He was driven by a deeply personal mission: his mother Lillian had worked in the village as a Peace Corps volunteer in the late 1960s.
The dilapidated mansion where Lillian stayed during her time there no longer exists. It was torn down around 15 years ago to make way for a concrete two-storey structure with a line of tiny shops on its ground floor.
Little else from that era survives in Carterpuri, which now has a population of roughly 5,000.
The village council office where Carter and his wife Eleanor Rosalynn Carter were feted while bedecked in traditional headgear, is now a community health centre.
Nonetheless, Carter’s visit remains firmly imprinted in the memory of Carterpuri’s old-timers.
“I was a little boy then but I remember everything,” said 62-year-old Motiram, who goes by one name.
His recollections include Carter smoking tobacco from a hookah and waving at the eager children who looked from the rooftops as he took a tour of the village.
