Oral history
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Collection
RPCV-ACC-2016-034
Patricia Lowther served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Turkey from 1963 to 1965. She worked as an English language instructor first in Bursa, in northern Turkey, and then in Adapazari. During the summer, she worked in an orphanage with Kurdish children in Sivas in a much smaller and poorer area. She recalls that her counterpart Turkish teachers, primarily in Bursa (a highly desirable teaching assignment), felt that the Peace Corps teachers reduced their workload and pay. Lowther also talks about her experience as an African American in the Peace Corps training at Georgetown University, where she first attended classes with white students, and in Turkey, where she first felt that she was not being judged for her color. Once Lowther returned to the United States, she became an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher for adults from many countries. She has remained in close touch with the people she met in Turkey, and later worked on other projects in Eastern Turkey with the Kurds. 2 digital audio files (web streaming files combined into 1 file). Interviewed and recorded by Evelyn Ganzglass, May 14, 2016.