Kenya – Page 2 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Bob Poole — Recovery of Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park

Jan 22 2023

January 26 at McClaren Hall, Flathead Valley Community College, Paul D. Wachholz College Center will bring Emmy-winning filmmaker Bob Poole to Kalispell, MT • BY MIKE KORDENBROCK January 21,2023 An elephant calf. Photo by Gina Poole An upcoming “National Geographic Live” event at Flathead Valley Community College’s new Wachholz College Center will bring to Kalispell an award-winning filmmaker, with Montana ties, to discuss the story of a national park in Mozambique that has continued to rebound after a prolonged civil war that left the local wildlife population decimated. It’s been a long time since Bob Poole has been to the Flathead Valley’s stretch of northwest Montana, but for the cinematographer and National Geographic speaker, any visit to the state is a reminder of the early years of his career. Poole had an unusual upbringing for an American citizen, in that he grew up abroad. His youth was spent in . . .

Leslie Boby (Kenya) | Southern Regional Extension Forestry Coordinator

Jan 14 2023

Leslie Boby (Kenya 1999-01) is the Coordinator for the Southern Regional Extension Forestry Office (SREF), and has been leading the office since January 2019. Leslie’s work entails facilitating connections and regional programs among the 13 southern land-grant universities, the USDA Forest Service, state forestry agencies and other southern forestry community members. These efforts include education, technology transfer and extension programs that can serve the entire region. She has worked for the SREF office since 2011 and is based at the University of Georgia, in Athens, GA. Leslie has a Masters degree in Forest Ecology from the University of Florida, a Bachelor’s degree in biology from University of Illinois, and is currently pursuing a doctorate at the University of Georgia in Adult Education and Leadership. Prior to joining SREF, Leslie worked in various locations nationwide, and for multiple agencies. She worked for the Audubon Society in California, as a wild . . .

From inner-city Detroit to the Air Force and finally the Peace Corps! — Karen Hunt (Armenia, Ethiopia, Kenya)

Jan 04 2023

My journey from inner-city Detroit to military service and the Peace Corps by Karen Jean Hunt First Published on Peace Corps.gov I was a 7 year old in Detroit when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I can still remember my teacher screaming and crying after hearing the news. The news coverage in Detroit also featured the moment JFK announced the Peace Corps at the University of Michigan. After Kennedy’s death, the idea of serving in the Peace Corps stuck with me. I spent most of my childhood in libraries, a safe space for a young girl in inner-city Detroit. I would often skip school, take public transportation downtown, and spend the day in the public library. It was easy to walk in with a group of school children and go unnoticed. Once inside, I could ditch the group and make my way to the card catalog. . . .

PLANET PALM by Jocelyn C. Zuckerman (Kenya)

Jul 14 2022

Planet Palm: How Palm Oil Ended Up in Everything–and Endangered the World by Jocelyn C. Zuckerman (Kenya 1991-93) The New Press 328 pages May 2021 $14.57 (Kindle); $21.49 (Hardcover); $18.49 (Audio CD) Over the past few decades, palm oil has seeped into every corner of our lives. Worldwide, palm oil production has nearly doubled in just the last decade. Oil-palm plantations now cover an area nearly the size of New Zealand, and some form of the commodity lurks in half the products on U.S. grocery shelves. But the palm oil revolution has been built on stolen land and slave labor; it’s swept away cultures and so devastated the landscapes of Southeast Asia that iconic animals now teeter on the brink of extinction. Fires lit to clear the way for plantations spew carbon emissions to rival those of industrialized nations. James Beard Award–winning journalist Jocelyn C. Zuckerman spent years . . .

Happenstance by Lester M. Fishher (Kenya) [pen name of Lester Klungness]

Jul 09 2022

A bastard boomer negotiates the maze of postwar America. Wrenched from his working single mother, and brought to Camp Pondosa by his grandfather who was Woods Manager for McCloud Rv. Lumber Co. After his WAC mother became an X-ray tech at the McCloud hospital, and acquired a husband, the new family moved to R. A. Long’s “planned city” of Longview, Washington. A shocking change for a country-bumpkin kid. He attended Catholic School in this pretentious mill town with its socially stratified culture of mill workers, overlords and timber barons. Catholic indoctrination led to the Franciscan Seminary. He survived into his 6th year at the college of San Luis Rey, CA, when love won out. This young man left the pursuit of the priestly vocation to pursue the woman he had dated since his fifteenth year. First collegiate in his family, he and his girl entered the daunting halls of . . .

