Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2018-013
Brenda Brown Schoonover served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Philippines Group One from 1961 to 1963 as a 5th and 6th grade English teacher. She began training at State College Pennsylvania and then continued her language and cultural training in-country at Los Banos in a group of 128 volunteers. In the Philippines, she was stationed in the town of Magarao in the Bicol Region where she worked in the elementary school and established a community library. In her interview, she describes the warm relations she enjoyed with host country nationals. While interacting with students, teachers, and other host-country nationals, she says she learned valuable lifelong lessons in cross-cultural sensitivity -- lessons she believes have served her well throughout her subsequent career as an American diplomat. After completing her teaching assignment, Schoonover continued working as a Peace Corps staffer in Tanzania and at the Peace Corps office in Washington, D.C., and eventually became a foreign service officer. President Bill Clinton appointed her Ambassador to the West African nation of Togo, and she served there from 1997 to 2000. Interviewed by Ivan C. Browning, April 6, 2018. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file).