Podcast Transcript

20 February 2007
Peace Corps: America's Service to the World

US Embassy London's Angela Fresne who served as a Peace Corps Volunteer (Ecuador 1998-2000) discusses the history of the Peace Corps, the call to serve, her experience serving in the Andes and the organization's relevance in the world today.

My name is Angela Fresne and I work in the Economics Section at the American Embassy in London. In this Podcast, I'd like to take the opportunity to share information about the Peace Corps and I'd also like to share a bit about my experiences serving as a Peace Corps.

The history of the Peace Corps begins October 14, 1960, at the University of Michigan. 10,000 students waited until 2 a.m. to hear the presidential candidate John F. Kennedy speak.

He issued a challenge: how many of them, he asked, would be willing to serve their country and the cause of peace by living and working in the developing world?

The response to his challenge was resoundingly positive and thus began a bold new experiment in public service.

On March 1, 1961, President Kennedy signed an executive order establishing the Peace Corps. Three days later, Sargent Shriver was appointed its first Director. In July, Peace Corps assignments were planned for Ghana, Tanzania, Colombia, the Philippines, Chile, and St. Lucia.More than 5,000 eager applicants took the first entrance exams and from that, the first group of 51 Volunteers departed that year for Ghana.

Since 1961, over one hundred and eighty two thousand Americans have served as Peace Corps Volunteers in 138 developing countries. These Americans have brought their spirit of service to the world and have brought the individual experiences from the world back to America. They have composed a legacy of service that has become part of America's history.

Today, there are 7,733 Peace Corps Volunteers serving throughout the world. These Volunteers continue to do important work such as: bringing clean water to communities, teaching children, helping start new small businesses, and stopping the spread of disease, including AIDS.

These volunteers live in some of the harshest, third world conditions and they attempt to bring their expertise and enthusiasm to the communities they serve. Peace Corps is sold as the "Toughest job you'll ever love" and almost all volunteers agree with this.

The result of these ongoing years of dedication from the volunteers is that Peace Corps is one of the world's most successful and respected development organizations in the world.

Personally, I was attracted to Peace Corps because I was interested in serving my country and I was interested in helping others. From 1998-2000, I served as a Peace Corps volunteer in a small Andean village called Quilanga in Southern Ecuador.

Quilanga was 3 hours by bus ride on a bumpy, dirt road from the city of Loja. If the road was washed out during the rainy season, you got out of the bus, walked across the mud pit and hoped to catch a truck on the other side. Or maybe you there was no truck, and you huddled up with fellow travelers in the rain for a few hours until one came.

I was "La Gringita" and I was original in my village because I was blue eyed, blonde, English speaking and American. These things gave me rock star status in my village. Children would chase me down the street, yelling my name, holding my hand and chattering away at me in fast Spanish. Generous, inquisitive people invited me to meals and shared fruits and vegetables from their gardens with me. They liked to ask me questions about life in the United States, and they were especially interested in finding out about my parents and my relationship with my family.

My day to day life seemed to always circle back to the clever chicken who would manage to get in my kitchen and tear through the trash looking for something edible. This same chicken ate the worms out of my model worm-bed and tore up all my most delicate seedlings in my model-garden. My neighbors found the daily shouting and squawking match between the two of us a constant source of entertainment. I would chase the chicken around and yell I was going to eat it for dinner when I caught it. I never caught the chicken.

My experience in Ecuador taught me not to take basic things for granted. I was always glad when water would come from the tap and the electricity worked.

One day I opened my apartment door and I found a family had moved into my home. Apparently, my landlord had decided I could share my home because I had an extra bedroom. He didn't think I needed all that space to myself and in fact, he told me this would be better so I would not get lonely. I had missed the clause in our verbal agreement that allowed him to share my home with others.

In the end, the family became friends of mine, but I do laugh to think of such a thing occurring in my London flat!

Peace Corps is still a vibrant organization whose success is built on the most basic of human principles: the kindness of strangers.

Peace Corps Volunteers extend themselves to communities throughout the world that request assistance. In turn, these communities embrace volunteers and invite them to share in their lives and daily experiences.

Good intentions do not change the world, but generosity of spirit is needed to transform our world into a safer, better place. Peace Corps embodies the spirit of real Americans who choose to go out and make the world a smaller and more friendly place.

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