The RPCVw Board Members: 2007-2008
• Sign you name and contact information so that we
At retreat planning our exciting RPCVw year
President’s Corner
RPCVw swoops into the holiday season.
Hello all, and happy holidays.
In the midst of pumpkins, costumes, candy, turkeys, and
friends and family, RPCVw is calling on you, our
membership, to help make us a better organization.
The RPCVw Board is very excited with the events and
programs that we’ve already offered this year. We are also
greatly encouraged by the positive feedback we’ve received
from you all on events such as our socially conscious
investing, Iftar dinner/lecture, and new members’ bike ride
to Mt. Vernon; however, in order to continue to meet the
expectations of you, our members, I would like to request
your input. Rather than functioning as a Board that decides
which programs are best for our membership, we are looking
to you for ideas.
In this light, please visit www.rpcvw.org (link to bulletin
board), and tell us what you would like to see from RPCVw
throughout the year. We’re looking for ideas on events,
programs, workshops, partnerships, and the like. If you have
a pet idea that you’d like to actualize, let us try and help you
do so!
When you access the bulletin board,
• enter your idea for a project/event.
• include any reasoning you feel pertinent to our
understanding of the idea.
can follow up with you on how to collaborate on
the project.
• If the project requires Board approval, we can
invite members to come and present their ideas at
one of our monthly board meetings.
To Access go to:
https://web.memberclicks.com/mc/quickForm/viewForm.
do?orgId=rpcvwd&formId=34
1.) Move the Cursor to the Community Dropdown menu
2.) Move the cursor down and select the last item,
"Suggestion Form"
3.) Complete the necessary information; those in bold are
required fields.
4.) Click the Submit tab
As a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer organization, our
mission is to help each of you live your third goal by bringing
the learnings from you volunteer service back home to the
DC-metro area. So, whether it is organizing a cooking class,
an intramural sports team, a workshop on green
development, or any other pet project that you have in mind,
contact us and help us to help you live your 3rd goal.
Regards,
Jim Gore, President, RPCVw
NEWS FROM THE NATIONAL PEACE
CORPS ASSOCIATION
Looking Ahead to New NPCA Developments
On behalf of the NPCA, I am pleased to report on exciting
developments in the Peace Corps community. Our multi-year
NPCA restructuring has made us a more efficient and
economical organization poised to have a major impact on
Peace Corps-related issues:
• Mentoring recent RPCVs: Our mentoring program
with Peace Corps offers returning volunteers career
and readjustment advice from established RPCVs,
through dynamic NPCA affiliates in Miami,
Chicago and Portland, Oregon. We plan to build on
this pilot program over the next year.
• Save the date: We are planning with Peace Corps
for 50th anniversary celebrations in as many as 139
countries and across the nation, including a
capstone event on the National Mall in
Washington, D.C., June 23-26, 2011.
• To succeed, we need your support. Please consider
a special contribution to NPCA. You can contribute
on-line at www.peacecorpsconnect.org or by mail
at: NPCA, 1900 L Street, NW, Suite 404,
Washington, D.C. 20036.
 Start Thinking about the 50th
Thinking ahead, let alone 4-plus years into the
future, is not something that comes easily to
many people or institutions. However for some
time the National Peace Corps Association has
been doing just that, looking forward to the 50th
anniversary of Peace Corps. Visit the Peace
Corps 50 landing page
(http://www.peacecorpsconnect.org/peacecorp
s50) on the NPCA website to get some very early
information about plans for 2011. You can also
learn about Peace Corps at 50: An Anniversary
Story Project
(http://www.rpcv.org/pages/sitepage.cfm?id=
1775&ref=&fin=2).
It's a Brave New World:
NPCA and New Media
To connect with untapped segments of the Peace
Corps community, NPCA is experimenting with
new media and emerging social networking tools
on the Internet. Look for us on YouTube.com,
Flickr.com, Facebook.com and Widgetbox.com
under the name PeaceCorpsConnect (some sites
may require registration).
We are particularly excited about the advocacy
and community-building potential of
Change.org, which recently linked to Facebook
and its millions of members. We have JUST
started out and would love your help in building
our member numbers. Visit our page at:
http://www.change.org/peacecorpsconnect.
And if you have ideas of how NPCA can use the
Internet in innovative ways to further our shared
mission – to connect, inform, and engage the
Peace Corps community – e-mail our Director of
New Media, Erica Burman, at news@rpcv.org.
Take a Vacation and Make a
Difference
You joined the Peace Corps to serve and to learn
first-hand about our world and its people. Now
we invite you to do that again! Through a new
collaboration with Global Volunteers, NPCA
members can connect and engage in service
projects around the globe - and at home - on
short term "volunteer vacations".
Whether you are 25 or 75, single or with a
spouse and family, make a difference again by
working with at-risk children and their
families.
