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Peace Corps Returnees from Africa Celebrated Black History Month in San Francisco

By IDEA, Inc. Staff Reporter

On Wednesday February 23, 2005, the Koret Auditorium of the San Francisco Main Library was packed with enthusiastic audience and a sizable number of Returnee Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCV), who came to attend the panel discussion of four RPCVs from Africa.

Dennis McMahon (RPCV-Mali), in charge of Public Affairs for the Peace Corps, introduced the panel program and the panelists. The panelists were David Jones (RPCV-Kenya), Mona Nyandoro (RPCV-Sao Tome and Principe), Stephen Watkins (RPCV-Guinea), and Robin Cooper (RPCV-Kenya).

After Dennis introduced the panelists and entertained the audience with general information on the mission of the Peace Corps, he handed over the podium to Harris Bostik II, the moderator, who is also the Regional Manager for the Peace Corps.

The first speaker was David Jones who served as a small business consultant to women, youth and self-help group in Kenya. While in Kenya, he was introduced to a community school and taught business administration, bookkeeping and marketing. He was also involved in HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted disease(s) or STD education and family planning for low-income families outside Nairobi.

The second speaker, Mona, a biologist by profession, was involved in environmental studies in the tropical rainforest of Sao Tome and Principe. She had no problem acclimatizing in Sao Tome and Principe, because when she was in the United States she lived in Missouri that has a similar humid climate. However, unlike David who served in an English speaking Kenya, the challenge for Mona was to learn Portuguese (Sao Tome and Principe was Portuguese colony till 1975) in order to serve effectively where she lived in a remote coffee plantation and a nearby daycare center. The cheering children of the daycare particularly overjoyed Mona, where they used to cheer her as “Mona, Mona!” She was in fact nostalgic about these cheering kids, and in her own words, she said, “This perhaps will never happen again anywhere in my life.”

The third speaker was Stephen who began his speech by “ a freaking stupid idea” called African food exchange program or system. He was trying to explain his role as “a business guy,” and like most of his colleagues, he “was eager to get started” in Guinea despite the tenuous situation. Like all his colleagues, Stephen also served in a remote and “beautiful place” called Lola, eight hours from the capital or central region. As per Stephen, Lola actually is 45 km from the capital but due to bad roads it takes eight hours to reach there. Explaining his PCV mission as a whole and the specific program he was involved in, Stephen candidly said, “When you do technical projects it is frustrating and hard to track down.” Stephen also discussed the impact of the Liberian civil war on some NGOs operating in Guinea, although the Liberian rebels did not personally threaten him.

The fourth speaker, Robin, served in Ghazi, Kenya, twelve hours south of Nairobi. Most PCVs are in there 20s and with undergraduate degree (some even with high school diploma). Exception to the rule is Robin Cooper, who already had a graduate degree before she committed herself as a PCV. Robin was involved in multi-disciplinary projects that enrolled youth and women groups sharing business skills, and also in poultry keeping projects. She taught at youth polytechnic, where students and community members had to raise funds for their tuition.

When the floor was opened for questions and discussion, one of the questions directed to Robin was “why she wants to do the Peace Corps,” and she responded most profoundly by saying, “my degree is in training and development and upon completing my graduate studies people thought I was going to look for a lucrative professional job. Not me…I wanted to curve my own niche.”

Another question forwarded to the panelists from the floor was whether they have learned the local language(s) during their stay in Africa. Robin’s response to this question was most impressive. Instead of saying “yes I have learned to speak this language,” she simply conversed in Swahili and entered dialogue with the audience that was clearly fascinated but lost in the wilderness of Koret Auditorium. Although not fluent, Robin undoubtedly is proficient in Swahili, a language widely spoken in East Africa and parts of Congo.

The audience also forwarded several questions ranging from “have you ever been in love with someone” to relatively profound, “what is development,” and to a more sophisticated one “what is your assessment of Africa’s predicament. Do you think Africa will overcome its present ordeal and join the family of nations called developed?”

The panelists satisfactorily answered all questions, but one question forwarded to the African-American panelists and reiterated three times by Harris Bostic was not adequately answered. The question pertains to how they felt by “going back home to Africa.” During Black History Month celebration, African Americans are expected not just to recite the Black experience in the Diaspora, but most importantly to recapture their roots and African heritage. Although David said he enjoyed himself during his stay in Kenya, both Robin and Stephen confessed to have had difficulties reconnecting with the home of their ancestors. Robin, for instance, said home for her should have the flavor of “Chicago, eating pizza and snow,” and Stephen added, “Mississippi in fact is home of his ancestors.” Both Robin and Stephen were honest and candid in their response and they did not exhibit any hypocrisy in their response to ‘reconnecting with Africa.’ For the Diaspora, however, reconnecting with Africa is extremely important and crucial, both in terms of identity, cultural heritage and history, and that is the essence of Black History Month.

Overall the panel discussion was excellent and credit is due given to Harris Bostic and Dennis McMahon, but most of all to Sandi Swiderski (RPCV-Ethiopia, 1966-67), now recruiter for the Peace Corps in San Francisco, who played a major role in the making of the panel.

The Institute of Development and Education for Africa (IDEA), Inc. likes to extend its heartfelt gratitude to all RPCV who served in Africa, to the panelists, and to the organizers of the panel and the exhibition (February 1- April 7, 2005). IDEA also acknowledges and appreciates the positive contribution of the PCV as envisioned by John F. Kennedy in 1961. Indeed as Robert F. Kennedy once said (and this is posted on the wall of the lower level of the San Francisco Main Library) “each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.”