Peace Corps Worldwide – promoting Peace Corps writers since 1989

Review | AFRICA OPENED MY HEART by Julia Dreyer Wang (Benin)

Oct 05 2024

Africa Opened My Heart: A Memoir Julia Dreyer Wang (Benin 2012-14) Native Book Publishing August 2024 341 pages $19.99 (paperback), $3o.00 (Hardcover), $4.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Karen Chaffraix Waller (Senegal, Agroforestry, 2012- 14) . . . In Africa Opened My Heart Julie Wang takes the reader on a journey into deepest Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer. But unlike most of us who engage in this two-year mission, she fell in love with a native and put down roots on the continent. She built a family and a house and a thriving foundation that continues to change lives. She is now in her 70’s, white, monied, and brave. Wang’s story is woven with insights and confessions. She tells us why she went and why she stays, all the while illuminating the malevolency of the world’s black/white divide with its inherent contradictions and evils. She illustrates the discernable difference between . . .

Bob Shacochis (Caribbean) writes about Peace Corps Writers

Oct 04 2024

Bob Shacochis (Eastern Caribbean 1975-76) pinpoints how Peace Corps writers are in step with great writers from previous generations. “We are torchbearers of a vital tradition — that of shedding light in the mythical heart of darkness. We are descendants of Joseph Conrad, Mark Twain, George Orwell, Graham Greene, Somerset Maugham, Ernest Hemingway, and scores of other men and women, expatriates and travel writers and wanderers, who have enriched our domestic literature with the spices of Cathay, who have tried to communicate the ‘exotic’ as a relative, rather than an absolute, quality of humanity.” What America has gained through the writings of these Volunteers are methods of understanding the parts of the world and the cultures most Americans never see. By writing about the developing world and emerging democracies, Peace Corps Writers have broadened the landscape of American literature, enriching the national cannon with internationally flavored prose and poetry. . . .

Transition of Peace Corps Worldwide Website

Oct 01 2024

Marian Haley Beil and I have been writing about changes and developments in the Peace Corps, as well as, noting the publication of articles, essays and books by RPCVs for over 35 years. We have also reported on what the agency and Volunteers are doing worldwide. These are our efforts, we believe, at the heart of the Third Goal — to “bring the world back home.” Who does what Marian, as the publisher, edits, designs, and distributes the site. In the days of our printed newsletters, she also arranged printing and mailing. Now that we are online she has designed our site (with the great help of her son), and maintains a number of databases including one for 680 Peace Corps experience books, and another for more than 1900 Peace Corps authors. I am primarily focused on finding out what RPCVs are doing since their tours and using our . . .

PHS graduate departs to Colombia with Peace Corps

Oct 01 2024

PCV in the news — By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff 05:37PM / Sunday, September 29, 2024Print Story | Email Story PITTSFIELD, Mass. — A 2018 Pittsfield High School graduate is dedicating her next couple of years to service in the Peace Corps. Earlier this month, 24-year-old Kennedy Merriam departed to Colombia where she will serve as a co-English teacher for two years. She found her voice while studying Spanish in Pittsfield Public Schools and has made a career of it. “I feel like right now, there is no better time than for me to give back and to learn from others, to work with others, and I think my biggest reason to serve would be to be able to grow myself with helping others but also having others help me grow and expand my knowledge, my beliefs,” she said. “It all narrows back to that word of giving back. I . . .

RPCVs Return to Hawaii After 60 Years

Sep 30 2024

Former Peace Corps Volunteers return to Hawaii after 60 years By John Burnett Hawaii Tribune-Herald Today The cohort of about 100 completed training on the island before deploying to Malaysia, some as teachers, others as nurses and all with a mindset to make the world a better place, one community at a time. A dozen or so of those people, now in their 80s, returned to the island with family members to reminisce. The Hawaii Tribune-Herald talked to four of them at the Grand Naniloa Hotel Hilo. “The Peace Corps, I would say, was at the height of its popularity, a couple of years after (President John F.) Kennedy got it started,” said John Knopp of Milwaukee, who volunteered as a secondary school biology and chemistry teacher. “We were part of a massive positive response to that idea. I think most of us were freshly graduated from college as . . .

