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 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 was taken by my Ukrainian friend Alex at a two week long Youth CAN (Youth Community Action Network) conference in eastern Ukraine. The day's theme was "Ukrainian Pride" and the shirts you are seeing are called "serochkas" - national dress worn...
As a Municipal Development Volunteer, I worked with a group of youth originating from rural and urban parts of the municipality. In this photo, an unofficial counterpart and I were teaching them how to make wooden signs for businesses in their...
This is a photo of a young girl posing for the camera. The photo was taken (using color accent) at a friend's house in Juan O'Leary, Alto Parana on December 25, 2010.
Many of the men in my village leave to find work in Italy. They are gone for years at a time while the women and girls have to make ends meet in village, waiting for money to be sent over. This is a photo of three girls from my village in...
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...
The picture was taken by my home village, Tougouri, Burkina Faso. In the picture are my best-friend's mother (therefore MY grandmother) and my friend's son. The little boy is the smiliest and giggliest little boy ever created and his grandmother...
Food and meals; Host community; Host community friends
This photo taken on August 27th, 2006 shows my wife and I engaged in the classic Paraguayan ritual with our favorite progressive farmer in our site in Paraguay. Sharing the indigenous green tea, yerba mate, with a communal cup is the universal way...
Taken in the highlands of Yemen, somewhere between Amran and Thula, in Fall of 1977. My husband and I had arrived in Yemen about a week before and were hiking toward the highest mountain on the Arabian peninsula, and wondering how we would be...
Taken outside my door, Ye Massa stopped to give me this wonderful smile and pose with the segburreh that she was playing as she headed past with a group of women from the local Bondo. Ye Massa and her husband Pa Sam were my friends. They lived...
This was taken in 2011 (post-service) while visiting the Emberá community Ella Drua in Colón, Panama. Yaneth was weaving a traditional Emberá basket while her daughter, Vianca, and my son, Adrián, played on the floor.
I took this photo in December 2010 in Cambodia. The photo shows my ya-ee (Khmer language for grandmother) fanning herself on another hot Cambodian day.
This photo was taken in March of 2006 in Uzyn, Kievskaya Oblast, Ukraine, when I had been living with my host family for about a month. On the right is my host "mother" Maria, making sure I was properly dressed to go out into the cold to use the...
Samabogo, Mali taken on 10/4/2009. This is my host mom, Worokia, at my village going away party. I bought 50 pounds of beans and invited my friends and family to eat and dance. I admit we are all bean eaters.
On the morning of June 18th, 2011, at 4:00am in Moldova, my host father knocks on the door to my room. I open the door, and am told "today we are going to work the land my son!" I was tired, yet excited. We then proceeded to walk about two miles to...
This is a photo of workers from the indigenous communities that my counterpart organization collaborated with making repairs to the Visitors' Center in the wildlife reserve we managed, as part of an infrastructure development project we coordinated.