James Kelly and Manuel Colon

00:00 My name is Manuel cologne. I'm 29 years old. Today is March 3rd 2018. I'm in Chicago, Illinois interviewing my friend.

00:12 I'm James Kelly people call me Jim. I'm 70 years old. Today is March 3rd 2018. I'm in Chicago and I'm having a conversation with my friend Manuel Corona will happy Peace Corps week gym, so I can you learn to talk about Peace Corps. This year's theme was call Peace Corps and I had folks. Can I describe what their Peace Corps home look like either the structure itself the people in it and I realized you and I have had lots of conversations about your service where you serve things like that but I don't know about your Peace Corps home. So tell me about what your home look like or how you how would you describe that theme for this week?

01:00 My picker home

01:02 Was in a little town in El Salvador called San Pablo tacachico.

01:10 It was a one-room stand-alone structure.

01:14 When I arrived it had been prepared for me by myself adorned counterpart. It had a cot.

01:22 No mattress just a cot.

01:24 Did have a tile floor.

01:27 A bear light bulb hanging from the rafters cuz there was no ceiling there were around beams going across the room that held up a tile roof. I had a hot plate for boiling water supposedly to that would be the water. I drank the only potable water would be boiled. It had a little table and a chair.

01:50 There was an open well in the backyard that we shared by several neighbors and electrician.

01:58 And I lived right around the corner from the Central Square in San Pablo tacachico.

02:04 Which is a very Grand deals name for this open space has it really was.

02:12 It was a town of about 500 people and dirt streets. No street lights, very unreliable electricity. There was a telegraph office that I learned had a telephone that hardly ever worked and a poorly stocked General Store.

02:35 Dogs and chickens running around everywhere pooping freely to the Delight of about 5 million flies or always in the air.

02:47 And there was a little church that seated probably 75 people.

02:54 And outside of that General Store. That was the only Commerce in town.

03:03 And to get to my home from the capital city. I was on a bus for a couple of hours until it turned off onto this never ever ever maintained dirt road that for 20 miles was a series of dust clouds and ruts in the dry season and mud sometimes so impassable in the rainy season we couldn't get out for days.

03:28 Great, the funny thing. I love about swapping Peace Corps stories with folks is we obviously didn't serve in the same place or at the same time, but that easily could have been a story and description that one of my colleagues had talked to that point when I think you said the country, but when did you serve in the Peace Corps? I was in El Salvador from 1969 to 1972.

03:59 Did you want to ask one of your questions or I can go again? How do you want to go?

04:03 I want to go ahead first.

04:06 Wait, I would like to know about your home. So I so this was back to so I would describe my Peace Corps homes in to set the first one to be my training home because when I train retrain and Country, so we got off an airplane and went straight into a host family and then the second would be

04:28 We're at my permanent site was so we trained for three months and then you have a permanent site for the other twenty-four. So I'll do my training site for Asquith and getting sick very similar soon and Paraguay you have City properties. So our training site like where we all went for classes was in the city of while I'm at it and then you have what they called company has which were like in an American context. I would be like a city in the suburbs, but they're not Suburban but it's like the town it's like Incorporated School District, but it's not in the city centre. So my company at was called to preach at the Sun Prairie where they speak and it doesn't language called what I mean. So it's a protractor is a plant. I think I shot is a plan. So it's super chapter is the fields were that plant grows come and actually the

05:23 The the plant that you makeup brush out of or a broom does like wooden rooms are like Leaf broom so that I was about seven miles is 5 km from the city center. We have to walk this week or so. No one is giving his rides and it looked like so much I think how you're describing to tie all the Terracotta roofs my room. So I should I would love to the family was not there is a sister Diana a brother. I really owe a sister Solomon and her sister for me now.