Review — PROJECT NAMAHANA by John Teschner (KENYA)

Jul 05 2022

Project Namahana by John Teschner (Kenya 2003-05) Forge Books 304 pages June 2022 $14,99 (Kindle); $27.99 (Hardback); $17.86 (audiobook) Review by D.W. Jefferson (El Salvador 1974-76) and (Costa Rica 1976-77) • Set on the island of Kaua’i, the fourth largest of the Hawaiian archipelago, this novel starts with the death of three local boys, apparently by drowning. The book is mostly narrated by the two main characters, Micah Bernt, a former military special forces soldier, living on Kaua’i, and Michael Lindstrom, an executive and former lead scientist for the Benevoment Seed Company, living in the Twin Cities. The book includes a lot of conversation in Hawaiian accents. This makes the narrative especially entertaining to read. Author John Teschner spent seven years living on the island of Kaua’i, so his use of Hawaiian words and phrases is authentic. Further, his descriptions of Hawaiian cultural situations adds a great deal to . . .

16 New books by Peace Corps writers — May and June, 2022

Jul 01 2022

To purchase any of these books from Amazon.com — CLICK on the book cover, the bold book title, or the publishing format you would like — and Peace Corps Worldwide, an Amazon Associate, will receive a small remittance from your purchase that will help support the site and the annual Peace Corps Writers awards. We include a brief description for each of the books listed here in hopes of encouraging readers to order a book and/or to VOLUNTEER TO REVIEW IT. See a book you’d like to review for Peace Corps Worldwide? Send a note to Marian at marian@haleybeil.com, and she will send you a copy along with a few instructions. In addition to the books listed below, I have on my shelf a number of other books whose authors would love for you to review. Go to Books Available for Review to see what is on that shelf. Please, please join in our Third Goal . . .

19 New books by Peace Corps writers — March and April, 2022

May 01 2022

To purchase any of these books from Amazon.com — CLICK on the book cover, the bold book title, or the publishing format you would like — and Peace Corps Worldwide, an Amazon Associate, will receive a small remittance from your purchase that will help support the site and the annual Peace Corps Writers awards. We now include a brief description for the books listed here in hopes of encouraging readers 1) to order a book and 2) to VOLUNTEER TO REVIEW IT. See a book you’d like to review for Peace Corps Worldwide? Send a note to Marian at marian@haleybeil.com, and she will send you a copy along with a few instructions. In addition to the books listed below, I have on my shelf a number of other books whose authors would love for you to review. Go to Books Available for Review to see what is on that shelf. Please, please join in our Third Goal . . .

Review — JACKSON’S KENYA by Otto Wiegand (Kenya, Paraguay)

Jan 03 2022

PCV Life in Kenya Jackson’s Kenya: A Peace Corps Story Richard Otto Wiegand (Kenya 1970–74, Paraguay 1977–79) Independently published (www.safari-shamba-books.com), 2020 288 pages $25.00 (paperback), $9.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Robert E. Gribbin (Kenya 1968–70) • I have long been awaiting a good Peace Corps memoir from Kenya. At last, one arrived in author Wiegand’s remembering his years in Kenya in the early 1970s. Otto Wiegand was a dairy expert charged with improving animal husbandry in a half dozen of the Settlement Schemes in the trans-Nzoia region between Eldoret and Kitale. As do most memoirs this one follows a hazy chronological order. The author recounts some events or anecdotes from the ’70s and then updates them with a later observation or comment about how things changed or didn’t. His Kenyan history of what went on around him is broad brushed, and accurate. It is not hard for the reader to . . .

SWAHILI ON THE PRAIRIE – A film by David Goldenberg (Kenya)

Apr 07 2020

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Bob Gribbin (Kenya 1968-70) David Goldenberg (Kenya 1968-70) has produced a documentary film about his training group and service overseas. This training program was one of the last to be done in the U.S. Goldenberg’s film premiered in North Dakota last January because that is where they trained and where it all began. You can find Swahili on the Prairie at Vimeo. After the Peace Corps, David received his PhD from Brown University in anthropology and then had a long career working for (primarily child-focused) NGOs. He worked for Plan International for about 15 years and then was a consultant for Plan, CARE, Save the Children, and other agencies. He started making documentaries about 20 years ago. In the build up to his group’s 50th anniversary in 2018, he decided to make a film about their experience. He traveled around the . . .

