August 7, 2009 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Tour Nepal and Tibet with Nepal RPCV

Aug 07 2009

Don Messerschmidt (anthropologist, writer, Himalayan tour leader and RPCV Nepal 1963–65) has announced that he has openings for travelers wishing to join two of his up-coming tours: (1) a trek in the shadow of Mt Everest, (2) a cross-Tibet tour by vehicle — each having the option of a post-trip Nepal Jungle Adventure. • Nepal Tour, October 21 to November 3, 2009 (17 days) Sacred Sites Trail, Khumbu (Mt. Everest) Region, Nepal The trek, which starts and ends in Kathmandu, includes a 13-day trek among Sherpa villages and monasteries plus an optional visit to an high mountaineering camp: Arrive in Kathmandu. Fly to Lukla (c. 9,000 ft). Trek to Namché Bazaar (11,319 ft, in time for you to see the famous Saturday market). The trek then continues to monasteries and sacred sites on a Buddhist pilgrimage trail through Thamé, Khumjung, Phortsé, Pangboché and Dingboché (the highest village: 14,272 ft). At . . .

Outsiders in Africa, Part 7

Aug 07 2009

In mid-winter, 1968, I wandered into Discount Books & Records off Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. and spotted a thin novel entitled Fong and the Indians. The author was Paul Theroux. The setting was Africa. Theroux would write later of this novel, “I began writing about the Chinese man who ran the grocery store around the corner from where I lived in Wandegeya [in Kampala, Uganda] . . . The Chinese man, his grocery store, his Indian competitors, his African customers – these were my characters . . . I had written two novels before this, but Fong was the first piece of fiction that satisfied me.” Theroux would come back to this Chinese immigrant. In a New York TimesOp-Ed piece about Hong Kong (June 10, 1997), he mentioned again this lone Chinese family in Africa. What Theroux was writing about was not Africa and Africans, but about the outsiders . . .

Archive - August 7, 2009