06:07 Before me was very exciting. I'm the youngest I had no concept of being an older brother. But as a twenty-two-year-old I forgot but they had my room. There was a separate room or separate in that they put up dresser in between the joining door so that it could be separate from the rest of the house. There was a little bad in there a little pillow there was a fan so when we certainties Gordon sure there's like seeing that had to be there. So I do not have a face and Halle Berry like Rusty it was the room had to lie, even though that the only thing blocking the room was a dresser that I could physically and then we had a window in Paraguay windows for the lowest term. There was a piece of wood that has no word, but

07:05 Block the light. I don't know and that was the inside of the house is also paraguayan houses were built with big awning so that you're like sitting outside under structure what we would call it in English or I would have called in Spanish means like under the home and then there's like a little part that I would like the living part of the house and let me have the kitchen part which we could buy fire outside. So get like the concept concept of homes a really interesting times like architecture because there was a kitchen area but I would like that just meant where the fire went and then we sat around the fire to cook it in her bathroom is a really funny because we had a modern bathroom.

07:53 Structure like everyday toilet bowl there, but there's no running water. So we still have to get the water from the well and put it down and I think there was a collecting sister and I don't really know what happened after that.

08:06 And yeah, that was about to get some city city center to my home that was about.

08:15 Like an hour walk from Peace Corps training center and I think about my training site. Like that's what I think of when I think of my Peace Corps home because I got it was the first experience I have their I really liked my host training family. Like in our time was like give or take if people went back to visit their host family depending on how far you were but I got really lucky that my permanent that wasn't all that far. So I went back to celebrate Christmas and New Year that went back on Easter. I got really lucky that I got to hang out with them a lot which is funny because my permanent site with way different a permanent site within a day why which is 28 miles from the capital. So not that far and it was like a tourist site. So we were known for having a lake Paraguay's landmarks. It's a big deal. We were known for having strawberries, which is really exciting this big Festival every summer.

09:12 What was the point of everyone who ever trained in Paraguay gets taken to Ottawa as one of their days and training feel like see what a nice city looks like a tan. I got lucky that it was always my city was very different. So I had to look in my home there. I had internet and I had running water and I was able to cook on my own for a little bit. So when I think of my fuse for home, I think of

09:41 Our little Shack in 2%.

09:45 And you know Peace Corps home the way you decide the the way you described it.

09:52 Really didn't happen in peace course first decade.

09:57 All of the training for new volunteers was done in the US.

10:06 Quinn and so we were in and I was right on the cusp because the first 10 years of Peace Corps, the emphasis was on physical endurance and mental health and there were psychologist psychiatrist that were evaluating us. So I was really on the cusp because I started training in 1969 and by then it had occurred to some people in Peace Corps that if you really want to predict how well someone is going to do in the Peace Corps. Maybe they should be where they're going to be volunteers.

10:38 Add only took 10 years to figure out.

10:41 And in 1979 of training a contractor a private company in Oak Park where I live started competing for training contracts because the Peace Corps was Outsourcing training in service training pre-service training programs in countries where they were replacing upwards of $100 a year.

11:04 And CHP was the one that actually Pioneer the idea of having training programs begin.

11:12 With the train, he's going to live with a host family where none of them spoke English and in your case. Neither speaking both English-speaking both Spanish and guarani.

11:26 And I joined that company in 1982 and

11:31 I visited.

11:34 We had several training centers at one of which was in on a walk before it went up and ran by date.

11:41 And it was there's a little town along the river where it was be at then be at the this idea about.

11:54 You know our philosophy of training that we presented the Peace Corps always was that

12:02 Pre-service training is like a courtship and it's the time when volunteers when volunteers and training. I hate the word trainees, but that's what everybody uses the trainees and Peace Corps would be deciding whether this was.

12:21 The right fit and our job was to provide all of the experiences and all of the information that trainees would need to make an informed decision by the end of the 13 weeks are 10 weeks whatever it was they could make an informed decision about whether they wanted to do this. So we put a lot of the Jonas on the trainees to make an informed decision rather than on Peace Corps, right? Although of course fees were going to say and so on a central part of that is being emerged as completely as possible as you could be in the cultural context or you are expected to adapt and Thrive which was a former Peace Corps training site. So I think a lot of something Peace Corps volunteers they when they go to their site they struggle on who is American. How did you get here? What are you doing? What is that Peace Corps thing so I can only did I get blessed with a beautiful sight I got

13:21 Blessed with many counterparts are just new right they had a decade or so of Hosting literally hundreds of Americans and getting to know them and they're sending the work that they did mention the cusp of transition cuz in Paraguay into a servant 2010 and one training class still training classes that weren't CHP. They just transition back to in-house training in countries such funny funny funny funny.

