This is a shout out
To all of us
Who answered the call,
Of service in the U.S. Peace Corps
And went off to the far-flung
Corners of the world.
I served in Gapyeong, Korea
In 1979-1981.
It was an experience
That changed my life
I learned to live
In a different culture
Than my own.
I learned to speak Korean.
I was the only American resident
Among three foreign citizens
Among 70,000 mostly rural people
In a town that was in the countryside.
And now, it is almost an ex-urban suburb
Of Seoul or the nearby city of Chuncheon.
Quite a few more foreign tourists,
And foreign agricultural workers as well.
Than when I lived there over 43 years ago.
Recently returned but no one there
Who would remember me,
it was so long ago,
In the distant past.
It seems except in my memories
Where it still seems like yesterday.
But, as to the first Peace Corps goal,
Providing technical help to help Korea develop,
I'm not so sure I did that much to help combat TB.
But I do remember
Going on mandatory house calls
And realizing that the reason
They could not find the old folks.
Is that no one knows the old folks
By their given formal names.
It is always the mother of so and so
Or the husband or wife of so and so.
I suggested, we take with us the names
Of the relatives and ask for them
As the locals would.
And we had a much higher success rate
But unfortunately,
we found so many of them
Had died of TB.
and that is why
They did not come in
for their six-months's
Follow up appointment.
That idea spread around the rural
Health care centers
And that was my one
Real contribution
To the fight against TB.
And so, to my fellow
Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
You made the world a better place
When you answered the call
To join the Peace Corps.
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| Writing Prompt |
Create a poem of any length and style, entitled "The Life of a.......". You fill in the blank with any subject. Of course you may use "The Life of an.....", according to your needs. You may use more than one word to fill the blank. Write about an interest , or concern... |
Author Notes
I served in the Peace Corps in Korea. The Peace Corps ended their program in 1981 to budget cutbacks. Peace Corps like most federal agencies had to cut their budget by 10 percent in the first year of the Reagan era, so they moved up the ending of Peace Corps Korea. Korea later developed its own Peace Corps program that sends volunteers around the world.
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