Summer 2018 ∙ www.PeaceCorpsConnect.org | 19

FOOD SECURITY

A THINK TANK

They’ve started a global conversation about how we grow what we eat

D

anielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack are cofounders of the Food Tank in Washington, D.C. Danielle served in San Francisco de Marcoris, Dominican Republic from 1996 to 1998.

Food Tank’s mission is to highlight what’s working to improve food security on the ground—in fields, kitchens, laboratories, boardrooms, and town halls—across the globe.

She has traveled to 70-plus countries interviewing hundreds and hundreds of farmers, scientists, policymakers, academics, agronomists, nutritionists, youth, and women’s groups collecting their innovations to make the food

WorldView: Five years ago you started a think tank about the production, distribution and consumption of food.

Why? Nierenberg: We really saw a gap in the think tank space. There are plenty of think tanks for environmental issues and government policy like Brookings but none in the food space talking about innovations on the ground for farmers, food advocates, agronomists, policy makers and business. We wanted to highlight what’s working on the ground here and around the world. I worked for many years for an environmental research organization where we were very good at talking about the problems. Now we need to start talking about solutions.

WorldView: How does Food Tank address the global issues of food insecurity?

Nierenberg: We look for bridges between the global South and the global North. One of the things I learned in

system environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable.

In addition to their research and advocacy work, Food Tank has hosted conferences attended by members of Congress, dozens of experts and advocates from all perspectives: the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the cofounder of Honest Tea, the president of the National Farmers Union, the chief of produce at Beefsteak, and the founder of MOM’S organic markets.

Danielle has written about global and local food issues for The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Le Monde and recently discussed with our editors what Food Tank is trying to do.

Peace Corps is that it’s not only what I have to give but what I learned from the farmers I worked with in the Dominican Republic. That’s what has continued with Food Tank, knowing that farmers here have a lot to learn from farmers in other parts of the world who’ve been dealing with some of the stresses that now affect

Nierenberg: In the past, the United States has been the largest contributor to food aid but that remains to be seen with the Trump Administration. There is so much more need for food aid than we can address. Take Syria and Puerto Rico, for example. The need will only grow because of things like climate change.

If we don’t solve the problem now we never will. It’s more than funding and supplying aid. It’s providing the skill set and the awareness of consumers to get themselves out of these problems and not have to rely on aid in the first place. What the World Food Programme has done in the last few years with generating more regional food aid rather than getting it all from the United States has been dramatic in terms of a policy.

WorldView: When you talk about solutions, what are the new technologies in production and distribution of food?

Nierenberg: It’s not always about innovations as much as it is moving forward by going back and looking at a lot of the traditional and indigenous knowledge and then combining that with some of the more modern technologies like mobile, the internet, what big data is doing to help farmers with predictions about weather patterns, market prices.

There’s a real opportunity if we’re willing to seize it, to make sure that the knowledge that is inherent in farmers and their communities is not lost so we can move forward.

WorldView: Your co-founder, Bernard, says you’ve been running the conferences back to back, running from George Washington University here in

There’s a real reluctance to have food justice advocates in the same room with corporations. We’re often missing one side or the other of the debate. We definitely need to have more dialogue. the agricultural supply chain in the United States like climate change and extreme weather and volatile markets. There’s a real opportunity for collaboration from South to North.

WorldView: The United States plays a major role in global food security. Why haven’t we made a difference?

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Washington, D.C. to Seattle, Washington.

I sense there’s an urgency to your efforts to get this conversation going.

Nierenberg: I think there is. We really don’t have a minute to waste. We have 850 million people across the globe who are hungry, another 2.2 billion are obese, we waste 1.3 billion tons a year.

Visit foodtank.com to share your stories and see what Danielle and Bernard’s think tank is up to now.

OPINION REUTERS/GORAN TOMASEVIC

If you put conflict and migration on top of this we have real challenges to face.

Getting these discussions going is really crucial. The more stakeholders, policy makers, farmers, and businesses we have talking to each other, the more we increase our chances of coming up with some unusual collaborations that may be more controversial but can have a real impact.

WorldView: Controversies?

Nierenberg: There’s a real reluctance to have food justice advocates in the same room with corporations. We’re often missing one side or the other of the debate. We definitely need to have more dialogue. Five or six years ago I would never have thought of talking to Monsanto or Cargill or another big multinational corporation. I know I’m never going to agree on a lot of things but I am invited to events with some of those companies so now I get to hear from them and they hear my perspectives.

And they hear the interviews I have with farmers across the world. It’s a real step forward.

WorldView: Have you seen any progress in the last five years?

Nierenberg: There’s a lot more momentum, there’s more transparency, especially young consumers who want to know the story behind their foods. They are critical and want to know more about the food they are eating every day and what’s going on around the world. They crave that story.

WorldView: What are you excited about this year?

Nierenberg: We’re most excited about Earth to Planet, a book we plan to produce with the Barilla Center Food and Nutrition Foundation in Brussels.

It’s a recipe for a sustainable food system drawing on the expertise of people around the world in farm fields, laboratories, board rooms, and kitchens, people who are leading the way to a more sustainable social and environmentally and economically sustainable future.

Rebel fighters raise their weapons against the Sudan People’s Liberation Army in a four-year civil war that has driven millions of starving refugees to flee to refugee camps or to neighboring countries.

HUNGER DRIVEN

BY WAR Witness to South Sudan’s failed state

By Sara Moussavi

I

first worked in Sudan with the UN World Food Programme in 2005. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement had been signed, the fighting had stopped after a decade’s long civil war. I managed the school feeding programme involving a million kids throughout the country, and spent a lot of time traipsing through the south of the country working on establishing a government-led school feeding programme that involved parents and communities and focussed on positive educational outcomes.

There was hope. There was engagement and interest everywhere I went; governments, donors, partners, communities, the pupils all wanted to learn and bring themselves to a different place after experiencing such hell. This is

the place I left in 2009. Two years later, South Sudan gained independence from Sudan. Finally, the ‘Baby Nation’ as they called themselves, was born.

Can South Sudan survive?

I returned in 2016 to find South Sudan gripped in a new civil war amongst themselves. Violence and death were rampant, security restrictions were everywhere. There was no discussion of a flourishing education programme. Rather, ‘life-saving emergency assistance’ was the theme. This was heart-breaking to witness, but I still have hope.

The civil war in South Sudan is now in its fifth year and the crisis has expanded to areas otherwise peaceful: almost half of the population relies on humanitarian assistance. The 2018 Humanitarian

WorldView ∙ Summer 2018 ∙ www.PeaceCorpsConnect.org | 21

percent of that total figure, with people in need for 2018 reaching seven million, in addition to the two million who have fled to neighbouring countries.

In South Sudan, the implications on food access and availability as a result of the conflict have materialised in largely two areas: a reduction in production of food and economic inflation which has made market access almost impossible for most vulnerable households. These factors are compounded by the intermittent closing of the borders with both Sudan and Uganda; a reduction in oil prices affecting national revenue, and disease compromising individual nutrition.

In urban areas, inflation reached 183 percent where populations are almost entirely reliant on markets for food. Coupled with spikes in food prices, households previously not directly affected by the chronic crises found themselves needing food assistance to survive.

Response Plan indicates that 5.7 million people are in need of humanitarian food security assistance, and we’re targeting 5.5 million people with aid totalling $827 million. The United Nations estimates that another 2.2 million more people are in need of help than five years ago.

The elimination of hunger in the Republic of South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation state, currently seems far-fetched. However, we should not ignore the fact that opportunities do exist for South Sudan to fully reverse the nature of the crisis, quell the perpetual state of hunger, and rise to a level where they are supporting the region with food production; not depending on external food imports and assistance.

Such a miracle is possible because 25 years ago this region, which was then the southern portion of The Republic of Sudan, was a net exporter of agricultural products. The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations and the African Development Bank estimate that approximately 330,000 square kilometres, almost half of the nation’s total land space, is suitable for cultivation. The high potential for agricultural production coupled with the development of appropriate and adequate infrastructure, could result in South Sudan becoming the ‘bread basket of Africa.’

Conflict and Hunger Around the globe last year, conflict was the main driver of hunger affecting 18 countries and some 74 million people according to the World Food Programme.

