Archive - August 6, 2013

The Liberia One Storybook The First Peace Corps Volunteers to Liberia Tell Their Stories Edited by Geraldine Kennedy (1962-64) Clover Park Press, $22 114 pages 2012 Reviewed by Casey Frazee (South Africa, 2009) Those interested in far-off places will relish in the rich descriptions of life in the Liberia of the mid-1900s, before the late 20th century civil war broke out and closed the Peace Corps program there for nearly 20 years. Volunteers who served in Liberia in the pioneering group are lucky to have a formalized account of their time spent learning how to speak, cook, and live like their West African counterparts. A small, fertile country situated on the western coast of Africa, curving southeast along the Atlantic Ocean, Liberia is a country with a rich, tumultuous history. The country was founded by freed black American slaves in the early 19th century. That history of liberation, optimism and . . .