Michael Metrinko

The villager sitting next to me suddenly started speaking English. And I looked at him, I mean he was truly a villager, and I said, ‘Where did you learn to speak English.’ ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘years ago, before all the trouble, we had an American Peace Corps teacher here. -Metrinko

Scouting Tour

Alerted by cable that Peace Corps Director Gaddy Vasquez would visit Kabul just months into the post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan, Michael Metrinko cabled back, advising Washington against the trip.

But the Peace Corps declared the visit essential. The agency needed to address a developing White House initiative to get volunteers into the country. President George W. Bush had proposed doubling the program in his State of the Union address.

Vasquez came and, like all the diplomats at Post, slept in an underground bomb shelter during his stay. For all that, Metrinko, a five-year Peace Corps veteran and Iran hostage crisis survivor, gave Vasquez the best visit of his life.

First they dropped in on the taciturn interim Finance Minister and future President, Ashraf Ghani, and the room swelled with nostalgia. Ghani steeped his audience in recollections of learning English and basketball from a Peace Corps Volunteer at Kabul’s prestigious Habibia High School and other interactions with adventurous Americans in his youth.

That scene played out twice more during Vasquez’s visit with two other government ministers, all recalling the impact Volunteers had had on their lives and Afghan society.

Like something from the sky

“In the middle of nowhere, in Farah province on the Iranian border, 2005, sitting with villagers and a bunch of American soldiers—we were going to spend the night in the poppy field—the villager sitting next to me suddenly started speaking English. And I looked at him, I mean he was truly a villager, and I said, ‘Where did you learn to speak English.’

“‘Oh,’ he said, ‘years ago, before all the trouble, we had an American Peace Corps teacher here. I understand he became a diplomat later. His name was David. And his wife was Elizabeth.’

“And the whole group of villagers started regaling me with stories about David and the time his car got stuck in the river… For them, he had been like something from the sky.”

-Metrinko

Read more from Metrinko’s oral history with the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training:

Full Career

To follow Metrinko’s and other diplomats’ stories from the forthcoming Profiles in Service, consider subscribing below. And please share your thoughts in the comments section. Thank you.

##