South Sudan alone comprises almost ten

What will it take?

In South Sudan, the spectrum of support for food security interventions spans from unconditional food assistance to sophisticated food/cash for work schemes and livestock interventions.

There is a massive attempt to revitalise agriculture in areas where possible, and fishing activities are well supported.

Almost 70 humanitarian organizations—agencies of the United Nations as well as other international and national agencies—provide services through the Food Security and Livelihoods Cluster. Humanitarian clusters guarantee efficient, coordinated and prioritized humanitarian responses.

Access to populations in need is always difficult but that is the sad reality

WFP/ALA KHEIR

The elimination of hunger in the Republic of South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation state, currently seems far-fetched.

the most remote areas. Sadly, South Sudan still experiences record-high levels of severely food insecurity.

Displaced children at Marta School in Kosti, South Kordofan, receive these meals from the World Food Progamme.

Localised famine was noted in recent years, but thanks to focussed and relentless humanitarian assistance, the crisis was stopped in 2017 with a barrage of air drops and canoe fleets delivering assistance to

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in conflict environments. Working through the various parties to the conflict, humanitarian organizations push through as best they can but that sometimes costs the lives of aid workers.

Just before my return to work in South Sudan, militants attacked the Terrain Hotel in Juba and committed sexual violence, beat some workers and killed another aid worker. Sadly, this is one of many such acts of violence.

Donors are supplying all resources they have available and performing the best work possible in this complicated environment. In terms of the number of South Sudanese in need, it is likely not enough but it will temper the severity of the food insecurity, and keep people alive.

Suffering may be reduced, but real change depends on much more than wellexecuted humanitarian programmes.

Peace will not be enough A cessation of hostilities alone is not the answer. Peace with no plan for bringing back the millions of displaced from inside and outside the country will likely result in renewed conflict. The country needs to create a path to stabilization and overall investments in basic services. If and when the civil war in South Sudan comes to an end, South Sudan must have support from the regional community in particular, and the international community at large to start a process of political reconciliation, establish basic services, and offer access to food, water, healthcare, education, and protection.

Specific medium- to longer-term investments in South Sudan related to food security could include building an efficient livestock industry through concerted destocking/restocking of cattle herds, and establishing a controlled pricing system. General mechanization of agriculture for the production of maize, soy, sorghum, and perhaps rice can be achieved through partnerships with the private sector from countries where such advancements are commonplace. Lastly, but very important for a stable food security situation in South Sudan is the capacity to process and market agricultural products.

From my viewpoint, the resources, environment, and hope are still there for South Sudan to come out of this situation

in a positive way. As always, an effective government interested in the well-being of the population will determine how fast this comes to fruition. I think South Sudan still has supporters and their investments could come quickly once peace is locked in.

Sara Moussavi has worked since 2003 for the UN World Food Programme on operations in Sudan, Somalia, South Sudan, Nepal, Iraq, Pakistan, and the Philippines. From 1997 to 1999, she taught agricultural sciences in an agricultural high school on the Dominican Republic near the northwestern border of Haiti.

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WorldView ∙ Summer 2018 ∙ www.PeaceCorpsConnect.org | 23

FOOD SECURITY

PREDICTERS OF FAMINE Warning of threats to food security

By Gary Eilerts and Jeffrey Marzilli

S

ometime in 1984, the story goes, the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development began hearing through the press about famines occurring in Sudan and Ethiopia. As the horrific stories began to build, the decision to help by delivering U.S. food aid was relatively easy, and helicopters were offered for delivery in Sudan. “Where do we need them to go to deliver the food?” was the next question.

Essentially, the answer that came back from Khartoum was that the core of the famine was someplace in “western Sudan,” roughly equivalent to saying, “somewhere south of Canada, west of the Atlantic Ocean, north of Florida, and east of Missouri”; too little information for a flight plan. So a halting response was assembled, and lessons were learned.

Sometime soon after, USAID drafted plans for, contracted out, and began implementing the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) project, with a mandate to know, before the fact, exactly where and when US food assistance would be needed in famineprone countries.

Over the last 100 years, the world has regularly seen famines, affecting millions

in China, India, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Sudan, and not counting countless other smaller-scale, but no less deadly events.

Even today, the annual United Nations State of Food Insecurity report estimates there are more than 800 million people in the world who do not get enough food to lead healthy lives, more than 20 million of whom are threatened by famine.

So what was surprising about the 1984 famines in Sudan and Ethiopia was not that they were occurring, but how poorly we were all prepared to help. The early warning and food security concept of the 1970s and 1980s was very simply a national “food balance sheet,” which counted up how much grain a country produced each year, and then theoretically divided it up among all of that country’s inhabitants to see if the “average” available grain per capita was enough to theoretically meet everyone’s needs. This assessment method ignored the fact that some people cannot grow or purchase any grain, while others have far more than they need, and even when food stocks are adequate in a food insecure country there are always many people who are poor, hungry, and often just weeks away from starvation.

Measures of food access A paradigm shift occurred in early warning and food security assessment after the 1984 famines. And it reflected an even broader idea taking root worldwide, as evidenced by the “Live Aid”, “USA for Africa” and “Band Aid” calls for humanitarian response, that no one should have to die of hunger, and that the world, collectively, had a duty to avoid famine. It consisted of a new focus on regularly measuring the success, or failure of local collections of households and communities in feeding themselves.

This means measuring people’s “access” to food, and not just the amount of food that is physically present “around” them.

This requires monitoring the weather, the quantity of local harvests, market prices of food, changes in household and community income sources, nutritional conditions, trade activity, access to credit, and many more features of how specific groups of people are able to earn, grow, borrow or be given the food they require at all moments.

Since 1984, enormous progress has been achieved by FEWS NET and its close partner, the Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping (VAM) unit of the UN World Food Programme, and other national

Who monitors food security?

Over three decades, more than 20 RPCVs with first-hand Peace Corps experience in at least 15 countries have served with the U.S. Agency for International Development as full-time food security professionals with FEWS NET. They contributed significantly to the agency’s conceptual understanding of food security as well as its data collection and analysis tools.

RPCVs filled a critical early void as field officers and main-office analysts, then

became trainers and quickly moved into leadership posts.

The World Food Programme recruited two experts from FEWS to establish its own Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping unit in 1997. Within five years, they added three more. All were RPCVs. VAM expanded to 40 countries.

To date, at least 10 RPCVs have served worldwide with WFP’s disaster mapping service.

RPCVs from both organizations

24 | WorldView ∙ Summer 2018 ∙ National Peace Corps Association

have gone on to create vulnerability analysis and early warning efforts in the Food & Agriculture Organization, Save the Children and for other NGOs as well as the private sector. Still more RPCVs apply food security analysis across policy and program areas such as health and nutrition, emergency preparedness, resilience and climate change, education, communications, monitoring, and evaluation.

actors. They turned early warning, food security assessment and humanitarian assistance targeting into a sophisticated, evidence-based technical discipline using satellites, price and nutrition surveys, crop assessments, and a broad spectrum of other indicators to measure how poor people are coping with food shortages in their own specific resource-limited environments.

Looking ahead The recent and deadly 2011 Somalia famine was, therefore, a stunning moment where, despite progressively more pointed warnings of impending famine by FEWS NET almost a year before it occurred, over 253,000 people died of hunger and related causes. A lack of information was not the problem that prevented an effective global humanitarian response. It was rather a constellation of legal, capacity and other obstacles that prevented humanitarian responders from moving fast enough to divert scarce resources from one potentially important crisis to another. It is a risky and difficult call for anyone to make, and requires better assessments of the underlying uncertainties and probabilities associated with the specific forecasts that are available.

Another key “frontier” in early warning and food security assessment is adapting to new threats. For example, significant changes in “normal” rainfall patterns are being observed in many food insecure countries, and where droughts were present 10 years ago but they may not be where they occur next year — and there may be many more of them.

At the same time, rural areas may no longer be where the bulk of the food insecure and famine-threatened populations are found. Urban populations are the largest reservoir of malnourished and food insecure populations in many countries now, and rapidly becoming so all across Africa. But the tools required to measure the available income and food resources of these populations, their unmet food needs, and the resources needed to address this growing urban issue, are not yet what they need to be.

