Archive - 2010

1
Review: Chic Dambach's Exhaust the Limits
2
Review: William Timmons' Never Push An Elephant
3
More On Moynihan & The Peace Corps
4
Why Weren't RPCV PC Directors Invited to Kennedy School of Government: "50 years of the Peace Corps: Answering President Kennedy's Call to Service"
5
Review: Kelli M. Donley's Under The Same Moon
6
Matthews Salutes Peace Corps & Shriver
7
Were You A Peace Corps Elite?
8
Lawrence Lihosit Wants A Book Legacy
9
msnbc.com is looking for photos from Peace Corps Volunteers
10
A Writer Writes: Kitty Thuermer (Mali 1977-79) Stalks Her Dad
11
Review: Tony Zurlo's Chapbooks Go Home Bones & Quantum Chaos
12
Workshop On How To Write Your Peace Corps Essay
13
I'll Tell You What's Wrong With The Peace Corps
14
Matthew Davis (Mongolia 2000-02) Off To Damascus
15
Review: Richard Lipez's novel Cockeyed

Review: Chic Dambach's Exhaust the Limits

Exhaust the Limits: The Life and Times of a Global Peacebuilder by Charles “Chic” F. Dambach (Colombia 1967–69) Apprentice House $18.95 314 pages November 2010 Reviewed by Bob Arias (Colombia 1964–66; Peace Corps Crisis Corps: Panama, Paratuay 2009–2010; Peace Corps Staff: Training Center/Puerto Rico 1966–68; Colombia APCD 1968–73; PC/DC 1976–77; CD/Argentina, Uruguay 1993–95)) IN READING ABOUT CHIC DAMBACH´s compelling and moving journey, I am struck by the need to label his efforts as seeking Peace as his Target!  I was moved. It began for Chic Dambach in college, and it has never ceased. Attending the University of Oklahoma on a football scholarship — an outstanding college prospect — he came upon racism on the playing field of his school. He met it head on. It wasn’t just another game for Chic. Fighting racist attitudes was his first challenge, and he reached out to make a difference. This is his  trademark, whether on a football field in Oklahoma, . . .

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Review: William Timmons' Never Push An Elephant

Never Push an Elephant by William V. Timmons (Niger 1965–67) CreateSpace (BookSurge) $15.95 310 pages 2009 Reviewed by Richard Lipez (Ethiopia 1962–64; PC/DC Staff 1964–67) I WISH William V. Timmons were a more adroit writer, for he plainly knows his way around Southeast Asia. His greatest gifts apparently are non-literary, however. For their achievements as child welfare workers, Timmons and his wife Rachel were decorated by the King of Thailand. In Bangkok, some of the worst suck-ups in the indolent Thai upper classes receive these honors, but I am guessing that farangs recognized by the old monarch have actually done something useful. The deficiencies of this “thriller” about some CIA and U.S. missionary old boys rescuing a young American woman from a Burmese opium magnate are evident right away, and I almost threw in the towel after about 50 pages. The talky opening chapters are set in hectic, sedate, grim, . . .

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More On Moynihan & The Peace Corps

Poet Tony Zurlo (Nigeria 1963-65) was kind enough to send me a March 8, 1998 column by Mary McGrory from the Outlook Section of The Washington Post. It was a column about the Peace Corps on the 37th birthday of the agency, the CIA, and Moynihan. McGrory writes about Moynihan, saying, “he was a fan of the Peace Corps but not the CIA,” and then told a story of how when Moynihan was the ambassador to India villagers were resisting the help of the Peace Corps. The reason was that peasants had been evicted from their mud huts on either side of the volunteers’ mud hut to make room for the local police, who had moved in with their listening devices to monitor what they were sure were U.S. espionage activities. McGrory wrote in that column, “The CIA is into disruption, uprooting, sabotage and subversion. The Peace Corps is about plowing, planting, irrigating, . . .

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Why Weren't RPCV PC Directors Invited to Kennedy School of Government: "50 years of the Peace Corps: Answering President Kennedy's Call to Service"

The John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum, part of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, with be having a “conversation with Peace Corp Directors” on October 12, 2010. They have asked the current Peace Corps Director Aaron Williams, (Dominican Republic 1967-70), of course, to come but then they stiffed all of the other notable RPCV Peace Corps Directors and asked (mostly) Republican hacks to present the agency at the Kennedy School. Why is that? Take Elaine Chao (she has been invited) who was director from (1991-92). Chao was famous for breaking into tears whenever she talked about all the work PCVs were doing overseas. Volunteers laughed at her, and to her face. She was also famous for scheduling several hours a day (regardless of the country) where she could have her hair done while overseas. And she told me once, in her office in the Peace Corps, that she didn’t become a PCV because she was an immigrant daughter and . . .

