International Night at the Global Village Museum – Sierra Leone

Please join the Fort Collins International Center and the Global Village Museum for a
presentation on Sierra Leone by Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCV’s) Catherine and
Richard Frazier. They will talk about their experience as PCV’s in the 1970’s and their continued
connection to the country over the last 40+ years. You will learn about daily life, unique natural
history, rice agriculture, and educational projects. They will present life as a PCV in the 70s and
how PC returned to Sierra Leone in 2010. There will be a brief discussion of the history and the
links to African American life. Your appetites will be whetted when they talk about the Chilis,
cassava, sweet potatoes, etc. You might be dancing as we discuss the music including West
African reggae and more. You will learn the story of Amazing Grace authored by a slave trader
John Newton. That is just the beginning. We hope you join us.

Catherine and Richard have a long personal relationship which began in 1966 in high school in
Charleston, Missouri, a small town near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. They
began teaching there in 1973. A bicycle trip through Europe—75-76 seeded their interest in
international life and was followed by Peace Corps service in Sierra Leone 1976-78 as teachers
in a small village at the end of a very rough road. Graduate school at the University of Illinois-
Urbana-Champaign followed Peace Corps. In those days there was a special relationship
between UIUC and Njala University in Sierra Leone. Richard's academic interest was science education.

Njala University had been a collaborator in the development of an innovative
curriculum project: The African Primary Science Program. A growing family prompted
consideration of overseas teaching which resulted in positions in Saudi Arabia 1983-88. From
1988-1999 Richard taught middle school science and Catherine taught high school ELL at the
Singapore American School. From 1999-2010 Richard served as a science educator on the
faculty of the College of Education at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg.
Catherine taught ELL in the local public schools and finished her Ph.D. In Multicultural
Education/Socio-Anthropology at the University of Missouri in Kansas City. From 2010-2022
Catherine and Richard taught at the American Embassy School in New Delhi, India. The Peace
Corps experience had precipitated an ongoing interest in service and volunteerism. There have
been return visits to Sierra Leone after the brutal civil war of the 1990s to provide professional
learning for teachers. A legacy in Singapore involved the development of a sensory trail for the
visually impaired in a treasured natural area in partnership with school ecology clubs, the local
Singapore Nature Society, and the Society for the Visually Handicapped. The trail has been
incorporated into a national park. In India Catherine and Richard continue to work with youth
from impoverished circumstances and with Tibetan Buddhist monastics who are studying
English, science, and Western styles of education along with translation of Buddhist texts. Their
daughter is a veteran international teacher, too, and now teaches in the Poudre School District.
She is a graduate of CSU and is the mother of Rs and Cs 2 grandchildren. Richard and Catherine have spent a good part of the year in Fort Collins since their retirement in 2022 and participate in various volunteer opportunities.