And finally, perhaps the most likely proximate cause of the next famine is

exactly what it currently is: conflict and warfare. It occurs anywhere, and may affect anyone: poor, rich, urban, rural, farmer, merchant. When it is present during a drought, what might have been a containable food security crisis may become a large-scale famine disaster.

This was the case in 2011, when both south-eastern Ethiopia and northern Kenya were affected by the same drought conditions as conflict-wracked Somalia, but food assistance was able to reach the affected populations in Ethiopia and Kenya, and no famine occurred.

What new paradigm shifts are on the horizon? Every year emergency food crises consume large amounts of funding which might otherwise be invested in development. Current development strategies deal only indirectly with emergency food crises, hoping that strategies for expanding development across the broader national economies will create a rising tide of income that will eventually lift all boats, even those which are worst off. The new ‘resilience’ approach essentially says that not all of these boats are seaworthy and there

A FEWS NET map of Somalia from June-September 2017 pinpoints emergency conditions in red, crises in brown, stressed regions in yellow and no famine. The map reflects zonal stresses for pastoralists, possible flooding in the Shabelle and Juba watersheds, and improved crop conditions during the Gu rainy season in the south.

WorldView ∙ Summer 2018 ∙ www.PeaceCorpsConnect.org | 25

FEWS NET

A FEWS NET map of Afghanistan data for June to September 2017 pinpoints emergency conditions in red, crises in brown. Most of the country will experience stress conditions, with isolated crises north of Kabul, in a large portion of the west between Herat and Farah provinces, and isolated crises in two provinces near the Turkmenistan border. No emergencies and no famine are expected.

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needs to be more of a priority put on fundamentally addressing these persistent and often deadly crises.

Over the longer term, resilient households can only be sustained in an environment where, globally, and locally, there is a sufficient supply of food. As the amount of uncropped arable land in the world shrinks, consistent gains in agricultural productivity and the efficiency of food delivery systems are required to feed an ever-growing population at a price all can afford. Higher yields per hectare, improved storage and transport, and decreased food waste are essential to ensuring that the global food supply keeps up with growing demand.

While the resilience story is not fully told yet, the fundamental difficulties of finding solutions for the most difficult reservoirs of poverty and food insecurity are being confronted on a daily basis.

The challenge is a difficult one, but there is a sense of optimism among those working in the field of food security that progress is being made, even if much of it may be spontaneously occurring and not the product of planned development activities.

So what about the FEWS NET project,

26 | WorldView ∙ Summer 2018 ∙ National Peace Corps Association

created so quickly in 1985? Thirty-plus years later, the FEWS NET has become a renowned source of early warning and food security analysis in some of the most vulnerable and food insecure countries of the world. FEWS NET and WFP’s VAM unit monitor, assess and target the most food insecure populations in more than 80 countries to receive humanitarian food assistance. Together, the local and third-country food security analysts in FEWS NET and VAM, and many others in national and regional early warning and food security organizations across the globe, constitute one of the most capable reservoirs of technically skilled and able agents of change in the world. They routinely ingest and integrate some of the largest and deepest datasets available to any humanitarian field, do it within a spatial framework, and make the leap daily in converting the data into critical inputs to important human decisions; decisions that are used to ensure that food assistance—either in-kind or through cash transfers—contributes to better nutrition, health and educational outcomes, stronger social safety nets, and improved local capacity.

Gary Eilerts was a Peace Corps mobile health team volunteer in Ivory Coast, from 1969 to 1971. He worked in international development, served in various analyst capacities in food security analysis for FEWS NET, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the UN World Food Program in Rome. He spent 10 years managing USAID’s FEWS NET, retiring in 2015. He continues to consult on food security efforts.

Jeff Marzilli was a Peace Corps agriculture volunteer assigned to Plan International in Sierra Leone from 198486. He worked for several NGOs in Niger, Ethiopia and Mozambique. Following service in USAID’s food needs assessment and FEWS programs, he went to work for WFP in Rome where he became VAM’s program director. Later he served WFP in its Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Thailand offices, and was a UN Food and Agriculture Organization advisor.

FOOD SECURITY

AGRICULTURE VOLUNTEERS How an RPCV affiliate reduces food waste and hunger

By Katherine Braga & Christopher Hartley

O

at USDA which is one of the largest employers of RPCVs in the federal government. For many of us, our public service careers were inspired by our experiences volunteering in communities abroad with the Peace Corps, tackling some of the developing world’s most pressing challenges.

Our Peace Corps experiences were diverse, but they brought us all to a federal agency President Abraham Lincoln created in 1862. When he gave his final annual message to Congress, he called us the “People’s Department.” To this day, we continue to proudly serve the people by

providing leadership on food, agriculture, natural resources, rural development and nutrition in the United States and around the world.

Our career specialties in the “People’s Department” range broadly but overlap significantly with many traditional Peace Corps assignments such as technical assistance and capacity building in agricultural production, resource conservation, food safety, economic development and research, marketing, and education. It’s actually hard to identify a service to building rural prosperity that USDA doesn’t perform.

It’s also hard to identify a part of the nation that USDA does not impact as we have 29 agencies and offices with nearly 100,000 employees who serve the American people at more than 4,500 locations across the country and abroad.

For us, it began overseas with Peace Corps.

For example, Bridget McElroy works in the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service. During her Peace Corps service

ne easy way to make a difference in your community is collecting unharvested or excess fresh foods from farms or food distributors and providing it to people in need. RPCVs & Friends at the U.S. Department of Agriculture has gleaned over 50,000 pounds of food in fields and warehouses for distribution in the D.C. area since 2016.

Our gleaning efforts support the Feds Feed Families campaign and help local food banks keep their shelves stocked in winter months when their donations decrease and demand increases.

With non-profits leading the way in coordinating regional efforts, we’ve sorted through tons of sweet potatoes and cabbages; picked apples and cherries; and harvested ears of corn and watermelons.

In the same spirit, we’ve prepared more than 5,000 meals for local homeless shelters, schools, and nonprofits through D.C. Central Kitchen, the nation’s first and leading community kitchen.

Volunteering to glean farm fields and prepare meals for the homeless combines our Peace Corps experience and professional careers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. We address USDA goals of providing access to a safe, nutritious, and secure food supply— issues that resonate with many RPCVs. We also help our local communities and demonstrate our ongoing commitment to public service.

We talked about the value of Peace Corps and realized the enormous overlap between USDA’s mission and what we did in Peace Corps.

A major federal workplace affiliate We are nearly 300 members of a two-year-old NPCA workplace affiliate

Members of RPCVs & Friends at USDA volunteer at the Mid-Atlantic Gleaning Network in support of last year’s Feds Feed Families campaign. The RPCVs have gleaned over 50,000 pounds of food from fields and warehouses in the last two years.

WorldView ∙ Summer 2018 ∙ www.PeaceCorpsConnect.org | 27

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from 2008-2010, she worked with coffee farmers in Ecuador on market access projects. “I wanted to continue to serve farmers, so I joined the AMS team and now proudly support the diverse agricultural operations we have right here in the United States”.

Karen Smith spent her days between 1997 and 1999 educating pregnant and nursing mothers on nutrition and dietary problems in Niger. Today, “I work towards the same goals that I did during my time in Niger. Serving with USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service, I work with the Child and Adult Care Food and Summer Meals Programs, which prioritizes nutrition for children.”

Paige Cowie worked on food conservation, gardens, small animal husbandry and cook stoves for a women’s cooperative in Togo from 2014 to 2016 and now works with USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service. “My experience as a PCV in Togo made evident certain realities of what it means to be food secure in different parts of the world. This sparked my interest in starting a career in international development and further pursuing global issues of food security.”

Two years ago, all of us felt the need for an NPCA affiliate in the federal

28 | WorldView ∙ Summer 2018 ∙ National Peace Corps Association

workplace when several RPCVs and Peace Corps supporters at USDA headquarters met for lunch to celebrate Peace Corps Week. We talked about the value of Peace Corps and realized the enormous overlap between USDA’s mission and what we did in Peace Corps. So we formed a department-wide employee resource group for RPCVs. Thousands see our photographs Every day more than a thousand people who visit USDA headquarters on the National Mall see one of our most recent accomplishments: a photography exhibit celebrating the lifelong commitment to public service shared

by RPCVs who are USDA employees.

