Tag Archives: Nepal

You Call These Mountains?

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When I visited the Andes and Patagonia’s rugged landscape recently, I said the same thing as when I first saw the Grand Tetons: 

“You call these mountains?”

They were spectacular but I couldn’t resist pointing out they were much lower than the Himalayas of Nepal, where I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer 47 years ago and have returned regularly since marrying Champa. I still speak Nepali, am close to our family there and think of Nepal as my second home.

Like many converts, I’ve become a zealot, in my case about Nepal’s status as the home of the world’s highest mountain, Everest, and eight of the top ten overall. I promote them even when I should be praising others.

As you can see from these photos from our trip last month, the mountains of Argentina and Chile are actually stunning. I was spellbound by the snow-covered peaks of Patagonia. When we drove across the Andes from Argentina to Chile, the views were magnificent, such as at Bariloche, below.

The same was true of the Alps when Champa and I hiked there on previous trips (below).

I loved the Cascades, too, when we visited Oregon recently. Despite being less than half the size of the Himalayas — Mount Rainier’s peak is 14,411 feet compared to 29,029 for Everest — they were glorious to hike or just admire from a chair (below).

It’s not like I’m a mountain climber myself, especially at this stage of my life. The highest I ever got in Nepal was 18,519 feet at Kala Patthar, overlooking the Everest base camp. That’s where summit expeditions start, not finish. I could barely walk in the thin air.

Moreover, altitude doesn’t define beauty. Nor does location. The highest peaks, like those in Nepal, can be more deadly than delightful.

Sunrise at Kanchenjunga, the world’s third-highest mountain, near Champa’s home.

My comments are just Himalayan chauvinism and, as Champa reminds me, they’re ridiculous. She glows whenever she visits mountains, whether in Nepal or elsewhere.

In comparison, I sound like a Parisian who sneers at someone else’s cuisine or a New Yorker mocking life beyond the Hudson River. It’s not a good look, so I’m confessing to it here and vowing to finally overcome it. 

In that spirit, let me now state clearly what I thought of the Andes: They were gorgeous, marvelous and impressive. 

That is, if you like hills.

(Top two photos by Nancy Collamer)

Peace Corps Macho

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I received a message recently from someone thanking me for an article I wrote in 1979 before returning home from my first stint as a Peace Corps Volunteer, in Nepal.

The message came from a woman in Tennessee who served in Swaziland (now Eswatini) around the same time. “I pulled out a scrapbook and found a copy of your Peace Corps Macho article,” she wrote me. “That saying has reminded me many times not to get too caught up in myself over the years. I thought to look you up and I’m glad to see that you are still writing thought-provoking words on a very interesting life.”

I’d nearly forgotten the article, which appeared in the July/August 1979 issue of Peace Corps Times (which no longer exists). I found it online and, despite some gendered language and outdated phrases (e.g., “Third World,” “villagers,” “far out”), much of it remains timely.

Just in case you missed the article 44 years ago, I’m sharing it here along with some photos of my time in Nepal.

Item: A fellow Volunteer chose one of the most isolated posts here in Nepal. A few months later, he was visited by a Peace Corps staff member. The Volunteer’s quarters were, the staff member later told me, “a hovel worse than anything in the whole village. His kitchen was dirty and he wasn’t boiling his water. It was unbelievable. When I asked him why he didn’t improve his living standard, he said, ‘Well, I didn’t join the Peace Corps to be comfortable, you know.’”

Item: My lifetime friend, Mitch, joined Peace Corps/Nepal a year after me. At the end of his training. he had to choose between Kathmandu and another town, Pokhara, for his post. If he lived in Kathmandu, we could have shared my house and had a great time together. But Mitch chose the other post. One of the main reasons was that we both felt funny about doing something that we would so obviously enjoy. It would lessen the hardship we associated with Peace Corps service.

Item: My first post in Nepal was a village called llam. For medical reasons, I was transferred to Kathmandu. My salary was raised by $16 per month. Now I go to an occasional film or cheap restaurant. When Volunteers come in from their isolated posts, I am sometimes asked whether I have forgotten in my “luxury” what the real Peace Corps experience is about.

The implication is clear: You have to suffer to be a PCV.

It’s an attitude that I call “Peace Corps Macho.” It occurs when the willingness to endure hardship in the course of helping the poor turns into the belief that hardships have an intrinsic worth of their own.