13:59 Sure.

14:10 I have to start by saying.

14:12 That I

14:15 Graduated from college in 1969

14:19 The Vietnam War was raging.

14:22 And I was looking for a way to stay out of the draft and I learned that draft boards at the time had the discretion to Grant deferments for Peace Corps Service, and I had a friend who was a year ahead of me in school who had joined the Peace Corps and was serving in El Salvador and she was writing back to me these inspiring letters about what Peace Corps Service was like, so I apply for Peace Corps.

14:49 But on the application there's there was a question. Do you have homosexual tendencies?

14:57 And clearly that question was in there to disqualify people who were who were gay or lesbian and

15:08 So I lied committed perjury on a federal application for him and said no.

15:14 But dream my entire Peace Corps Service. I was deeply deeply closeted and I spent much more energy than was necessary guarding this deep Secret.

15:32 And my friend Jan who already had been there for a year had had warned me that the Salvadoran culture was new ferociously homophobic. So

15:42 I couldn't trust anybody. I couldn't trust Peace Corps staff. I couldn't trust the volunteers in my group and I was in the training program where they were still psychologist and psychiatrist roaming around in the training center and twice during our pre-service training. We were obligated to evaluate the other people in our group and list the top five that were likely to succeed and the bottom five that we're not likely to succeed and why and if we refuse to do that, we were disqualified from service. So it was nobody to trust

16:18 So I just this was.

16:21 I had a very successful Peace Corps experience. I don't regret a minute of it. But it put conditions on me that were unrelieved for the whole time that I was there. It was no Escape valve. There was no community.

16:42 Until my third year of service fees for services or nearly two years but I got sick for a prolonged. Of time and had to be Medevac back to the States and so they granted me some more time to go back to El Salvador and one morning. There was one International Hotel in San Salvador at the time just one it was like five stories don't don't think higher than the fit in 1971. But all the volunteers that were on furlough or went in for the weekend of the capital city. They would wind up on Sunday mornings at this hotel because the hotel had pancakes.

17:17 And I was sitting there by myself and there's a table of four guys.

17:23 Next to me and they're carrying on and I understood every word they were saying of course and it was clear to me that they were gay and I kept looking over them and they kept looking over me and finally one of them said why don't you join us?

17:42 And in that moment, I had the first sense of belonging and community in my stay in El Salvador.

17:54 Did I answer the question?

18:04 I was assigned to the Ministry of Agriculture.

18:07 And the minister of agriculture in El Salvador follow the same model of Agricultural Extension that exist in the states and so in every town of any size the ministry had an agronomist that would would that was working with subsistence farmers in larger towns. There was also a home economist and then the one of the female volunteers would be assigned to work with the home economist and the male volunteer with the agronomist.

18:41 And we really had two jobs one was mine on the male side was to work with subsistence Farmers to try to increase the yields of corn and beans that they grew on rented Hillary Rockey in fertile soil that nobody else wanted and second the minister of Agriculture also promoted a system comprable to 4-H programs in the US. So we are responsible for organizing kids into 4/8 groups.

19:13 Call Kuba cuatro say

19:21 It's so funny to talk about the environmental volunteers have a background environment science used to work for the forest service.

19:34 And it wasn't I think as cut-and-dried you were this you do that but a lot of our volunteers and myself included worked with youth unpair was really young country 60% of its under the age of 25 is under the age of 18 to just no matter what kind of our lunch here you were either you're working with kids R kids were around and so we had a lot of me specifically organized youth group development work which they kind of ironic cuz I didn't work direct with youth groups, but I think kind of what we'll talk about later it turns like what I just what I might interest were in kind of what I was thought I was able to develop bike game books and planned and things that other folks could use with their youth groups in we had a national conference and it's still around today. So we started in 2011 and are still volunteers who not only do the projects was caught by the wave are there green Paraguay, but there's like people who would stand on for a third-year to actually take on the project.

20:34 I think it's really exciting. So want to in your eyes, you know, what other things about P squirrels like sustainable development like had it go on without you there and we should make you very proud because I'm still friends with a lot of my bosses or I'm connect with people who did their service or anything. I don't know them, but they're posting pictures and I'm following. It's really exciting.