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Review: Kelli M. Donley's Under The Same Moon

Under the Same Moon by Kelli M. Donley (Cameroon 2000) Donley Books $16.00 356 pages May 2010 Reviewed by Terry Sack (Bolivia 1963–65; PC/DC 1968–69) KELLI DONLEY’S NOVEL Under the Same Moon is the story of a young girl from Mozambique who, against her will, is brought to America. The book has a unique and attractive cover. Unfortunately, things go down-hill from there. The first and most obvious flaw is evident on page one: the layout. There is no spacing between paragraphs. This, combined with frequently awkward transitions from one paragraph to the next, makes reading of the text difficult. Another distracting layout issue is having the identifying content — name, book title and page number on the bottom of the page. While layout issues are significant, by far the major problem with the book is that it begs for serious professional editing. For example, on page one, paragraph 3: . . .

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Matthews Salutes Peace Corps & Shriver

I’m not sure how many of you caught Chris Matthews (Swaziland 1968–70) Hardball program last night (September 22nd), but he spoke about the anniversary of the Peace Corps agency being approved by Congress. I realize Matthews can be annoying, the way he interrupts everyone, but this is an eloquent statement about Peace Corps service and Sarge Shriver, and since Matthews gave it himself, he didn’t need to interrupt! LET ME FINISH WITH THE FACT that today, September 22, is the anniversary — now just one year shy of a half-century — of Congress approving the US Peace Corps. Ask anyone who’s volunteered and they’ll tell you it was the opportunity of their life — the moment they broke out of their world — into a larger one, when they came face to face — on the other side of the globe — with a very different human experience. I went to Swaziland as . . .

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Were You A Peace Corps Elite?

A few days ago, while on vacation, I read in The New York Times where the late senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, has a book coming out of his letters. The book is entitled, Daniel Patrick Moynihan: A Portrait in Letters of an American Visionary. Public Affairs Press is publishing the book next month. The book was edited by Steven R. Weisman, a former reporter for The New York Times who is now the editorial director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Excerpts from this book appeared this week in New York magazine. In his private–and not so private letters–Moynihan takes a whack at quite a collection of individuals and institutions. He didn’t like Hillary Rodham Clinton’s smugness, thought Spiro Agnew was a demagogue, and complained to Brooks Brothers about the holes in their socks. And then he wrote that the Peace Corps was full of elitists. Well, that got . . .

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Lawrence Lihosit Wants A Book Legacy

[Larry Lihosit (Honduras 1975-77) has a cause, and that is to get RPCV books in the Library of Congress. Here is what Larry has in mind, and if you can help him (and all Peace Corps writers,) get Peace Corps books recognized as part of our literary heritage by the Library of Congress. Please send him a comment, ideas, support. Many thanks.] Larry writes… As we approach the fiftieth anniversary of the Peace Corps’ inception, no institution collects, categorizes and makes available copies of published Peace Corps experience books. While the Kennedy Library has a Peace Corps collection, its emphasis has been private original papers and recently, recorded interviews with volunteers and staff members who served overseas. For anyone interested in merely finding a repository of personal experience books written by staff and volunteers, they can stay home. Ironically, Congress (which officially created the Peace Corps and annually appropriates funds) has its own library . . .

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msnbc.com is looking for photos from Peace Corps Volunteers

A time-sensitive note while John is away from his computer — a few days ago msnbc.com posted a link “Were you in the Peace Corps? Share your photos.” — but the link didn’t work. Just wrote them and here is the story — and the correct link: Were you in the Peace Corps? Share your photos. After years of war, the Peace Corps has returned to Sierra Leone. Nightly News will be broadcasting a report on the volunteers efforts to improve lives there. Nearly 50 years since it was first launched, the Peace Corps has sent Americans all over the globe. Were you a Peace Corps Volunteer? Send us your pictures, and we’ll feature a selection of them on msnbc.com. Images must be .gif, .jpg/jpeg or .png formats. Videos must be in .avi, .mov, .mpg/.mpeg, .wmv, .asf, or 3gp formats. Combined file size limit: 40MB Tell all your friends. Let’s . . .

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A Writer Writes: Kitty Thuermer (Mali 1977-79) Stalks Her Dad

Kitty Thuermer (Mali 1977-79) is one of the RPCV Community’s finest writers. However, she doesn’t write enough. What she does do is ‘stalk’ famous people, usually at Borders Books down the street from the Peace Corps Office in Washington, D.C. This is the way she works… In the book store she’ll sidle up to someone famous, lets say, Katsuya Okada or Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (Kitty religiously studies the Style Section of the Washington Post so she knows everyone by sight.) She’ll note what book they are examining and she’ll say something pithy about the book (Kitty also is very well read; well, actually, she only reads the book reviews in the Post, but she reads all of them.) Her comments will attract the attention of the Famous Person and soon they will be engaged in conversation with this intelligent D.C. woman, and they’ll be thinking “why don’t we have such attractive and intelligent women back . . .

