Zoya works in a small room just off the shortcut I take into town every day. She says she learned how to sew when she was 17 at classes she took at the cultural house in Yeghegnadzor over 30 years ago. She along with her soviet era sewing machine...
This photo was taken by me at the Wildlife Offices in Pandamatenga, Botswana. The area is full of wild African game and many of the animals are killed on the road and then are butchered where the meat is auctioned off to the local villagers. This...
The Stars of Tomorrow is an HIV peer education program made possible through VAST funds. The three-day training took place January 31 through February 2, 2011. Twenty-one unemployed, out of school youth in their 20s were trained to be HIV peer...
This photo was taken while leading rural Salvadoran youth in a group discussion after the first performance of "A Mi Manera," an original musical promoting life skills, gender equality, and reproductive health. Over 100 rural youth from Peace Corps...
During my first year living in my community in Nicaragua, I loved spending my afternoons working with a youth group making videos about the community. After a while it became too much to continue editing all of the footage myself and so with a...
This photo was taken on July 9, 2011 in Bulgaria, with a group of four youth volunteers who were performing activities as a part of the Peace Corps' 20th/50th anniversary commemoration. In the photo the volunteers and I are attempting to make a...
This photo was taken while my husband taught a Basics of Computers class to a group of young Basotho men in Lesotho. The photo captures him explaining the use of the keyboard for the first time.
This photo was taken during my trip to Crimea, Ukraine, to visit some local Volunteers. I don't remember the name of the boy, I guess he is eleven. He lives in Crimea, and enjoys his life playing football with his friends rather then wasting time...
This photo was taken in September 2010 during our celebration of induction into Peace Corps Zambia. I was trying to take photos of the dancers behind this boy, but the constant gazing of his eyes drew my lens to focus on him. My favorite part of...
This photo was taken on May 23, 2009 at a dance competition in Ecuador. Traditional Kichwa dances are performed at every public event in the Napo province and troupes are composed children of all ages. The dance steps describe traditional...
In the Spring of 2011, two of my very best friends came from Kansas to visit me in my village in Moldova. Because I am a teacher, I brought them to my school for the day so they could get to know some of my students, and my students could meet some...
The children in my village have taken me in at their big sister, calling me "kakak" rather than my actual name. It's heartwarming. They love to take me to the sugarcane fields that surround our village. They run with knifes, and it makes me...
This photo was taken on June 2, 2010 is a picture of a green fence on Lenin Street in Comrat, the capital of the semi-autonomous Molvonan region of Gagauzia. The most ubiquitous image of Moldova is a green and white fence. Moldovan's take great...
Over the past year, I have been working with a youth club with the aim of lifeskills education and girls' empowerment. Part of our aim is empowerment through health and ownership of one's body. Every Wednesday after school, anywhere from 15-25...
This photo was taken during a Chicas Brillantes conference in February 2011. Volunteer Phoebe is teaching 50 young Dominican girls how to use yoga to relieve stress, build self-confidence and stay healthy. It was part of a 3-day conference that...
I took this picture in August 2010 during my pre-service training in Cambodia. This photo shows a group of my fellow Volunteers practicing yoga during some free time in one Volunteer's host family's wooden home.
This photo was taken in March 2011 at the Talumalu Market. Talumalu is a very big market and the center of things on Saturdays when everyone is doing their shopping. Mostly vegetables and produce of all kinds, but also available are Tongan...