21:09 Let me follow up on that one by how I communicated in the early 60s late 60s and early 70s.

21:17 My parents bought me a little cassette tape recorder and I went to El Salvador armed with that little tape recorder and a whole box of blank cassettes.

21:28 And every week, maybe two or three times a week, I would pick up the tape recorder and just talk to my folks.

21:36 And when the cassette got full Highwood put it in the mail.

21:42 I would wait till I could get to the capital city because if I put it in the telegraph office, which is also the post office in Taco Chico the odds were.

21:54 We're really not in my favor that it would even get $0.02. Hold on much less of the US.

22:00 So and then they would record cassettes and send them back to me. And the the more rapid way was they used to have I don't know if this event exist anymore, but it was airmail stationery. So it was a piece of very lightweight paper that had flaps on it and you would write on the middle of it and then you would fold the flaps over and it would be it's on envelope and then you can send that.

22:25 And

22:27 When my mom died in 2001, my dad died earlier my sister and I were cleaning out the house and buried back in the closet in the hallway was a box full of those cassette tapes that they had kept and they had kept all of those air mail letters as well.

22:51 I've started to listen to them. That's quite quite something.

22:57 If you didn't

23:00 Until several years later. Why did you stay?

23:08 Because I love the work.

23:10 And

23:12 I could.

23:15 I could deeply appreciate the acceptance people gave me as they knew me know and there were lots of young people in town and I had friends and I

23:32 Really enjoyed some of the activities. I love going to the to the soccer matches and being a fan of our hometown, you know Taco Chico.

23:44 I was there were many aspects of the culture that were that really resonated me in terms of the Dignity of the person even people who were completely disenfranchised and impoverished had a sense of dignity that I had not experienced sometimes here in the US so and I believe in the work.

24:11 And we were seeing results in the work which is tremendously satisfying. So there were there were lots of very compelling reasons that kept me there even though there was a time when I wondered whether

24:25 I was going to be able to stay or not, but I

24:28 You know, I think that's pretty common experience among Brian tears that you reach a point over really in your career. Wondering if you were going to get done. The right thing slogan to Peace Corps was the toughest job you'll ever love and I think if you talk to anyone they can human eyes that that looks Logan in a way that makes sense for them. I'll jump into one of my questions. I think we're kind of getting there. So I want to make sure that we kind of explicitly hit it on the head. Would you think you could answer some of that question that was just as well soon imaginary we know each other we've had several interviews considered one of the ways that we know each other the principal way. Honestly is you did a master's thesis On Your Peace Corps Service in a specific part of it or specific community of it, so, I don't want to give that away. So tell me about your master thesis with Peace Corps.

25:21 Okay.

25:23 So after my Peace Corps Service finished in 1972, I joined an International Development Group that that focused on local leadership training not infusion of funds and in that capacity. I had a I had an opportunity to be in Venezuela for a year and in Chile for 4 years. And while I was in Chile a friend of mine at usaid made a connection to Peace Corps.

25:55 Peace Corps

25:58 Their training center was going to be operated by a private company not the one I want a boarding for but a private company and I went to interview and they hired me as the training coordinator.

26:11 And when I had reasons for needing to return to the US the director of that Center referred me to the man who owned CHP in Oak Park.

26:26 And I interviewed with him and did some Consulting work and then he hired me in the fall of 1982.

26:34 And part of my responsibility was doing staff training and some training Volunteers in the Central and Central America and South America.

26:45 So I was watch I was had supervision over the curriculum when I kept seeing that there was still this is now in the early eighties and Beyond and forward from there if there was still nothing in the pre-service training curriculum that addressed specifically the needs of gays and lesbians so that philosophy that my own company offered which was all the information you need to make an informed decision was not really complete.

27:19 So when I had my midlife crisis in 1987 and enrolled in a master's program during that program I decided that I was going to have them at I was going to do my thesis on a survey of gays and lesbians who had successfully completed their service in the 60s 70s and 80s.

