DaytonDailyNews.com

Safety training inadequate, volunteer says

By Mei-Ling Hopgood
mhopgood@coxnews.com

The same day Oberlin College graduate Pam Parsa was supposed to be posted in her village in Gabon, fellow Peace Corps volunteer Karen Phillips was found murdered.

The Peace Corps called the murder an isolated incident, she said.

Parsa was inside a Peace Corps house in the northern city of Makokou when someone tried to break in.

Another isolated incident, volunteers were told.

Likewise when two friends were attacked in Makokou, she said.

It seemed to Parsa that Peace Corps officials considered everything that happened to volunteers in Gabon during her service from 1998 to 2000 as random.

"Part of the problem that I had is that I think they could have been a little more realistic with us and actually said, ‘Well, gosh, we really don’t know how safe you are,’ ” said Parsa, now 28 and living in Los Altos Hills, Calif., where she works as an animal husbandry coordinator.

A Peace Corps official told volunteers in 2001 that the agency was "increasingly sensitized to safety and security concerns," and had increased staff and training. Recent volunteers confirmed that some changes were made.

But for some volunteers such as Parsa, the satisfaction of their Peace Corps service — Parsa helped farmers to grow gardens and build chicken houses in the village of Mbomo — is offset by their safety concerns.

Parsa, like many volunteers worldwide, had problems with housing. She was "scared" following Phillips’ murder, she said, and then discovered the house she was to live in had flimsy windows and doors that were hard to lock. The Peace Corps paid for new locks, but Parsa said she couldn't get a response on her request for safer housing. About a year later, she said, a Peace Corps staff member visited her and put in for a new house.

Men propositioned her constantly, and she was openly threatened. After Parsa and fellow volunteer Lynne Kraskouskas turned down a drunk man's advances, he slid his finger across his throat and said if they don't watch it they will end up like their "sister" Phillips.

Volunteers had some safety training, Parsa said, but she would have liked more concrete advice on how to turn away aggressive men. The staff told volunteers to stay in groups, but Parsa and others were alone in their villages. She joined a volunteer action committee that focused on improving the agency's approach to safety issues.

On Dec. 3, 1999 — her birthday — Parsa, Kraskouskas and volunteer Caleb Shaffer were staying in a Peace Corps transit house in Makokou when someone tried to break in during a rash of crime that hit the city.

Less than eight months later, Shaffer and Kraskouskas were attacked. The Peace Corps evacuated Parsa, Shaffer and Kraskouskas to the Peace Corps' headquarters in Libreville, and the men were caught and jailed. About a month later, Shaffer and Parsa said they saw one of the men riding in a cab in Makokou, and he made threatening gestures toward them. Shaffer, who was nearing the end of his two-year stint, left the Peace Corps after the incident. Kraskouskas already had left for personal reasons.

Parsa was ready to go, too, especially because locals often mixed up Parsa and Kraskouskas. Then she learned about a program in Tchibanga that involved working with Congolese refugees. She offered to stay in the Peace Corps if she could work there.

She loved that job and considered staying on another year, but decided against it. Parsa said that aside from a few staff members, the Peace Corps administration in Gabon seemed uninterested in volunteer accomplishments.

The agency's number one goal, she thought, was maintaining an American presence in countries around the world.

"Whether or not we accomplished anything while we were there was really, really secondary," she said. "That feeling was enforced by the fact they never came out to see what we were doing....They thought it was great if we were doing something, but they didn't try and help out."

[From the Dayton Daily News: 10.30.2003]