Peace Corps Reunion and Peace Corps Memoirs

Peace Corps Reunion in Nashville

I started writing today on the plane to Nashville, on my way to the reunion of former Peace Corps volunteers. I’m looking forward to seeing Pete and Katy Hansen, as I do every time there’s a gathering. And David Koren, author of Far Away in the Sky, a story of the Biafran airlift, to whom I”ll give his prize for answering a challenge in my blog correctly – he’s getting a copy of the anthology Love on the Road 2013 with my story, The Memorable Memo, about how I met my husband. I’ll give you a link to a talk he gave about the book and the airlift soon.

Dorothy Herzberg who wrote her own memoir of Peace Corps days, called Me, Madam, will be there too.

Her book is based on letters she and her husband sent home. Wasn’t she fortunate that her parents held onto them?

Educating Girls in Northern Nigeria

I said in my last post that I would let you know BarbaraLee’s recommendation to support educating girls in northern Nigerian. She says, “Here is a way to support Peace Corps Nigeria Alumni Foundation, PCNAF, with pennies per online search:

Go to http://www.goodsearch.com/ and sign up. It’s an easy sign up, and you choose the organization you want to support. I’ve raised a glorious 22 cents because I made 22 online searches in the last few days. Doesn’t sound like much, but if everyone at the Peace Corps conference signed up, and then used GoodSearch, those pennies would mount up very quickly.”

BarbaraLee also wrote a Peace Corps memoir. I clearly have a lot to live up to with my own! Hers is called Groundnut Stew. Groundnuts are peanuts, and though Ihaven’t tasted hers, the groundnut stew I’ve had is delicious!

Strength of Community in Nigeria

Tomorrow afternoon I’ll give the talk about belonging and community in Nigeria. Here’s a little of what I’ll say: “How do Nigerians come to know that they belong to a particular family, clan, village and tribe? Of course I asked my husband Clem, who said, “I was born with it. It’s part of me.” In fact, Clem wasn’t even born in the village. His parents lived in mid-western Nigeria where his father was working in the logging industry! ”

Even though I don’t think Nigerians are born with this sense of belonging, I do think it is nurtured carefully and deliberately – though unconsciously – so it feels like it’s part of them. “Clem knew from the time he knew anything where he belongs, and it doesn’t change throughout his life. It is even passed on to our children. He, his siblings, his cousins, and our children, are always from Nanka.

“I have a few thoughts of how the sense of community is created and how it is demonstrated. I hope you will consider adding to my list.

Language – the words people use – is the first. People refer to each other with words that demonstrate the relationship. I was surprised and a little disturbed the first time I visited my husband’s village after we were married, when women and men called me, “Nwunyem, or nwunye anyi, my wife or our wife.” “What do they mean?” I asked my husband. “They are telling you that you are part of the village and part of our family now,” he said. I relaxed and enjoyed being greeted so familiarly.”

Do you have a sense of belonging to a particular place? What makes you know you belong? I’d love to know.