December 13, 2010 – Peace Corps Worldwide

New Yorker article by Peter Hessler on Rajeev Goyal

Dec 13 2010

Peter Hessler’s (China 1996-98) article about Rajeev Goyal and his advocacy of the Peace Corps will be in the December 20, 2010 issue of The New Yorker. Peter writes: In the part of eastern Nepal where Goyal served as a Peace Corps volunteer from 2001 to 2003, people sometimes weep when his name is mentioned. Locals refer to him as Shiva, the god who is the source of the Ganges River. In the halls of Congress, most people have no idea what to make of him. For the past two years, Rajeev has approached the place as if it were just another Nepali settlement with a caste system to untangle. He figured out the Washington equivalent of village-well routes-hallways, hearing rooms, and coffee shops where anybody can hang around and meet a member of Congress. During the past two years, funding for the Peace Corps has increased by record amounts, despite . . .

Review of Lawrence Lihosit's Peace Corps Chronology

Dec 13 2010

Peace Corps Chronology: 1961–2010 by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras 1975–77) iUniverse $22.95 – hardback; $13.95 – paperback; $9.99 – ebook 120 pages November 2010 Reviewed by P. David Searles (Staff: CD Philippines 1971–74, PC/W 1974–76) A LOT CAN HAPPEN IN FIFTY YEARS, as demonstrated by Lawrence F. Lihosit’s superb book: Peace Corps Chronology, 1961-2010. Lihosit has carefully sifted through an immense cache of Peace Corps data from a wide variety of sources, some of which are familiar and some of which were previously unknown, at least to me. In the book he gives a detailed account of the critical happenings — year by year, decade by decade — from 1961 to the present. The book will be read in two ways. The first, and this is probably what most of us will immediately do, is check out what he has included from our years with the Peace Corps. For me . . .

Review of David L. Meth's A Hint of Light

Dec 13 2010

A Hint of Light by David L. Meth (Korea 1971–72) CreateSpace Writers’ Productions $14.95 303 pages August 2010 Reviewed by Barbara E. Joe (Honduras 2000–03) THIS NOVEL, REPORTEDLY WRITTEN by an award-winning playwright, chronicles the life of a black-Korean street boy, Byung-suk, born in 1960, who dreams of living in America, his unknown GI father’s home. Indeed, with its prolific dialogue and rapidly shifting graphic scenes, the book has aspects of a play or even of a film script. According to the cover blurb, the author, David Meth, spent years doing research, including in Korea and Japan. The narrative starts out with a bang, offering a gritty, dramatic tale of the squalor, violence, and unrelenting challenges of young Byung-suk’s struggle for survival in an Oliver Twistian underworld of prostitution, thievery, drunkenness, extortion, and physical deprivation. The early sections, depicting the tumultuous post-war era of the author’s Volunteer service in Korea . . .

Archive - December 13, 2010