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Peace Corps' 50 Anniversary & Arkadaslar Global Reunion
Sept 22-25, 2011
What a great series of events they were! Thanks to the Turkish Embassy in Washington, DC for hosting us for a reception on Friday evening, to our speakers at the plenary session on Friday, to the Arkadaslar board and their helpers who organized all the Arkadaslar events, and to the 300+ people who attended our Arkadaslar Reunion! Here are the first few of many photos that we're receiving from the reunion. More photos.

Arkadaslar prior to Walk of the Flags across Arlington Memorial Bridge, Sept.25, 2011
An RPCV who served in another country said there should be a quota of RPCVs from a single country participating in the walk because there were too many of us from Turkey! He was a bit surprised to learn that our ranks are NOT growing.

Ballroom full of Turkey RPCVs
Near table: Catherine Jorgensen McCutcheon (T-12) & Ron McCutcheon (T-12) and Carolyn (T-5) & Larry Omo (T-5)

Panelists at our plenary session: Jim Hanson, Rauf Alp Denktaş, Prof. Heath Lowry (T-5) and Jim Merz

If you have some good ones we can post, please send them! (webmaster@arkadaslar.info). Thanks. And we'll be asking you to help us identify everyone in the photos, too.

Featured Book with stories from thirteen Turkey RPCVs:

The book collecting stories from Eurasia Volunteers from the past 50 years has just been published. Turkey is well represented among the stories.

A Small Key Opens Big Doors is a collection of 50 years of stories of the Peace Corps in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, regions with the distinction of having both the oldest and youngest programs in Peace Corps history.

More information

Memories of Turkey:

Hearing about JFK's assassination:

It was early that night and there was a farewell party in Ankara for Marge Halfpenny, the first PC Secretary, who was returning to the States. We were at her apartment in Kavaklidere and John Wintrol came in, and asked "where's Dave Weinman! He whispered something to Dave and the two spoke intensely for a moment, then Dave got everyone's attention and announced "Kennedy has been shot"!! I couldn't process that, asking "you mean Joseph Kennedy? No, came the answer. "Bobby (I persisted) !? No...."the President" replied Dave.

Some of us went down the hill to the embassy where a sizable crowd of Turks had gathered, all of us waiting for news of the President. By then we had heard he had been killed, but came hoping against hope that these were rumors, not the final word, or to find out how this could have happened. Ankara was a small city then, 600,000 people. A Gazi Egitigim Institusu student I knew from our in-country training a year earlier saw me in the crowd and ran up asking me what had happened. How could this be?! Surely I would be able to explain it for him. To his and my dismay, being an American at that moment gave me no advantage, no special insight, and no answers. We stood together in shock, disbelief and shared loss. - Mike Jewell

More memories of when JFK was assassinated

(More memories)

Arkadaslar in the news:
Catherine (Posselt) Bachrach (T-8) and Dave Hopkins (T-1): http://www.newstimes.com/default/article/For-50-years-the-Peace-Corps-has-built-goodwill-1021290.php

Kathy Markley Scruggs (T-2) Pat Mitchell Lowther (T-2) are both active with the HasNa group that focuses on Turkey. They recently returned from helping teach English to workers in the Diyarbakir area. http://hasnainc.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/former-peace-corps-volunteers-return-to-turkey/

Priscilla Murray (T-15) reports on some theory-shattering archaeological news. See Member News.

Call for photos for Arkadaslar Turkey book. Before we start the selection process we would like to have many more images submitted by Turkey Volunteers. Remember, the criteria is that the images should have a compelling image (be a good photograph), tell a story, show aspects of Turkish life, convey how we fit in the country and the jobs that we did, and give a sense of the time and place (the 60s and Turkey). If you have images to contribute, please contact Sandy Anderson at TurkeyDost@aol.com and she'll give you more information.