Peace Corps Macho. You have to suffer to sing the blues.

Turning the inevitable hardships of Peace Corps life into a psychic combat medal is, of course, one way to cope with problems beyond our control. We can laugh at our troubles. It gives a sense of camaraderie.

But the problem is that many Volunteers I know — myself included — sometimes feel they have to seek out these hardships to prove how much they can “take,” thus showing how much they are willing to sacrifice to help humanity.

For example, a typical conversation in the Peace Corps/Nepal medical office:

“Hey, guess what? My lab test just came back and I’ve got the amoeba!”

*Oh. that’s nothing. I just got over pneumonia. I almost got a trip to Bangkok out of it, but I got better too soon.”

“Really? Say, did you hear about Bob? He came down with typhoid and had to be helicoptered out. Pretty amazing. First he had hepatitis and malaria, now he’s got typhoid.”

“Well, you know, Bob’s a far-out guy.”

This is the ethic of the missionary. Suffering brings prestige. Like the priest in Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory, the taking on of suffering elevates the soul.

The trouble with this is that Peace Corps Volunteers are not missionaries. Nor are we in Outward Bound. Nor the army. By the Peace Corps charter, we are here for three reasons. The primary one is to help the poor. Second is to give foreigners a chance to see Americans. And third is to create a body of American citizens sensitive to the needs of Third World development.

There’s not a word about suffering.

The line is not always clear, of course, about when hardship is a necessary part of getting our job done and when it becomes a spiritual ego ride. For example, to live in a simple house is to show solidarity with local farmers. But it’s ludicrous not to do what you can to catch the rats, keep your room clean and be happy.

Likewise, if you eat local foods instead of tinned goodies from home, it is a sign of fellowship with the poor. But some Volunteers carry this to the extreme by eating a protein-deficient diet, well knowing that they are endangering their health. Why? To be like their neighbors.

I feel the pressure myself. My lob and life here have been going extremely well. My teaching is successful, I have launched a series of special projects and have made many friends. And yet I sometimes feel guilty because things aren’t more difficult.

Peace Corps itself is ambiguous in its attitude towards hardship. On the one hand, it frets over Volunteer safety, programs and the like. But on the other, it prints recruiting brochures that ring something like: “Sure it’ll be tough. You’ll be vomiting up spiders and wishing those poisonous snakes would finally put you out of your misery. But you’ll be a Peace Corps Volunteer!”

The tension doesn’t only concern physical health, but mental health, too. Consider the Volunteer who has been at his post for six months, but who is not supposed to come to the capital for another two months. He is lonely and really wants to see his friends and have a decent meal. Too often a Volunteer in that situation will feel that he has to visibly freak out before he is morally justified in seeking relief. So he stays — after all, hardship is what Peace Corps is all about. Maybe he will tough it out after all. But maybe he won’t.

Another example: During my training, we had several conversations about whether there were times when we ought to drink unboiled water. In certain social situations, shouldn’t we just be gracious and take a few sips?

Well, as one who has now been through giardiasis, amoebic dysentery, hookworm and roundworm, I have no doubts anymore what the answer to that question is. What are you going to gain by drinking the water and vomiting for days: impress the villagers?

There seems to be a need here for balance between our own needs and the commitment we feel to help the poor. Too often there is a tendency among those involved in social service to make the worst of things so as to assure themselves that they are genuinely committed.

The issue is even more pronounced these days since many of us (I include myself) feel a certain repulsion toward the narcissism of many in the so-called human potential movement, what Tom Wolfe and others have called the “Me Generation.” For myself, I feel that many such people, well meaning though they may be, have become so wrapped up in themselves that they have forgotten the poverty of half the world’s people.

But they have their point, too. It’s a fool who doesn’t watch out for himself. So somewhere between suffering to show “compassion” for the poor and getting Rolfed and ESTed all day, there’s got to be a balance.

In any case, Peace Corps should face this issue a lot more squarely than it does now. Is hardship to be maximized as a requirement for successful service? If not, why does Peace Corps so often glorify unhappiness? And more important, why do so many PCVs let themselves get sucked in by such self-destructive logic?

Peace Corps Macho, to be sure, is not one of life’s basic human needs.

While I’m Still Able

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It’s a phrase that may be familiar to older Americans wondering how long they’ll be able to maintain a busy lifestyle:

“While I’m still able.”