The exhibit features photographs taken by current USDA employees in their countries of Peace Corps service. A panel of USDA photographers selected 24 of 86 submissions from RPCVs who served in 21 countries on five continents over four decades. The exhibit includes stories linking the employees’ Peace Corps service with their public service in the federal government.

Our governing council of 22 members meets monthly for a working lunch at headquarters to coordinate our local

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30 | WorldView ∙ Summer 2018 ∙ National Peace Corps Association

We support the professional development of USDA staff and play an active role in recruiting new USDA staff and new Peace Corps Volunteers. and online volunteer projects and plan networking and social functions such as our Peace Corps Week luncheon and a summer cook-out. Membership in our workplace is open to all USDA employees and contractors around the world. Such a diverse membership offers unique opportunities to network across professional fields and industries.

Together we aim to champion a lifelong commitment to national service ideals by organizing volunteer activities and supporting community engagement; facilitate communication and foster a sense of community amongst RPCVs and other employees through social events; and provide an information sharing tool for USDA employees worldwide who are interested in the work of Peace Corps and supporting a career pipeline for volunteers of all ages.

As an NPCA workplace affiliate, we work in a strong partnership with Peace Corps headquarters and the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of Washington, D.C. We are also formally chartered as an employee resource group with USDA’s human resources office and actively recruit new USDA staff and new Peace Corps Volunteers.

For more information email PeaceCorps@osec.usda.gov.

Katherine Braga is a USDA employee who works in the Rural Development Innovation Center. She taught English as a foreign language in Ukraine from 2011 to 2013.

Katherine was one of the co-founders of RPCVs & Friends at USDA. Christopher Hartley works in the Office of Environmental Markets at USDA. He served in Senegal working with sustainable agriculture from 1993 to 1996. Chris currently serves a codirector RPCVs & Friends at USDA. This article does not necassarily reflect official USDA policy.

OPINION

PIE IN THE SKY

feeder roads were nothing more than wide footpaths cut through forest. They had no road bed, no drainage or bridges Does foreign assistance make a difference? over the many streams that cut across

By Patrick Fine the lowveld, and in places sand bars made passage in a vehicle uncertain. No buses frequent stops) made the 70-kilometer or other public transport serviced the conomic and social progress journey from Manzini, the closest town, feeder roads and it was not unusual in rarely comes fast, making it easy take two hours and left the traveler dusty Dvokolwako to see a sick person being to question whether foreign and tired. A low level concrete slab served pushed in a wheelbarrow to the main road assistance is effective. Many for transport to the hospital in critiques of foreign aid expose Manzini. Poor roads didn’t seem to poorly conceived and implemented matter that much. In a community programs and document bad of several hundred families there governance, corruption, and were only a handful of private persistent poverty. Some even vehicles and only two farmers who argue that far from helping, owned tractors. foreign assistance is part of the The community’s center was problem. I suspect there are a modern secondary school that few self-conscious development had been built with World Bank workers who don’t ask themselves funds in 1978. One hundred whether the treasure, sweat and meters down the road was a small tears really make a difference, store that sold dry goods. About a especially those of us who have year after I arrived, a businessman spent years struggling with the opened a “butchery”—a small kiosk day-to-day management problems next to his shop that sold fresh and frustrations that come meat that hung unrefrigerated in with implementing programs in the open air. Flies would literally countries where progress has been blanket the meat. slow and uneven.

One day when there were Recently, I visited the rural suspiciously few flies on the meat community in Swaziland where I asked the shopkeeper, jokingly, if I worked as a Peace Corps he was using Doom, the local sprayVolunteer 30 years ago. Seeing on insecticide. the changes on the homestead “Yes,” he said, and proudly took where I lived from 1980 to 1983 Children of Dvokolwako celebrate a new water well built by out his can, shook it, and sprayed helped me put into perspective volunteers from the Thirst Project, a youth-driven NGO that has the meat to demonstrate its our often-unsatisfactory efforts to targeted water for all of Swaziland by 2022. See thirstproject.com for more information. effectiveness. describe and measure the value of That was the last time I bought development work and to answer as a bridge across the Black Umbuluzi meat at the kiosk. There were no shops the question about whether foreign aid River. During the rainy season it was off the main road and people would walk makes a difference. sometimes impassable. Two large, often for miles to buy soap, matches, candles, The End of an Era In March of 1980 when I arrived in Dvokolwako, a dusty community of homesteads scattered through the acacia forest of the Swazi lowveld, I had no clue that I would be witnessing the waning days of a traditional way of life. overcrowded, buses, one in the morning Dvokolwako was reached by traveling bread and other staples. The only other and one in the late afternoon, provided down an improved but rutted dirt road public facility was a primary school built the only public transport. Secondary whose washboard surface (and the bus’s and run by the Nazarene church.

E

…where 30 years ago my Swazi father balked at the idea of a window, the most common building style is a rectangular ranch design. Sanitation is upgraded, too.

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…looking at the trajectory of change—seeing the increased commercial activity, growing prosperity, and the hopeful aspirations of the youth who believe a better life is possible—it is hard not to conclude that the assistance invested in this community has paid off.

All families in the community engaged in mixed agriculture that we inaccurately used to refer to as “subsistence” agriculture. Most families had an assortment of cattle, goats, and chickens.

Everyone grew maize, the staple food, intercropped with pumpkins, peanuts, garbanzo beans, okra, and other types of melons.

In those days it was still common to see a farmer storing his seed corn tied up in a tree. The boys would hunt for birds while herding cattle and sometimes collect a certain kind of plump caterpillar that the Swazi find tasty. Home-grown food probably accounted for about half to three fourths of what was eaten on the homestead.

Water was drawn in buckets each morning and evening by the women and girls from a lake a mile or so away. It was unfiltered and though it tasted sweet, it took me some time to get used to drinking and bathing in water that had a dirty brown complexion.

At this time there was a big campaign by the ministry of health to convince people to boil their water to reduce water borne disease. Another big public health campaign during those days was aimed at getting people to build and use latrines.

Only the most progressive homesteads had latrines. The vast majority of people simply went out into the fields or woods to do their business.

Illness was either nursed at home or treated by a variety of traditional healers. My favorite was the ummunyisi or “sucker” who made a small incision and then sucked out a small piece of bone that had been magically sent into the body by a sorcerer. Only when traditional healing failed would people resort to more modern care at a government clinic 10 miles away. I once took a man there who had been stabbed and was bleeding badly.

The nurses refused to unlock the door because it was after 5 pm. If someone was seriously ill the normal course was to rent a vehicle or board the bus for the two-hour journey into town.

There was no electricity in the community, the nearest phone and electric lines being about 10 miles away.

I could look from our homestead at night across 30 to 40 kilometers of the Swazi lowveld and see only one electric light from a distant farm that had a generator. There was a serene beauty in the star-filled African night. Drums from traditional healers beat every night. We

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REUTERS/MIKE HUTCHINGS

I lived with the sub-chief, so it is fair to say that I lived on one of the betteroff homesteads in the area. However, I was impressed by the relative equality among all households, including the chief’s. Ours was typical. We had seven rondavels constructed of logs that were planted vertically in the ground and then plastered with mud dug from a termite mound. The huts were topped with roofs of grass thatch.

The heart of every homestead was a fenced area call liguma. This space, an outside combination kitchen-family room, was where the family would gather in the evening for conversation, to plan the next day’s work, listen to the radio, and cook and eat. This is where Swazi culture was passed from one generation to the next.

The family weaved its own mats and rope from grasses collected nearby. None of the huts had windows so in winter or when it rained and cooking was done inside, the only escape for the smoke was to seep through the thatch. After I had been on the homestead for a year, I suggested installing a window in a hut to let in light and to allow a vent for the smoke. My conservative Swazi father looked at me with some disdain and said, “You are here to learn Swazi ways; Swazi huts don’t have windows.”

used candles and small paraffin lamps for light. Generally, when it got dark everyone went to sleep.