With your trip, you get to take a tax deduction.
In addition, Global Volunteers makes a
contribution to NPCA. And, you come home
from your travels relaxed and refreshed,
knowing that you've made a difference again.
What more could you ask for?
Plan your next trip now with Global
Volunteers.
(http://npca.globalvolunteers.org/welcome.as
p).
Go Safely with Global Rescue
Global Rescue knows that former Peace Corps
volunteers continue to travel extensively and
frequently visit remote locations. And while most
RPCVs fancy themselves experienced travel hands,
it never hurts to be reminded of some common
sense travel tips. Visit the NPCA website
(http://www.rpcv.org/pages/sitepage.cfm?id
=1697) for a travel checklist from Global Rescue’s
Director of Flight Operations, plus information on
Global Rescue’s partnership with the National
Peace Corps Association.
Global Rescue
(http://www.globalrescue.com/plans.cfm)
is a membership organization that provides best-in-
class emergency medical, aero medical evacuation
and security services to individuals, families,
corporations and educational institutions
domestically and abroad.
School for International Training
Announces New $10,000 NPCA
Scholarships
The School for International Training (SIT), led
by President Carol Bellamy (Peace Corps
Volunteer Guatemala 63-65, Peace Corps
Director 93-95, Former Executive Director,
UNICEF, and member, NPCA Advisory
Council), announced increased National Peace
Corps Association academic scholarships of
$10,000 to pursue master's degrees in
international programs at the school's
Brattleboro, Vt., campus. The mission of SIT is
to prepare students to be intercultural effective
leaders, professionals, and citizens.
The NPCA Scholarship was established in 2000
to recognize the long-standing ties between SIT
and the Peace Corps. Members of NPCA who
have one year or more of significant intercultural
experience are eligible to apply. Several awards
of $10,000 will be made each year. NPCA
members can request information regarding this
exclusive scholarship opportunity at 800-336-
1616 or 802-257-7751, or online at
http://www.sit.edu.
SAVING PEACE CORPS’ HISTORY
(before it’s too late)
As we approach the 50th Anniversary of The
Peace Corps, the RPCV Archival Project has
begun a renewed effort to seek out those who
were the pioneers of the Peace Corps, volunteers
from the 1960s. Year by year we are losing that
cohort and their unique stories of volunteer
service. The Project hopes to add 3000 1960s
interviews to the National Archives at the John F.
Kennedy Library in the RPCV Collection before
the anniversary year; that would be about 10% of
those who served during that period.
The RPCV Archival Project is an informal
network of RPCVs who work to preserve Peace
Corps’ legacy by conducting oral history
interviews of those who have served as PCVs. In
the five years of its existence, more than 40 RPCV
interviewers have completed approximately 300
interviews [SEE <jfklibrary.org> Search: The
RPCV Collection]. The Project’s basic resource is
and will continue to be the unpaid voluntary
efforts of those RPCVs who’ve participated,
operating in cooperation with NPCA Affiliate
groups.
We need people to volunteer to participate by
becoming interviewers; a commitment of three
hours a month during 2007 could add 12 more
RPCV stories to the Collection. The Project
provides training and orientation through an
operational guide; once started, participants
work directly with the RPCV Archivist at the
Kennedy Library.
Interested? Questions? Comments?
Contact Bob Klein (Ghana 1961-1963)
Project Organizer
RPCVArchivalProj@att.net
Socially Responsible Investment
101
On Monday, October 1st, approximately 15
interested RPCVs and friends gathered at the
Latin American Youth Center in Columbia
Heights to hear a presentation given by Justin
Conway, the Sales and Information Officer at
Calvert Foundation, a nonprofit provider of
innovative financial products and services that
channel affordable capital to underserved
communities and markets. Before joining
Calvert Foundation, Justin managed the
Community Investing Program of Co-op
America and the Social Investment Forum,
where he was instrumental in helping grow
the overall demand for community and
socially responsible investing. These
experiences made him more than qualified to
educate the group on various ways to invest
their money, be it 401k, 403b or other funds, in
a way that contributed to the greater (or more
immediate, depending on your preference)
community.
According to Conway, the most important
factor to deciding where you invest is
educating yourself about where you may
invest, as well as the types of socially-
responsible issues in which you prefer to
invest (because there are a MULTITUDE of
them). This situation is yet another example of
how personal research can reward those
involved. The three components of Socially-
Responsible Investment (SRI) are Screening,
Shareholder Advocacy and Community
Investing.
Screening can be exclusionary (screening OUT
companies that finance certain issues),
inclusionary (screening IN companies that
finance certain issues), Comparative
(companies compared for best-in-class) and
Blended (a combination of above approaches).
