Jodi Olsen's experience reminds me of mine and others

I just posted on my Facebook page that I look forward to the Friday podcast of SoftPower/FulStories, which shows why the USA should be engaged with people in other countries in a peaceful way. Every episode is engaging, and the latest made me think of a fiend (Janet Thornburg), who like Jody Olsen (featured this week) served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tunisia (1969). It also made me think of my own experience teaching in Algeria (through International Voluntary Services), where I got to know and appreciate a different culture and know wonderful people like Djamila Abassi Tair, who was then a 15-year-old student at Lycee Bencheneb and is now a grandmother with whom I share life's highlights on Facebook. But Jodi Olsen's experiences and insights about her overseas experience as both a teacher and a PC director are truly impressive and unique. I listened to this episode while doing my PT exercises, which were much less of a bore because of all Jodi Olsen relates--even about a condom used as a water balloon?? (I'm going to listen again.) I see that her memoir A MILLION MILES: MY PEACE CORPS JOURNEY has been reviewed by Evelyn La Torre, who first told me about Chris Wurst's soft power stories. I love how we're all connected to one another and to the world.