I realized recently that I’ve been saying it myself when running into old friends. They’ll say something like: “I follow you online and you sure do keep busy traveling and everything else.”

“Well,” I’ll respond, “I want to do it while I’m still able.”

When I said this again the other day, it made me think of Supermarket Sweep, the television show in which contestants race to fill their carts with as much as possible within a brief time. Grab the steaks! Get some lobsters! Don’t let time run out on you!

I thought: Is this what I’ve become — someone frantically filling their cart before the buzzer sounds?

One of my volunteer projects is with this group in Moldova.

I know it can look that way. During the past year, I’ve taken several big trips, which I’ve written about here. I volunteer with local nonprofits, serve on boards, write this blog and a newsletter, go to local events and spend time with family and friends.

This may all just add up to an “active retirement” but I wonder sometimes whether I’m trying to prove something, to myself above all. Maybe I’m compensating for the fact that I no longer have the title and recognition of a formal job. Indeed, when I return these days to the campus where I used to work, few people recognize me. They just see a random retired guy.

Celebrating my 70th birthday with my seven grandchildren

So maybe I’ve been filling up my schedule as a way to say: Hey, I’m still here. Or perhaps I’m overreacting to medical challenges I’ve had over the past couple of years, or to turning 70. My clock is ticking and I hear it even without hearing aids.

Whatever my motivations, I’ve been busy, perhaps too busy.

Speaking at a local retirement community

An older friend told me recently she’s been wrestling with the same issue. She said she’s finding it hard to juggle numerous volunteer roles with the informal help she provides to friends, family responsibilities, travel and everything else. She laughed that it’s hardly what she expected in “retirement.”

I have no regrets about my own “not exactly retired” life, which I’ve pursued since walking away from a busy job at the age of 62. I recognize how fortunate I’ve been to do this. But it’s never been a retirement in the sense of kicking back. Shortly after I began serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in 2016, I wrote about my inability to ease up and move beyond the packed schedule of my previous life. I noted then how “I keep checking my cell phone for messages. I don’t go home until I’ve completed every item on my mental ‘to do’ list.”

I concluded that post by humorously vowing to pay closer attention when the Peace Corps staff told me again to be patient. “Really,” I promised, “I may even put a reminder in my electronic calendar.”

Visiting the Suomenlinna fortress in Helsinki

Now, seven years later, I remain just as persistent about making my days productive, whether it’s assisting a local community group or traveling to some foreign destination with Champa. I’m doing this mainly for myself but, at some level, I suppose I am also asserting my own relevance in a world that can make older people feel invisible.

In any case, I’m determined to make the most of this precious “not exactly retired” stage of my life when I no longer have the responsibilities of a formal job but am still able to contribute and thrive. All of these activities give my life meaning and I plan to keep doing them while I’m still … well, you know.

Expats in Moldova

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They’re leading lives I’ve sometimes imagined for myself: American expats in Moldova who are running businesses, managing programs, assisting refugees and tackling other challenges far from home.

Many of them first came to Moldova as Peace Corps Volunteers, like us. Unlike us, they’ve made a new home here. We’re friends with several of them and it’s been fascinating this week to catch up on our lives.

Chris Flowers, a fellow former Volunteer, is now the country director for the American Councils, managing educational and cultural programs. He recently married a Moldovan attorney, Diana, who’s done heroic work assisting refugees, especially since Russia invaded Ukraine. We met up with them at an Uzbek restaurant.

David Smith opened and ran an American-style barbecue restaurant for several years. He’s also been active in the local small business community and writes a newsletter with excellent analyses of what’s happening in Moldova. He, too, married a Moldovan woman.

Andrew Blakely was two years behind me in leaving Duke University to serve in Peace Corps Moldova. Now he’s back with Church World Service, managing programs to assist Ukrainian refugees and others. He’s working with Casey O’Neill, who previously served in the Peace Corps group between ours.

Bartosz Gawarecki is here, too, working with refugees near Bălți, where he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Bartosz is the president of Friends of Moldova. When the war broke out, he left his business in Michigan to join David and others in rapidly creating some of the first centers to provide desperate Ukrainian families with food and assistance.

That’s Bartosz in the photo, in the white shirt, along with Joseph Lutz of Indiana, who’s returned as a Peace Corps Response Volunteer. He and I are working together, with Marjory David, on a project to establish a national Jewish museum here.

