Archive - May 9, 2013

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Molly Melching (Senegal 1976-79) Changing Minds in Senegal to Protect Girls From Genital Cutting
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Review of Eugene T. Caruso (Malawi 1990-92) This Is Africa: Peace Corps Malawi and The Liberian Civil War
3
Film On Baseball and Political Turmoil in Manipur, India

Molly Melching (Senegal 1976-79) Changing Minds in Senegal to Protect Girls From Genital Cutting

[I caught this program tonight, Thursday, May 9, 2013, on the PBS News Hour….if you can, catch it. And, read this account. Now here is an RPCV still at work in her host country. She is amazing, and she is making amazing progress.] Changing Minds in Senegal to Protect Girls From Genital Cutting] By: Fred de Sam Lazaro  NewsHour special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro asks Molly Melching about her efforts to educate Senegalese women about the harms of genital cutting. Molly Melching didn’t think she had much more than curiosity — and a love of the French language — when she ventured off soon after college for Senegal. It turns out that this product of a conservative Midwestern Lutheran upbringing may have brought exactly the qualities and experiences needed to help engineer one of the most sweeping shifts in social norms and behavior in history. Her organization, Tostan, has . . .

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Review of Eugene T. Caruso (Malawi 1990-92) This Is Africa: Peace Corps Malawi and The Liberian Civil War

This is Africa: Peace Corps Malawi and the Liberian Civil War by Eugene T. Caruso (Malawi 1990–92) CreateSpace $9.99 120 pages 2013   Reviewed by Jack Allison (Malawi 1966-69) Perhaps an ambitious title for such a short book which documents the author’s adventures as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malawi which began in late 1990, then on to Liberia in early 1994 with the United Nations. Since I was posted as a PCV just seven miles north of Balaka (1967-68-69), I resonated with many of his experiences, including our both having suffered through two bouts of malaria. The first 102 pages of this 120 page book reveal Caruso’s reflections on Malawian culture, including his introduction to Chichewa, the national language; locally available foods, such as nsima, the national staple made from maize flour; his newly found joy of walking (“Malawi provided me with an appreciation of walking during the time . . .

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Film On Baseball and Political Turmoil in Manipur, India

[This documentary film was shown the other evening at the Asian Film Festival in New York City. The film was done by a good friend, Mirra Bank, and my wife, the Executive Editor of MORE magazine, later interviewed Mirra for the MORE website. I thought that the RPCV Community, especially PCV who served in India, would like to know about the film, and would enjoy reading the interview.] One Woman’s Power of Persistence Award-winning director Mirra Bank heard about the plight of a people halfway around the world and decided she wanted to help-but it took six years. Here, the story of what she did, the film she made (“The Only Real Game”), the obstacles she overcame…and how you can help now by Judith Coyne Devika, a mother in Manipur, India, hopes to support her family by becoming a baseball coach.Photograph: Axel Baumann for Baseball Dreams, LLC More: The film, The Only . . .

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