April 4, 2010 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Happy Easter! Two RPCV Catholics Ask Why?

Apr 04 2010

The Catholic Church must confess By Chris Matthews (Swaziland 1968-70) MSNBC (Remarks delivered on the air Wednesday evening.) Let me finish tonight with the thoughts of a layman on the problem under which the Roman Catholic Church is now suffering. The tragedy begins with the molestation of children. It does not end there. Young boys who were sent to Catholic school, who will become altar boys, serve under the authority of the church. They are subject to taking orders. Every minute, they are in a school or in a sacristy. This is more than a secular discipline. It is empowered by the authority of God. Priests stand before these young boys as representatives of God, with all the august authority that comes with it. In this case, to a young child being brought up with the fullest belief in God, and what he come to firmly believe is his church. . . .

Writing Advice/Review: J. P. Jones's A Witness in Tunis

Apr 04 2010

Reviewer Tony D’Souza’s first novel, Whiteman, received the Peace Corps Writers Maria Thomas Prize for Fiction, and is loosely based on his Peace Corps service in an Ivory Coast headed for civil war. His second novel, The Konkans, is loosely based on his mother’s Peace Corps service in India from 1969 to 1970 where she met and married his father. Tony has contributed fiction and essays to The New Yorker, Playboy, Esquire, Outside, Granta, McSweeney’s, the O. Henry Awards, and Best American Fantasy, and is the recipient of two NEA Awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and gold and silver medals from the Florida Book Awards. He lives in Sarasota, FL, with his wife Jessyka and two young children, Gwen, 18 months, and Rohan, 6 months. The D’Souzas are spending the next few months traveling in India. Here, Tony uses J.P. Jones’s novel A Witness in Tunis to offer advice to RPCVs . . .

Archive - April 4, 2010