California Congressman Returns to Ethiopian Roots

March 24, 2011

John Garamendi hugs his wife, Patti (file photo)

A California congressman and his wife are in Ethiopia to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps at the place where they served as volunteers in the 1960s. The anniversary has revived memories of the Peace Corps’ key role in ending a war that killed 70,000 people.

John Garamendi leans back in his chair as he recalls the life he and his new wife Patti found when they arrived as Peace Corps volunteers in Emperor Haile Selassie’s Ethiopia in 1966.

"We were to be English teachers. We wound up teaching the sixth and seventh grade," recalled Garamendi. "Patti not only taught school but set up a women’s program, a children’s program, a pre-school program, and I started doing community development work."

Previous trip

This is not the Garamendis' first trip back to Ethiopia. They returned in 1984 to help when famine struck the countryside and have been back several times since. Patti came in 1994 as associate director of the Peace Corps when the Ethiopia program was revived after a period of absence during the dictatorial Dergue regime.

But this week, 50 years after U.S. President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps, now Congressman John Garamendi of California returned with Patti and the youngest of their six children to the town of Metu for an emotional reunion with friends they made so many years ago.