Peter Kilmarx was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bakwa Tombe, Kasai Occidental, from 1984-1986, helping farmers build fish farms. His experiences there led him to a life in medicine and several return visits to the DRC to help with HIV and Ebola. Today he is a highly regarded global health expert and deputy director of the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health.
In this first-person piece in the Journal of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Kilmarx writes about a lifelong passion for public health born in his Peace Corps village and how one text message from the ceremonial chief of his village brought him back to Congo yet again.