Shareholder advocacy can mean involving
yourself in a company that doesn’t necessarily
meet your screening requirements, but for
which you use your position as a voting
member of that company’s Board to advocate
for policies that would meet your screening
requirements, ranging from recommendations
to reporting transparency to office recycling
policies to CO2 emissions to sexual orientation
non-discrimination policies, etc. Community
investing is more of a local means of
channeling much-needed funds to areas in
need of economic opportunity.
 Based on the significant member interest, we may
ask Justin to return for a second session for all
those people who missed out. In the meantime, he
recommends the following websites for when
you’re making these important choices in your
financial matters: www.socialinvest.org;
www.socialfunds.com; and
www.communityinvest.com. Thanks again to
Justin for sharing his knowledge with the RPCVw
community!
Friends of Morocco President Tim Resch welcomes RPCVw and Friends of Morocco to the event and
introduces our guest speaker, Dr. Azzam Abdelkarim."
Iftar: Breaking the Ramadan Fast
Members of the RPCVw community and Friends of
Morocco (FOM) came together on Sunday, October
7, to observe the breaking of the Ramadan fast at
the cozy Casablanca Restaurant in Old Town,
Alexandria. The second year of this RPCVw/FOM
event, we hope to make it an annual activity you
can look forward to in the years to come: an ideal
mix of fun and cultural education, this is the kind
of event we hope to increasingly host as an
organization dedicated to continuing the cross-
cultural experience here in DC.
The fast was broken with an assortment of
“nibbles,” including dates, deviled eggs, fried
sweetened dough and a few styles of pancakes
coated in honey. A soup followed these tasty
tidbits and held the hungry souls over while guest
speaker, Dr. Azzam Abdelkarim, enlightened the
group as to the meaning of Ramadan and its place
within the five pillars of Islam. Dr. Abdelkarim
was invited to attend through the Moroccan
consulate, who was also present at the event, and
spoke informatively and passionately about his
Call for Ideas
As the 2007-2008 Programs Director, I
have a number of my own ideas about
educational and cultural programs I can
organize for RPCVw, but they won’t get
me through the year. I need you, and I’m
here to provide programs you’re
interested in. Please, feel free to write me
any ideas you have for future programs
you’d like to see us hold this year, and I’ll
do what I can to make them happen. E-
mail me : programs@rpcvw.org. I’m
waiting for your ideas!
--Lesley Pories, Programs Director,
RPCVw
area of expertise. He also helped explain to the
crowd, who came from their own diverse
experiences of Islam through their respective
countries of service (or, in some cases,
homes)—Morocco, Niger, Uzbekistan,
Kurdistan, Honduras and others—how the
religion, like many others, is subject to
national/regional variations as to observance.
The main course that followed was a veritable
feast: chicken and lamb (or salmon, depending
on your dietary needs) cooked in the tangine
style indicative of Morocco and other
surrounding areas, accompanied later by
vegetable couscous. Fresh fruit and tea
completed the meal, but not until long after the
group was treated to a live belly-dance
performance.
In all, the night was a huge success. Members
of the RPCVw and FOM community got to
interact and exchange relevant stories, all
while educating themselves, enjoying a rather
tasty meal and getting an almost-private belly-
dance performance.
“It was amazing,” reflected attendee Amy
Hertz (Niger 2001-2003). “My community
observed Ramadan, but they didn’t always
explain everything to me. It was great to learn
a bit more about the whole thing and to feel
that connection to my host community again,
even from so far away.”
 Letter from the Field:
A Reminder of the Peace Corps Experience

Hey Guys,
I'm doin' OK out here and I credit the peak of the
rainy season for maintaining my sanity............

I'm suffering greatly from the absence of activity.

Work has been nearly impossible to find. Half of the
city has disappeared into the fields to harvest the
August crops--to earn their annual income. And
I've been left to wait. I wait for their return. I wait In the end, there is no existential crisis. No
for the new school year to begin. I wait to abandon universal truths. No what-ifs or could-bes. No
my daily lists of superficial errands that include conscience. No guilt or grief.
chores like sweeping the ceilings and searching for I only know one thing after the rains. I know
eggs. I'll find carrots that day. And the rest never
really mattered.
