Getting ready for Afghanistan
Peace Corps trainees spend six weeks learning
By EVA HODGES
Denver Post Staff Writer
EDITOR'S NOTE: The foHow-lng story will be the subject of
a television news program this Sunday night as The Denver Post and KOA News jointly focus on this story of a Peace Corps training camp for Afghan-istan at Estes Park, Colo.
This story by Denver Post staff writer Eva Hodges offers readers information, documen-tation and a permanent record.
K0A News (Channel 4) will afford viewers the added
di-mensions of motion, sound and celor on Scope at 10 tonight.
The Post and KOA News in
-vite your reaction to this
un-usual approach to reporting.
-ESTES PARK, Colo.
IN A MEANINGFUL babel of
language at a Peace Corps training camp for the last six weeks, trainees have:
~Learned the rudiments of Fai!si, the language of Afghan-istan, from Afghan teachers-some of whom speak almost no English.
-Taught English to slow-learning Navajo children from Arizona to get the leel of teach-ing English as a foreign lan-guage.
The training, which was con-ducted amid the towering pines at the rustic Covenant Heights Bible Camp south of Estes Park, concluded Friday. Soon many of the 70 trainees will
be off to Afghanistan, a
coun-try of about 20 million people, with a climate and terrain not unlike Colorado. Six more
weeks of training will be giv-en there.
A certain portion of the train-ees (nationally, the average is
20 per cent) will "de-select" themselves or be de-selected
by Peace Corps leaders. The
reasons for withdrawal range from "medical" and "emotion-al" to romantic - that is, the beau who telephones across the country to convince his girl-friend-in-training that he has found he cannot live without her.
Some of the most elfective volunteers "are individuals who decided to drop out of their first training program and re-turn later, after they had gain-ed further experience," said Mrs. Pauline Birky, acting di
-rector for the Center for
Re-search and Education. The non
-profit Colorado center is a con-tracting agent for Peace Corps training.
Tom McCullough of Houst.Qn, Tex., a graduate of the Univer-sity of Texas with a major in philosophy, "de-selected'' from a program about a year ago.
Now he's back with his bride,
Mary. "The only way I could get him to propose was to promise I'd join the Peace Corps," Mary said.
MANY OF THE trainees embarking for ,Afghanistan will stop by Denver for some quick shopping, Mrs. Birky said.
They will have in their bill
-folds the $85 the Peace Corps gives trainees as the clothing allowance for a two-year tour
ef duty.
Shopping will bf' challenging for the girls, because, as Mrs. Birky said, "they will buy things which are casual, but with not too short sleeves or skirts.
"I think if we had a girl in
a mini-skirt in the Peace Corps in Afghanistan, she'd be sent home," she added.
The trainees will have some of their clothing made in the
Mohammed Bashir teaches written Farsi language, a calligraphic type of writing. Peace Corps trainees learned to read, write words.
bazaars of Afghanistan.
The women of Afghanistan still are partially veiled, Mrs. Birky explained. A progressive ruler, Shah Amanullah, abol-ished the chaderi, or small veil
worn by women, in the 1920s. But his edict was greeted with shocked dismay in some quar-ters, and the chaderi is still the rule in more conservative Af-ghan families.
While the average age of
\
,·
Atrainees is 25, the group
in-cludes a woman with nine grandchildren, Mrs. Mary Simpson, 60, a registered nurse from West Galesburg, Mich.
"My family is grown, so there was no reason I shouldn't get out and do something,'' ex-plained Mrs. Simpson, a wid-ow. "I still have enough ener-gy.
"But it really is work - keep-ing up with these kids," she
added. "I haven't studied gram-mar for more than 40 years."
AND PEACE Corps training is a hard day's work - into the night. Language classes begin at 7:30 a.m., and study con-cludes after slides or a trainee play presented in Farsi at 9:30
or 10 p.m. "We try to have something lighter after 8 p.m.," Mrs. Birky conceded.
Two weeks were spent in "language immersion,'' and for that period no one in the camp spoke English, night or day.
When the Afghan teacher met his class for the first time, he saluted them with the greeting, "shalom." He introduced him-self in Farsi, asked the stu-dents' names, and told each the Farsi version of his or her
name.
Very soon, the students were able to say simple sentences in
Farsi, such as, "No, it is not a pen, it is a pamphlet." No English was spoken in the
lan-guage course.
