February 2010 – Page 4 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Bob Bookman (Dominican Republic 1967–69)

Feb 13 2010

Monday, November 21 7:33 pm A SUGAR TRAIN STRAINS through the campo. Its dim light fading in the night. The drone from its engines drowns out the common sounds of old ladies spitting up flem, babies coughing, and fourteen-year-old men coming home from work. It is the time of the harvest. There is no sleep. A black boy comes into the general store. There is no light in his face. His skin reflects this absence of light, for it is not the type of black skin that smiles. His face is dirty, his hands are ripped, and his soul is bare. He must have seen the future for he walks with his eyes closed. He is one of 16 children his grandmother must feed. No one cares for him except the ticks licking the sores of his feet. No star shines for him for he is coarse black. Old lady, . . .

Carolyn LaDelle Bennett (Sierra Leone 1964–66)

Feb 13 2010

Monday, November 21 3:45 pm MY TOUR OF DUTY 22 years ago informs my idealism today. It founds my belief in “community,” in brotherhood, in peaceful co-existence among people, races and nations of the world and within my own country. The memory of those years sustains my hope. And sustains my devotion to the principles of my country – a devotion which transcends politics and the rise and fall of passing ideologies. Twenty years ago I had grown up in a segregated society with no sense of connectedness to my country, save the compulsory recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance and the singing of the National anthem and hymns. But in serving in the Peace Corp in Sierra Leone (West Africa), I became a part of the greatness of America – a living beneficiary of the high esteem in which the people of Freedom, Sierra Leone, placed my country. For . . .

Marsha L. Allen (Senegal 1984–86)

Feb 13 2010

Monday, November 21 7:03 pm DURING MY TWO YEARS I learned many things: A new language, how to adapt to a new culture, how to cope with the sometimes intense and almost unbearable heat, and more importantly, I learned to make life for the people there a little easier. I learned to care about a group of people who thought of me as their daughter, their sister, their friend. I learned to laugh with them and cry for them. I learned the importance of being with them for the good times as well as the bad. I learned both patience and persistence – two very important factors in the life of any Volunteer. I also learned all about that feeling you get when it’s time to leave. That sinking feeling in your stomach. The one that makes tears swell in your eyes. It’s that same feeling that makes your heart . . .

Myrna J. Aavedal (Chile 1967–68)

Feb 13 2010

Monday, November 21 6:54 pm MR. PRESIDENT, I want to tell you about my experience in the Peace Corps. I was 24 when I went off to training at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque – still a bit unworldly as I left my home in Montana. At the time I, of course, wasn’t sure what was in store for me, but I wanted adventure, travel, and an opportunity to use my nursing skills to help people in need. I was very proud that I had been selected to serve. Yes, I did get the adventure and travel, and I did use my nursing skills among needy people. I also got a lot more. The first surprise came when some of the Trainees who looked so good and talked so wise washed out of training or gave up and went home early. For me the Peace Corps was a . . .

100 Days (Or Less) Part Thirteen: Day Eight

Feb 13 2010

I sit here religiously every morning-I sit down for eight hours every day-and the sitting down is all. In the course of that working day of 8 hours I write 3 sentences which I erase before leaving the table in despair…. Sometimes it takes all my resolution and power of self-control to refrain from butting my head against the wall. Joseph Conrad Keep asking the question, “why?” As you reach the start of your second week you will have a stack of 5×7 character cards that spell out intimate details about the personal life of each and every character in your story, down to their waist measurement and favorite color. [The novelist Vladimir Nabokov, by the way, composed all of his books on index cards.] You will have a one page summary of what your book is all about, basically the ‘plot’ of your novel. You will also have begun . . .

