A look into the world of Peace Corps volunteers

“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”

Anybody remember those words from President John F. Kennedy’s Jan. 20, 1961, inaugural address? Besides inspiring a generation of young Americans, they served as an unofficial motto for the U.S. Peace Corps, founded the same year. Since then, more than 195,000 Peace Corps volunteers have served in 139 countries around the world.

To find out what volunteers are blogging about, you can visit an informal website maintained by two Peace Corps veterans and an engineering student.

At the recently revamped www.PeaceCorpsJournals.com, you’ll find thousands of blog entries, including photos and videos,  organized by country, telling the stories of past and present volunteers.

For instance, there’s Stephen and Heather Castle’s blog from a village in Zambia, with an entry about the discovery of a venomous puff adder among the pews during a children’s church service, and Katie Maloney’s tale about the gastrointestinal dangers of eating an unripe frozen banana in Guatemala.

Check it out. It might get you wondering what you can do for your country.

— Susan Spano, Los Angeles Times staff writer

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 10, 2009 at 7:00 am by Susan Spano and is filed under Africa & Middle East, Asia, Caribbean, Central America, Global, Latin America & Caribbean, Mexico, News, Tips & Advice, Travel Insider. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.