The American expat community also includes diplomats, teachers, missionaries and others, along with a Facebook group and other community resources. On Sunday, we reunited with a couple from Alabama, Kathryn and Brian, who lived near us in Ialoveni. They’ve devoted their lives to helping vulnerable young women avoid trafficking, a serious problem here. They live now in Chișinău and continue to pursue this mission along with efforts to promote better foster care and education for young people with disabilities.

I admire Kathryn and Brian, as I do everyone I’ve mentioned in this post. While so many Americans tear each other apart back home, they’re quietly making the world a better place. I could also have highlighted other Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) here, including Courtney Jackson, who’s working with refugees, or Kelsey Walters, who’s raising a family with her Moldovan husband and promoting new agricultural approaches. (Apologies to those not mentioned.)

Back in December, when Champa and I were in Nepal, we had lunch with another RPCV, Anne Kaufman, who served in Peace Corps Nepal a year behind me in the late 1970s. She married a Nepali man, Raju, and has lived mostly in Kathmandu, working with development organizations and raising two daughters. For me, she represented the road not taken, the life I might have had if Champa and I had remained in Nepal instead of moving to America.

I don’t regret our decision. I’ve loved our life back home, especially our family, but this trip has been a reminder that it’s also possible to pursue a rich, impactful existence abroad, especially if it’s in a country you already know. The roads before us are far wider than many Americans realize.

Seeing in New Ways

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Have you ever thought of Baghdad as a “city of peace” and “a miracle”?

Me neither, but that’s how it was described in an exhibit we visited recently — not in Iraq, but at the National Museum of Qatar.

Several of the exhibits there reminded me that people around the world see things very differently than we do in the United States, regardless of who is “right.” Another one highlighted the collapse of the global pearling industry, which was devastating to Qatar but unknown to me. An exhibit about the “Ramadan Blockade” described how Qatar was blockaded by several neighbors a few years ago. I barely remembered that happening.

The museum, which opened in 2019 with a design evocative of a desert rose, wasn’t the only one in Doha that made me think in new ways. Across town, at the Museum of Islamic Art, an exhibit examined how Lawrence of Arabia and other films have contributed to Western misunderstanding of the Arab world. Another gallery showed how modernity has brought prosperity to Islamic nations while upending local traditions.

Both museums featured stunning architecture and beautiful exhibits. Neither was especially political; on the contrary, both were designed to appeal to broad international audiences. Inevitably, though, they reflected the perspective of a society that, for all of its wealth and rapid modernization, still differs from our own.

This is why I love to travel. It challenges my assumptions and broadens my perspective, no matter where we go.

Shortly before we flew to Qatar, for example, we had lunch at the Kathmandu home of two old friends. Here’s what I saw on the gate outside their house:

If you’re startled to see a swastika displayed so proudly, much less beside a Star of David, think about your own vantage point. Swastikas were sacred symbols in Hinduism long before they were linked to Hitler. The six-pointed star, which we associate with Judaism, is also a Hindu symbol. Both symbols are common in Nepal and have nothing to do with Nazism or Judaism, at least in the local context.

Or consider this statue we saw in Ilam, Champa’s home town. It honors Ratna Bantawa, a local Communist leader who opposed Nepal’s former king. Ratna and his brother were denounced as terrorists and killed for their activities. Today Ratna’s memory is celebrated. There’s a road named after him. Communists now play a prominent role in Nepali politics even as “communist” remains an epithet in our own country.

My point here isn’t to debate Iraqi history or communism, just to note how travel changes our perceptions. This latest trip reminded me of something I wrote several years ago after returning to Moldova from a trip to Bulgaria and Romania: “One of the things for which I’m most grateful about serving in the Peace Corps is how it’s made me less fearful about traveling to places that seem exotic or dangerous to some Americans even though they’re actually safe, beautiful, fascinating and cheap.”

As I wrote then, “you hardly need to have served abroad to expand your horizons a bit. … There’s a big world waiting beyond the American comfort zone” for those of us fortunate enough to be able to travel, a privilege the two of us never take for granted.

That big, mysterious, fascinating world is still there and still waiting. Now that the pandemic has eased, I hope more Americans will explore it, as we hope to keep doing ourselves.

