What IS in a name?
In June of 1983, I left my home in upstate New York and boarded the first of a series of flights that would take me across an ocean and one continent, and then about half of a second continent, before arriving where I would spend the next three years of my life. I was a Peace Corps Trainee - not yet a Volunteer - who had been invited to serve in the Central African Republic. I'd picked up a liberal arts degree (English & Philosophy + History), which initially I'd assumed would be more than sufficient for getting my foot in the Peace Corps door. It wasn't until years later, while working as a recruiter for the Peace Corps (a small federal agency whose budget last year was $400 million), that I realized how utterly dime-a-dozen my background had been. My own recruiter sounded overworked but was kind, and let me down gently. He offered some tips about activities and classes which would make my application more competitive, before suggesting that, if I ...