Sierra Leone II: July 2013

Friday, July 19, 2013

From: Jane Koning and Erick Lorenz

We have been doing our best to keep the reunion going.

Last September we accepted an invitation to Ursula's summer home in Watch Hill, RI. We met some of her family and had a great time hitting the beach and exploring the area. Here Ursula and Jane are seen enjoying the sunset on the waterfront.

Then in January we flew to Maui where Jane's family has a condo. Since we had to change planes in Honolulu, we contacted Marv who agreed to meet us at the airport during our layover. We spent a pleasant hour outside the baggage claim eating manapuas and catching up on old times.

About us...

"Sierra Leone II," a group of sixty men and women, trained together at SUNY, New Paltz, in the summer of 1962, in preparation for Peace Corps service in West Africa. Most trainees were newly-minted liberal arts graduates, drawn from all over the U.S. Despite the fact that few of us had prior teaching experience--or even teacher training--we had been selected to fill teaching slots at secondary schools in Sierra Leone--a country many of us had never heard of prior to receiving our invitation to training. Our project was part of an audacious attempt to help education in Africa leap ahead by preparing African students to attend college and then fill the teaching ranks themselves in vastly-expanded school systems. Walter Carrington was our Project Director, and Mike McCone the Assistant Director, from 1962-63; Don McClure directed the program for the second year of our service.