IN THE TRENCHES

Friday morning and into the early afternoon, Liz, Steve, Heidi and Lee roamed through the Newseum in downtown Washington, DC. That evening Lee joined some eighteen other Thai RPCVs (and several brave spouses) at a Thailand VI group reunion at Martha and Harlan Rosacker's Wyoming Avenue apartment in Northwest Washington.

These excursions obviously proved the highlights of the day, but how to knit the two together with a common thematic thread proved difficult to conger. In the end “In the Trenches” seemed the most appropriate link.

VIEWS OF THE NEWSEUM and LEE AND HEIDI
IN FRONT OF SECTIONS OF THE BERLIN WALL

The Newseum focused, in a very entertaining and involving way, on the role of newspapers and their contemporary digital counterparts in informing readers about the state of current affairs. The reporters involved were those out in the field capturing in words and pictures the events of the day.

We even made the cut, video reporters in training!

Similarly, as Peace Corps Volunteers, the sixty members of Thailand VI were actively involved in trying to make the world a better place by teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) in various Thai educational institutions.

Moreover, since our return to the United States, many of us continued our involvement “in the trenches” of contemporary life, working for the United Nations, the World Bank, the Foreign Services (Department of State, USAID), as a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press or in Academia ( Political Science, Education, Chinese Language, East Asian History). Volunteer activities found us invested in helping refugees or tutoring in under-served urban schools, serving on various boards or engaged in various consulting activities.