[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 111 (Tuesday, July 11, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H6818-H6819]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                     IMPORTANCE OF THE PEACE CORPS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Ward] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WARD. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. FARR. I thank the gentleman from Kentucky.
  Mr. Speaker, I was commenting that one of the unique feelings we all 
had was that each of us had the ability to live in a minority in 
another land and learn another language and learn another culture, and 
essentially be able to really understand what it is like to be outside 
of our own culture and our own values, because I think in order to 
educate people and bring them into changing behavior patterns that may 
have been in existence for hundreds of years, behavior patterns that 
might not have been good health, sanitary conditions, or nutritional 
habits, that you really have to be a part of them in order to bring 
that about. That learning that other culture, that other language, and 
the language I learned in Spanish, they say with every language comes a 
second soul.
  Mr. SHAYS. I notice that the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon] is 
here, who has been so active in support of the veterans and what they 
have done. In Fiji, Mr. Solomon, the impact that Americans had during 
World War II had such an incredible result to the people of Fiji, 
because this was a British colony and yet the Americans went and just 
comfortably lived with the Fijians where they lived and went in the 
same buses they did.
  In fact, there is a wonderful story of an American soldier being 
driven by an Indian in Fiji, because there are a lot of Indians around 
the world as we know, and when he came to this British hotel, the 
Indian was not allowed in. And the American soldier said the hell with 
that, and just brought his Indian taxicab driver in to stay with him. 
But this kind of interaction, this one on one on the street, living as 
they live, has a tremendous benefit to helping us understand their 
culture, but also having them appreciate Americans. So it is not just 
the Peace Corps, but it was our American soldiers who were there before 
us.
  Mr. WARD. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time for a moment, that was one 
of the things that was most striking to me, as an American in Gambia, 
West Africa, which was also a former British colony. And when I would 
meet folks, meet Gambians and begin to talk to them, I would find there 
was in the country a certain negative feeling about Europeans, as you 
might expect, in a former colony.
  But I found that the minute I said I was a Peace Corps volunteer, a 
Peace Corps, the ``s'' was pronounced, although I was pronouncing the 
``s'' before I got in it, the minute I said that though I found that 
barriers fell, just as the gentleman from Connecticut says. I found 
that people became more open, more willing to listen.
  Then as the gentleman from California said, when I began to speak 
Wolloff, which is the language of the Ollif people, there may be 1.5 
million people in Western Africa who speak Wolloff, when I began to 
speak the language, certainly not with the ability to discuss nuclear 
physics, but with an ability to go through a number of greetings and to 
ask after family and friends and, to get to the point, we discussed 
about the total familiarity of saying ``Summa harit, sa harit,'' ``My 
house is your house.''
                              {time}  2045

  That was the phrase that really tended to bring people together and 
to bond us, as humans, as people who populate the Earth. I think that 
there is no better way for America to be represented. That is why I was 
very discouraged when I heard proposals which have since been dropped 
but proposals that would have made the Peace Corps part of the State 
Department. I feel very strongly that the Peace Corps needs to remain 
an independent entity so that there is no question of its allegiance, 
of its goals, of its motives.
  Mr. SHAYS. When I was in the Peace Corps, one experience you are 
talking about, we were visiting with a whole number of villagers. We 
were landing on the moon. And I can remember the aura that my villagers 
had with the fact that Americans were on the moon and the pride that I 
had as an American. But to be able to sit with them in their 
environment and to talk about what we were actually doing was quite an 
experience for me.
  Mr. WARD. Of course, as I would remind the gentleman, I was in high 
school that year. Sorry. But that is the kind of reaction that you got. 
When I was up country one time to go to a little tiny store, literally 
200 miles in the interior of Africa and there is a picture of Mohammed 
Ali, another great American who is probably the most famous person in 
the world, along with President Kennedy. And I said that he was 

[[Page H 6819]]
from my home town. And there were a lot of questions, they wanted to 
discuss it. That is what we really get with the Peace Corps.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.

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