World Map Project—to the extreme!!

Hey, y’all!! I would like to fill you all in on the story behind the wonderful pictures on Facebook of the joint combination, multi-village world map extravaganza and ‘International Fair’ to take place in my local commune. A fellow volunteer, Elyse Callahan (from Iowa), who lives in a nearby village and I have gathered the 5th and 6th grade class members in our own villages and a third one in close proximity to paint world maps in three classrooms. We were so excited to have volunteers come out and have the students come and do the majority of painting with us! They all look wonderful!! However, there are always questions that arise when painting a one-dimensional (and though colorful) culturally lacking interpretation of the world. For example, upon completing a map in another volunteer’s site, a man passed by and pointed out what was assumed to be a mistake, "that paint blotch in the Pacific Ocean needs to be covered in ocean blue." No, then we would lose the 50th state of Hawaii, sir! His response, "No way, how can people live with all that water? Where do they build their houses?" And, btw, the color of your skin immediately determines what languages should be spoken to you and what country you are most certainly from! So, to tackle some of these tricky cultural taboos we decided to arrange at the beginning of the school year a 3-day, traveling World Fair! To be held October 10-12 in all three of the villages in which we have painted the world maps to truly bring them to life! We hope to showcase different peoples, languages and foods along with geographical and basic information of life on different continents.

The PCPP (the Peace Corps Partnership Program) connects Peace Corp volunteers directly to donors stateside to help fund project ideas that fulfill the program's requirements of community involvement for development. The proposal budget we have devised covers the materials for our project, and mainly the International Fair (displaying basic geographical information, as well as; the sites, sounds and, hopefully, tastes of several different countries to the youth in our local primary schools). We are planning the event for the beginning of school classes this October. We both would love to provide samples of food from a few different countries. We would like to purchase staple foods that are found here, but work with the woman to prepare them differently as you might find them arranged in another country. If there are any questions, please feel free to contact me and check out the link to the Peace Corps site where you can read about my projects and others' being done around the world! The PCPP project number is 688-362--all donations will be very appreciated and all donors will be updated with photos and project follow-up as it progresses. Thanks!!