2014 – Page 3 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Review: Dancing with Gogos by Gary Cornelius (South Africa 2012-13)

Nov 13 2014

Dancing with Gogos: A Peace Corps Memoir By Gary P. Cornelius Peace Corps Writers 280 pages 2014 $13.00 (paperback) Reviewed by Jack Allison (Malawi 1966-69) • Gary Cornelius has written an inviting Peace Corps memoir in minute detail, interspersed with cogent quotes and anecdotes, including entries from his blog posts. This is a fresh and refreshing saga, for Cornelius served from 2012 to 2013, and the book was published in 2014. Unfortunately, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease which resulted in his early departure from South Africa with one year remaining on his term of service. Because this issue was introduced early on in the book, it created tension about what he would accomplish in one year after in-country training. Cornelius had wanted to join the Peace Corps for 40 years prior, even after two rejections due to pre-existing medical issues. He was also an older Volunteer — he was . . .

Amazon and Hachette Resolve Dispute

Nov 13 2014

By DAVID STREITFELDNOV. 13, 2014 New York Times Amazon and Hachette announced Thursday morning that they have resolved their differences and signed a new multiyear contract, bringing to an official end one of the most bitter publishing conflicts in recent years. Neither side gave details of the deal, but both pronounced themselves happy with the terms. Hachette gets the ability to set the prices on its e-books, which was a major battleground in the dispute. “This is great news for writers,” said Michael Pietsch, Hachette’s chief executive. “The new agreement will benefit Hachette authors for years to come. It gives Hachette enormous marketing capability with one of our most important bookselling partners.” An Amazon executive, David Naggar, said Amazon was “pleased with this new agreement as it includes specific financial incentives for Hachette to deliver lower prices, which we believe will be a great win for readers and authors alike.” The agreement . . .

The Peace Corps and America's Most Serendipitous Man: Harris Wofford

Nov 10 2014

The November 2014 special issue of the New Republic is their anniversary issue (One Hundred Years of Politics & The Arts) that features articles on America’s great and infamous, and has much to my delight (and to all of us who were with him in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia) an article written by Jason Zengerle, the senior editor at The New Republic entitled, “Wofford Was Here: The Twentieth Century’s most Serendipitous Man.” Spotting it today when the magazine arrived in the mail I thought: Well, it’s about time. There are two photographs, one of Harris with Kennedy on the White House lawn greeting PCVs training in Washington, D.C. in the summer of ’62. (Those PCVs just happen to be the Ethiopia I Volunteers) and another photograph of Harris and his wife Clare and Bill Clinton and Al Gore in the Oval Office. The article charts Wofford’s long life, some . . .

Mark Jacobs (Paraguay 1978-80) Publishes Three New Short Stories

Nov 10 2014

“Antidote,” in The Dr. T.J. Eckleburg Review (they also asked for an essay about writing the story, which he sent them); “A Lonely Man Talks to His Pig,” in Superstition Review; “Guinevere,” Chagrin River Review Mark Jacobs (Paraguay 1978-80) is a former U.S. Foreign Service officer who has published more than 100 stories in magazines including The Atlantic, The Southern Humanities Review, The Idaho Review, The Southern Review, and The Kenyon Review. His story “How Birds Communicate” won The Iowa Review fiction prize. His five books include A Handful of Kings, published by Simon and Shuster, and Stone Cowboy, by Soho Press, which won the Peace Corps Writers Maria Thomas Award. His website can be found at http://www.markjacobsauthor.com.

Then and Now: Truth, The Peace Corps Numbers Game, and a Conscientious staffer, RPCV Marian Haley Beil

Nov 09 2014

Are Peace Corps applications really at an historic high? Well not exactly. They are evidently the highest since data was kept electronically, beginning in the late 90s. It has always been a numbers game and one brave RPCV staffer refused to play it. Long before Marian Haley Beil (Ethopia I 62-64) was publisher of Peace Corps Worldwide and before she partnered with John Coyne to promote Peace Corps Writers through newsletters and websites, she was one of the first women staffers at Peace Corps Washington From 11/1965 to 12/1969 Marian worked at the Peace Corps in the Reports and Special Studies Branch (cleverly named by her boss – RSS! These are the initials for Robert Sargent Shriver, Director of the Peace Corps, then ) of the Office of Volunteer Support, first as Deputy Chief of the branch and later as Chief. Among other things, the branch was responsible for all reporting . . .

