Interview with Mark David Luce, January 17, 2023

Interview Summary

Mark Luce Afghanistan; 1971 – 1973, TEFL. Mark was in graduate school studying the “classics” at Kansas University when he and his wife applied to the Peace Corps. They attended a PRIST before being accepted to a TEFL project in Afghanistan. Pre-Service Training was in Kabul with a teaching practicum in Jalalabad, cut short because of killings at the school. Mark was taught conversational Dari (Farsi). He was assigned to Lycée Sana’a, named after a Sufi poet, in the provincial city of Ghazni. He taught six English classes of 60+ students five days a week for 10th through 12th grades. The girls’ school was Malalai named after a female Afghan heroine. Ghazni was a sleepy city of 10K principally engaged in agriculture and livestock. Travel around the country was easy with only a few dangerous areas. Mark did hitchhike from Gul Bahar to Kunduz. Mark described his house, various functional items, and trades people. He also described his school’s materials, operations, and culture. Mark was selected to be one of 24 international election monitors by the UN for the Emergency Loya Jirga in 2002.

Interview Keyword

Airforce dependent Libya Whellus Dependents High School Kaddafi coup B.A. history classics: language Kansas University graduate school Xenophanes Arrian classical writers Greg Kopp recruiter Afzal house boy application PRIST Chicago Staging Philadelphia Caravans Michner Kabul Pre-Service Training Dari Farsi Pashtu Persian languages Jalalabad practicum site Marty Komorek XC instructor Ghazni work site Lycée Sana’a high school Malalai girl’s school Mu’alim Sahib teacher Omeri principal corporal punishment book guardians Islamists secularists gaudi horse carriage saq-ow water carrier jooey water channel chaharpoy bed bokhari wood burning stove naanwai bread baker Pakhsa building material toshak cushions goleems satrangees carpets naddof cotton fluffer buriya woven reed mats Nuristan Paktia Khost Gardez dangerous areas Islam Paktika new province Abdul Mateen Rahim Ghaznawi Moqim Rahmanzai Peace Corps staff Tajwal Aziz Noor Sher brothers tutored Peshawar Paul Sprachman previous PCV coup d’état Russian invasion Mujahideen Emergency Loya Jirga post-Taliban elections

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