Books Nominated For Peace Corps Awards, (So Far)

Feb 12 2010

It is time to nominate your favorite Peace Corps book published in 2009. Send your nomination(s) to John Coyne at: jpcoyne@cnr.edu. You may nominate your own book; books written by friends; books written by total strangers. The books can be about the Peace Corps or on any topic. However, the books must have been published in 2009. The awards will be announced this coming July. Thank you for nominating your favorite book(s) written by a PCV, RPCV or Peace Corps Staff. When sending in your nomination, please cite for what prize, and give the full name of the book, the full name of the author, plus the country and years when the RPCV served. These are the only books nominated so far. Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award Heat, Sand, and Friends by Allen W. Fletcher (Senegal 1969–71) First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria Eve Brown (Ecuador 1988) Maria Thomas Fiction Award Islands . . .

100 Days (Or Less) Part Twelve: Day Seven

Feb 12 2010

Day Seven When I used to teach creative writing, I would tell the students to make their characters want something right away-even if it’s only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time. Kurt Vonnegut Figure out who you need in the story and what they do together or to one another, and what the story does to them. Are they all pulling together in one direction? Are they pulling in six different directions? Ask yourself the critical question: Which would be most interesting to the reader? That’s the real litmus test of character development and plotting. Will the reader be interested? Will the reader care? To be successful in character and plot development, you need to make hard choices. You need to be ruthless with your characters and your story. Who’s in, who’s out? What’s in, . . .

Peter Hessler Appearing In San Francisco

Feb 11 2010

Peter Hessler (China 1996–98) and his wife, Leslie T. Chang, will be speaking on the University of San Francisco Campus on Tuesday, February 23. Peter will be discussing his new books, Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory, together with Leslie talking about Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China, now out in paperback. The discussion will start at 5:45 in USF Lone Mountain Campus Room 100, (2800 Turk Blvd between Masonic and Parker.) The event is free and open to the public. For information and a reservation, call (415) 422-6357, and tell Peter you’re a PCV…also buy the book. It is terrific! For those of you who are new to Peter Hessler, he was was the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker and a contributor to National Geographic. Previously he had written for the Atlantic Monthly, New York Times, Boston Globe, and the Wall Street Journal. . . .

RPCV Matt Davis (Mongolia 2000-02) publishes memoir

Feb 11 2010

Out this month is Matt Davis’s (Mongolia 2000–02) memoir of Mongolia, When Things Get Dark: A Mongolian Winter’s Tale. In a cover blurb Peter Hessler (China 1996–98) writes, “Matthew Davis’s portrait of Mongolia is riveting, insightful, and deeply honest.” Matt received his MFA from the University of Iowa’s Writing Program (other fine RPCV writers who graduated from this program are Richard Wiley (Korea 1967–69), Phil Damon (Ethiopia 1963–65), Bob Shacochis (Eastern Caribbean 1975–76), and John Givens (Korea 1967–69). At Iowa Matt was an Arts Fellow, a writer-in-residence at the Museum of Art, and a postgraduate Writing Fellow. Today Matt is a fellow and student at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. On June 9, 2009 Peace Corps Worldwide published an interview I did with Matt about his book. In the interview I asked Matt what other Peace Corps memoirs he had read and he replied, “Well, I’ve read Peter Hessler; George Packer; Tom Bissell; Sarah . . .

Peace Corps At Day One: #11

Feb 10 2010

Shriver, it turns out, (at least according to Warren Wiggins) was not an easy man to work for. “I’m not the first to say that and I found that in the early days it was close to impossible working for Sarge,” Warren told me in our 1997 interview. “I failed to build a good relationship with him in that first period. It was so bad that I went to Jack Bell, who worked for C. Douglas Dillon (the number two man in the State Department), and asked Bell to get me out of the Peace Corps. I couldn’t take it. Bell won’t let me quit. He told me the Peace Corps was too important. Then I went to lunch with Franklin Williams. I didn’t know him very well, but I liked him. I told him the story, how Shriver won’t see me. He won’t pay any attention to me. And Franklin . . .

