Environment & Health
Students will be introduced to what Peace Corps Volunteers do in the field through firsthand stories about work in environmental and health-related issues.
- Brand New Muti
- Queen Nthuli begins the ritual of calling her ancestors by burning dried herbs in an earthenware pot beside her. She breathes in the smoke from the herbs to take the spirits of the ancestors into her body, where she can communicate with them.
- Chiggers and Other Challenges
- One of my biggest work challenges has been my involvement in the small coffee-growing community of Las Quebradas (the Streams) to develop a proposal for a water system. Of the communities in our county, Quebradas is the farthest from town, isolated by a long, rutted dirt road.
- Help! My Father Is Coming!
- The idea was all my father's, my 74-year-old father who had never been outside America and who suddenly thought that Sri Lanka, where I was a Peace Corps Volunteer, would be a jolly place to visit.
- A Lifetime of Service
- Hear an interview, see photos and videos, and read stories about this remarkable Peace Corps Volunteer’s service in Lesotho, Malawi, and Botswana.
- Music in the Fields
- Mali, in West Africa, one of the world's poorest countries, has riches that remain a secret to many people of the Western world.
- Reduce, Re-use, Recycle
- Romania has turned me into a pack rat. Not that I didn't collect things in the past.
- Running
- In the mornings I often ran to the summit of Raise the Flag Mountain.
- A Rural Honduran Day
- Some people might find life in a small Honduran pueblo monotonous, boring.
- Sharing in Africa
- People in villages across Kalambayi were trying to kill me. They were feeding me too much.
- Soccer Until Dusk
- My father laughs when I tell him / how in Santa Cruz Verapaz / men quit work at noon, and after lunch / play soccer until dusk.
- The Train Ride Home
- As my taxi slows to approach the train station, it attracts a crowd of young men who begin to run swiftly behind the car. Even before the taxi stops, they are opening the doors and the trunk to grab my bags.
- The True Cost of Coffee
- January is the "mero mero," or height, of coffee season in Corquín.
- A Typical Day
- Every day, whether I want to or not, I wake up when the rooster crows at dawn. As I climb out of the mosquito net that hangs over my bamboo bed, I hear swish-swish sounds outside my mud hut—the women have already begun sweeping leaves from the courtyard.
- Water Source Protection
- More than 2 billion people—over a third of the world's population—lack access to basic sanitation such as flush toilets or even outhouses.
- Water in Africa
- The narratives from Water in Africa characterize the interconnectedness of water in the daily lives of African people and the Volunteers who serve in their countries.
- Where Life Is Too Short
- The strangest thing about my adopted home community in South Africa is the number of establishments selling tombstones in town.
- Where There's Smoke
- One day last fall, my Nepalese friend Kumar invited me to have lunch at his family's home. Like most homes in the surrounding village, his is built from packed clay and cow dung.
- Working With Environmental Issues
- I have parasites. They live in my stomach. I can feel gurgling after I eat or when I lie down to rest.