All land in Dvokolwako was under traditional land tenure. Fencing was frowned upon because it cut off the paths and limited access to communal resources of grasslands for grazing for livestock, trees for building materials and fuel, clay for pots, and grasses for mats, baskets, rope, and thatching. A few progressive farmers fenced their land but their fences were often cut and they were viewed as anti-social.

Beneath Swaziland’s remote Lebombo Mountains the residents of Dvokolwako have improved their lives through three decades of incremental development.

The author writes that rural villages like his have been transformed by USAID’s educational projects, World Bank loans for education centers and donor support of electrification, water systems, roads, and enterprise development.

Taken together, the community’s settlement patterns, architecture, and building materials, transport, communication, agricultural practices, health services, water, sanitation, power, and commerce all characterized a community that was still more traditional than modern.

A Brave New World Development in Dvokolwako has been

incremental and not always noticeable.

But over 30 years, modern patterns have replaced traditional practices. To start, cell phones are ubiquitous and everyone seems to be talking on them all the time.

And this once-distant rural community is now reached in 30 minutes on a paved road with high steel bridges. Many of the feeder roads have been upgraded with roadbeds, drainage, and low-level concrete bridges. The old, lumbering buses have

mostly given way to mini-vans which now expand public transportation into the far reaches of the community.

The school has doubled in size, reflecting growth in the population and the increased number of children who continue on to high school. Next to the school is a 30-bed rural health center.

Even more remarkable is the boom in commercial activity. There are now 10 small shops including two butcheries

WorldView ∙ Summer 2018 ∙ www.PeaceCorpsConnect.org | 33

with refrigerated cases, competing hair salons, a hardware store, several general dealers, and a mill for grinding maize. Five kilometers away two garages service and repair cars and tractors.

Not only has Dvokolwako grown, it looks different. Traditional mudplastered thatched huts have given way to concrete block and tile roof houses.

And where 30 years ago my Swazi father balked at the idea of a window, the most common building style is a rectangular ranch design with windows. Sanitation is upgraded, too. Every homestead now has a latrine, a testament to the success of the awareness and community mobilization campaigns that were greeted so skeptically when they were launched in the 1980s.

Dvokolwako, like many Swazi communities, was “resettled” to change the traditional dispersed settlement pattern into one that restricts homes to a residential zone to facilitate water systems and rural electrification. Women and children still collect water but instead of the long trek to the lake they now go to a communal water tap where they draw clean water from a protected source. Another change brought about by resettlement is that every farmer’s field is now fenced. Perhaps more than any other development it epitomizes the shift from a traditional communal way of life towards a more modern individualistic lifestyle. The changes to the paths and access to neighbors’ compounds and fields has fundamentally altered community relationships.

These Swazi smallholders still grow a mix of maize and legumes but their methods of cultivation have changed.

Tractors are now common and are used by most families do at least some of their plowing. Mechanical planters are common. The only maize seeds available are hybrid varieties purchased from a dealer. The days of seed corn in a tree or a harvest stored in an underground pit are long gone.

Of all the developments, rural electrification feels the most profound.

Almost all homesteads now have electricity. Families have refrigerators, lights, and TVs. And TV has changed patterns of social interaction. Now,

instead of gathering in the evening egumeni, an enclosed space out of doors, family members finish their chores and rush inside to sit cramped and mesmerized in front of the TV. I noticed that many homesteads don’t even build liguma anymore. Like the traditional life it supported, it is quickly fading away.

What’s Aid Got to Do with It? Investments in basic infrastructure for transport, power, water, and communication, as well as in health and education have given rise to new levels of commerce, new settlement patterns, the adoption of new building materials and styles of architecture, improved agricultural practices, and most profoundly of all, new ways of relating to one another in the family and community.

In short, 30 years of development investments have produced profound change.

There wasn’t an identifiable tipping point. Change has been incremental. In a country that has enjoyed a high level

No buses or other public transport serviced the feeder roads and it was not unusual in Dvokolwako to see a sick person being pushed in a wheelbarrow to the main road for transport to the hospital in Manzini. of social cohesion and relative stability, and has benefited from its proximity to South Africa’s vibrant regional economy, social transformation has taken decades of investment in physical infrastructure, social programs, and community outreach. But it is fair to say that the Swaziland ministry of health’s programs and investments in family life education in the schools, long supported with grants from USAID and other donors, have shaped attitudes and changed practices towards the use of clean water, latrines, HIV/AIDS, and ante and post natal care in a modern health clinic.

34 | WorldView ∙ Summer 2018 ∙ National Peace Corps Association

The ministry of agriculture’s efforts, supported over 30 years by donors, have succeeded in getting even the most conservative farmers to adopt improved practices such as the use of hybrid seeds and fertilizer, increased mechanization, and better land use.

Demand for education has always been high among the Swazi, but the pace of education expansion was accelerated by donor assistance such as USAID’s largescale teacher training and curriculum development programs and the World Bank loans that financed rural education centers such as the one in Dvokolwako.

Similarly, donor support for rural electrification, rural water systems, roads, and enterprise development are now part of a transformed way of life.

Many of the development projects that have played a part in the changes so evident in Dvokolwako were considered only moderately successful or even outright failures when they were being implemented. The “failed” integrated rural development program introduced resettlement and built the feeder roads.

Unrealistic objectives, poor implementation, or simply the length of time necessary to realize results all have contributed to a sense that development assistance doesn’t work. But Dvokolwako tells a different story. Would this rural Swazi community have transformed so dramatically without donor assistance?

The only constant in life is change, so it is safe to say that it would be a lot different today than it was 30 years ago.

But looking at the trajectory of change— seeing the increased commercial activity, growing prosperity, and the hopeful aspirations of the youth who believe a better life is possible, it is hard not to conclude that the assistance invested in this community has paid off.

Patrick Fine is the chief executive of FHI360, a major contractor implementing USAIDfunded development projects overseas. He previously served as a vice president at the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a senior vice president of the Academy for Educational Development, and in USAID’s Africa Bureau and as its Afghanistan mission director. He is also a member of the board of directors of the NPCA.

CASE STUDIES

THERMODYNAMICS OF MOTORCYCLES Curriculum for a small Cameroon school

By Alexander Schwartz

I ALEX SCHWARTZ

sat in a tea shop in Latrobe, Pennsylvania with my advanced physics and engineering professor Dr. Derek Breid six months after I graduated from Saint Vincent College and we talked about my departure for Peace Corps service in Cameroon.

Together we had registered to participate in the Paul D. Coverdell World Wise Schools program. Over the years, he had become a dear friend.

As we left the tea shop, he said, “Al, whatever you need, just feel free to message me.” A few months later, I did just that.

I began my service in an eastern city of 40,000 people working as a high school math, computer, and physics teacher. I quickly got involved in a number of fun projects including building a new well and restoring the school’s multimedia center.

As these projects developed, I thought about Dr. Breid’s offer to help.

The author poses with his eight-graders in Cameroon

First, there was a transportation issue.

The roads were in terrible condition, so motorcycles were often more useful than cars. Second, the electricity was not stable, so I needed to invest in solar panels and external batteries in my house to charge my things. Finally, since the water was pumped via electrical pumps, when there was no electricity, there was no water.

Dr. Breid and I began to chat about what could be done. First, we decided to work with my physics class. I told him about the motorcycles and about the energy problems.

“Al, you know this sounds a lot like the things I teach my thermo class.”

I agreed with him and we came up with a pretty interesting idea. Both of us followed the philosophy of “If you truly understand something, you should be able to teach it on the simplest level.”

This was the case with thermodynamics.

Rather than just working with my professor back home, we decided I should work with the students in his university thermodynamics class.

The task was simple: groups of students from his class would take a physics concept and, via a small lesson book and video, explain that concept at a secondary education level.

The lesson book would not only teach the physics concepts, but will include a glossary and an underlining of important terms to help improve literacy as well.

The videos would be of his American students standing in Dr. Breid’s classroom introducing my Cameroonian students to what an American classroom looks like.

First, I was able to video call Dr. Breid’s classroom. I showed them my Cameroon neighborhood and told his class about the problems my students and their Cameroon city faced.

