Mailbox of peace

Amer ica Hot Issue Mai lbox of Peace 138 139 Korea Foundation & US Peace Corps KF COVID-19 Survival Box Gratitude Letter Col lection On winter mornings , Ms . Nathan broke the ice in a plastic container in order to wash . Her school was a sad and drafty place where classrooms were heated by a single charcoal stove . ​“ I began to feel uncomfortably cold so that when I was not teaching , I regu- larly followed the circling sun as it flooded through the windows around the school building ,” she said . “ Even when it was very cold , students did not wear coats to school or to morning assemblies , and probably no one had a coat .” But Ms . Nathan developed strong emotional ties with her students , who were eager to learn English . She once took a poor and sickly girl to an American military doctor for treatment for intestinal parasites , a common problem in Korea back then . The girl ’ s mother later arrived at the school and presented Ms . Nathan with several warm eggs , soft gray feathers still attached . “ The eggs , which I am sure my student and her mother themselves needed , expressed such gratitude that I was close to tears ,” she said . The irony of the reversal of fortunes during the pandemic did not escape her . South Ko- rea continues to keep the coronavirus largely under control , thanks in part to its aggressive contact tracing . Although it has recently faced a small rise in infections , it is nothing compared to what is happening in the United States , where Gov . Andrew M . Cuomo of New York has announced harsh new re- strictions in Ms . Nathan ’ s home state . In August , she received the offer from the Korea Foundation to send her the gift box ​. She accepted , wondering ​ if it was merely a public relations stunt for the Korean government . “ I did not think much about it until the box arrived on Saturday , November 7 , ironically the day that the U . S . presidential election was called for Joe Biden ,” she wrote . Ms . Nathan said she delayed opening the package for about a week because she wanted to preserve the wonderful feeling that it gave her . ​ In addition to the masks , the box also included gloves , skin - care products , ginseng candies , a silk fan and two sets of silver chopsticks and spoons with the traditional Korean turtle design . The New York Times article “ Thanks in no small part to the help received from the Peace Corps ,” the Ko- rea Foundation ’ s president , Lee Geun , said in a letter in the box , “ Korea has since achieved an economic breakthrough .” Ms . Nathan joined the Peace Corps after graduating from the University of Chicago . She was among the first volunteers to arrive in South Korea and was assigned to Chunchon , in the north , where she taught English at a local high school . She was 21 . The country around Chunchon was beautiful . Its pine trees were graceful , and azaleas covered its hills in spring . But most of the streets were dirt roads . Children went outside without shoes . After dark , Ms . Nathan could hear rats running across ceilings . Plumbing was generally nonexistent . “ An ongoing debate among volunteers was whether Time or Newsweek was more absorbent ,” Ms . Nathan said ​ in an email interview . “ Toilet paper was un- available .”​ Both magazines came with pages blacked out by ​ government censors . Crude anti - communist propaganda was everywhere . During her stay in South Korea , North Korea captured a U . S . Navy ship , the Pueblo , off its coast and sent armed commandos across the border to attack the South Korean presidential palace . The care package from South Korea that Ms. Nathan received. © via Sandra Nathan “ I am a practical person, not usually given to ideas unfounded by fact,” wrote Ms. Nathan. “But there was definitely something magical about the box.”