Family Reunion in Nepal

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We heard the drums as our car pulled up to Champa’s family house in eastern Nepal. Then we saw the dancers. Champa’s brother appeared with an armful of flower garlands. His wife held colorful scarves.

We’d arrived in Ilam, where Champa grew up and the two of us met when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer. Now it was 45 years later and we were traveling with our older son, Paul, his wife Stephanie and their four daughters. It was 9:30 p.m. Our drivers had been navigating the rutted, dusty roads since 4:30 a.m.

Champa with two of the dancers who welcomed us to Ilam.

Our exhaustion gave way to astonishment, then elation as we stumbled out of our two jeeps and entered the courtyard. With flowers and scarves around our necks and drums beating beside us, we joined the traditional Limbu folk dance.

Three days later we encountered an even bigger welcome, this time in the small village of Champa’s late older sister, where several of our nieces and nephews still live. This time we heard the drums as we walked on a mountain path approaching their house. Our extended family was waiting there with flower garlands. Two girls performed a dance. Folded hands and namastes gave way to hugs.

The drums and dancers paused long enough to snap this photo of our arrival in Samalbung.

These were just two of many unforgettable moments during our trip to Nepal, from where we returned a few days ago. We’ll remember our granddaughters seeing Kathmandu’s glorious temples and the monkeys at Swayambhou. There was Maya singing at Ilam’s outdoor Christmas show. Paula playing soccer with local men. The twins laughing with their cousins. School visits. Tea with old friends. Steaming plates of momos. Roosters waking us at sunrise.

We visited a school in Samalbung run by our nephew Santosh and his colleagues.

Paul and Stephanie had wanted to make the trip for years. Now, finally, our global family was brought together. Our worries about the trip never materialized. Everyone stayed healthy. Our family and friends welcomed us at every stop with boundless generosity. The girls fell in love with Nepal, as we’d hoped they would.

We’re still processing the trip. I’ll post more about it soon and also about Qatar, where Champa and I stopped on our way home. For now, I hope you’ll enjoy the photo slide show below.

Nepal, we miss you already.

  • Champa flew to Nepal in late November. I followed in mid-December, a few days before Paul, Stephanie and the girls arrived. In the middle is our nephew Shankar, who hosted us while we were in Kathmandu.
  • Monkeys scurried near us as we posed at Kathmandu’s Swayambhou Temple.
  • We ate lunch at this rooftop cafe above Patan’s Durbar Square. The food was good; the view, spectacular.
  • At the National Botanical Garden in Godawari.
  • Champa and I met at this school where I was posted as a Peace Corps Volunteer. She was also teaching there.
  • Our twins became fast friends with their cousin in Ilam.
  • The cousins watched Netflix together one evening, just one of many ways Nepal is changing.
  • The girls and their cousins tried their luck in the fish pond beside the family home in Samalbung.
  • We visited relatives and friends in Samalbung, a small village along Nepal’s eastern border with India.
  • Celebrating the Tamu Lhosar festival at the Boudhanath Stupa in Kathmandu.
  • Shopping for souvenirs at one of Kathmandu’s outdoor markets.
  • Family and friends generously hosted us at throughout our trip, including this dinner with our niece, Pooja, and her family in Kathmandu.

Finding an Audience

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My book about traveling the world and serving as an older Peace Corps Volunteer was published just as COVID-19 was closing international borders and the Peace Corps was evacuating its volunteers. How has it fared in the year and a half since then? This post, reprinted from the book’s website, highlights some of the coverage:

Profile in Worldview Magazine

An article in Worldview, the magazine of the National Peace Corps Association, featured Not Exactly Retired and considered how Peace Corps service has changed over the decades. It was accompanied by an article from Champa describing how “Many of us were not what Moldovans expected a Volunteer would look like. Together, we showed them that ‘American’ includes many kinds of people.”

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New York Times

The Times mentioned the book while profiling the two of us for an article about how retirees are coping with the pandemic.

‘A Shining Example’

Joe Casey, host of the Retirement Wisdom podcast, called Not Exactly Retired “a shining example of why volunteering is important – and why it can be a unique way of reinvention in early retirement.” His interview with me is on his website.

A ‘Must-Read’ Book

Not Exactly Retired is among the “inspiring, international reads” included on a list for armchair travelers and others. The reviewer called it one of “10 Must-Read Books About the Peace Corps.”