The 21 Navajo children
from
villages in northern Arizona were flown to Denver by Fron-tier Airlines - the first air-plane trip for all except one lad. There were 10 girls and 11
boys from 12 to 14 years old. In addition to their English lessons, taught by Peace Corps trainees who will teach Eng-lish in Afghanistan, the Indian children bowled, rode tubes on the snowy slopes of the Hidden Valley ski area near Estes Park, and visited Denver's City Park Zoo and Museum of
Natural History - firsts for
all.
TRAINEES learned about the culture and history of Afghan-istan, as well as its language.
Dw·ing Contemporary's visit, a group oi. students sat around Ali Shahnekyar in the camp's "tea house," singing as he played the do tar, a two-stringed instrument.
Shahnekyar's selection was a
love song ("they're all love songs!" one student explained) and, translated it said:
"I love you, you are the light of my eyes,
Shirley Koch, teacher trainee
of
Kansas City, heips Navajo Indian chiLdren improve their English as partof
Peace Corps training.Then displaying various ob-jects - a pen, a pamphlet, a
book of matches - he gave the name oi. each in Farsi.
"My darling, I love you more 'than ltly life.
Photography by
FLOYD
McCALL
language of Farsi
"You have pierce<I and
stol-en my heart.
"I, myself, welcome this kind
of thief.
"Because
of
you, I love every -one (from the sinner to the re-ligious) that lives in your city."The various skills which the trainees will take to Afghanis-tan include nursing, laboratory teehnician, surveyor and
t.eacher.
They all are anxious to make a contribution, but individual
reasons vary for choosing Peace Corps service in
Afghan-istan.
Miss Kathy Demopoulos of
3607 Narcissus Way, the only
Denverite in the group, bad been a laboratory technicain
for Denver physicians for 12 years. She was inspired to join the Peace Corps by - of all things - a trip to Acapulco.
"I saw a lot of poverty there," she explained, "and I
decided I wanted to do my bit.'' DOUG FRANCIS, 25, of Had-dam, Conn.,
was
teaching math in a school at Rocky Hill, C:lonn., when W-Ord of . his ac-ceptance by the Peace Corps came. He has a bachelorsde-eree
in anthropology and amasters in ethno musicology pending.
Asked about his interest in the corps, Francis mused, "I've
asked myself the ...., ...,. tlon. I want to see places and to learn the different cultures and languages, and this is cer-tainly my chance.
Mark Svendsen, 22, of Terre Haute, Ind., who has a degree la physics from Indiana State University, admitted, "I thought
about the draft, and I thought about graduate school, and I decided to take the Peace
Corps."
Further "de-selection" will take place during the
additioll-al training in Afghanistan, Mrs. Birky explained.
The volunteers who remain for the two years of duty will locate modest quarters among the people with whom they work. They will receive a sub-sistence allowance. An allow-ance of $75 a month will be banked for them in the United States.
At the time of Contemporary's visit to the camp, the Peace Corps director for Afghanis-tan, R. A. Feichtmeir, 43, was on hand to help a psychiatrist, psychologist and other staff members assist the trainees in their final decisions.
A DESIRE "to get away from suburbia'' led Fechtmeir
to give up a career of architec-tural engineering and
construc-tion development in the San Francisco Bay area, and to
take his wife and four younger children to Afghanistan. (An older son is in college in the United States.)
"The contrast between the U.S. and Afghanistan is about
as dramatic as you can
find-culturally, economically, envi• ronmentally," Fechtmeir said. "It's been-a very broadening kind of thing for us, and we
have n-0 regrets."
Afghanistan, he added, would
be willinl to take all tbe Eatea
Park trainees - and more.
"When this group goes," she
added, "there will be 200 vol-unteers in Afghanistan and they will be living in every part of the country.''
Mrs. Birky was research
di-rector of a Colorado State
Uni-versity feasibility study fer the
Peace Corps: made in 1960, and was coauthor of that
con1res-sional study. She was in charge of the first Peace Corps pro-gram emanating from CSU in
Pakistan in 1961-1963.
Charlotte Otts, Columbia, S. C., Doug Francis, Haddam, Conn., and Mrs. Pauline Birky, right, Usten as Ali Shah--nebyar explains ancient Afghanistan custom
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