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Review: Tony Zurlo's Chapbooks Go Home Bones & Quantum Chaos

Go Home Bones (Poems) by Tony Zurlo (Nigeria 1964–66) Pudding House Chapbook Series $10.00 (to order jen@puddinghouse.com) 30 pages 2010 Quantum Chaos (Poems) by Tony Zurlo (Nigeria 1964–66) Big Table Publishing Company Chapbook Series $12.00 39 pages 2010 Reviewed by Jan Worth-Nelson (Tonga 1976-78) IT’S POIGNANT, AND POTENT, to be reading Tony Zurlo’s anti-war poems in his 2010 chapbook Go Home Bones on this day, the ninth anniversary of 9/11. I’m stilled and tearful, as the day’s observances roll out like dirges on NPR, taking in Zurlo’s grief-infused “The Mystery of You,” for example, that ends, “Each morning a diminished/congregation rises/for the ritual./Each prayer/ another syllable missing.” Zurlo won the 2010 Peace Corps Writers Award for Outstanding Poetry Book published by a Peace Corps writer (for his 2009 collection The Mind Dancing). He is a prolific writer (this site, a bit behind, lists 14 books in his bibliography) and his . . .

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Workshop On How To Write Your Peace Corps Essay

You’ve got to love this! The UW-Madison Writing Center (which, by the way, is very good!) has introduced a new and short (non-credit of course) workshop for those of you with ‘special needs,’i.e., writing your Fulbright application essay, your APA documentation, and also “writing Peace Corps application essays.” I’m all for such workshops, and I won’t mind taking it myself, but when it comes to getting into the Peace Corps, it ain’t the essay that counts: it is the experience and skills of the Applicant. (Of course, getting into the Peace Corps should be based on one’s writing skills, but I’m not running the agency.) However, whether you join the Peace Corps or not, if you are in Madison, Wisconsin, do yourself a favor and take the workshop. You’ll be a better writer and a better person for it. The Writing Center is run by Brad Hughes. And he’s a good . . .

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I'll Tell You What's Wrong With The Peace Corps

Since Aaron Williams (Dominican Republic 1967-70) took over the Peace Corps on August 24, 2009–over a year ago–the agency has had no Communications Director or Congressional Liaison Director. (And the names, I’m told, now being considered for the congressional position aren’t worth while writing home about.)  These positions are, after the director and deputy, the two most important ones at the agency. Suzie Carroll,  the present Acting Congressional Liason, is a Republican hanger-on. A nice woman (not an RPCV, of course), who is considered weak and ineffective by congressional aides on the Hill. Allison Price, another non-PCV, another political appointment, is a nice young woman who is sadly not up to the job in the press office. She is unable to market the agency. She is unable to get the director on radio or television on in the press. You want to know why people say: is there still a Peace Corps? You tell them, “Allison Price is working on it!” The former Peace Corps . . .

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Matthew Davis (Mongolia 2000-02) Off To Damascus

Matt Davis who wrote the wonderful Peace Corps memoir, When Things Get Dark: A Mongolian Winter’s Tale, and where he was a PCV from 2000-02, will be leaving shortly for Damascus. Matt graduated in May with a degree in Middle Eastern Studies from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and has just gotten a Fulbright to spend 9 months in Syria. He plans on working on a novel and reporting on, and researching, a nonfiction project about the cultural scene in Syria’s capital. Matt, as you may recall, was 23 when he left Chicago for the Peace Corps and a Mongolian town called Tsetserleg. Living in a ger, he had a tough go as a teacher, lived through a brutal winter, a rough romance, and then, as he writes, he fell into the trap many Mongolian men succumbing to: drinking constantly. The longer he was in Mongolia, the deeper he fell into depression . . .

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Review: Richard Lipez's novel Cockeyed

Cockeyed by Richard Stevenson [aka Richard Lipez (Ethiopia 1962–64)] MLR Press September 2010 215 pages $14.99 Reviewed by Tony D’Souza  (Ivory Coast 2000–02, Madagascar 2002–03) I HAVE TO BEGIN THIS REVIEW of Richard Stevenson’s Cockeyed, the latest installment of his Donald Strachey Mystery series, by saying that I’ve recently discovered Christopher Isherwood’s The Berlin Stories, those masterful and disturbing looks at gay life in Weimar Germany just before the rise of the Nazis. I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve never read Isherwood before this summer — my wife’s taking a Brit Lit course and I’ve been snagging her books — but at the same time it’s been sublime to wallow some weeks in great literature that’s been completely new to me. All right, you know the old reviewing trick, mention the author under review, then the “great” author he or she is most similar to: hence Stevenson and Isherwood in the . . .

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