27:39 And see what I could learn about their own experiences of being in the Peace Corps as gay and lesbians and what challenges they faced and what they miss the most, you know, in terms of support and in 1991, I published that cease is called diversity is hidden to mention gays and lesbians in the Peace Corps and it was basically built around the stories of these volunteers who had been apart of the survey and a whole set of recommendations about how Peace Corps could could pay better attention to the specific needs of gays and lesbians, even though there was a whole laundry list of other minority populations that we're to be accommodated in training gays and lesbians had not made the list yet.

28:35 So that was published in 1991 and just in time for Peace Corps 30th anniversary celebration in Washington DC and I went there and there were about 30 rpcvs returned Peace Corps volunteers that we gathered at a bar in DC. I can't remember which one it was now but it was an exuberant celebration because they all participated in the survey and some of them were from California and announced that they were going to form the gay and lesbian returned Peace Corps volunteer association with the mission of providing support and information to prospective volunteers and currently serving volunteers.

29:18 And that's when our connection for started is well, you can tell that part of the story true lies in what 1991 look like it was obviously the 30th anniversary of Peace Corps. I mean coming out of the height of the AIDS epidemic or you in the height of the AIDS epidemic so when I think about like who and what committees were in the American vernacular, I think I just like it was good timing to him across all federal agencies. You could literally barred from I'm being a homosexual and I was in the application self by the nineties. I don't think we had that anti-discrimination for separation in there. Yeah, but again, we weren't asking people if they were homosexual I think a turning of Tide already that you know, your master thesis help facilitate.

30:18 Can you mentioned a group of gentlemen or gentleman and ladies in California who formed the group that currently is known as LGBT rpcv lesbian gay bisexual transgender returned Peace Corps volunteers that I had not any clue up when I started 2010. Obviously I was out but that was in fear something I look for but we had a person who came into Paraguay you're after I was there and she's okay. I found this website and they have these stories but there's like one from the 90s which was interesting because at that time in Paraguay, we had a Biggs over the club members like there's so many of us here like we can we can so I reach out to that group in in-service are still in service. I wasn't technically rpcv. I'm still a PCV and just got connected with them and just let him know like hey, there's a lot of them out here. We can give you some stories. We can connect some resources. We're doing awesome stuff. How can we help because this man came back to the US?

31:14 They're like rate you're going to be our leader took over the role as the national coordinator, but I think it was really important understand the context of what I was walking into. So I sat down with all the other leaders in 2008 how to get started with your story and I find out that we used to have a print a print newsletter and so is he up on them the first one first edition 91 and 92 and yeah, there was an article. I've never heard of this I work with a lot of this is awesome. I shred pre shop exit 91 92. I'm reading lesson 2015-16 in Champaign, Illinois to ourselves Chicago and it was a solicitation to be part of your survey. I'm to use snowball method right so that they can tell people when they tell other people and they come and do it. So it said, yeah if you were

32:14 Going to reach out again as pre email. So there's an address and a phone number and I thought well and it's just been announced as the new leader. So I called you at 7:08 and we have to hear Chicago area code and sure enough. I'm reading about you and you don't know who I am. I'm telling you this and you got my mouth. I'm reading about you right now. And yeah, that was at least two to three years ago when I had taken over my role in a group that again you were there for their Genesis and your Masterpiece is connected also, just hope so so many enter turning Circle.

33:03 Yeah, it's it's one of the things that I'm most proud of in my life is doing that work.

33:11 My boss had a lot of apprehension about it, as you know, what training contractor and some of his own issues at the time but as you know, if he scores office of special services sent to all the Peace Corps office around the world a summary of the recommendations I had made about how people could better serve the needs of gays and lesbians in training and during their service.

33:40 And

33:43 There and you're right the timing was just right because

33:47 During the 80s.

33:51 When I was working for CHP and going to Peace Corps Office there were tons of gays and lesbians that were staff members in Peace Corps Washington. So it wasn't like it was an adverse climate or anything. It was more like benign neglect and that it just hadn't occurred to somebody that there was a gap in training, right?

34:14 And I think my thesis help I think we should do to 2018 what so much has changed. I think for the experience of LGBT folk at large and just curious it did that translate also for them and their services volunteers. So when I am at Peace Corps staff member now right inswing think about what does our agency do for us is employees. What does our agency do for us as not recruitment methods in our volunteer methods to find a grad student and neither projects and we'll have another question for you. This is something I've been curious about.

