That's right, the Louisiana Peace Corps Association is stepping it up in the modern era. Please visit our new website, an effort of supreme quality.
On it you'll find our event calender, the newsletter and tons of other resources for Peace Corps volunteers past, present and future.
http://lapeacecorps.com/
We hope to see you there.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Recipe from December 2008 potluck dinner at Penny's
Yassa au Poulet III
(a combination of Yassa and Yassa II)
Ingredients: 20 chicken thighs, (remove the skin and excess fat)
6 to 8 medium or 4 large onions, sliced in medium wedge slices
1 or 2 large green peppers, cut in small squares or maybe thin slices
8 to 10 medium carrots, sliced about ½ to 1 inch thick
10 or more small red potatoes (firmer and don’t fall apart), cut in halves or quarters
Possible addition: cabbage sliced in small wedges, sweet potatoes?
Marinade: In a stainless steel bowl Mix:
6 large lemons, juiced with seeds removed – about 2 cups of juice
Cider vinegar – equal amount to lemon juice
Black pepper - about 1 ½ to 2 tablespoons
Salt - 1 tablespoon – adjust later
Cayanne - 1 tablespoon or more
¼ cup oil ( peanut oil is recommended, but canola or other will work)
Method: In a large stainless steel bowl add the chicken to the marinade – let it sit for 15 or
more minutes
On a broiler pan, place the drained chicken and put in a low broil, broiler oven, cook
one side until light brown and turn to do the other side.
Return any marinade from the broiler pan to the marinade mixture and add the diced
onions and green peppers. Allow them to sit a while and then place in a drain .
Return the liquid to the original mixture.
In a large skillet add ½ or more oil (see above) and place on medium heat burner. Add the onions and green pepper and allow the onion to lightly brown.
In the mean time, Put the potatoes and carrots (cabbage) in a large microwave dish and nuke
until the veggies are slightly softened. Reserve any liquid and add to the final mixture.
Place the chicken, nuked veggies, onion and peppers in a large pot with the marinade. Bring to a simmer and cook about 10 to 15 minutes. Stir a few times. Taste test for salt, piment, black pepper. Balance the acidity with the salt and piment. Remove from heat and allow to sit until serving time. (2 to 3 hours is good) The vegetables should be medium cooked texture, not hard or mushy. The chicken should fall from the bones easily but not be stringy.
Prepare about 4 cups uncooked rice with 8 cups water and salt. Add rice to boiling water. Return water to a boil and then reduce heat to low. Cover and leave until all liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat. Fluff the rice and place in large surving bowl or pot. Cover. Set aside.
Serve in large bowls.
(a combination of Yassa and Yassa II)
Ingredients: 20 chicken thighs, (remove the skin and excess fat)
6 to 8 medium or 4 large onions, sliced in medium wedge slices
1 or 2 large green peppers, cut in small squares or maybe thin slices
8 to 10 medium carrots, sliced about ½ to 1 inch thick
10 or more small red potatoes (firmer and don’t fall apart), cut in halves or quarters
Possible addition: cabbage sliced in small wedges, sweet potatoes?
Marinade: In a stainless steel bowl Mix:
6 large lemons, juiced with seeds removed – about 2 cups of juice
Cider vinegar – equal amount to lemon juice
Black pepper - about 1 ½ to 2 tablespoons
Salt - 1 tablespoon – adjust later
Cayanne - 1 tablespoon or more
¼ cup oil ( peanut oil is recommended, but canola or other will work)
Method: In a large stainless steel bowl add the chicken to the marinade – let it sit for 15 or
more minutes
On a broiler pan, place the drained chicken and put in a low broil, broiler oven, cook
one side until light brown and turn to do the other side.
Return any marinade from the broiler pan to the marinade mixture and add the diced
onions and green peppers. Allow them to sit a while and then place in a drain .
Return the liquid to the original mixture.
In a large skillet add ½ or more oil (see above) and place on medium heat burner. Add the onions and green pepper and allow the onion to lightly brown.
In the mean time, Put the potatoes and carrots (cabbage) in a large microwave dish and nuke
until the veggies are slightly softened. Reserve any liquid and add to the final mixture.
Place the chicken, nuked veggies, onion and peppers in a large pot with the marinade. Bring to a simmer and cook about 10 to 15 minutes. Stir a few times. Taste test for salt, piment, black pepper. Balance the acidity with the salt and piment. Remove from heat and allow to sit until serving time. (2 to 3 hours is good) The vegetables should be medium cooked texture, not hard or mushy. The chicken should fall from the bones easily but not be stringy.
