Robert Nakatani (third from right) and fellow Peace Corps volunteers in Sierra Leone, 1968

In 1968, a hot and dusty fellow Peace Corps volunteer (PCV) in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone stopped in the provincial capital to visit the new Peace Corps administrator.  Tired and somewhat discouraged after a long stint in the “bush” trying to persuade people to shift to higher-yield rice farming techniques, he got to the administrator’s home, hoping for a cool drink and some encouragement.  The administrator’s wife answered his knock and talked to him for a few minutes through the locked screen door, letting him know he couldn’t see her husband.  The volunteer got neither refreshment nor encouragement.

40 years later, the door between PCVs and Peace Corps administration still is closed and locked.  Jeremiah Johnson, now waiting tables in Colorado, was until recently a Peace Corps teacher in the Ukraine.  Roughly halfway through his service period, he tested positive for HIV.  Never mind that Johnson was in good health and eager to continue his service elsewhere, if not in the Ukraine, the Peace Corps gave him a few days to pack up and head home.

The ACLU challenged the Peace Corps’ action, explaining that its policy of terminating volunteers with HIV without an individualized determination about whether they’re able to continue to serve amounts to disability discrimination.  As Peace Corps officials try to figure out the best response to make, the ACLU’s action has brought an outpouring of support from current and returned PCVs alike.  

It appears that the last four decades of tinkering with and restructuring Peace Corps programs have not resolved what many volunteers see as a fundamental disconnect between volunteers and Peace Corps bureaucracy.  The people paid to recruit and train volunteers, to see to their needs, and to enable their successes seem almost mystically resistant to doing so.  What sense does it make for an organization that has public education about HIV as one of its goals to send a volunteer home who is able and willing to serve simply because he has HIV? What message does this send?  

As chance would have it, U.S. Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, returned Peace Corps Volunteer, is a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee  and chair of the subcommittee that oversees the Peace Corps.  He heard about the Peace Corps’ actions against Johnson and, reportedly, is looking into the charges.  The Senator now wants to hear from volunteers, current and returned, about this and other problems with Peace Corps administration.  So write Senator Chris Dodd at 48 Russell Building, Washington D.C., 20510 or click here to send him an e-mail.  Who knows?  After 40 years, the screen door may be opening.

Robert Nakatani
Peace Corps Volunteer, Sierra Leone, 1968-1971