Peace Corps Volunteer Scarred by Memories : Central Asia: Woman tells of being raped, robbed and brutalized shortly after her arrival in Uzbekistan.

Kathleen Cummings expected to still be overseas in the Peace Corps, helping build businesses and bolster the hopes of people worn down by decades of communism.

Instead, she is in New Hampshire where she has just taken her second and final AIDS test--a grim reminder of the rape and beating she suffered last fall, six weeks into her stint in the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan.

“I remember screaming and yelling, saying I was an American. It made no difference,” said Cummings, 35.

She and other volunteers said the Peace Corps failed to prepare them for living in the male-dominated Muslim society of the Central Asian nation.

Cummings, who is no longer in the Peace Corps, decided to tell her story publicly because she wants people who may visit Uzbekistan to know there are dangers.

“I could never forgive myself if someone is killed over there, and that’s what I see happening,” she said.

Her ordeal began when a disagreement with another Peace Corps volunteer at a party led her to leave for her home in Samarkand alone--a decision she acknowledges was a mistake.

Minutes from her home, she was grabbed by three young men who struggled to pull her toward a ditch. She broke free and ran into the arms of a young couple walking by.

Her “rescuers” took her to their home, held her against her will and stole her jewelry. She promised to get them more money if they walked her home, then bolted en route.

A police officer she encountered refused to leave his post. Instead, he turned her over to the first man they saw. Her would-be guide to the police station raped her and fractured her skull.

Police finally arrived to help her, and she was flown by air ambulance to Washington. She never returned.

The Peace Corps and Uzbek police worked together to catch the robbers and the rapist. The rapist was prosecuted and sentenced to five years confinement in a penal colony.

The Peace Corps moved quickly into Uzbekistan and other Central Asian states after the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of 1991. Cummings believes the rush was costly not only to her and other volunteers, but to the agency.

“It’s never been my intention to run down the Peace Corps, but I do see that within this humanitarian organization these are programs which appear to have lost sight of the Peace Corps mission,” she said.

Cummings said the program failed her in many ways. She received no self-defense training, for one.

“There was that one instance where I couldn’t hurt that man. I was on the ground, he was holding my hair and I was trying to kick him, but couldn’t,” she said. “I remember thinking, this is really happening to me; this is the end.”

She said the Peace Corps never taught her to say “help” in the Uzbek language, and her cries, though heard by others, were ignored.

Many of the women Peace Corps volunteers have suffered sexual harassment--at least one other woman was raped--and Uzbeks have been suspicious of all the Americans.

“They never should have sent us,” Cummings said. “They acknowledged it was a known hostile environment.”

The Peace Corps regional director, Fred O’Regan, said volunteers generally are not taught self-defense techniques, because resistance can sometimes result in worse harm for victims. He said the word “help” may have been included in language classes, but Cummings may not have been there long enough to learn it.

O’Regan said volunteers learn the culture and language by living with Uzbek families.

“We think those types of introductions to communities, being known in communities, setting up attachments, is the best preparation we can give,” he said.

The problems have hurt the aid program. Of the first group of volunteers, half quit during the first year. Several from Cummings’ group, the second, also left.

Cummings said some volunteers in her group had heard rumors of attacks on the first group, but the Peace Corps refused to confirm them.

O’Regan, who acknowledged there are problems with safety and security in Uzbekistan, said assaults are kept confidential to protect the privacy of volunteers. But volunteers are given handbooks filled with comments from previous volunteers on the safety and problems in the country, he said.

“I’m very confident all the trainees of this group were well instructed,” said O’Regan, who stressed that trainees were instructed not to go out alone at night. “If somebody chooses not to follow the guidelines set up in training, there’s frankly only so much Peace Corps could do.”

Gabby Rafferty, a 73-year-old volunteer who returned to Rock Island, Ill., after a few months because of stress, agreed that women volunteers were given some basic rules, such as staying off streets at night and wearing long skirts.

But, she added, “They were told on the basis of this is a different culture and this was a different religion. That wasn’t enough. They needed to be told, ‘You will be in danger if you do not conform.’ I think they should have scared the hell out of us.”

O’Regan said the Peace Corps has acted to improve the Uzbekistan program since Cummings left, and there have been no recent reports of assaults.

Cummings was still in training in the city of Samarkand the night of her ordeal. As she recounted it, she twisted her mother’s wedding ring, which she wears on her thumb. The ring, stolen that night, was returned a couple of months after the attack.

Cummings groped for her words, speaking slowly and pausing often. She often stopped midsentence and started over when describing her feelings of that night.

Still, she says she believes in the Peace Corps and would have gone on to an assignment in Bolivia had the agency not insisted she get further counseling and treatment.

In search of a fresh start, Cummings moved to Dover, where she is looking for a job outside the Peace Corps.

“My career intentions have kind of gone poof in my face,” she said sadly.

Cummings tries not to be emotional when she talks about that night.

“But obviously it’s not gone,” she said. “There’s still nights where I have to wake up and think about it.”