“The Other Kristen” by Kristen Roupenian (Kenya)

Feb 18 2019

Thanks for a ‘heads up’ from Bea Hogan (Uzbekistan 1992-94) The Other Kristen Kristen Roupenian joined the Peace Corps to serve her fellow man, but she found herself trying to best the ultimate woman instead. • When I arrived in Kenya as a Peace Corps volunteer (PCV) in 2003, I was the youngest in my group. Life in an unfamiliar culture can be infantilizing: You’re dependent on others to teach you basic skills (this is how you dress, wash, use the toilet), your new language reduces you to baby talk (“Please where bus please?”), and you end the day exhausted by the glut of information your puny brain has taken in. Still, at 21, I was adept at dependence and incompetence, and in this case my expertise served me well. I was assigned to a site in rural western Kenya that was affiliated with an orphans center named . . .

Review — PORTRAITS OF INNOCENCE & SKETCHES OF JOY from Bie Bostrom (Kenya)

Aug 03 2017

Portraits of Innocence: The Children of Ahero Photographs by Bie E. Bostrom (Kenya 2004–06) CreateSpace May 2017 42 pages $20.00* (paperback) Sketches of Joy: Drawings by the Children of Ahero, Kenya Collected by Bie E. Bostrom (Kenya 2004–06) CreateSpace September 2014 114 pages $25.00* (paperback) Review by Leita Kaldi Davis (Senegal 1993-96) • Born in 1941, Bie Bostrom was raised in a family of nine children in Antwerp, Belgium. She trained as a nurse, but she fell in love with photography after her father gave her a camera as a graduation gift. She took a five-year course in photography at an art school in The Netherlands, then went to London for her practical year, where she lived and worked for eight years. In 1977, Bie arrived in San Francisco where she met her husband while looking for a work studio. In 1980 the couple moved to New York and opened . . .

Review: BREVITE´ by Stephen Mustoe (Kenya)

Aug 19 2016

Brevité: A Collection of Short Fiction Stephen Mustoe (Kenya 1983–84) Peace Corps Writers May 2016 132 pages $7.95 (paperback) Reviewed by Jane Albritton (India 1967–69) • MEMORY IS THE CORNERSTONE of Stephen Mustoe’s first collection of short fiction: Brevité. Sometimes the memories seem like they rightly belong to the author, sometimes not. But even when the source remains unclear, the quality of remembrance remains present. As with any collection of short fiction, a reader is likely to come away from the experience with favorites. I have. Actually, I have two favorite sets of stories that stand out from the others: a pair featuring the irrepressible Uncle Woody, and a quartet of stories that draw on Mustoe’s experiences in Africa, both as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya and on later return visits. In “Dogfish Blues” and “Blind Faith,” Mustoe introduces Woody, a veteran Navy flier who knew how to get . . .

New books by Peace Corps writers — April 2016

May 19 2016

To purchase any of these books from Amazon.com — Click on the book cover, the bold book title, or the publishing format you would like — and Peace Corps Worldwide, an Amazon Associate, will receive a small remittance that will help support the site and the annual Peace Corps Writers awards. See a book you’d like to review for Peace Corps Worldwide? — Send a note to peacecorpsworldwide@gmail.com, and we’ll send you a copy along with a few instructions. Moon Colorado Camping: The Complete Guide to Tent and RV Camping (Travel) Joshua Berman (Nicaragua 1998–2000) Avalon Travel Publishing April 2016 350 pages $19.99 (paperback) . • Blood Upon The Snow (A Novel of the American Revolution) Martin R. Ganzglass (Somalia 1966–68) A Peace Corps Writers Book March, 2016 344 pages $14.95 (paperback), $3.99 (Kindle) • Lips Open and Divine (poetry) Matthew A. Hamilton (Armenia 2006–08; Philippines 2008–10) Winter Goose Publishing April . . .

Christopher West Davis (Kenya) publishes AFRICAN WITCH

Feb 17 2016

Christopher West Davis (Kenya 1975-78) is a journalist who lived in Kenya and now lives and works in the New York City at the China Daily. He has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Reader’s Digest and other publications. In 2005, he was named Aerospace Journalist of the Year by the Royal Aeronautical Society (London). Katherine Stirling of The New Yorker called his previous book, Letters from Moritz Thomsen, “An utterly engrossing story… these marvelous letters and the attendant chronicle of the relationship that developed over their course is a story that is at once fascinating and quite moving, a hard balance to strike, in writing as in life.” Chris has a new book, a novel, entitled African Witch: A Modern Tale of Magical Harm. The write-up on Amazon for the book is: Kenya in its golden age, the safest, sexiest and most wildly popular playground in Africa. . . .