After some questions and answers, the students at St. Vincent chose thermodynamics topics related to my community. For example, one college student explained how a motorcycle engine works, while another student discussed solar power. The idea was to present on topics the Cameroonian students saw in everyday life so they could apply these principles in their hometown.

After topics were selected, the college students emailed me questions and began to construct videos. After a few attempts at speaking slowly and simply, those college students nailed it! I received a plethora of videos and lesson books that were both precise and simplified.

I spent the term break reviewing my newly acquired lessons. When the break came to an end, I shared these lessons with my students and let them choose their first topic. They chose hydropower, energy produced from water. After watching the video and reading the lesson from the book I printed, the students were engaged. Every time one of my students sees our river, he or she talks about how it can be used to better our community. I can’t wait to see what they think about motorcycle engines and solar power.

Alex Schwartz teaches in a high school in Cameroon. This text is adapted from an article that originally appeared on the Peace Corps web site and is reprinted with permission.

WorldView ∙ Summer 2018 ∙ www.PeaceCorpsConnect.org | 35

TRAVEL

BELOW THE AURORA BOREALIS

Five days dipping into Iceland’s hot and cold spots

By Elizabeth Genter

O

that took us to the Imagine Peace Tower erected by Yoko Ono in memory of John Lennon. As we sailed to the tower and away from city lights, we began to notice a faint green light slithering across the sky, the beginning of a display of northern lights we’d been lucky enough to see each of the last two nights. As we got off the boat at Viðey Island, a sudden and magnificent display of nature lit up the night sky. It was the most magnificent sighting yet: a greenish purple hue shooting up out of the horizon. We all erupted in laughter as we watched the northern lights brilliantly dancing across the sky. Someone started singing John Lennon’s “Imagine” and we all joined in. I cannot even begin to describe the immense feeling of pure joy we shared. As a group of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, this was perhaps the most moving moment of the trip as we all stood in darkness around a bright tower of light pointing to the sky, imagining peace together.

ELIZABETH GENTER

ur magical night out in Iceland’s capital Reykjavik started off with a walk from our cozy hotel room to the Harpa Concert Hall, one of the city’s distinguished landmarks. My husband and I had dinner reservations with the other 10 members of our Next Step Travel group at this waterfront concert hall covered with individual glass frames that resemble fish scales that shimmer both day and night, mimicking the movement of the northern lights.

After steaks, wine, dessert, and great conversation we all hiked to the city’s Old Harbour, where we hopped on a boat

The boat landed at the foot of Skogafoss, a stop along a five-day trip in Iceland’s unique landscape.

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Not just a pretty light show I went to Iceland expecting the northern lights to be the highlight of my trip, but there is so much more to Iceland. It is a majestic and magical country. Simply put, it’s a country and landscape like no other in the world.

Iceland is a land of natural beauty, mystery, and undiscovered gems. Aside from the northern lights, I was not sure what to expect from “the land of

fire and ice,” even though I had helped organize the trip as an international fellow at the NPCA. I also discovered that it’s an easy trip to take. I had just started a new job with PricewaterhouseCoopers a few months before the trip and was a little hesitant to take time off. But I only missed two days of work because this adventure to Reykjavik was a short overnight flight on a holiday weekend.

I figured traveling with a few RPCVs would be a fun adventure. It ended up being not only a wonderful trip but also a reunion-like journey with like-minded Americans with a shared past—RPCVs exploring the world together.

Sunrise among Vikings As soon as we landed in Reykjavik, we headed to the Vikingaheima museum where we enjoyed a local Icelandic breakfast and explored an authentic Viking ship. I was so enthralled with the ship and other interesting artifacts that I almost missed the sun rise over the ocean. After the museum, we hopped into our spacious, warm vehicle for the next stop—a seaside cliff with a dreamlike view of huge black mountainous formations in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean formed by volcanic lava. The magnificent force of those Atlantic waves ferociously crashing on the shore created powerful yet serene vibes for me. That morning, the sun rose amid a snowy backdrop, hence, the land of fire and ice.

For lunch, we stopped by a small, local restaurant in a fishing village for a delicious bowl of homemade lobster soup and hearty slices of bread fresh out of the oven. What made this lunch stop so special though was meeting the long-time owner and fisherman who led us upstairs to see local fishermen repairing their nets. He added a private demonstration of macramé—knot-making on a grand, commercial scale.

Our local tour guide, Steiner, took us to the famous Blue Lagoon to point out the Continental Divide in Leif and the Lucky Bridge. Snow was falling on the gully that was covered in black lava sand.

On the way back to the hotel, Steiner stopped our van on the side of the road.

He turned to his passengers and yelled

out, “I think we are in luck. I see some lights forming!”

He shut off the head lights. The road ahead of us was empty and the sky was black. Among the small glittering stars, we saw the northern lights, an exceptional display of beautiful green streaks dancing across the night sky, which exceeded all of my expectations.

Hot spots on fire and ice For two days Steiner shuttled us to a number of local hot spots and well-known sights along the Golden Circle, a popular driving route. You would think after you’ve seen one waterfall you’ve seen them all, but not in Iceland. The view of Skogafoss was picture perfect, the finest of many I saw on the trip.

My favorite moment was watching the eruption of Stokkur Geyser. The sound from the pool of icy, blue water rumbled for a few seconds and then, without warning, a bluish green orb burst up in a perfect circle and exploded several feet into the air. It only took a second for the geyser to erupt but the experience will stay with me for a lifetime.

After hiking along the rim of Kerio Crater, we had lunch at a thermal bakery overlooking the emerald waters of the lake and took a well-deserved soak in a neighboring geothermal pool. A couple of folks were brave enough to take a dip in the icy waters of Laugavatn Lake while the rest of us chose the steam room.

My Iceland trip was exceptional. The itinerary was exciting and well-planned, and the meals were delicious, including the lobster dinner before we left.

We toured black sandy beaches covered in snow and visited sod houses, glaciers, waterfalls, geothermal pools, and rugged seaside cliffs—everything so different yet consistently beautiful. It was an experience of a lifetime that I was able to share with a group of amazing people. I enjoyed Iceland with some new friends from the National Peace Corps Association.

As we had sung it, “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.”

Elizabeth Genter served as a health volunteer in Western Kenya from 20102012.

199

8–2

018

A MSIH DOCTOR IS MORE THAN JUST A WHITE COAT

msih.bgu.ac.il • mishadmissions@post.bgu.ac.il • (212) 995-1231 Beer-Sheva, Israel

WorldView ∙ Summer 2018 ∙ www.PeaceCorpsConnect.org | 37

GALLERY

38 | WorldView ∙ Summer 2018 ∙ National Peace Corps Association

MOSAIC NEIGHBORS

T

hree Ladies is a tile mosaic on an exterior wall of a building in South Philadelphia that was created by Isaiah Zagar. The work is one of hundreds that cover homes, businesses, and alleyways within a two-square mile neighborhood of the city when Zagar returned from his Peace Corps service in Peru. Zagar and his wife Julia—both artists—worked with artisans and design cooperatives for three years as Peace Corps Volunteers in Chiquito and Cinchera on the shores of Peru’s Lake Titicaca.

“It absolutely influenced my art,” Zagar says. The return home—what Isaiah calls the reverse culture shock from moving from 11th century rural Peru to 21st century United States—also resulted in his nervous breakdown and a recovery that led him to discover the kinds of assemblages that now define the South Street area of Philadelphia.

For more than 50 years, Zagar’s assemblages of bicycle rims, a kaleidoscope of wine bottles, ceramic tiles, broken mirrors, dinnerware and other found

materials from Philadelphia—which now includes pottery from the couple's travels in Mexico and Peru—became the materials of an artistic expression with glue and grout, line and color that are now the canvas that helped to revive the economy and creative spirit of a once-derelict neighborhood.

At the center of Zagar’s world of mosaics is Philadelphia’s Magic Garden, a collection of rooms connected by bridges and passageways with ceilings, walls, and floors that display his world his world of mosaics. The Garden is now a museum, a gallery for the works of young artists, and a neighborhood social center.

Brooklyn-raised Zagar studied at the Pratt Institute and made pilgrimages to examine folk art and assemblages throughout the United States before going to Peru. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pew Charitable Trust for his work. He now works on commission in a nearby warehouse with students who have come to study Zagar’s mosaic art.