Prepare about 4 cups uncooked rice with 8 cups water and salt. Add rice to boiling water. Return water to a boil and then reduce heat to low. Cover and leave until all liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat. Fluff the rice and place in large surving bowl or pot. Cover. Set aside.
Serve in large bowls.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Cheap Spies...oh no.
I remember sitting in some dusty bar, drinking flat warm beer (and loving it) somewhere in the middle of nowhere during my Peace Corps service, listening to some older volunteers try to convince me that JFK was dubious about spending money to create the Peace Corps. They claimed that JFK only agreed to Sargent Shriver's plan for a Peace Corps when Shriver argued that PCVs would be cheap spies.
Of course, PCVs wouldn't literally be spies, but when things start to go awry somewhere, a PCV would no doubt be the first (or second at worst) to know. This was surely especially true during the Cold War, when one could easily imagine communists sneaking through the bushes, making promises of a better tomorrow to distant villagers in Central America and Africa. And who would probably be standing on the other side of the hedgerow that communists sneak through? A PCV of course.
[The reminds me of the months post-9/11, when I and other PCVs were the first to notice and understand the grave significance of "Viva Osama Bin Laden" signs in front of certain madrasas in the Muslim neighborhoods of the regional capital.]
Anyway, to the point of this post, apparently some real bright bulb in the American embassy in Bolivia decided to take this literally. Check out this article on it.
(By the way, this is not the first time Feds have tried some nonsense with making the Peace Corps about more than the Peace Corps. And failed.)
The best way to read the latest on this case is at Peace Corps online.
Also, feel free to write your congressman or senator and tell them you think this is a bad idea.
Of course, PCVs wouldn't literally be spies, but when things start to go awry somewhere, a PCV would no doubt be the first (or second at worst) to know. This was surely especially true during the Cold War, when one could easily imagine communists sneaking through the bushes, making promises of a better tomorrow to distant villagers in Central America and Africa. And who would probably be standing on the other side of the hedgerow that communists sneak through? A PCV of course.
[The reminds me of the months post-9/11, when I and other PCVs were the first to notice and understand the grave significance of "Viva Osama Bin Laden" signs in front of certain madrasas in the Muslim neighborhoods of the regional capital.]
Anyway, to the point of this post, apparently some real bright bulb in the American embassy in Bolivia decided to take this literally. Check out this article on it.
(By the way, this is not the first time Feds have tried some nonsense with making the Peace Corps about more than the Peace Corps. And failed.)
The best way to read the latest on this case is at Peace Corps online.
Also, feel free to write your congressman or senator and tell them you think this is a bad idea.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
ETHNIC DINNER (Be there)
For our Louisiana Peace Corps Association from Sarah Harelson!
Come join your fellow RPCV's Sunday March 2nd for delicious Thai food!
WHEN: 6 PM March 2nd, 2008
WHERE: La Thai, Uptown
4938 Prytania Street
New Orleans, Louisiana 70115
WHAT: Traditional Thai food passed family style, mostly vegetarian items.
The cost will be $15 and all friends and loved ones of RPCV's are welcome!
Please RSVP to Sarah Harelson
sarahharelson@hotmail.com
by SATURDAY MARCH 1st.
Thank you and we look forward to seeing you there!
We will have calenders and T-shirts for sale.
Come join your fellow RPCV's Sunday March 2nd for delicious Thai food!
WHEN: 6 PM March 2nd, 2008
WHERE: La Thai, Uptown
4938 Prytania Street
New Orleans, Louisiana 70115
WHAT: Traditional Thai food passed family style, mostly vegetarian items.
The cost will be $15 and all friends and loved ones of RPCV's are welcome!
Please RSVP to Sarah Harelson
sarahharelson@hotmail.com
by SATURDAY MARCH 1st.
Thank you and we look forward to seeing you there!
We will have calenders and T-shirts for sale.
Do Something! No, for real, for once...
Upcoming Day of Action
NPCA's fourth annual National Day of Action in Support of the Peace
Corps is set for next Tuesday, March 4th. On that day, members of the
Peace Corps community will be provided with quick, easy action
opportunities to take collective action with their members of Congress,
urging support for a strong and vibrant Peace Corps. If you want sample
articles for newsletters or websites, or specific outreach materials
geared toward your geographic region or country-of-service, please
contact Advocacy Coordinator Jonathan Pearson at advocacy@rpcv.org.
You can also visit our Day of Action webpage,
www.peacecorpsconnect.org/dayofaction.
