Idealism and Sentimentality at Peace Corps Pak 3 Training

Mary Jane Wier Guilfoyle and Bette Lemperle (training roommates) talk with university students at St. Paul training location (December 1962). 

Mary Jane writes home to family about her experience.

Forty-eight years later Mary Jane meets with Gerry Hanna in Connectiut.  Gerry and Mary Jane were Peace Corps co-workers at the Rajshahi Medical College.  They followed Judy Hein and Rachael Jordan at that location.

If you have pictures of Mary Jane and Gerry - send them to me and I will post them here.

PCV Gerry Morin (Hanna) at work in the hospital in Rajshahi. (Picture submitted by Mary Jane)


A story by Mary Jane:

Blue Baby

The baby was blue!  His arms and legs were limp.  There was no cry.  This baby was not alive.  Then the Pakistani mid-wife placed it in my arms, gesturing for me to do something.

Flash back: Before 1960, only physicians were taught to give Artificial Respiration.  In 1962 Peace Corps had the foresight to teach us C.P.R.  The practice was to straddle the patient’s torso and spreading both hands across the chest, you give strong, hard thrusts.  Not suitable for infants.

    

Back to Pakistan: I was momentarily paralyzed, but suddenly a survival mechanism kicked in and I placed the baby on a table and covered his mouth and nose with my mouth and blew gently.  Nothing happened and I did it again and miraculously I saw the baby’s chest rise!  Over and over again - the blueness began to fade. The baby lived.

As I wrote to my mother 49 yrs. ago, if I did nothing else while I was in Pakistan, this made it worth the trip.