Coming Home: Mozambique
Mozambique | Stacie Scott Home: Louisville, Kentucky My community, Metangula, is in the northern province of Niassa. I was a community health services promoter for 22 months, working in the community health center organizing HIV patient files. I formed an English club, an English theater youth group, and a Grassroot Soccer youth group. I also trained high school students in HIV/AIDS and malaria prevention. When we were evacuated, I left behind my adored Mozambican family, friends, and students. I had to leave behind my two cats, whom I love dearly and planned on bringing home with me. I left behind...
Coming Home: Ukraine
Ukraine | Kevin Lawson Home: Greensboro, North Carolina “When will you come back?” I wake up more and more to this question as the days go by since evacuation. I had been serving as a youth development Volunteer since August 2018. When we were evacuated I left behind the promise to play soccer with Dima, Sasha, and Max. I was in the middle of lesson planning with my English teacher, Olena, and organizing a festival at school with my counterpart. As a youth volunteer, one-on-one connections with students were so important to me. No matter the time or place,...
Coming Home: Moldova
Nobody wanted it to happen this way. Evacuation stories and the unfinished business of Peace Corps Volunteers around the world. Moldova | Jeremy Male Home: Roswell, Georgia In a small village in the Soroca region near the Ukrainian border, Jeremy Male taught English at a secondary school alongside two Moldovan colleagues starting in 2019. “I was the first volunteer in my village,” he says. That made him an ambassador of American culture and values. And it put this self-professed introvert very much in the public eye. He quickly learned to roll with it when strangers stopped him on...
This is Not a Drill
When times are good, being a country director for Peace Corps may be the best job in foreign affairs. This has not been such a time. As told to Steven Boyd Saum Photo: Vyshyvanka Day, when schoolchildren don the traditional Ukrainian shirt — and here, pose as one. Photo by Kevin Lawson Kim Mansaray | Country Director, Mongolia JANUARY AND NEWS OF THE VIRUS came out in China. Mongolia says we’re not sending kids back to school. Our winter break became endless winter break. Then the virus exploded in China, and Mongolia went on hardcore lockdown — borders and...
Coming Home: The Philippines
Nobody wanted it to happen this way. Evacuation stories and the unfinished business of Peace Corps Volunteers around the world. The Philippines | Diane Glover Home: Valdosta, Georgia When Diane Glover arrived in the Philippines in July 2018, it was a sort of homecoming — to the country where she was born and left at age 11. She was raised by her older sister in Washington state and Georgia. “So many people invested in my success,” she says. Returning that investment seemed natural; empowering girls is something she cares about deeply — especially survivors of sexual violence....
Coming Home: Myanmar
Nobody wanted it to happen this way. Evacuation stories and the unfinished business of Peace Corps Volunteers around the world. Schwedagon Pavilion, Yangon. Photo by Dharma from Sadao, Thailand Myanmar | Quinton Eklund Overholser Home: Elko, Nevada “Hours before our flight, at our Close of Service conference, my country director asked me how I was feeling,” Quinton Eklund Overholser says. “Only then did I muster a single word: heartbroken.” Overholser had dreamed of serving as a Volunteer in Myanmar since his first year of high school—before Peace Corps operated in Myanmar. A first-generation college student, he got his Peace Corps...
Coming Home: Thailand
A Constricted Heart “I left behind my Thai family and community and my work. That’s everything.” Thailand | Sierra Drummond Home: Thousand Oaks, California I was in Peace Corps Thailand, in the northeast region, sort of on the border of Laos. I had been there 14 months and was a part of a project called TESS — Teacher Empowerment for Students Success — as an English teacher alongside a Thai teacher. It was a mutually empowering teacher training experience. I came back to California for a visit primarily for my cousin’s wedding — and my brother just had a baby! So...
Coming Home: Nepal
Nobody wanted it to happen this way. Evacuation stories and the unfinished business of Peace Corps Volunteers around the world. Nepal | Jim Damico Home: Kansas City, Missouri I am a three time Volunteer. I previously served in Thailand (2014–18) and Mongolia (2018). In Nepal I had just finished my first school year. When I sat down to tell this story, I was in a hotel in Kansas City in my 14-day quarantine. After a year you have made connections; you see where you can go. I had an awesome host family that I miss dearly. I miss...
Coming Home: Mongolia
Nobody wanted it to happen this way. Evacuation stories and the unfinished business of Peace Corps Volunteers around the world. Photo: Ceremonial first haircut for a young girl. Volunteer and photographer Antonio Mercatante was invited to observe. Mongolia | Lucy Baker Home: San Francisco Bay Area As Volunteers were being evacuated from China, in Mongolia, Lucy Baker and others watched their country go into lockdown. The government declared that February celebrations for Tsagaan Sar, the Lunar New Year, would be suspended. There were no confirmed cases of coronavirus, but the government wasn’t taking chances. And Volunteers were told to “stand fast.” Baker lived in...
Coming Home: China
Nobody wanted it to happen this way. Evacuation stories and the unfinished business of Peace Corps Volunteers around the world. Photo: Family portrait with Andrew Avitt, right, and his host family, Mr. and Mrs. Zhen and host brother Yanyu. “We received a lot of instruction during training about language, culture, and teaching. Perhaps the most invaluable part of that experience was getting to know my host family,” Avitt writes. China | Maura Joul Home: St. Cloud, Minnesota My cohort came in summer 2019. We had one semester teaching, three to go. All China Volunteers served in the education sector: teaching English...