And on a semi-related note from NPCA headquarters:
2008 Tech Museum Awards Global Call for Nominations (posted by request)
Nomination Deadline: March 24, 2008
Nominations are being accepted for the 2008 Tech Museum Awards, an
international Awards Program that honors innovators from around the
world who are applying technology to benefit humanity. 25 Laureates
will be honored at a Gala event on November 12, 2008 and five Laureates
will share a cash prize of $250,000. Self-nominations are accepted and
encouraged. Individuals, nonprofit organizations, and for-profit
companies are all eligible. Many Tech Laureates have been Peace Corps
Volunteers. Reward those making a difference and nominate today at
http://www.techawards.org
And finally, another semi-related note:
VOLUNTEER AT JAZZFEST!
Jazzfest is looking for volunteers to work four hour shifts
supervising recycling stations at the fest. Job description is
below. The deadline for signing up to volunteer is March 7th.
Please mark Sierra Club on your application. We need 24 volunteers
per day. Volunteers must be 18 or over. A completed application
needs to be mailed or faxed to the Fest. Volunteers do not need to be
Sierra Club members so sign up your friends and neighbors. Bring
recycling back to the Fest!
More Questions or for an official application: you can contact
Bethany, volunteer coordinator at 504-410-6129 or email Leslie at
lesliemarch@msn.com.
Sierra Club Recycling Krewe: Looking for dedicated and passionate
individuals to help our revived recycling effort succeed.
DESCRIPTION: Monitor recycling stations to ensure Festival-goers
throw recyclable items in the proper bins throughout the grounds.
DATES: April 25-27; May 1-4
SHIFTS: 11:00 am - 3:00 pm or 3:00 pm -7:00pm.
LOCATION: Various recycling stations around the field
NOTES: Outdoor Work. Public Interaction.
NPCA's fourth annual National Day of Action in Support of the Peace
Corps is set for next Tuesday, March 4th. On that day, members of the
Peace Corps community will be provided with quick, easy action
opportunities to take collective action with their members of Congress,
urging support for a strong and vibrant Peace Corps. If you want sample
articles for newsletters or websites, or specific outreach materials
geared toward your geographic region or country-of-service, please
contact Advocacy Coordinator Jonathan Pearson at advocacy@rpcv.org.
You can also visit our Day of Action webpage,
www.peacecorpsconnect.org/dayofaction.
And on a semi-related note from NPCA headquarters:
2008 Tech Museum Awards Global Call for Nominations (posted by request)
Nomination Deadline: March 24, 2008
Nominations are being accepted for the 2008 Tech Museum Awards, an
international Awards Program that honors innovators from around the
world who are applying technology to benefit humanity. 25 Laureates
will be honored at a Gala event on November 12, 2008 and five Laureates
will share a cash prize of $250,000. Self-nominations are accepted and
encouraged. Individuals, nonprofit organizations, and for-profit
companies are all eligible. Many Tech Laureates have been Peace Corps
Volunteers. Reward those making a difference and nominate today at
http://www.techawards.org
And finally, another semi-related note:
VOLUNTEER AT JAZZFEST!
Jazzfest is looking for volunteers to work four hour shifts
supervising recycling stations at the fest. Job description is
below. The deadline for signing up to volunteer is March 7th.
Please mark Sierra Club on your application. We need 24 volunteers
per day. Volunteers must be 18 or over. A completed application
needs to be mailed or faxed to the Fest. Volunteers do not need to be
Sierra Club members so sign up your friends and neighbors. Bring
recycling back to the Fest!
More Questions or for an official application: you can contact
Bethany, volunteer coordinator at 504-410-6129 or email Leslie at
lesliemarch@msn.com.
Sierra Club Recycling Krewe: Looking for dedicated and passionate
individuals to help our revived recycling effort succeed.
DESCRIPTION: Monitor recycling stations to ensure Festival-goers
throw recyclable items in the proper bins throughout the grounds.
DATES: April 25-27; May 1-4
SHIFTS: 11:00 am - 3:00 pm or 3:00 pm -7:00pm.
LOCATION: Various recycling stations around the field
NOTES: Outdoor Work. Public Interaction.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Tawk amongst yurselfs
Below is an article published recently in the NYTimes.
It is a debate that every Peace Corps volunteer that I've ever known had with himself/herself at some point in their service. Basically it's: Do we do more harm than good? Are we helping ourselves more than we're helping them?
Strauss' main beef seems to be that too many unqualified young punks go out there and waste a lot of resources. He's right, in my opinion, but to a point. If someone were actually qualified to do development work, they'd be a fool to join the Peace Corps with it's limited resources, restricted political clout and horrible pay. Go join USAID or UNICEF or something that has a real budget and far-reaching access.
The Peace Corps is at its heart a cultural exchange. In that sense, it's been wildly successful. Thoughts, my fellow RPCV's? Leave a comment.