Unfortunately, with the waiting...comes the
thinking. I've come to realize that thinking
is THE MOST successful and efficient method of
achieving the ultimate level of self-loathing. I
manage to replay everything I've ever done wrong,
all the things I never did, and all the things I
wasn't capable of doing in my entire 31 years of
being. And as if compiling such a comprehensive
mental list of my shortcomings isn't enough--I
start thinking about home. I think about everything
I've left behind for a second time, of all that I'm
missing, and of those who will no longer be waiting
for me when I return. But just as I start
contemplating how to hang myself from a curtain The RPCVw bike ride crew
rod with Peace Corps' generic unwaxed dental
floss, it starts to rain..................... LIVESTRONG
On October 21, about 20 RPCVw members
For the most part, I find that the raindrops in the took to the streets and biked the 30 mile
Western world seem to fall as if they are casualties Mount Vernon trail. We started at
of a strictly enforced maximum capacity moisture Arlington National Cemetary and followed
law in the sky. But here it's as if as if the trail through Alexandria, continuing on
each individual drop is carrying out its own to the Mount Vernon site, the home of
personal vendetta against the Earth. It starts from George Washington. Some stayed to tour
above, rises from below, and chases sideways. It the site, while others headed back to
falls with such a power that it seems that nothing
Alexandria and stopped for dinner and
could exist beyond these elements themselves and
drinks by the water. We could not have had
the sound of their fury on a 2K stretch of
a more beautiful day, nor a smoother ride.
aluminum roofs.
A great trip was had by all!!!! Stay tuned
Sometimes it lasts for hours and sometimes for just
for more outdoors-y events in the months
a few minutes, but its effects are always the same. ahead.
It paralyzes and cleanses. It
eliminates all thought... and the process of.
 MARK YOUR CALENDARS!
RPCVw's Meet N' Greet New Members
Thanksgiving Dinner! New to the area?
Interested in meeting other returned Peace
Corps volunteers? Join us for our first annual
Thanksgiving feast on Tuesday, November
13th in Mount Pleasant, DC at 7:30pm. Learn
more about the organization, meet board
members, eat turkey, and share stories of past
Thanksgivings spent around candlelit tables in
far corners of the world. RSVP to Elizabeth at
newmembers@rpcvw.org. We hope you can
join us!
The Friends of the Baltics’
Celebration
The Friends of the Baltics would like to invite you to
a special celebration and benefit at the Embassy of
Estonia on Wednesday, November 7th, 6pm-
8.30pm. His Excellency Ambassador Vaino Reinart
will give welcome remarks for this special event.
We would like to extend a special 2 for 1
membership rate to all RPCVs, so if you purchase
in advance, for just $20, you and a friend can join
us and help a very worthy cause!
Enjoy a Baltic-friendly evening with live traditional
music, an array of delicious hors d'oeuvres,
Estonia's famous Saku beer and other libations.
There will also be a silent auction offering an array
of Baltic treats and treasures. Everyone is welcome
to join us for this festive occasion to benefit a most
worthwhile project.
This year's celebration and benefit will raise funds
to provide access to recreational equipment and
activities for Estonian youth with mental disabilities.
And because the Embassy of Estonia is
generously providing all food and beverage for our
event, 100 percent of ticket proceeds will benefit
this worthy cause. We greatly appreciate the
Embassy of Estonia in helping us to make the
maximum contribution possible. We also
appreciate our members and friends who will come
out and celebrate with us.
WHAT: The Friends of the Baltics' Celebration &
Benefit
SAVE THE DATE
The annual Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of
Washington's holiday party will take place on
December 7th at 6:30 at the Josephine Butler
House.
Please mark your calendars and tell your friends!
The evening will include a festive holiday dinner
and a silent auction.
Please let RPCV/W know if you have any items or
services to donate to the auction. Can you donate an
hour of web design service? Did you recently
receive a gift that wasn't quite "you" and you need a
place to pass it on? Let us know!
Stay tuned for more information as the date
approaches!
This is one not to be missed!!
WHEN: Wednesday, November 7th, 6pm-
8.30pm
WHERE: The Embassy of Estonia, located at
2131 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington
DC 20008. www.estemb.org . (Dupont Circle
Metro).
RSVP, TICKETS & RESERVATIONS: Tickets
for this event are $20 for members and $25 for
non-members if purchased in advance by
November 3, 2007. All other tickets will be $30
at the door--cash or check only. Space is
limited for this event, so we encourage you to
reserve today by calling Lisa Martin (Estonia
96-98), President of Friends of the Baltics, at
571.212.3358 or via email at
lisamartinmolinari@gmail.com. There is a
special 2 for 1 ticket price for RPCVs--just
mention you heard it through RPCV/W.
To pay online, please visit
www.balticfriends.org. Click on "join FoB"
and/or "support FoB" and follow the Pay Pal
instructions. Add the total of your ticket order
plus any membership fee and/or donation
amount. In the message box, include how
many tickets and for whom they were
purchased. We encourage you to consider
joining FOB and/or renewing your annual
membership of $15 while you are there.
Alternatively, you may pay by check if
postmarked by November 1st. Please make
checks payable to Friends of the Baltics,
include names of attendees on the memo line
and mail to: Lisa Martin, 510 21st Street, NW
#802, Washington, DC 20006. Payments must
be received in advance to ensure your space.
Kids under 12 years of age FREE!