Shay Youngblood (Dominican Republic) Shook the Mess Out of Misery

Sep 29 2024

Obituary — Celebrated author and playwright RPCV Shay Youngblood (Dominica 1981-83) died of ovarian cancer on June 11 in Peachtree City, Ga. She was 64. Born Sharon Ellen Youngblood in Columbus, Ga., in 1959, Youngblood penned novels, poetry, children’s books, and plays, creating powerful Southern Black women characters who were unapologetically self-possessed and free in ways not typically seen in women characters in general, and Black women in particular, in the U.S. Following the death of her mother when she was 2 years old, Youngblood was raised by her maternal grandmother and great-grandmother. Youngblood credited her upbringing by her grandmothers and their tight-knit circle of friends for shaping and molding her worldview on relationships, society, power, and identity; they and a group of their friends influenced the characters she wrote. Shay also mirrored the close-knit community she grew up in by becoming part of a circle of Black women . . .

Peace Corps Volunteers return to El Salvador

Sep 28 2024

The Peace Corps — The first US Peace Corps Volunteers return to El Salvador since leaving in 2016 because of violence SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) — U.S. Peace Corps volunteers returned to El Salvador Friday for the first time since the American force left in 2016 because of violence in the Central American country. It was the latest sign of a thaw in U.S. relations with El Salvador, whose President Nayib Bukele was once shunned because of his harsh crackdown on street gangs. It was also a sign of how much Bukele’s widespread arrests of suspected gang members – which also jailed a considerable number of apparently innocent young men – has reduced the country’s once-fearsome homicide rate. The Peace Corps said the first nine volunteers would work on community economic development, education, and youth initiatives. All nine had previously worked two-year stints in other Central American . . .

Novelist, teacher, and founder of “Dangerous Writing‘ Tom Spanbauer dies at 78 (Kenya)

Sep 27 2024

Obituary — Tom Spanbauer (Kenya 1969-71) author of The Man Who Fell In Love With The Moon [1991] and I Loved you More, died September 21, in Portland, following a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. Spanbauer was born in Pocatello, Idaho, in 1946. After waiting tables while earning his MFA from Columbia University in 1988, he served two years in the Peace Corps in Kenya, then lived across the United States before moving to Portland in 1991, shortly after publication of his cult classic The Man Who Fell in Love With The Moon. His other novels include Faraway Places, In the City of Shy Hunters, I Loved You More, and Now Is the Hour. His books explore issues of race, sexual identity, and making a family of choice. In Portland, he founded the “Dangerous Writing” workshop from his home. The workshop, which spanned three decades, left a line of enthusiastic students. “It is a terrifying thing to . . .

MALINDY’S FREEDOM by Theresa Delsoin (Samoa)

Sep 27 2024

A new book – Malindy’s Freedom: The Story of a Slave Family by Mildred Johnson & Theresa Delsoin (Samoa 2004-06) Missouri Historical Society Press May 2005 220 pages $22.50 (Hardcover) This is an account of the years 1820 to 1865 in the life of Malindy, a freeborn Cherokee who was unlawfully enslaved as a child by a Franklin County, Missouri, farmer. Married to a freedman, Malindy gave birth to five children in slavery–creating a family she would fight her whole life to keep together. As a testament to Malindy’s iron will, her great-granddaughters Mildred Johnson and Theresa Delsoin have lived to share the story passed on through their family for generations–a story of courage, conviction, and love. In Malindy’s Freedom, Johnson and Delsoin construct a narrative that realistically re-creates Malindy’s world–the individuals she encountered, the crucibles she faced, the battles she won. The authors relied principally on census records, . . .

Deborah Reid (Mexico) | Building a Healthy Soil to Reduce Climate Change

Sep 26 2024

Deborah Reid (Mexico 2009 – 12) & Peace Corps Response (Guatemala 2025-26) holds a Bachelor of Science in Soil and Crop Management and a Master of Science in Horticulture from Texas A&M University. She has over 30 years of experience in these areas with an emphasis on natural resource management in the last 15 years. Debbie worked for the City of San Antonio as the Nature Preserve Coordinator at Friedrich Wilderness Preserve and as the City Arborist implementing the Tree Preservation, Landscape, Streetscape and Irrigation ordinances. During this time, she assisted in developing and implementing new ordinances or guidelines to incentivize the preservation of native trees and their associated native plants and to preserve natural waterways. She has been a participated in committees to create the Linear Creek Corridors and to implement a variety of codes and ordinances for the City of San Antonio including Smart Growth, Conservation subdivisions . . .

