Peace Corps Polyglot

RPCV Continues Work in Ethiopia

Last February Bob Gausman (Ethiopia 70-72) returned to his country of service to build an elementary school in a rural village 250 miles southwest of Addis Ababa.  Working with the Glimmer of Hope Foundation  and the local development association he was able to achieve his goal.  The school opened in October of 2008 with over 2100 students enrolled, far more than the 1000 he had anticipated.  More information about the school can be found at http://www.bekha.org.

One of the problems the school is now facing is a shortage of books.  Gausman reports that he first became aware of the lack of access to books in Ethiopia during his service there in the early seventies.  Unfortunately, things have not changed much. Most children, Gausman says, “will go through the majority of their entire school career without owning a single book.”  He, along with a foundation called Central Highlands, is currently trying to remedy the situation by gathering surplus library materials from the U.S. and shipping them to schools in Ethiopia.  He hopes to get as much as 20,000 pounds of books to ship by sea to Djibouti, then by truck to Ethiopia.

Enjoy the pictures of Bob’s school below!

 

Spicing Things Up Thanks to PC Experience

After returning from her service in the Uzbekistan and her travel in the Middle East, Kristen Hoggat found that the way America eats is quite different from the way the rest of the world does.  So she and a (yet un-named) colleague decided to put together a multi-cultural cookbook with a twist: It is entirely vegan.  The idea is to emphasize that much of the world eats a vegan diet and that mulit-cultural vegan cooking can be both tasty and environmentally friendly. 

Kristen wrote to us in an e-mail to let us know more about the project:

Part of the motivation behind this project is a study conducted by Carnegie Melon that found that cutting down on eating meat and dairy has a greater effect on carbon emissions than does eating locally grown food, not to mention the moral impetus behind each of our lifestyle decisions.  With this cookbook, we want to emphasize that veganism can be fun, and you don't have to be vegan everyday of your life to make a difference.  We want this cookbook to be practical, but at the same time reflect our idealism, which is why we are going to combine veganism, Peace Corps service, and poetry. 

Kristen is looking for submissions of recipes from your country of service, vegan or not.  If your recipe isn't entirely vegan it might be changed to go into the cookbook, but, Kristen says " we will give credit where credit is due" 

You can send your recipe to: [email protected]

PC Beneficiary could be CNN Hero of the Year

Ethopian children are gaining literacy skills thanks to Yohannes Gebregeorgis and his organization Ethiopia Reads.  He has been selected as one of CNN's Heroes of the Year for his outstanding work in bringing books--and the love of them--to Ethiopian children.  Gebregeorgis, who built a library in his own home in Addis Ababa, says he was tremendously influenced by PCVs during his youth and their efforts to better his life have inspired him to try to better the lives of others. 

His successes have been huge.  In addition to the original library in Gebregeorgis' home, the organization established the Awassa Reading Center and Ethiopia's first Donkey Mobile Library, a customized a donkey-pulled trailer-cart that now makes weekly visits to rural villages around Awassa. Ethiopia Reads recently held its fifth annual Ethiopia Children's Book Week.  In 2007, the group offered nearly 94,000 children access to its libraries in Addis Ababa, Awassa and on shady clearings along the Ethiopian countryside.

You can vote for Gebregeorgis to become CNN Hero of the Year and show the world the inspiring impact the Peace Corps can have. 

To see Gebregeorgis talk about his work, click here.