“I took this photo of myself with three second grade girls in a village in Guatemala, where my site mate and I worked with the community to build a three-classroom bottle school. These girls helped us collect bottles and fill them with trash. Someday I hope these girls will be able to attend school there.” - Peace Corps Health Volunteer Rebecca Dreyfuss

(Source: collection.peacecorps.gov)

We’ve reached 50,000 followers!

Here’s a little love for all of you from Mary and her students in Guatemala ♥

This is my host brother having his hair washed by my host mom. He was born only a week after I arrived at my site. Because of that, it was always easy to remember how old he was. I took this picture close to the end of my service, so that means Jose is almost 2 years old here.

Peace Corps Agriculture Volunteer Sara Jablonski 

Tire Garden 5 on Flickr.

A Peace Corps Volunteer trained more than 30 girls in Guatemala to create vegetable gardens in recycled car and truck tires, and held a cooking and nutrition class with the food they generated.

In honor of March Madness, here’s a great photo from our Digital Library. Peace Corps Youth Development Volunteer shared how she used basketball in her community:

This photo was taken in April 2011 in Guatemala. As an outlet and self-esteem builder, I started a basketball league for teenage girls from surrounding areas. This picture shows some of the girls wearing their newly donated jerseys from a family member in the states who works in the recreation department.

(Source: peacecorps.gov)

Safe travel to all the participants who came so far to share their cultures with us at the 2011 Smithsonian Folkife Festival! It was an honor to work with all of them over the last two weeks.

(Source: Flickr / peacecorps)

A young girl shucks corn
Guatemala - 2009