‘Unexpected Benefits’

Another reviewer called Not Exactly Retired “a gift to those who might be thinking there has got to be more to retirement than playing golf, traveling for pleasure, taking up new hobbies, visiting family, or walking the dog. Read and you just might find yourself setting foot on a not so familiar path with unexpected benefits!”

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Born for Adventure

An article about the book on the Born to Be Boomers website sparked dozens of comments, including one saying “it is the job of the older generation to turn around and help the next one along. What a great example of that. I’m nearing that time and am hoping to transition to that with grace.”

Love Story, Saga, Guide

Brown Alumni Magazine described Not Exactly Retired as “part love story, part adventure saga, and a guide to finding a fresh act later in life.”

A Second-Act Story

My interview with Andy Levine on the Second Act Stories podcast ranked high on his “Best of 2020” list. His show features people who have made dramatic career changes.

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Peace Corps Worldwide

The website, which features books by Peace Corps writers, posted an extended interview with me, discussing my two stints as a volunteer and my writing process.

Lifelong Learning

OLLI at Duke — the “lifelong learning” organization — featured Not Exactly Retired in an online author interview that included an international call-in from our Moldovan “host sister.”

‘Interesting and Engaging’

That’s how a newsletter for older travelers described Not Exactly Retired, saying it encouraged readers to “gain insight into how to plan our own quests.”

‘Repurposing’ Your Life

The Career Pivot website and podcast featured Not Exactly Retired in an online interview conducted from Mexico. Host Marc Miller said the book showed how older listeners might want to “repurpose” their own lives.

Inspiration for Librarians

Circulating Ideas, a podcast for U.S. librarians, interviewed me about my work at a Moldovan library and described how Peace Corps Volunteers have assisted libraries worldwide.

Rocking a Retirement

Did we miss our grandchildren? Did we worry about getting sick? Kathe Kline asked these and other questions while interviewing me for her Rock Your Retirement podcast. She called Not Exactly Retired “an inspiring story.”

Bloomer Boomer

That’s the name of Andy Asher’s podcast about people thriving in the second half of life. He interviewed me about the book.

Visit the book’s website to order a copy or learn more.

A Virus Without Borders

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My friend Laura describes her recent struggle with COVID-19 like this:

My fever was accompanied by fatigue and drowsiness, then headaches, then my nose. Oh jeez, it felt like the Sahara desert had changed its location in my nasal passages. Every breath hurt my brain.

On the third day of the fever, I had a feeling like being drunk, a continuous need for sleep. All I could ask for is nothing.

Somewhere on the seventh day, my smell disappeared. I put clementines in my nose: nothing. Coffee, nothing. Perfume, nothing.

After several more days, I tested negative and hoped to return to normal life, but I couldn’t focus. My memory felt weird. My leg hurt so much that I couldn’t step on it. My energy and smell improved very slowly.

Laura is now recuperating — “my smell is recovering; food tastes amazing,” she wrote me on Wednesday— but she remains tired and has trouble focusing.

Long after most Americans are vaccinated, Laura’s neighbors will remain at risk. That’s not due to their age or health status, but because they live in Ialoveni, Moldova, where Champa and I served in the Peace Corps.

Laura was my collaborator there on a music video we produced to celebrate our small city, where she works at the music school. That’s her beautiful voice on the video, which attracted thousands of viewers and was featured in a national television story, shown below. (Laura Bodorin’s music is on Spotify, Apple Music and SoundCloud.)

Moldova trails Bangladesh and El Salvador on this chart, below, of “vaccine preorders as a percentage of population,” published this week in The New York Times and based on an analysis by the Duke Global Health Innovation Center.

Chart from New York Times

By comparison, the top of the chart, below, shows Canada and the United States placing orders for more than half the vaccine doses that may come on the market next year.

“While many poor nations may be able to vaccinate at most 20 percent of their populations in 2021,” the Times reported, “some of the world’s richest countries have reserved enough doses to immunize their own multiple times over.” Many people in low-income countries might have to wait until 2023 or 2024 for vaccination. (Articles in The Washington Post and Nature provide additional insight.)

Some of Champa’s fellow teachers in Ialoveni have also gotten the virus, a tiny fraction of the billions of people around the world who have been affected.

