Archive - July 2012

This review by Richard Lipez (Ethiopia 1962-64)  appeared today, July 31, 2012, in The Washington Post. • Book review: ‘The Lower River,’ by Paul Theroux By Richard Lipez Former Peace Corps volunteers sometimes like to take sentimental journeys back to the towns and villages where they spent a couple of years expanding their world views and doing useful work. I’ve gone on such a visit myself, and it’s gratifying. But Ellis Hock isn’t so lucky. He’s the protagonist in “The Lower River,” a grim-spirited and rattlingly suspenseful new novel by Paul Theroux, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1960s. When Hock returns to Malawi after 40 years, instead of enjoying a happy reunion he is taken captive by his erstwhile hosts and treated to a long, hideous look at Africa at its phantasmagoric worst. The strengths of this novel, Theroux’s 29th work of fiction, are numerous. For deep-in-the-bush . . .

An interview with Will Lutwick (Fiji 1968–70) about his book Dodging Machetes: How I Survived Forbidden Love, Bad Behavior, and the Peace Corps in Fiji that was published in May of this year by Peace Corps Writers. • Will, where did you go to college? I got my BA from Duke in ’67, then an MBA from the University Michigan in 1968. What was your job in the Peace Corps, Will? For the first six months credit union co-op, wholesale food co-op. Last 14 months: working for the Fiji government doing marketing: pushing passion fruit and handicrafts (tapa cloth, cannibal forks, war clubs et. al.) to the American market, and internal marketing of oranges from the most remote island  (Rotuma) to the largest, most populous island (Viti Levu). My language training was in Hindi as 51% of the population then was Indian (mostly descendants of indentured servants who opted to . . .

Randall Wood (Nicaragua 1998-’00) is an engineer, author, teacher and author of two books, Moon Nicaragua (a best-selling travel guidebook to Nicaragua) and Living Abroad in Nicaragua. Randy and his Nicaraguan wife Ericka and their two children live today in Dakar, Senegal where he works for the Millennium Challenge Corporation, thought he is still president of the Amigos de Nicaragua RPCV group and in many ways he will never leave Central America. He wrote me recently about his new book, The Dictator’s Handbook: a practical manual for the aspiring tyrant, “I wanted to dedicate the book to Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega because watching that guy in action really nailed down the difficulty of helping poor people when their government is doing everything in its power to prevent it,” he said. “Studying Ortega and then other dictators made clear these clowns are all doing the same things – subverting the constitution, . . .

The Raft S.A. Bodeen (Tanzania 1989-90) Feiwel and Friends (an imprint of Macmillan) 231 pagesAugust $16.99 (Hardcover); $9.99 (Kindle) 2012 Reviewed by Reilly Ridgell (Micronesia 1971-73) I’m not much into reading “young adult” literature.  Oh I read some Hardy boys mysteries and maybe a  few others like that but by high school I gravitated quickly to the classics and works considered more “hip.”  So I wasn’t sure how I’d find S.A. Bodeen’s survival story, The Raft.  What a pleasant surprise it was.  The writing is strong and purposeful, the characters interesting, the situation fascinating.  The story is told in the first person, usually a red flag but Bodeen pulls it off well, by Robie Mitchell, a 15 year old girl who teeters between common sense and being a bit of an airhead.  But I guess that’s what comes with being 15.  She has spent much of her teen years isolated . . .

Michael McCone (Malawi CD 1963-64), who is on the board of this California publishing house founded in 1974 by Malcolm Margolin, has published a beautiful little book entitled: Everyday Dogs: A Perpetual Calendar for Birthday& Other Notable Dates by Mary Scott and Susan Snyder,Heybooks, $14.95 The contents are from the Bancraoft Library on the UC/Berkeley campus. As Mike writes, “What do Gertrude Stein, Jack London, John Muir, and Queen Victoria all have in common with us?” Well, they all have a “cherished unbreakable bond of friendship between canine and human graces all of our days.”  The photos are linked with literary quotes about canines.

In February 1962, Earle and Rhoda Brooks (Ecuador 1962-64) left home in Illinois to become PCVs in  Manta, Ecuador. Their book  The Barrios of Manta: A Personal Account of the Peace Corps in Ecuador was published by New American Library in 1965. It was one of the first two books written by Peace Corps Volunteers. The other was To The Peace Corps, With Love by Arnold Zeitlin (Ghana 1961-62) published by Doubleday also in 1965. Earle and Rhoda begin their story with their decision to enlist as PCVs. They were assigned to a community development project in Manta, a fishing village on the coast of Ecuador. The jacket of their first edition (a photo of Rhoda embracing an Ecuadorian woman,) was on the cover of National Geographic Magazine in September, 1964 (Vol. 126, No. 3). That issue featured the Peace Corps, Sarge Shriver, Earle and Rhoda Brooks, as well as PCVs in Bolivia, Tanganyika (as it was . . .

As editor of Mediabistro Publishing, Jason Boog (Guatemala 2000-02) curates publishing events, and shapes the digital publishing curriculum at MediaBistro.com. He also edits the GalleyCat blog, and hosts the daily Morning Media Menu podcast. Before MediaBistro.com, Jason was an investigative reporter at Judicial Reports, and a publishing blogger for Know More Media. His work has appeared in The Believer, Granta, Salon.com, The Revealer, and Peace Corps Writers. As part of Mediabistro Literary Festival & Workshops, Jason will be leading a conference session via on How To Build A Social Media Platform for Your Book. Unfortunately registration for the workshop is closed.

Principles vs. Principal: Is There Room for “Pay to Play” in Volunteerism  by Brian Holler (Turkmenistan 2010-12) If I had one piece of advice for incoming Volunteers, it would be to focus on the “What is Peace Corps?” section of language training. Like most of my brethren, I’ve spent my fair share of time explaining what an American is doing here. In Turkmenistan, a country that values hospitality above all else, where people will feed and shelter a stranger, the practices of volunteerism and charity are still foreign concepts. People will do anything for their neighbor, but are skeptical of the intentions of someone that has come from another country only to assist their community. In the developed world, formal acts of philanthropy require little tangible reciprocity. Different countries have different cultural norms though; transaction costs may be different. The question is: when faced with more “concrete” operational requirements, how . . .