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STILL WITHOUT POWER

A Zimbabwe school after Robert Mugabe

By Robert Nolan

L

When we arrived at the lodge, we were the only guests… I soothed my anxiety the way most Zimbabweans do—with a hot cup of tea. community? Would the basketball court we’d built back in 1998 still be standing?

What about the library we worked on – would there be any books left? How have the people fared over the past two decades of economic turmoil? Do they have electricity?

Bigger questions lingered. Had I done enough for the community since my Peace Corps service? Would I be welcomed back?

Would anyone even remember me?

No more president for life “A broom sweeps well for some time when it is new,” said the taxi driver as he drove us from Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport through the streets of Harare to our lodge, located on a lush plot of land just outside of the city center.

He was referring to this country’s first ROBERT NOLAN

ast January I posted a letter to the headmaster of the rural Zimbabwe school where I’d taught in the Peace Corps 20 years ago, knowing there was a good chance I’d be back in my old village before the letter arrived.

The letter was addressed to Bungwe Secondary School, out in the sticks at a school near Rushinga, with windows wide open to long views into the rolling brown hills across the border with Mozambique.

I hadn’t intended to wait 20 years to go back. My experience as a teacher there was a formative, even romantic one. But Zimbabwe’s tumultuous politics and stunning economic collapse over the subsequent two decades and my own family and career obligations in New York City made this return trip challenging.

Peace Corps had to shut down its Zimbabwe operations in 2000.

Last fall, when founding president Robert Mugabe was quietly removed from office after 38 years in power, I knew it was time to go back.

My wife, an adventurous soul, and our two budding explorer kids would join me. Their enthusiastic reaction to news of the trip jogged a memory from my own childhood in the 1980s. Long before the days of the Internet, my sister and I sometimes played a game with our set of encyclopedias. We’d each choose a volume and try to stump the other with a bizarre entry. “Zimbabwe!” she laughingly proclaimed in one session. “It sounds like ‘Send-Bob-away!” she proclaimed. I didn’t find it that funny at the time, but when I later received “the call” from the Peace Corps inviting me to serve in the African country, it did seem that the magnificent stars of the southern hemisphere had aligned to prove my sister right. Surely, they were doing so again, drawing me back to Zimbabwe.

As soon as I clicked the “purchase tickets” button for the flights, I began to doubt those convictions. Questions came up. Was HIV/AIDS still ravaging the

Nolan aims a selfie at a math class and their teacher.

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and only elected president in its 38-year history. Just months before, Mugabe had been non-violently ousted by one of his top generals, Emmerson Mnangagwa, in what many Zimbabweans coyly call a “coup-not-coup.”

Like so many people here, our cabbie exuded optimism for the future balanced with realism of two decades of racial tensions, a massively controversial land reform program, and economic calamity.

For years, Zimbabwe had produced a surplus of maize and exported it to neighboring countries. But Mugabe’s policies turned the breadbasket of southern Africa into a basket case. The cabbie told me, “If what has happened in Zimbabwe over the past 20 years had occurred in any other country, there would have been civil war. Now we are getting a

second chance.”

When we arrived at the lodge, we were some of the only guests. We worried about whether our travel plans for the next day would work. I soothed my anxiety the way most Zimbabweans do—with a hot cup of tea. I fell asleep to the chorus of insects and the rhythm of heavy rain, interrupted by the occasional clatter of a leaping monkey, as I had so many times long ago.

We began our journey at sunrise in a Chinese-built compact car. Seated next to me was an old school friend, Patience, whom we had picked up minutes before for the return to Rushinga. The scenery along the roadside had changed little.

Commercial farm lands, lush with green stalks of the forthcoming maize and tobacco crops, looked just as they had during the many bus rides I’d taken between Harare and our town. The same, however, could hardly be said about Zimbabweans.

“We were a dejected people,” said Patience. “Just a few months ago, we’d have been stopped by the police already and asked to pay a $10 bribe. This isn’t a perfect scenario, but at least now we have hope.” As we drove into the countryside, the aroma of citrus flowers from Zimbabwe’s Mazoe orange groves blended with the smells of burning trash.

During my Peace Corps service, Patience and I became neighbors and the best of friends at the secondary school where we both taught. She’d cook the meals and I’d draw on my family’s care packages filled with American sweets for our dessert. We kept in touch when I left Zimbabwe. During the nation’s hyperinflation when her family was forced to survive on two meals a day, I sold jewelry she would send to me from local artisan markets and I would wire the sales to her in hard U.S. currency. We marketed her jewelry as “Zim-Bling.”

School of dreams As we approached the school, I spotted new shops selling basic goods, a few paved roads, and towers of electric power lines that led to our school, things I had dreamed of for two decades. In one of my dreams, the school has lights in the classrooms, walls with windows, running water inside the building, children playing and a fence around the property.

Alas, as we drove up to the school it looked exactly as it did when I left in 1999. The only change was the color of the classroom walls: electric blue. The basketball hoops were battered and without nets, but they still stood upright.

I had prepared my family for what to expect when a car full of foreigners would arrive at this small school, but my kids were not ready. As I parked our vehicle, I could hear the children in the school fall silent. Students stuck their heads the windows. My five-year-old son was intrigued by their curiosity. As he burst into the courtyard hundreds of children began laughing, their delight echoing off the cinderblock walls. Quickly, he turned back to the car in tears, unable to comprehend the uproar that greeted a murungu, the Shona word for white people.

Any apprehension I had harbored about my own reception dissolved when I reached the teacher’s lounge. Fifteen young dedicated professionals stood to greet us. These are teachers who had accepted posts in a small school with no running water or electricity and often received no government pay. When I introduced myself, they welcomed me heartily and called the headmaster. To my great joy, out

walked my former teaching colleague, Mr. Mutero. The surprise on his face confirmed my hunch that I would arrive before my letter did.

The photo frenzy As my wife and children approached, it was like the first moments of a large family reunion, but with a Zimbabwean flare. School came to a complete halt.

Teachers picked up my kids and—despite the fact that those power lines we saw did not deliver power because the school couldn’t afford the $5,000 transistor— nearly every teacher seemed to possess some kind of mobile device. The photo frenzy began. Selfies were taken in various configurations. Hugs abounded. The serendipity I’d felt about the timing of the trip left me awash in gratitude for the people I’d lived with and learned from 20 years ago.

…it was like the first moments of a large family reunion, but with a Zimbabwean flare. School came to a complete halt. Teachers picked up my kids…

The joy prevailed despite the worsened condition for nearly all Zimbabweans since I’d lived there. “What our kids need is inspiration,” Mutero told me when the photo frenzy stopped. “They don’t see any opportunities here, and the tendency is still for them to be recalled home by their parents, who can’t afford even the most moderate of school fees.”

It has always been this way. Most students will face a life of subsistence farming, eeking what they can off of the modest plots of land that cover the hills. “It will be good for them to hear from you to learn more about the world outside of this small village.” The few who performed well in school would be lucky if they made it to Harare, and maybe even South Africa to look for work.

I spoke to the students about Zimbabwe’s recent history, encouraged them to study hard, play hard, and when

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and if they are old enough, to vote in the upcoming presidential elections.

I told them what a joy it was to teach their fathers and mothers so long ago.

Later, as we walked through the village I remembered how the odds were so heavily stacked against them.

The young woman who had helped me fetch water every day and performed household chores in exchange for tutoring and her school fees had died of HIV/AIDS before she turned 20. A former colleague had begun drinking heavily when his teacher’s pay did not come and he had recently drowned in the river. Most of the young men I knew had moved to South Africa to find work.

Like me, they had abandoned this sleepy village. I had been fortunate to forge a moderately successful career in New York, but eventually I had stopped replying to the many letters from Zimbabwe.

As we walked, I watched my children skip down the dirt road and past the spot where a U.S. government-owned Land Cruiser delivered me 20 years ago. How many times had I walked that path as a young man, thinking about my future?

Was my two years teaching in Zimbabwe setting me up for professional failure while my college friends cashed in on the first dot-com boom? Would the development work I’d done here be sustainable? Would Zimbabwe ever turn a corner?