34:59 You are my cultural.

35:03 And as a volunteer, you went into a bicultural country Paraguay is very proud of the fact that you know, there are two official languages.

35:14 Of course.

35:16 The white Annie population has the same status as American Indians do in the u.s. Bottom of the run. But at least there's this mythology about being and end in everyday life. It really is bicultural is the use of language you think so by culture volunteer going into a bicultural environment and gay was that for you if you want to compare it to one of the things that I think I think you kind of hit at and for sure or definitely need a thesis as a Peace Corps volunteer in one of the things kind of to get your bearings is like, okay where where is our commonality with the people? I'm working with other people. I'm living with and then if there are differences, how can we overcome them? So I think coming in

36:02 As Latino volunteer certainly facilitated a lot of kind of just a grounding myself with those right to the sentence a lot of volunteers. They have a vegan burger in the language. I don't know. Okay. We kiss each other cheek. That's kind of Weird Al I'm back home or you know for sure helping to ground like to really find out what was

36:28 Unknown Ray couldn't get a lot of times. It was very superficial things that could trip a volunteer up. I'm not really engaging with their Community or not fully integrating and other things.

36:41 I specifically even the language. So a lot of I've seen American volunteers get to Paraguay and even struggle with the Spanish cuz it's a different Spanish to Spanish for the region. So it's real blood tensive of the real area weird Spanish difference IMAX in Puerto Rican sounds like I know that they use different than these countries, right and it's funny cuz I think Americans know that British folk speak different Australian folk speak different, but they just think they speak Spanish. That was also speak it like people in Mexico and then I think even to the cultural aspects is

37:27 I'm obviously both Mexican Puerto. Rico braided bracelet Puerto. Rico is like creating like more visually diverse in a way that you can see like, I mean I have cousins that are very back to me. I know they're all Puerto Rican, right? And so I think there's a lot of that in men Paraguay where people can have an idea of what a paraguayan is or going back to what you said. Like, why didn't he has a language? They're very proud of what I needs our currency what any of the name of their football club, but then the one I need people are like we'll think about you guys later.

38:03 Wendy's the name at the very least for a really long time but not the people right and so or in people will say what I speak what I mean. So I'm also of that is like that's how it works and but even then there's lots of cultural differences has a huge Korean population is if you afro population there's six or seven official Mennonite communities lots of Germans and a lot of people would be like, oh that's what those aren't the paraguayans. Those are the Mennonites. I think that even my own experiences, like my grandparents were born in this country being the United States, but having to like explain my lineage of where we came from in other countries in a way that again, I don't think most folks have to do

38:55 So going back to Canada question specifically for me. That was the ground need experience is that you know, I knew enough Spanish to that. Why did he was easy to acquire diverse Spanish that I wasn't there. Buy new words like okay, we have it for work for strawberry. That's what I meant that I was able to kind of dig deeper, which I think was the relationship break. That's a big thing in Latin America versus Paraguay. It's like how you're doing. Nice to meet you. Where is your wife Sheena forever ending as you know, you know, a lot of queer people can just afraid I don't have a wife not I managed and women or I don't date women don't have a life and you answer the question, which I thought was kind of

39:46 Not have to going back to what you're saying is I mean, I was out at the time my volunteer Corps new at peace with Avenue in but in community it was tough because

39:57 It could mean that you didn't get to work with children are could mean that certain people to talk to you or coming to your house with you and so is tough to be like I'm so connected to be to the right like we can talk we can chat we understand values culture history food even but then like that one aspect of my personhood tattoo be removed from them I think was tough. But again, it was also just really accepting and Collective culture that you know, they've asked at once you didn't engage in that was there was really no digging into it for I think a lot of people which was at the time I think really good obviously now back in the US and me to reset you know, why we have Facebook and Twitter and all these ways to say connect to info so I know that my host family now knows that I'm gay and they've seen and I am back in the back in 2014, but it still looks like oh, yes, you don't have a wife. We know that.

