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Did you know? The American Folklife Center's collection at the Library of Congress includes Native American songs, an Appalachian fiddle tune that has been heard around the world, a Cambodian wedding in Massachusetts, Balinese Gamelan music recorded shortly before the Second World War, first-hand accounts of community events from every state, and international collections from every region of the world.
Source: American Folklife Center
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“Tell me a fact and I'll learn. Tell me a truth and I'll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.” |
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In an extraordinary age of information and documentation, the rich details of people, places, and events stand out best when they’re put together as a story. There’s a reason why families, communities, and cultures in every country pass their stories along from generation to generation. Stories help us to retain our history, to attach to the human experience, and, most of all, to remember.
Peace Corps Volunteers come home from service with stories from all over the globe. Some of their stories cast them as listeners or observers, and sometimes volunteers develop into main characters. This month we highlight the importance of the story, feature new Peace Corps stories, and provide resources for cultivating storytelling in your classroom.
We invite you to enjoy different kinds of stories, from a traditional Eritrean folktale, to cartoons about life in Jordan, to poetry written by a Peace Corps Volunteer in Niger. Consider the importance of digital storytelling as you view Nancy Tschetter’s new slide show about her Peace Corps service in India, and use Peace Corps Deputy Director Jody Olsen’s interview about storytelling to spark discussion with your students. Ready to take storytelling to the next level in your classroom? Discover how the Speakers Match program can help you bring returned Peace Corps Volunteers—and their stories—to your school. |
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Folktales: Good fortune, heated tempers, and clever thinking come together in this traditional Eritrean story, "The Center of the Earth." Listen | Read | More folktales
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ExchangesConnect
Enter your video about what "My Culture + Your Culture" means to you for a chance to win an international exchange program! The contest ends on January 26, 2009 and is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, in partnership with Adobe Youth Voices.
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Q: How were stories told and passed on to the next generation in your host country?
A: The history of Pula Bhirmuni and its people rode down the years on voices. In the rice paddies women remembered, and buried the emerald shoots of rice under wet ground. Men told their history while walking between villages trading goods, including brides and grooms. Grandmothers murmured stories to their grandchildren over plates of steaming rice and lentils in dark, smoky kitchens, their whispered word-pictures laced with smoke from the cooking fires, their history illuminated by flame.
—Adrienne Benson Scherger, Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, Nepal |
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Two Years in India: Settling In to Village Life
Nancy Tschetter
India, 1966–1968
Experience bullock carts, a weekly bazaar, life in India’s caste system, and hard work in an Indian village decades ago. Nancy Tschetter recalls her Peace Corps service in a small village in Maharashtra, India from 1966–1968.
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