My own career would have its ups and downs. Some of the work we did here as Peace Corps Volunteers—like the sports court behind the school—would remain standing. Zimbabwe would enter a new political chapter in its young history.

And my kids would not have to look up Zimbabwe on Google. They would learn it through the sustained relationships that I’d forged in the Peace Corps.

Robert Nolan is executive director of communications and content strategy at Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Previously he was editor-in-chief of new media at the Foreign Policy Association, and producer of the PBS television series Great Decisions in Foreign Policy. He writes frequently about African politics, transatlantic relations, the United Nations, and public engagement on U.S. foreign policy.

BOUND IN MEMORY

An editor’s pick of the Peace Corps library

By John Coyne

R

eturned Peace Corps Volunteers have written more the 230 books, according to Marian Haley Beil, who co-founded Peace Corps Writers in April, 1989 with me. We first met as Peace Corps Volunteers in Ethiopia in 1962. For 29 years we have supported the writing, editing, and publication of books by Peace Corps Volunteers through Peace Corps Writers & Readers with reviews of many of these books, interviewing authors and, through the creation of the Peace Corps Writers imprint, publishing many of them. In addition, we have annually offered cash awards in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and other categories at yearly NPCA Connect conferences.

Here’s my selection of the best books in the category of memoirs of the Peace Corps experience.

1960s To the Peace Corps with Love (1965)

by Arnold Zeitlin (Ghana 61).

The Barrios of Manta: A Personal Account of the Peace Corps in Ecuador (1965) by Rhoda and Earle Brooks (Ecuador 62-64).

An African Season (1966) by Leonard Levitt (Tanzania 63-65). Sargent Shriver called it “an extraordinary find book” and the first to truly convey the flavor of Peace Corps work, the realities of it, the challenges, the frustrations.

Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle (1969) by Moritz Thomsen (Ecuador 65-67). At the age of 48 Thomsen sold his pig farm and joined the Peace Corps.

After his tour, while working as a Peace Corps recruiter in San Francisco, he published a series of vignettes about his experience in the San Francisco Chronicle. His book is considered by many—including me— the best

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memoir written by an RPCV.

1970s

The Making of An Un-American: A Dialogue with Experience (1970)

by Paul Cowan (Ecuador 66-67). The first part of the book deals with Cowan working in the black ghetto. The second part deals with life as a PCV in Ecuador.

Paul shows how both experiences contributed to his evolving from a national citizen to a world citizen.

1980s The Village of Waiting (1988) by George Packer (Togo 82-83). Packer had a difficult time in Togo and terminated after one year. His account, however, is a well-written memoir of that year.

Packer would go on to become a published author and writer for The New Yorker.

RPCVs who have served in Togo are particularly fond of this book.

1990s The Ponds of Kalambayi: An African Sojourn (1990) by Mike Tidwell (Zaire 85-87). This book was turned down by at least nine other publishers before a small press in New Jersey accepted the manuscript because they published books on fishing and they thought Mike’s adventures might be of interest to their readers, even though it was about this guy in Africa who built fish ponds for the Peace Corps in Zaire.

Under the Neem Tree (1991) by Susan Lowerre (Senegal 85-87).

Interestingly, Susan’s book is also about a PCV working in a fishing village. Susan is in a village near the Mauritania border. Her story is much more personal than Tidwell’s. We share her initial feelings of dislocation as she

contends not only with the lifestyle, lack of creature comforts, and the overt sexism of the Moslem men she supervises. It is a well written unvarnished lose-up of life in an African village.

The Last Camel: True Stories About Somalia (1997) by Jeanne D’haem (Somalia 68–70). Jeanne was one of the few women—the only published woman writer—to serve in Somalia. She lived in the north and wrote about African spirits, clever women, untouchable Midgaans, sagacious elders who struggle with modern technology, bandits, and a few goats.

Harmattan: A Journey Across the Sahara (1994) by Geraldine Kennedy (Liberia 62-64). Often overlooked is this great piece of non-fiction prose, her account of five women who decided to cross the Sahara Desert when they had nothing better to do between their first and second years in the Peace Corps.

Mango Elephants in the Sun (1990)

by Susana Herrera (Cameroon 92-94).

Susana taught in a remote school in northern Cameroon and wrote about cross-cultural experiences such as the village chief who offered her a goat’s head as a gift of courtship. As one reviewer said, “Whether she’s writing about falling in love, getting malaria or teaching a young woman how to ride a bicycle, Herrera draws in readers with her uncommon intelligence and wisdom.”

Africa yet captures the beauty of the place and the people of her village.

Monique and the Mango Rains (2006)

by Kris Holloway (Mali 89-91). Kris told me, “When we met, Monique and I were both young women in our 20s.

She was a rural African midwife seeking relief from her life of toil; I was a middle-class Peace Corps Volunteer, eager to make personal connections in my foreign assignment.”

This memoir is about how Kris and her husband return to Mali to continue that friendship, provide assistance to the village, and bring Monique to America to see Kris and further her health training.

When I Was Elena (2006) by Ellen Urbani Hiltebrand (Guatemala 91–93).

A gifted writer tells of her two years in Guatemala by interlacing chapters of the perspectives of seven indigenous women

she knew. It is a very personal story of a young PCV coming of age in a developing country. One of my favorite books by a PCV.

2010s How To Cook A Crocodile (2010) by Bonnie Lee Black (Gabon 96-98). The first book selected by Marian to be published by our imprint Peace and it was an honor to publish it. Bonnie Lee writes lovingly of her experience in Africa, and of her life there as a health and nutrition volunteer. She has told her story in a new and clever way: interconnecting true stories with illustrative recipes.

História, História: Two Years in the Cape Verde Islands (2013) by Eleanor Stanford (Cape Verde 98–00). Eleanor is an accomplished poet who at 22 and just

2000s River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (2001) by Peter Hessler (China 96-98). The first book by the “China Gang” of PCVs who became journalists, Peter’s account of teaching in Fuling is the first of his three books on China, a close and personal look at his students and the country and a literary bridge to a contemporary world few of us know. This is one of the very best Peace Corps memoirs.

Nine Hills To Nambonkaha (2003)

by Sarah Erdman (Cote d’Ivoire 98-00).

I always say that Sarah not only ‘looks like an angel; she writes like one’ and this book of her two years in the Ivory Coast proves it. A health volunteer in the early days of AIDS, she went to Nambonkaha where she suffered the hardships of rural

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married, went to the beautiful Cape Verde Islands to teach and there she suffered physical and emotional upheavals. Her story is, as one reviewer wrote, “a book that combines journalistic excellence with the gripping style of personal memoirs to bring you this lyrical, moving portrait of an enchanting, little-glimpsed part of the world.”

A Young American in Iran (2014) by Tom Klobe (Iran 64–66). This tribute to the love and goodness of people of the village of Alang and to Iran captures life there in the mid-1960s. It is also the story of an individual attempting to understand others and their culture, and his attendant initial frustrations trying to fit in. In other words, this is a typical Peace Corps story but very well told.

Marrying Santiago (2015) by Suzanne Adam (Colombia 1964–66).

Reviewer Bob Arias (Colombia 63-65) said, “Moving to Chile to follow Santiago was much more than changing homes for Suzanne. She had to change her mind-set, learn to prepare new foods, and meet lots of new relatives — and all the while she had to wrestle with the sadness of having left her Mom and Dad alone in California.

But she did it . . . and Santiago won more than a wife, he found a partner, of now over 40 years.” A true Peace Corps tale with a happy ending.

Walled In, Walled Out: A Young American Woman in Iran (2017) by Mary Dana Marks (Iran 64–66). This memoir by a young PCV coming of age in the Peace Corps also tells the history and culture of this Muslim world. It is a story well told.

John Coyne served in Ethiopia from 1962 to 1965 and is the author of 12 novels, 10 books of instructions on playing golf, writing, and other skills. He edited four collections of Peace Corps writing by PCVs on travel, cross-cultural experiences, the Peace Corps experience, and fiction.

Coyne is an adjunct professor in the MFA Creative Writing program of the National University of California. His collection of his short stories, Game in the Sun, will be published in May 2018 by Cemetery Dance Publications.

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