Lenore Myka (Romania 1994-96) author of forthcoming King of the Gypsies

Nov 05 2014

Lenore Myka (Romania 1994-96) is the author of King of the Gypsies: Stories, winner of the 2014 G.S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction, which will be published by BkMk Press in Fall 2015. Her fiction has also been selected as distinguished by The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Non-Required Reading series. Her award-winning work has appeared in New England Review, Iowa Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, West Branch, Colorado Review Online, Booth Journal, and Massachusetts Review, among others. She received her MFA in Fiction from Warren Wilson College. Learn more about Lenore at www.lenoremyka.com. Lenore taught English in Romania and this book grew out of that experience. Lenore writes that the stories involve a gypsy boy victimized by Romania’s notorious state-run orphanage system flees, determined to reunite with the parents who abandoned him. A child prostitute cajoles her way into the heart of an American aid worker, risking their friendship for . . .

David Hapgood (PC Evaluator 1962-65) Dies in Manhattan

Nov 04 2014

Thanks to an alert from Kitty Thuermer (Mali 1977-79) I’ve learned that David Hapgood, one of the legendary early evaluators of the Peace Corps has passed away in New York. Hapgood co-authored the first inside Peace Corps books on the agency, Agents of Change: A Close Look at the Peace Corps. It was written with another evaluator, Meridan Bennett. In their acknowledgments they state that: “This book is anything but official,” and then go onto praise their boss, Charlie Peters, who headed the Peace Corps Division of Evaluation from 1962 to the spring of 1968. As they write, “The unique process of self-criticism known in the Peace Corps as evaluation would never have existed without Charlie Peters’ courage and imagination.” Hapgood and Bennett’s book was published by Little, Brown & Company in 1968. I always enjoyed that the book was dedicated to “H.C.N. Without whom this book would never have . . .

Rereading Paul Theroux's (Malawi 1963-65) Girls At Play, Part III

Nov 03 2014

What strikes me now rereading Girls At Play is how Theroux did not linger with prose on the beauty of Africa, as he has quite wonderfully uses his evocative skills in other books and essays. In those early books he does not wax and wane as RPCV writers tend to do (including myself) on descriptions of the landscape. In those three novels, he was more interested in the play of personalities in Africa than the lay of the land. Theroux’s third novel on Africa is Jungle Lovers which focuses on Malawi, looking at the changing political and social climate of the country. It came about because of what happened to him when he was teaching at the university in Kampala. “Jungle Lovers was the result of my departure from Africa,” Paul writes. “In 1968, after five years in Malawi and Uganda, my wife and I were attacked by rioting students . . .

Rereading Paul Theroux's (Malawi 1963-65) Girls At Play, Part II

Nov 02 2014

Theroux’s first novel Waldo was a picaresque story of a young man who became a success as a writer. It sold around 4000 copies, which was impressive for a first novel, but did not generate enough money for Theroux to quit his day job. His second novel Fong and the Indians, was the first of many “African books” and it was his first book (of many) that dealt with the complexities of a changing Africa. The protagonist was a bungling anti-hero, Sam Fong, a Chinese Catholic grocer. It, too, had limited sales and while it had good reviews, especially in England, it didn’t make any best seller lists. Then came Girls at Play a year later. Paul would write about writing Girls at Play: “My future wife taught at a girls’ school in Kenya. While I was writing (Fong and the Indians), I courted her by driving hundreds of miles . . .

Peace Corps Update for RPCVs

Nov 01 2014

Thank you to John Coyne for forwarding the following Peace Corps Update designed specifically for RPCVs. I believe that it is published through the Office of the Third Goal. The webpage has a menu specifically designed to link RPCVs to more information. Here is the link to view that entire webpage: http://www.mailoutinteractive.com/Industry/View.aspx?id=626719&q=799195384&qz=899601 Of real interest to RPCVs might well be the description of the positions open with Peace Corps Response. Scroll down to that heading. Much of this information can be found in other parts of the official Peace Corps website. However, this Update is designed specifically for RPCVs and includes the personal letter from Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet. At first glance, I am not sure how much of an incentive the loan program would have to those RPCVs struggling with gigantic student loan debt. The plan appears to require 120 payments be made first. I think that is ten years. . . .

