Archive - June 9, 2009

An interview by John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962-64) At 23, in 2000, Matt Davis as a PCV went to a remote western Mongolian mountain town to teach English at a local college. What he found when he arrived was a town — and a country — undergoing change from a traditional, countryside existence to a more urban, modern identity. The story of his Peace Corps years is told in When Things Get Dark which is scheduled for publication in 2010. Matt’s book is not only about the Mongolians he meets but his own downward spiral into alcohol abuse and violence — a scenario he saw played out by many of the Mongolian men around him who were having a difficult time adjusting to the rapid change in society. Matt’s own struggles eventually culminate in a drunken fight with three Mongolian men that forces him to a Mongolian hospital to have his kidneys . . .