DECOLONIZING AFRICAN AGRICULTURE by William G. Moseley (Mali)

Sep 25 2024

A new book — Decolonizing African Agriculture By William G. Moseley (Mali 1987-89) Agenda Publishing December 2024 246 pages $40.00 (Paperback) Why have so many approaches to farming and food policy failed in Sub-Saharan Africa? Because, argues William Moseley in this compelling analysis, of the shortcomings of a prevailing western, colonial agricultural science that is infused with power and politics. To tackle food security successfully, the book argues, we need a non-colonial, indigenous agronomy that creates the social innovation needed to support the livelihoods of small-scale farmers. The book is organized in four sections: Part 1 provides a broad conceptual introduction emphasizing political agronomy, political ecology and agroecology. Part 2 evaluates past food security and agricultural development experiences in four countries where Moseley has undertaken extensive field research over several decades: Mali, Burkina Faso, South Africa and Botswana. Part 3 examines successful efforts in each of these countries . . .

Romance (Poem)

Sep 24 2024

Poetry — Romance That cat I killed last night (The aftermath of rage spent on you) Lay stiff, cast off, When I hastened back to you. It thought the journey safe; My fierce beam Caught it starry eyed Captured with the light. The act was quick and sudden; Painless was my wake. How unlike this kind deed Is our romance. We bite and tear As love unwinds to lust. Dragging our wants Through alleys of guilt. We’ll bear our hate In silent stares. Towards this cruel culmination We cart our long affair. — John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962-64)

The Victimization of Public School Teachers in America

Sep 24 2024

A new book — The Victimization of Public School Teachers in America by Emmanuel Edouard (Mali 1980-82) Fulton Books Publication 356 pages June 2024 $9.99 (Kindle) & $25.73 (paperback) The assault on public school teachers’ integrity, livelihood, and professionalism started in 1983 with the publication of A Nation at Risk. Based on the results of our education system performance, they were indirectly accused of failing our children. It peaked in 2004, when Rod Paige, then George W. Bush’s secretary of education, called the country’s leading teachers union a “terrorist organization.” Teachers felt dehumanized then. In 2009, Barack Obama blamed them for “letting our grades slip, our schools crumble, our teacher quality fall short, and other nations outpace us.” Teachers felt let down again. In 2017, President Donald Trump lamented how “beautiful” students had been “deprived of all knowledge” by our nation’s cash-guzzling public school system. Teachers felt humiliated and . . .

Snow in Sawankhaloke by Bill Preston (Thailand)

Sep 23 2024

by Bill Preston (Thailand 1977-80) . . . It was the hot season in Thailand. I had recently left Yala, my first site, in the deep-southern province near the end of the dangling elephant’s trunk of Thailand that latches on to Malaysia. Having completed my first year as a Peace Corps English teacher in a Thai secondary school there, I had just relocated to Sukhothai, the provincial capital of the north-central province and name of the nearby old city, with its ancient ruins of the original Thai capital. I was starting over in another part of the country, preparing for a different assignment with new groups of teachers and students. Joining a new project In 1978, several volunteers and I were offered the opportunity to join a new project, a collaboration between the Thai Ministry of Education and Peace Corps Thailand. The idea was to place pairs of volunteers, who had taught . . .

Reflections in a College Bar (Poem)

Sep 21 2024

Poetry — Reflections in a College Bar Amidst the chit chit, and the chatter, The single cymbal, and the clatter, We made the scene. Amidst the lazy, stifling smoke, And the hungry wants of life, We saw the light: We watched a bright-eyed co-ed Hasten back from john to John. Knowing she had guessed his calculated look. We saw a bearded one playing pool. Satisfied with little billiards Never comprehending what lies, Unracked beyond this green. While in the back Two huddle deep in talk More ardent than any form of art. They, too, don’t know, or care, And that’s the pity. This perfect time of life Flies away always in the dark. — John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962-64)