Rereading Paul Theroux's (Malawi 1963-65) Girls At Play

Nov 01 2014

I have been working my way through a new collecting of short stories by Paul Theroux, Mr. Bones: Twenty Stories, which Houghton Mifflin Harcourt published this September. Only one of the stories (so far) relates to his time in Africa. It is entitled, “I’m the Meat, You’re the Knife.” It is the last story in the collection. (Writers–or perhaps their editors–) selected the best stories for the first and last ones in any collection. I first read Girls At Play in the late Sixties. This novel was his third. His first book was Waldo (1967), next three were set in Africa. Fong and the Indians (1968), Girls at Play (1969), and Jungle Lovers (1971). At the time, I remember reviewers were saying Theroux was ‘writing too fast,’ that he should slow down his publishing. At the same time Saturday Review called Fong and the Indians “a small masterpiece.” (If he . . .

New books by Peace Corps writers — October 2014

Nov 01 2014

Rush of Shadows (Historical Fiction) by Catherine Bell (Brazil 1966–68) Washington Writers Publishing House October 2014 384 pages $17.95 (paperback) • Outpost: Life on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy (Peace Corps Memoir) by Christopher R. Hill (Cameroon 1974–76) Simon & Schuster October 2014 448 pages $30.00 (hardcover), $12.74 (Kindle) • Love & Ordinary Creatures (Novel) by Gwyn Hyman Rubio (Costa Rica 1971–73) Ashland Creek Press 306 pages October 2014 $17.95 (paperback) • Mr. Bones: Twenty Stories by Paul Theroux (Malawi Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 368 pages September 2014 $27.00 (hardcover), $14.85 (Kindle) • A Man Named Jay: the true story of a boy who died and the man who lived (Children) by Damian Wampler (Kyrgyzstan) CreateSpace 70 pages January 2014 •

Peace Corps helps CDC team in Liberia

Oct 29 2014

The Washington Post reports that the Peace Corps’ local network in Liberia helped the CDC begin its ebola fighting efforts. Here is the link to the article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/us-ebola-fighters-head-to-africa-but-will-the-military-and-civilian-effort-be-enough/2014/10/25/1ceba6a8-5b99-11e4-8264-deed989ae9a2_story.html Thanks to the National Peace Corps Association for posting the information about the Washington Post article on their Facebook page. From that article, read the following: Greg Thorne, the deputy team leader for the CDC in Liberia, wrote to Peace Corps Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet this past week, thanking the agency for smoothing the path for American public health workers in the county of Gbarpolu. “We, the CDC team members, entered Gbarpolu as strangers,” Thorne wrote. “Carried by community goodwill . . . and connected by our Peace Corps colleague’s extensive local network, we were able to rapidly integrate with the county leadership and earn the trust necessary for them to openly discuss challenges and take our suggestions to heart.” The Peace Corps staffers have . . .

Positions Peace Corps Could Not Fill as of 9.30.13

Oct 27 2014

Peace Corps applications were at an historic low for 2013. A campaign to increase applications for 2014 was successfully. It is not known how this will translate into serving Volunteers. It is possible, however, to look at the consequences of the lack of an adequate number of applications for 2013. The Peace Corps Performance and Accountability Report Fiscal Year 2013 reported “The number of applications has produced challenge in meeting the demand for skilled Volunteers at the quantity requested by posts.” Peace Corps does not include comprehensive demographic statistics in its annual reports. To obtain this information, it was necessary to make a FOIA request. The request was made on July 14, 2014 and this information was not received until October 22rd. It is not known if some or all of these positions were filled in 2014. Absent current data, it is difficult to know exactly what is happening with . . .

Frank Mankiewicz, political and media insider, dies at 90

Oct 24 2014

“I hooked up with Sarge in some motel room in El Paso. Fletcher Knebel was there. Bill Haddad was there. Everyone was totally charged up. Shriver and Haddad closed in on me: You’re going to Peru–right?” And finally I said it: ‘Yeah.’ After a lot of whooping and backslapping and shouts of ‘t’rrfic,’ Sarge turned to me as he was leaving and asked, ‘Hey, don’t you want to know what the job pays?’ Somewhat embarrassed, Mankiewicz replied, “Wellll, yeah, I guess so. I mean, sure. How much does it pay?’ “I haven’t the foggiest idea,” said Shriver with a great cackle. A month later, in September 1961, Mankiewicz joined Shriver in Lima, Peru, on the first leg of Shriver’s first sweep through Latin America to put Peace Corps programs in place. From Come As You Are by Coates Redmon Washington Post by Adam Bernstein Frank Mankiewicz, who came from a . . .

Archive - 2014