Hard Corps storytelling

Photo by Sarah Ambriz, Guyana, 2008-2011

  Since Hard Corps began this spring, we've had icky, funny and sweet stories from Peace Corps volunteers who've served around the world. There are a lot more, of course, but before those get told here, I thought it would be fun to take a moment and see where we've been so far. My goal in starting this blog was to tell and help people tell the stories you hear after a few drinks. Not the ones you tell fresh-faced students who want to join, but the ones, at least in my case, that I got through by telling myself, someday, this will make a fantastic story.

Photo by Sarah Ambriz

-- Guyana: Sarah Ambriz shares her story of being The Queen of All Wild Things: "She waits again for an opportune moment. And she talks to the snake. 'I’m not gonna hurt you, I just want you out of my house. YOU want to get out, I want you out. C’mon, c’mon!' The Y on the stick still too big, the snake slithers into a cupboard. Another attempt. The snake slithers into a crack in the boards.

  In chasing the snake around the house, she finds all sorts of proof of life within. Poop of many varieties, cobwebs, dead and alive spiders. 

  Hmm."

Photo from John Coyne, center

-- Ethiopia: Peace Corps writer emeritus John Coyne shares his piece on The Lion in the Garden of the Guenet Hotel: "So, seeing a lion up close and personal in the heart of Africa was something special for a group of young Americans new to Africa.We were 275 Peace Corps Volunteer teachers, the first to serve in Ethiopia, arrived in Addis Ababa in September at the end of the African Highland long rains. In our final days of training, before being dispatched to our teaching assignments throughout the Empire, we went off one evening to a farewell dinner at the Guenet Hotel. It was the first time any of us had been to the Populari section of the city or seen the lovely gardens of this hotel or seen their caged lion.

  Well, actually it was a caged lion and a large German Shepherd dog."

Armenia, photo by Tanya Andren

-- Armenia: Aria Kinch shared her story on expectations and what she really found in Great Expectations: "This was a staggering place, but still, she found quickly, it was a place that remembered what it had once been. The literacy rate in Armenia was 96 percent when Aria was there. People were well-educated. They knew of the world. But there was little power. No jobs. Most of the men left to find work elsewhere.

  It felt like a place in permanent mourning."

Photo by Kristen Hare

-- Guyana: I shared my own Peace Corps love story, and the tangled telling of it, in The Story of How We Met (And Then, How We Really Met): "That night, I wore a bright green sari, and by the time I saw Jai, I was a bit sick of male attention. This wasn’t because I was stunningly beautiful, but in Guyana, I was stunningly different. 

  Oh, and my mother was not present.

  So when a student pointed out that a man nearby was staring at me, I looked up and saw Jai.

 My manners were on empty.

  'What?' I pretty much shouted across the bottom house at him.

  'I’m sorry,' he said quietly. 'Just admiring.'"

Travis Hellstrom in Mongolia

-- Mongolia: Writer and social entrepreneur Travis Hellstrom shared the story of how he met his wife in the Peace Corps in Piece of Cake: " Travis struggled with Mongolian, often listening more than talking. He saw Tunga at work every day, but they never spoke outside of class.

  Then, one day in mid-December, the health department had a party to celebrate the new year. In the hallway, Travis saw Tunga carrying an ornate white cake, covered with green and pink icing and the words 'Shine Jiliin Mend Hurgi!' or 'Happy New Year' in Mongolian. 

  Wow, he said to her in Mongolian, that cake is really beautiful. 

  It probably sounded more like, 'Nice cake.'"

Claire Lea in Guinea, center

-- And finally, Guinea: Last week, Claire Lea told her story of accepting and adapting to the local way of dressing, and the day that adaptation kind of burst at the seams in Seashells and Amoebas: "They were big and bright, a mosh pit of clashing colors and patterns that shocked her a bit every time she saw them. Yes, she’d adapt and adjust, but she wanted, still, to be Claire, even in a small way. 

  Finally, though, resisting was harder than blending in, if you could call it that. And when Claire gave in to the muumuus, to the wild colors and patterns, people in her village actually applauded as she walked down the street.

  So fine, she’d dress traditionally."