Too Many Innocents Abroad
By ROBERT L. STRAUSS
Published: January 9, 2008 in the New York Times
Antananarivo, Madagascar
THE Peace Corps recently began a laudable initiative to increase the number of volunteers who are 50 and older. As the Peace Corps’ country director in Cameroon from 2002 until last February, I observed how many older volunteers brought something to their service that most young volunteers could not: extensive professional and life experience and the ability to mentor younger volunteers.
However, even if the Peace Corps reaches its goal of having 15 percent of its volunteers over 50, the overwhelming majority will remain recently minted college graduates. And too often these young volunteers lack the maturity and professional experience to be effective development workers in the 21st century.
This wasn’t the case in 1961 when the Peace Corps sent its first volunteers overseas. Back then, enthusiastic young Americans offered something that many newly independent nations counted in double and even single digits: college graduates. But today, those same nations have millions of well-educated citizens of their own desperately in need of work. So it’s much less clear what inexperienced Americans have to offer.
The Peace Corps has long shipped out well-meaning young people possessing little more than good intentions and a college diploma. What the agency should begin doing is recruiting only the best of recent graduates — as the top professional schools do — and only those older people whose skills and personal characteristics are a solid fit for the needs of the host country.
The Peace Corps has resisted doing this for fear that it would cause the number of volunteers to plummet. The name of the game has been getting volunteers into the field, qualified or not.
In Cameroon, we had many volunteers sent to serve in the agriculture program whose only experience was puttering around in their mom and dad’s backyard during high school. I wrote to our headquarters in Washington to ask if anyone had considered how an American farmer would feel if a fresh-out-of-college Cameroonian with a liberal arts degree who had occasionally visited Grandma’s cassava plot were sent to Iowa to consult on pig-raising techniques learned in a three-month crash course. I’m pretty sure the American farmer would see it as a publicity stunt and a bunch of hooey, but I never heard back from headquarters.
For the Peace Corps, the number of volunteers has always trumped the quality of their work, perhaps because the agency fears that an objective assessment of its impact would reveal that while volunteers generate good will for the United States, they do little or nothing to actually aid development in poor countries. The agency has no comprehensive system for self-evaluation, but rather relies heavily on personal anecdote to demonstrate its worth.
Every few years, the agency polls its volunteers, but in my experience it does not systematically ask the people it is supposedly helping what they think the volunteers have achieved. This is a clear indication of how the Peace Corps neglects its customers; as long as the volunteers are enjoying themselves, it doesn’t matter whether they improve the quality of life in the host countries. Any well-run organization must know what its customers want and then deliver the goods, but this is something the Peace Corps has never learned.
This lack of organizational introspection allows the agency to continue sending, for example, unqualified volunteers to teach English when nearly every developing country could easily find high-caliber English teachers among its own population. Even after Cameroonian teachers and education officials ranked English instruction as their lowest priority (after help with computer literacy, math and science, for example), headquarters in Washington continued to send trainees with little or no classroom experience to teach English in Cameroonian schools. One volunteer told me that the only possible reason he could think of for having been selected was that he was a native English speaker.
The Peace Corps was born during the glory days of the early Kennedy administration. Since then, its leaders and many of the more than 190,000 volunteers who have served have mythologized the agency into something that can never be questioned or improved. The result is an organization that finds itself less and less able to provide what the people of developing countries need — at a time when the United States has never had a greater need for their good will.
Robert L. Strauss has been a Peace Corps volunteer, recruiter and country director. He now heads a management consulting company.
It is a debate that every Peace Corps volunteer that I've ever known had with himself/herself at some point in their service. Basically it's: Do we do more harm than good? Are we helping ourselves more than we're helping them?
Strauss' main beef seems to be that too many unqualified young punks go out there and waste a lot of resources. He's right, in my opinion, but to a point. If someone were actually qualified to do development work, they'd be a fool to join the Peace Corps with it's limited resources, restricted political clout and horrible pay. Go join USAID or UNICEF or something that has a real budget and far-reaching access.
The Peace Corps is at its heart a cultural exchange. In that sense, it's been wildly successful. Thoughts, my fellow RPCV's? Leave a comment.
Too Many Innocents Abroad
By ROBERT L. STRAUSS
Published: January 9, 2008 in the New York Times
Antananarivo, Madagascar
THE Peace Corps recently began a laudable initiative to increase the number of volunteers who are 50 and older. As the Peace Corps’ country director in Cameroon from 2002 until last February, I observed how many older volunteers brought something to their service that most young volunteers could not: extensive professional and life experience and the ability to mentor younger volunteers.
