The Foreign Service Journal, November 2008

While I was managing the mission’s Community Action Division, some Peace Corps Volunteers sought fund- ing for an indigenous leadership train- ing program. When I told them there was no money for such a program, they suggested I speak with the acting USAID director — who happened to be the embassy economic officer. He supported the project and told me the program officer would find the neces- sary funds. The pilot program was extremely successful and became a part of USAID’s response to Con- gress on how it was implementing the provisions of Title IX (popular partici- pation) of the Foreign Assistance Act. As a result of these and other simi- lar encounters with the Peace Corps around the globe, USAID established the Special Development Activity Authority, informally known as the ambassador’s “slush” fund. At last there was a mechanism for Peace Corps Volunteers to petition the agency for small development grants that the volunteers would administer. Paul G. Vitale FSO, retired Vallejo, Calif. F ROM THE O UTSIDE L OOKING IN Once a year, we Peace Corps Volunteers in Bulgaria (where I served from 2001 to 2003) got to use the ambassador’s pool. It was a chance to chug watered-down Ameri- can beer and wolf down lots of hot dogs and chips, all free — allowing us to save our precious funds for the stronger national beer and canned pork-and-beans back in our vill- ages. Despite our gratitude, we were youthful and raucous and really mucked up the place. So it took true generosity for the ambassador to keep inviting us back. We volunteers only rarely got a taste of life inside the protective bub- ble that the embassy staff enjoyed, but we told ourselves that we were the ones who really knew the country. Our encounters were with the major- ity of the population who lived out- side Sofia, on less than a dollar a day. The 70-plus students in our class- rooms squeezed three to a bench, eager to learn, even walking barefoot to school and putting their shoes on there, so they would last all year. Fast forward a few years to when I joined the Foreign Service — the other side. Having Fulbrighters sleep- ing on the floor of my embassy town- house was not quite the same as open- ing up my house to fellow Peace Corps Volunteers a few years earlier. Excursions to get out of the capital and rough it with two small children N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 55