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For the
past two days ever since finding the arepita site, all I can think of are the
faces and places of my Peace Corps Venezolano past. Those were the
days. Hawaii is the only place outside the third world I have been
where people still live in tin roof houses, and maybe that's why I like it
here - it reminds me of there and then. In a way I never wanted to leave
Venezuela - wanted to stay and live on a cattle ranch.
We (Barbara
and Edd Thiele) were part of the first Peace Corps group of married couples
and were all assigned to Rural Agrarian Reform. I believe there were 25
couples to start out and only 2 by the end of the two years - Thurstons and
ourselves probably due to the fact that Rob Thurston had a 4.0 language
rating, and Edd was a 3.5. I mostly had to fend off inquiries from
the locals on why we were married and had no children. People used to send me
magic brews to get pregnant.
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After
being trained in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, where we learned to raise chickens and
rabbits (the first time I had ever seen a live chicken up close), we spent
another few weeks at an in-country training hosted by Venezuelans and Fred
Perch from Fundacion Shell learning to work with Clubes 5-V (Valor, Vertud,
Verdad, Verguenza, Venezuela). At the last minute, though, instead of
going to our rural site Edd and I were reassigned to the Escuela de
Agricola and Demostradoras del Hogar outside Maracay. We were given a
staff apartment, a Jeep, and could eat with the professores and boarding
students in the dining room. I wound up teaching English and
collaborating with other volunteers writing textbooks for the demostradoras
- one on Corte Y Costura, the other on Manualidades (furniture making
which the women did in the campo) For that first year the Peace Corps
experience was an altogether different one from what we expected, especially
after the sudden death of Bobby Kennedy in 1968 and the blowing up of the
custom sailboat belonging to the headmaster of our school and his American
wife. One weekend we were on the boat leisurely sailing around
the Bahia de Cata, the next weekend the boat had been sunk
(pirates?)
When the mostly cushy life became too much, we applied for a transfer to the
campo and wound up in Poblado Tres de Sabaneta. I think what happened
next is that the entire Venezuelan school system from elementary through
universidad shut down for one entire year. Instead of having the kids
for a 4-H type after school program, we had them the entire day. We tried
home gardens, but not knowing anything about organic farming at the time,
found the cost for small amounts of pesticides more expensive than hitchhiking
to town and buying vegetables at the market. We made window screens and
a screen door for our house - a demonstration project. People could never
understand why we would want to trap wandering livestock and bugs inside.
Anyhow, I could go on and on...so maybe we should have a reunion and
collectively write all this stuff down for posterity. The other thing I was
thinking about is the VA for veterans of wars...what about a VAP for veterans
of peace?
Barbara
11-12-2002
List of Volunteers from the group:
Rob and
Juanita Thurston (Juanita deceased)
Sandi and Roger Phelps
Candy and Jay Schafer
Bob and Diane Hill (After the Peace Corps, he went to the Thunderbird
School of International Management in Phoenix.)
Alice and Fred Padilla
Dawn Archacki and husband
Curt Stuckey
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