Photo: Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters

Moldova is just one example. Near it on the bottom of the Times list is Nepal, where we also know people who have been infected, including someone close to us who is still recovering. Champa’s brother recently asked her on the phone why some Americans don’t want to receive the vaccine while so many people in Nepal wish they had the opportunity. People in her home town, Ilam, have died, see below, as they have elsewhere across the Himalayas.

From Ilam Green Facebook site

I am grateful to Laura for giving me permission to share her story here. (It is translated from Romanian and lightly edited.) I wanted to “put a human face” on the global situation for American readers who, understandably, are focused on our own situation.

I’m an American, too, and I’m feeling hopeful as vaccinations begin, even as our death toll mounts and many people face increasingly desperate circumstances. I agree with our country being among the first to benefit from vaccines it played such a large role in producing. I want to be vaccinated myself and to see our country’s nightmare end.

Simultaneously, I know we cannot return to normal unless we act globally. We’ve seen how easily the virus spreads across borders. We need to control it everywhere, which means collaborating closely with international efforts such as the COVAX Initiative.

The world will welcome our assistance, and not only with vaccine supplies we must be generous in sharing as our own urgent needs are met. I serve on a communications advisory committee for the Sabin Vaccine Institute, which on Tuesday joined in launching an initiative to train frontline medical workers how to discuss vaccines persuasively with uncertain parents and others. Physicians from Armenia to Honduras participated in its online rollout with leading public health experts. It was a striking reminder how this crisis affects all of us, no matter where we live, and how we must work together to overcome it.

If you’re a fellow American awaiting the vaccine, I hope you will receive it soon. When your turn comes, please give a thought to Laura and everyone else around the world. They are real people who, like us, have endured a terrible year. They, too, want nothing more than to be safe and reclaim their lives in the year ahead.

Humbled by the Pandemic

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Friends from Nepal and Moldova have been contacting us to check on how we’re doing as the pandemic spins out of control in the United States. 

I went to those two countries as a Peace Corps Volunteer to provide training and insight from an American. Now they and others look at us and see crowds defying public health guidelines in bars, on beaches and elsewhere, and a death toll topping 140,000. It’s humbling.

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Unlike the majority of developed countries that responded to the pandemic with discipline and a respect for science, the United States has acted foolishly and incompetently. Why should anyone take us seriously again?

Millions of Americans have behaved responsibly, even heroically. Doctors, nurses and other front-line workers have been risking their lives to help others. Many teachers will soon return to their classrooms. Others are continuing to sell food, collect trash and perform other essential tasks, often for low wages. Neighbors are helping each other.

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Medical center in Chişinǎu, Moldova.

Yet the situation is worsening, and it’s our own fault. Especially here in the South, many governors rushed to reopen their states before it was safe. They defied health experts who correctly warned what would happen. N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper has been among the exceptions, largely resisting pressure to reopen too quickly.

Paul Krugman of The New York Times says we shouldn’t blame this failure on our American culture being “too libertarian, too distrustful of government, too unwilling to accept even slight inconveniences to protect others.” The bigger factor, he says, has been President Trump denying the pandemic’s seriousness. His decision to “trade deaths for jobs and political gain” led many local leaders and others to act irresponsibly.

Both factors, culture and politics, have surely played a role, and health officials could have done a better job of communicating messages and winning public trust. In any case, here we are. I know Champa and I have been fortunate to ride out the crisis in a comfortable home but I am angry about how many of my fellow Americans are now suffering, especially people of color. Our IMG_4366hospitals are overwhelmed. Businesses keep closing. This didn’t have to happen.

I keep thinking back to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam, which I visited just before the pandemic spread out of control. Anne and her family remained quiet in an attic for more than two years before the Nazis discovered them. Here in America, by contrast, millions of people have been unable to last a few months before they insisted on partying. Even now, they reject something as simple as wearing a mask. 

One of the three Peace Corps goals is to “promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.” It’s ironic our country had to evacuate its Peace Corps Volunteers worldwide just when it needed more than ever to be learning from others.

[Top photo: The hospital entrance in Ilam, Nepal, my first post as a Peace Corps Volunteer.]

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One reviewer calls it “a love story and adventure book all in one. A truly inspirational tale.” Another says “it shows how adventure can give new meaning to our lives and make them richer.” Visit the book website for Not Exactly Retired: A Life-Changing Journey on the Road and in the Peace Corps.