What I Learned in the Peace Corps
To take part in a panel on the Peace Corps Then and Now, I had to think about the lessons I learned during my two years teaching English in Ethiopia. In doing so, I realized that the experience affected not only my attitudes and interests but also the jobs I held in the years after that and the fiction I’m writing today. In September1962, the Peace Corps responded to Emperor Haile Selassie’s request for secondary teachers by sending in 275 volunteers. We doubled Ethiopia’s secondary faculty. I taught eleventh grade English at the only high school in the mountainous Wollo … Continue reading →