Peace Corps At Day One, # 10

Feb 10 2010

The People In The Pews Shriver in those first days was fond of talking about how his staff got to the Peace Corps. “Tom Mathews was on a skiing trip in Alta, Utah, when I called him. He arrived in Washington still wearing his ski boots. Gordon Boyce got a telegram and arrived the very next afternoon. At the time our payroll arrangement were slow and inadequate and most of these people worked for as long as three months without pay.” The Peace Corps was a disorganized mess. When Lee St. Lawrence, Director of the Far East Regional Office, arrived he took one long look at the confusion and commented to no one in particular, “this place is all fouled up.” Then he wanted to know which desk was his. Others came on ‘day one’ and stayed where Charlie Nelson, Willie Warner, Sally Bowles, Charlie Peters, John Corcoran, Nan McEvoy, John Alexander. There . . .

University Plans First Event For The Peace Corps 50th Anniversary

Feb 09 2010

[There is a plaque on the steps of the University of Michigan Student Union at Ann Arbor that reads: Here at 2:00 A.M. on October 14, 1960, John Fitzgerald Kennedy first defined the Peace corps. He stood at the place marked by the medallion and was cheered by a large and enthusiastic student audience for the hope and promise his idea gave the world. In her book, Come As You Are: The Peace Corps Story, Coates Redmon tells what happened next: Kennedy was making an unannounced stop at the University of Michigan in the last month of his campaign for the presidency to rest up after his third debate with Richard Nixon. The Ann Arbor crowd had been gathering, by means of word of mouth, since the middle of the evening. Deborah Bacon, the dean of women at Michigan, knew of the visit and was ‘inspired’ to lift the ban . . .

100 Days (Or Less) Part Eleven: Day Six

Feb 08 2010

Day Six The invention of movable type created opportunities for writers that could barely be imagined in Gutenberg’s day. The opportunities that await writers in the near future are immeasurably greater. Jason Epstein, editor You need a strong protagonist regardless of what you are writing, a novel, memoir, or non-fiction. Most writers have a problem with creating a character who is larger than life, fully developed, and a consistent protagonist. For books of non-fiction, the larger than life hero (or villain) steps out of the pages of history. He or she is the reason you are drawn to the story. Remember, your protagonist is your story’s major character. This is the person with whom your reader will identify. You want your readers to care about your protagonist. He or she is your new best friend. You need to care about your protagonist. If you as the writer hate the protagonist . . .

Review Of Cynthia Morrison Phoel (Bulgaria 1994-96)

Feb 08 2010

Reviewer Mark Brazaitis is the author of three books of fiction, including The River of Lost Voices: Stories from Guatemala, winner of the 1998 Iowa Short Fiction Award, and Steal My Heart, a novel that won the Maria Thomas Fiction Award given by Peace Corps Writers. His latest book is The Other Language: Poems, winner of the 2008 ABZ Poetry Prize. His short fiction has appeared in Ploughshares, The Sun, Witness, Notre Dame Review, Confrontation, and elsewhere. • Cold Snap: Bulgaria Stories by Cynthia Morrison Phoel (Bulgaria 1994–96) Southern Methodist University Press June 2010 208 pages $22.50 Reviewed by Mark Brazaitis (Guatemala 1991–93) Good fiction works from the inside out. Yes, The Sun Also Rises is a novel about post-World War I Paris, with a little Spanish bullfighting thrown in, but it’s essentially and vividly the story of a man (Jake Barnes) who loves a woman (Lady Brett Ashley) who . . .

Peace Corps At Day One, # 9

Feb 08 2010

The only RPCV book that focuses exclusively on Peace Corps Training–that I know about– is Alan Weiss’ (Nigeria 1963-64) High Risk/High Gain published in 1968 by St. Martin’s Press. It is Alan’s account of training at Columbia University in the summer of 1963. It is a funny, outrageous, and a sad book. In his book, Alan focuses on the elaborate system ‘someone’ at the Peace Corps had created, a series of rating from High Risk/Low Gain to Low Risk/High Gain. All of the PCVs in those early years was so graded in our Peace Corps Training report card. A year after my tour in Ethiopia I returned to Addis Ababa as an APCD. In the office files, in the old Point Four building, I discovered in a bottom file cabinet drawer a copy of how the psychologists back in Georgetown Training had evaluated all of us, the first PCVs to Ethiopia. I went down the long list of some 275 PCVs and found my name and my rating. . . .

Archive - February 2010