May 1, 2013 – Peace Corps Worldwide

A Writer Writes: Teachers Room Sex Farce in Nigeria

May 01 2013

Teachers Room Sex Farce by Larry Lesser (Nigeria 1964-65) [Note: The author maintains that this is a true story except that he’s changed everybody’s names except his own and his then-wife’s. No need to change their names because they come out smelling like a rose.] • It’s January 1964 when Harriet and I arrive in newly independent Nigeria, peacefully unyoked from British rule. We’re Peace Corps Volunteers, deployed as teachers at the Government Technical Institute (GTI) in the provincial capital of Enugu. Our school is preparing young Nigerian men for careers in engineering and business. Our principal is ex-RAF wing commander Maddox, who resembles the caricature Colonel Blimp in physiognomy and demeanor. The deputy principal is a Nigerian named Otuagbo. More than half of the faculty are expatriates, representing an assortment of Anglophone nationalities … including the two American PCVs, Harriet and me. Nigeria is being hailed for its successful . . .

Paul Theroux's (Malawi 1963-65) Last Book on Africa

May 01 2013

Paul Theroux’s new book is a 2,500-mile foray into Africa’s heart (he’s been there before!) It is, says Theroux, his last trip on the continent. “Happy again, back in the kingdom of light,” writes Paul Theroux as he sets out on a new journey. Theroux first came to Africa when he was 22 and a PCV. We might say that the land has never left him. Now he returns, after fifty years on the road, to explore the little-traveled territory of western Africa and to take stock both of the place and of himself, as the book jacket tells us. The book jacket copy goes onto say: His odyssey takes him northward from Cape Town, through South Africa and Namibia, then on into Angola, wishing to head farther still until he reaches the end of the line. Journeying alone through the greenest continent, Theroux encounters a world increasingly removed from . . .

Archive - May 1, 2013