40:57 We know what aspects do you Garden what aspects you show and so in the way that I knew I was guarding myself in terms of sexual orientation is the good thing was that that cultural connection I had was there and that's what we always tell people going back like the diversity of strength and things like that. You know, I was that's why I'm 6-foot 2 / 200 I spoke to in Spanish is spoken of what I mean. So that was my everything with people is like so that if I hear a racist comment, I'll be the first to call it if I hear sex is coming. I'll be the first to defend you so that I'm going to ask you when you hear a homophobic comment, then you need to come to my defense because that's not something that I can do for myself, but I think built a lot of camaraderie amongst our Baltimore.

41:42 And we always used to tell trainees in is that

41:46 No volunteer is successful without making sacrifices. Sometimes the adjustments are minor. Sometimes the adjustments are really really significant. They have to know about those things and experience those things during training because it doesn't do anybody any good to have you swearing as a volunteer and then leave a few months later cuz you with all I hadn't figured that out and

42:13 You know what the time that

42:17 One of the one of the things that I hate that I saw over and over again in the in the commentaries at the responded to my survey were saying it was they just didn't know and

42:28 I think one thing that's very, to gays and lesbians in unfamiliar environment is that they withdraw and observe.

42:39 And wait for signs to tell them how then dangerous or welcoming it is this new environment and in the absence of any affirmative language coming from Peace Corps staff or Peace Corps training staff.

42:55 Weed naturally jump to the conclusion that this is not a safe place. And so just think when there are across cultural sessions on dating, for example, you know when I was a volunteer was always assumed that everybody was heterosexual and I'm thinking what the hell I got to do, you know, so it doesn't it's sometimes it's just these mine or little shifts in the way you create safe spaces that make a huge difference. I came in in my work prior to be square is that yeah, if you don't intentionally include you're going to unintentionally excluded which I think is a huge portion of doing Intercultural cross-cultural training.

43:44 But during your service you were able to identify people would be perfectly comfortable in Paraguay knowing that you were a gay man in the country. So for sure they have gay bars in gay clubs that actually volunteers frequent sandwich again like to my kind of elation was like what I think you know the most experiences with the two or three gay folks go when they do their thing where the lesbian find their climate of the way everyone knows a place exists and everyone that racing at fat awesome in the capital. I don't think anyone Paraguay had 250 volunteers and I was there are several dozen queer folk. I don't think any of us were explicitly out in our communities ending for a lot of what I said.

44:33 If they knew they weren't dating opposite gender folk, so they knew they didn't do but just sometime if it was in your community, it could be detrimental to your work but we had the luxury and privilege to be able to go to the capital and hang out with gay friend openly and go to clear establishments openly and no one told me about that in Paraguay that was not part of my training packet for being such a thing as part of the work that I do now is just making sure that we can Elevate those stories right? Because it helps everyone to know that I think that was everything to is that we would talk to Paraguay and those we just don't have those people are country don't you know you have amazing organization. Do you have drag shows on Sundays? Like this is a thing occurring in your country prior to my arrival. My sister is really important that we Elevate those stories. Not only for Peace Corps volunteers, but the host country Nationals at large as well.

45:32 Absolutely, and you know I think about women volunteers who you know are in sub-Saharan Africa.

45:40 Or in any culture where women are still much more subservient and marginalized than even in some of the modern country. So to speak those are I mean that takes a real commitment to say

45:59 These values I am willing to

46:05 Suppress while I'm a volunteer or my gay and lesbian advocacy.

46:15 Is going to take a back seat so that I can be completely open to these new experiences in Peace Corps. Its

46:25 Those kinds of adjustments are expected in really required. So there's no reason not to talk about those during the training program exactly.

46:41 Did you like me to say anything to each other? I'm just really excited. We got to do this. I think again, we've had lots of conversations so you invited me. So thank you for inviting me. And like I said, happy Peace Corps week. Well, I don't think I've ever told you how much that phone call from you meant because you know, all of that the thesis work in those heady days and things they had their effect and it was in sort of the distant past and for someone of your generation to take the time to

47:23 Read it.

47:25 + 2

47:28 Put that into the historical context.

47:33 Was really meaningful to me.

47:38 And frankly very emotional. So I'm so glad to have this new friendship.