However, even if the Peace Corps reaches its goal of having 15 percent of its volunteers over 50, the overwhelming majority will remain recently minted college graduates. And too often these young volunteers lack the maturity and professional experience to be effective development workers in the 21st century.
This wasn’t the case in 1961 when the Peace Corps sent its first volunteers overseas. Back then, enthusiastic young Americans offered something that many newly independent nations counted in double and even single digits: college graduates. But today, those same nations have millions of well-educated citizens of their own desperately in need of work. So it’s much less clear what inexperienced Americans have to offer.
The Peace Corps has long shipped out well-meaning young people possessing little more than good intentions and a college diploma. What the agency should begin doing is recruiting only the best of recent graduates — as the top professional schools do — and only those older people whose skills and personal characteristics are a solid fit for the needs of the host country.
The Peace Corps has resisted doing this for fear that it would cause the number of volunteers to plummet. The name of the game has been getting volunteers into the field, qualified or not.
In Cameroon, we had many volunteers sent to serve in the agriculture program whose only experience was puttering around in their mom and dad’s backyard during high school. I wrote to our headquarters in Washington to ask if anyone had considered how an American farmer would feel if a fresh-out-of-college Cameroonian with a liberal arts degree who had occasionally visited Grandma’s cassava plot were sent to Iowa to consult on pig-raising techniques learned in a three-month crash course. I’m pretty sure the American farmer would see it as a publicity stunt and a bunch of hooey, but I never heard back from headquarters.
For the Peace Corps, the number of volunteers has always trumped the quality of their work, perhaps because the agency fears that an objective assessment of its impact would reveal that while volunteers generate good will for the United States, they do little or nothing to actually aid development in poor countries. The agency has no comprehensive system for self-evaluation, but rather relies heavily on personal anecdote to demonstrate its worth.
Every few years, the agency polls its volunteers, but in my experience it does not systematically ask the people it is supposedly helping what they think the volunteers have achieved. This is a clear indication of how the Peace Corps neglects its customers; as long as the volunteers are enjoying themselves, it doesn’t matter whether they improve the quality of life in the host countries. Any well-run organization must know what its customers want and then deliver the goods, but this is something the Peace Corps has never learned.
This lack of organizational introspection allows the agency to continue sending, for example, unqualified volunteers to teach English when nearly every developing country could easily find high-caliber English teachers among its own population. Even after Cameroonian teachers and education officials ranked English instruction as their lowest priority (after help with computer literacy, math and science, for example), headquarters in Washington continued to send trainees with little or no classroom experience to teach English in Cameroonian schools. One volunteer told me that the only possible reason he could think of for having been selected was that he was a native English speaker.
The Peace Corps was born during the glory days of the early Kennedy administration. Since then, its leaders and many of the more than 190,000 volunteers who have served have mythologized the agency into something that can never be questioned or improved. The result is an organization that finds itself less and less able to provide what the people of developing countries need — at a time when the United States has never had a greater need for their good will.
Robert L. Strauss has been a Peace Corps volunteer, recruiter and country director. He now heads a management consulting company.
We're still here
Sorry if you missed the LaPCA King Cake party that kicked off a frigid Carnival Season. Glad to hear if you made it.
To sum: Beer was drunken. Stories of flaming rats and hippo-tortoise love abound. King Cake was devoured. Thanks to the ever-gracious host Tierney.
Before going any further I want to apologize for neglecting this blog. I will try harder to not do so in the future, especially since I will be busy on blogger with other work for my real job.
Yes, that was a shameless attempt to send traffic to my other blog.
2008 will surely contain some service projects and ethnic dinners. Hopefully, King Cake will not be the only reason La.'s RPCVs gather to drink and trade war stories.
As for the service projects, the board seems pretty open to ideas right now. Here's a list of ideas from Jeff Grimes.
Check in more often. Send your ideas and suggestions. And, contribute please to this blog. It ain't hard. I'll gladly make you an author with full access, just email me.
To sum: Beer was drunken. Stories of flaming rats and hippo-tortoise love abound. King Cake was devoured. Thanks to the ever-gracious host Tierney.
Before going any further I want to apologize for neglecting this blog. I will try harder to not do so in the future, especially since I will be busy on blogger with other work for my real job.
Yes, that was a shameless attempt to send traffic to my other blog.
2008 will surely contain some service projects and ethnic dinners. Hopefully, King Cake will not be the only reason La.'s RPCVs gather to drink and trade war stories.
As for the service projects, the board seems pretty open to ideas right now. Here's a list of ideas from Jeff Grimes.
Check in more often. Send your ideas and suggestions. And, contribute please to this blog. It ain't hard. I'll gladly make you an author with full access, just email me.
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