ThirdGoal.org

Kai kai nao, ia!

My wife, Susan, and I served as Community Development Workers on the Weathercoast of Guadalcanal Island. One of our major projects involved assisting local villagers to plan and construct a primary school complex. The community held a large, traditional pig feast to mark the opening of the school. Susan and I donated a pig for the event, and the local chief insisted that I don a bark loincloth and prepare the pig for baking in a stone oven. An offer I could not refuse!
I had a horse in Africa

When I was growing up, I was a horse fanatic. I knew everything about horses--except how to actually ride. Eventually, I grew out of that. But shortly after college, I found myself as an agriculture/rural development Volunteer in Anam Tondi, Niger, 8 km through the sand to Ouallam, the nearest market town. Peace Corps gave us transportation options. I tried a mountain bike, but quickly (after one trip) realized that 8 km in the sand in 110 degree heat was not what "Outside" mag...
Hot hats

I went to the little store in my town and found these two boys and girl with self-made grass hats. I ran home to get my camera and take their picture. These kids couldn't stop laughing at themselves and their grass hats.
Each of us pulls..err.. pushes our weight

Our host family owned a shuttle bus. They took us to a nearby park to celebrate Easter. We pushed our way back home.
Teaching in Mozambique

A picture of me with some of my students on my last day of teaching in Inharrime, Mozambique. I love and miss those kids so very much!
Flames of Peace

The dry season is savanna-burning time. These kids, in the village of Nkoka in southern Gabon, playing at being daredevils, take turns leaping over the flames in their flip-flops and tattered clothing. When they see me take out my camera to capture the scene, they run toward me, and one of the boys raises his hand in a salute to Peace.
My New Best Friend

Once a year, the clinic I volunteered at provided inoculations for polio. This brought people out from deep in the bush, that I normally would never meet. When this little girl came into the clinic, I knew immediately, she had Downs' Syndrome. None of the health professionals at my clinic recognized or knew what it was. She and I bonded immediately. She giggled and laughed as she sat on my lap waiting for her injection. People from the community treated her differently because of the wa...
rice harvest

I had just arrived in the village of Ganale on our monthly baby-weighing day, greeted the "dugutigi" (village chief) and propped my bike up against a mud wall in our usual meeting area, when a small group of kids met me to take me out to a nearby field. Before getting to work, Mamine, our local village health volunteer, was bringing in some of the rice harvest along with other women in her family. I confess that until my time in Mali, I had no idea what rice looked like before it ap...
Scientist at Work!

A young student demonstrates how to separate a mixture based on the properties of different substances for his science fair project.
Haircut in Mali

PCV Audra Helser gives her boyfriend, PCV Ben Arnold, a haircut on the porch of the transit house in Koutiala, Mali. Both Helser and Arnold are from Ohio, but did not know each other until meeting in Peace Corps. Ben was in the group ahead of Audra's group. I met Audra and Ben, who have since COS'ed and are now married and living in Chicago, while I was traveling around the world photographing Peace Corps volunteers. My photographs are compiled in a book titled, "Making Peace wi...

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