ThirdGoal.org

A Little "Peace" of Heaven

Most Americans, used to being connected to the rest of the world twenty-four hours each day via wireless phone, television, and computer, may find it inconceivable for anyone to give up the most basic of creature comforts. Yet there are thousands of Americans willing to sacrifice such conveniences for an experience of a lifetime. Currently, nearly 9000 Peace Corps Volunteers work in 76 countries to teach children, protect the environment, start new businesses, and provide health servi...
Alegria! Alegria! (Happiness! Happiness!)

After my Peace Corps service ended in 1969, I wrote to residents of Glória for a while, but many Brazilians took months to respond or didn’t respond at all. Eventually my teaching job, graduate studies, volunteer work, new husband, and hectic lifestyle took over. I lost touch with the wonderful people of Glória. Once I had access to internet service in the 90’s, I searched for the town of Glória, with no luck. I knew it might take a while for information technology to reac...
Kindergarten, Hammam-Zriba

Taken in 1968, the photo shows opening day, waiting for President Habib Bourguiba, at a kindergarten I designed in Hammam-Zriba, a village near Zagouan. Subsequently I became a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in Tunis, helping to establish the first professional degree program for architects in Tunisia.
Mollendo, Peru

First time for these children to see the ocean. They lived in a barrio in Arequipa, Peru at an altitude of 8000 feet. Was an exciting and joyful experience for all of us.
Thoughts on returning to Colombia

Authors Note: Peace Corps Volunteers who served in Colombia were invited to return to Colombia in 2008 to visit their sites and to witness how Colombia was overcoming the violence and civil discord prevalent during the 1980s. This essay expresses my thoughts at that time. Traveling back to Colombia, more than forty years later, I recall my first plane ride. It was to Peace Corps training. Just graduated from college, the whole world was awaiting me and was mine to experience or was it? In...
POEMS FROM NIGERIA (1963 – 1965)

Author’s Note: I wrote these poems at different times during my Peace Corps tour. I was a teacher at the University of Ibadan in Western Nigeria. We were in that lucky two-year window, right after Independence and right before the Revolution: Everything seemed possible, democracy was in the air. We weathered the shattering of being very far away from home during the assassination of President Kennedy, and we continued working. I’m a writer now—short stories and plays—but these poems are, so...
What Price, Wisdom?

The Peace Corps dentist in Salvador ---a large, modern Brazilian city ---informed me I had to have my wisdom teeth pulled. He gave me the name of a local dental surgeon. I had nightmarish visions of a dentist, who wasn’t really a dentist ---just like the one at my Peace Corps site in Glória ---pulling my teeth with pliers, without benefit of an anesthetic. I have no idea what his real name was, but in Glória, everyone called him Zé Dentista. I arrived at the real dentist’s office, ...
Tanzanian Upper Primary School Band

Picture of the 1967-68 championship band from Monduli Upper Primary School. The Drum Major is Godwin Vartalala.
Student studies by lantern light.

Photo of Monduli Upper Primary Student, Lakara Ole Saitoti studying by the light of a lantern. 1967
Losing It in Brazil

When I was in Brazil, there was a joke among Peace Corps Volunteers: Why did male volunteers lose weight? Because they cooked for themselves. Why did female Volunteers gain weight? Because they cooked for themselves. But, against odds, I lost approximately 30 pounds over the two years I lived in Brazil. I have several explanations for this. 1. First, I walked everywhere. I had no car or bike in Glória. In larger cities, I caught a bus only when I had to travel more than a few miles....

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