Why Would They Do That?

Ephrat Livni (L) and María Moreno (R) at the 50 Years of Peace Corps in Africa Conference, hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison

StoryCorps’ Door-to-Door Department visited Madison, WI, to record at the 50 Years of PeaceCorps in Africa Conference. Friends María Moreno and Ephrat Livni are two returning Peace Corps volunteers who recorded an interview with us during a break in activities.

María, a Bronx, NY, native and professor in Madison, served in Mauritania, a North African Muslim community in the desert. After spending some time at her site, María rehearsed a comment about the moon in the local language; the moon was to be full that night, which she hoped to bring to everyone’s attention. When evening broke she and her hosts sat watching in awe of the moon’s light. “The United States sent a man there,” she said in her broken dialect and pointing to the moon. Her host father asked, “Now why would they do that?”

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