1. Turkmenistan Turkmen Friends

    This is one of my favorite photos. I snapped it while walking home after class with some of my advance students. These girls became my friends, teaching me about the lives of young women in Turkmenistan. During a recent phone call with my host family I found out that one of these girls just got married. On the one hand I'm a little sad: just 19 years old, she's been trying to pass the university entrance exams for several years, and by getting married it seems she's probably given up; on the ...

  2. Guyana Para Kari Drinking Contest

    Para Kari is a fermented drink made from Cassava.  The process usually takes about half a day to make and the steps are long and have to be exact as some people use the 'bitter' Cassava which has doses of cyanide in the raw tuber. Contests are held every year with both men and women from several villages to see who can drink a pitcher the fastest.  This years winner was from our village who has the call name 'Tubes'.  

  3. Mali keeping dry in the rainy season

    Village kids playing on the mortars.

  4. Botswana Snack Time

    Finishing a pear.

  5. Mongolia Catching a grasshopper

    My Mongolian supervisor's friend from high school is a geologist. He took us along with him on an overnight trip deep into the Gobi Desert. The next morning, on our way back home, we stopped our truck so i could fill my empty water bottle with sand, to give to my American friends. He said he saw a grasshopper.

  6. Ecuador What!? Foooosball

    Peace Corps Volunteers love to run into classic games like these when they're perusing the annual festivals.

  7. Ecuador Early Morning, Before the Hike

    Nothing says "Thanks for helping!" better than "Help yourself!"  MMM

  8. Ecuador Bad Fruit

    Actually, the Guayaba is delicious!  And there is nothing wrong with these particular fruits.  I do not understand why the breathing subjects in the photo are running away from them.

  9. Ecuador Jungle Calories

    Most of what we eat in the jungle grows right outside. Take this breakfast, for instance: a delectable tea of Guayusa (a tree. support Guayusa growers from Ecuador by shopping for RUNA tea at Whole Foods..), a smashed plantain and a tree bean that only produces edibles one month of each year.

  10. Ecuador In the Shadows

    Throughout time, many of the most creative and intellectual minds have done their best in the shadows.  Some never garner recognition for their talents.  This handicraft workshop is hardly known outside of its own community, but the artists there make the most exquisite works!

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“Sunset at the Railroad” by PCV Nicholas Baylor Hall. Namibia, 2011.