Archive - January 2013

Death to the Rescue: A Twisting Creek Mystery by R J Huddy (Morocco 1981-83) A Peace Corps Writers Book $15.95 (paperback); $.99 (Kindle) 329 pages October  2012 Reviewed by P. David Searles (CD Philippines & PC/HQ 1971-76) When the USPS dropped off R J Huddy’s Death to the Rescue I was well into reading Jon Meacham’s recent biography of Thomas Jefferson, a work that has been highly praised and is essential reading for anyone who wants to consider himself well read.  I decided to take a short break from it and sample this new book.  Within 20 pages I had concluded “Sorry, Jon, Jefferson is going to have to wait!  It’s a bit like homework, whereas Death is fun.  Huddy’s story is centered around the murder of a prim and proper single woman – a bank loan officer and Sunday School teacher – by, all of the evidence strongly suggests, . . .

J. Grigsby Crawford (Ecuador 2009-11) is the author of The Gringo: A Memoir, which tells the story of his two years as a PCV. He served in Peace Corps Ecuador’s Natural Resource Conservation program, and ultimately wrote a successful grant to help build a greenhouse at the local high school in his Amazonian community. But Grigsby writes: The Gringo tells a different Peace Corps tale than one is used to hearing. In Ecuador, Crawford was originally sent to the coast, where after just a few months he narrowly escaped an abduction attempt and was pulled out by security and forced to change sites. From there–as the synopsis of The Gringo states–he undertakes “a savage journey of danger, drugs, sex, and alarming illness.” It is a PCV story that is both tragic and sharply humorous.  The Gringo was published in December 2012 and, he says, “immediately met national attention,” getting excerpted in the Huffington Post and . . .

The Springs of Namje: A Ten-Year Journey from the Villages of Nepal to the Halls of Congress by Rajeev Goyal (Nepal 2001-03) Beacon Press $24.95 (hardcover), $13.72 (Kindle) 214 pages September 2012 Reviewed by Ken Hill (Turkey 1965-67) The jacket describes it as “A ten year journey from the villages of Nepal to the halls of Congress”.  But “The Springs of Namje” goes beyond that, unveiling a relationship of deep dedication by an RPCV to “his village”. And, it chronicles what might be the most effective single effort yet at providing a substantive increase in funding for the Peace Corps. This story transcends the more typical Peace Corps narrative. Since completing his PCV service in 2003, Rajeev has returned to Namje on 21 occasions – probably even again since the book was published.  His close relationship with the people and his involvement in their lives, economic and social development is extraordinary. . . .

We Never Knew Exactly Where: Dispatches from the Lost Country of Mali By Peter Chilson (Niger 1985-87) FP Group, $499 2013 The book can be purchased as a pdf on the Foreign Policy web site: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/ebooks/we_never_knew_exactly_where   Reviewed by Robert E. Hamilton (Ethiopia 1965-67) Edited by Susan B. Glasser with assistance from Margaret Slattery, Foreign Policy (the FP Group) and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting have launched a Borderlands project in which they will commission “leading writers to travel several of the world’s most impenetrable fault lines, the global gray zones where countries and people-and our own flawed ideas about them-meet.”  Peter Chilson’s eBook is the first in this series to be released.  It provides useful background as a travelogue although it is not, as Glasser claims, “a definitive account” of what has happened in Mali since the military coup of March 2012. The book does represent the Mali crisis . . .

Al Qaeda Country: Why Mali is Important Tuesday, January 29, 2013 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM George Washington University Lindner Family Commons, Room 602 1957 E Street NW Washington DC RSVP Click Here Peter Chilson, Associate Professor of English, Washington State University Introduction by David Rain, Associate Professor of Geography and International Affairs, GW Prizewinning author Peter Chilson is one of the few Westerners to travel to the Mali conflict zone. There he found a hazy dividing line between the demoralized remnants of the former regime in the south and the new statelet in the north – Azawad – formed when a rebellion by the country’s ethnic Tuareg minority as commandeered by jihadi fighters. In this inaugural lecture of the African Research and Policy Group of the Institute for Global and International Studies, Chilson will lay out the lines of conflicting interest in Mali as some of the world’s great . . .

LEITA KALDI (Senegal 1993-96) worked at the United Nations in New York, UNESCO in Paris, at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and Harvard University. She then joined Peace Corps and went to Senegal and wrote a memoir about two years entitled, Roller Skating in the Desert. In 1997, she  became Administrator of Hospital Albert Schweitzer in Haiti and retired from the hospital in 2002. Leita has now written In the Valley of Atibon. It is her story of Haiti’s Artibonite Valley, where she went as a middle-aged white woman, and filled with good intentions had to deal with young revolutionaires and vagabonds who threatened her life, while also dealing with a hospital and community development program which she tried to manage. In Haiti Leita would delve into the mysteries of Voudou, and learns first-hand about the undercurrent of terror that drives rural Haitians. Also, she was inspired by Haitians . . .

In the Valley of Atibon By Leita Kaldi (Senegal 1993-96) A Peace Corps Writers Book, $20 257 pages 2012 Reviewed by Barbara E. Joe (Honduras 2000-03) In 2010, Leita Kaldi’s memoir of her Peace Corps service in Senegal, Roller Skating in the Desert, came out. Now she is back again, writing about her subsequent years, 1997-2002, as administrator of Hospital Albert Schweitzer located in Haiti’s Eden-like Artibonite Valley.  It was founded by Larimer Mellon and his wife Gwen who chose to devote their portion of the Mellon family fortune to building a hospital there honoring Dr. Schweitzer’s work in Africa. Author Kaldi , who had served as a business development volunteer in Senegal, returned to the States only briefly before, at age 58, undertaking her new duties in Haiti. As with many former Peace Corps volunteers, overseas service had gotten into her blood. She exemplifies how Peace Corps can open . . .

[Peter Tinti (Mali 2008-10) is a freelance journalist, writer and analyst based in Bamako, Mali. He writes and reports on issues pertaining to politics, culture and security in West Africa. He has lived and worked in the region since 2008, first as a PCV in Gao, northern Mali.] Thiss is from January 22, 2013 As Troops Advance in Mali, U.S. Begins Airlift By LYDIA POLGREEN, PETER TINTI and ALAN COWELL SÉGOU, Mali – Malian and French forces were reported to be in control of two important central Malian towns on Tuesday after the French Defense Ministry said they recaptured them on Monday, pushing back an advance by Islamist militants who have overrun the country’s northern half. At the same time, the United States military said on Tuesday that it had begun airlifting French troops and equipment from a base in southern France to Bamako, the capital of Mali, aboard giant . . .