In June 1962 a group of seventy-five Americans assembled at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. to begin their Peace Corps training for assignment to the Kingdom of Nepal. The reasons they volunteered to serve in a country that most had never heard of were as varied as their own backgrounds: service, adventure, travel, education, practical experience abroad. They ranged in age from late teens to early sixties; there were farm kids, newlyweds, carpenters, and college teachers; there were the shy and the bold, the worldly and the naive; but they all brought a spirit of excitement, a personal idealism, and a hope for the future.

After two months of training in the Nepali language, Cultural Studies, Health and Physical Education, and an assortment of practical and impractical lectures and classes, the group moved out to the Colorado Rockies for a month of training at the recently opened Outward Bound School. Finally, in September, following a short home leave, some sixty-eight newly minted United States Peace Corps Volunteers boarded a DC-6 charter flight in New York bound for India, and after a few days on to Nepal, to receive their assignments and begin their work. This first group of Peace Corps Volunteers in Nepal was dispersed to towns and villages from the Kathmandu Valley to the plains along the southern border with India, from the hill regions west of Kathmandu to the eastern hills, and eventually to the mountain country near Mount Everest. The assignments of these volunteers were mostly in education and agriculture: teaching in primary, secondary, technical, and higher education or starting agricultural projects and extension programs. Nepal had opened its frontiers to the outside world only a few years earlier, in the 1950s, and was in the very beginning stages of economic development. Outside of the Kathmandu and Indian border areas, most volunteers had no electricity, running water, indoor plumbing, heating or health services. Communication with Kathmandu could take days. There were no telephones. Air transport was by DC-3 when the weather permitted and if there happened to be an airstrip in the area. Locally, if the ground was flat, a bicycle might work if kept in constant repair; most Volunteers walked. For a few, merely surviving under these conditions was the greatest challenge; for others, it was their work; and for some, the lack of a meaningful assignment was the most difficult of all. Always there was frustration in how long it took to accomplish anything; but there were also times of questioning the whole process of introducing all these changes of unknown consequences into a society rich in its own culture and in harmony with its environment.

A year and a half later, in the late spring of 1964, this first Peace Corps group in Nepal gathered once again in Kathmandu to begin preparations for departure before the onset of the summer monsoon. As stories were traded and experiences shared, it was impossible to get a feeling of what had been accomplished. Were the hard-won successes going to last, did the apparent failures perhaps seed something that would not bloom for years? A few Volunteers stayed on through the monsoon to complete or pursue special projects. Most went home to the States to family, college, graduate school, and a variety of careers. Over the years, a dozen or so returned to work in Nepal with various economic development organizations or to conduct research; others came to visit; and a few have lived in Nepal for extended periods of time. For everyone their Peace Corps experience in Nepal was a major turning point in their lives.

Peter Farquhar