2015 – Page 2 – Peace Corps Worldwide

REVIEW: The Keys to the Congo by Irene Brammertz (Zaire 1988-90; Malawi 2011-12)

Dec 14 2015

The Keys to the Congo: and Further Travels: Memoir of a 2x Peace Corps Volunteer by Irene Brammertz (Zaire 1988-90; Malawi 2011-12) Self-published October 2015 207 pages $30.00 (hardcover), $8.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Leita Kaldi Davis (Senegal 1993–96) • Irene Brammertz has written a diary type memoir, drawing on journals and letters she wrote and subsequently edited intermittently for ten years after her first service as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Zaire. When Irene was 70-years-old she returned to Africa as a Peace Corps Response Volunteer for nine months in Malawi. Then she participated in a mission trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) in 2013, when she revisited the people and places she had left behind in 1990. In her memoir, Irene recalls all the tribulations of culture shock that every PCV experiences: It’s a wonder that anybody gets anything done to earn a living since it . . .

New books by Peace Corps writers — November 2015

Dec 14 2015

To purchase any of these books from Amazon.com, click on the book cover, the bold book title, or the publishing format you would like — and Peace Corps Worldwide, an Amazon Associate, will receive a small remittance that will help support the site and the annual Peace Corps Writers awards. • The Keys to the Congo: and Further Travels: Memoir of a 2x Peace Corps Volunteer Irene Brammertz (Zaire 1988–90; Malawi 2011–12) Self-published October 2015 207 pages $30.00 (hardcover), $8.99 (Kindle) . • One of Windsor: The Untold Story of America’s First Witch Hanging (historical fiction) Beth M. Caruso (Thailand 1989–91); editor: Susanne Aspley (Thailand 1989–91) Lady Slipper Press October 2015 386 pages $17.95 (paperback); $9.99 (Kindle) • A Stone House in Pokhara and Other Tales (Peace Corps letters) Mike Frame (Nepal 1962-66) Larchill Press 2011 250 pages $25.00 from Larchhill Press . • Mike’s Breakfast Cooking in Nepal . . .

More on the "Less" Medical Help for RPCVs

Dec 14 2015

(Thanks to Nancy Tongue(Chile 1980-82) founder of Health Justice for Peace Corps Volunteers (HJPCV) for Leading this fight for better health for RPCV.) CBS NEWS December 14, 2015, 7:43 AM Ex-volunteers accuse Peace Corps of health care neglect The Peace Corps says 91 percent of volunteers are satisfied with their medical care, but government reports as far as 1991 found problems with that care. Some returned volunteers tell CBS News they’ve fallen through the cracks both during and after their service — in some cases, for decades, reports CBS News correspondent Kris Van Cleave. In 1965, Nancy Minadeo Flanigan was a Peace Corps volunteer in Malaysia. She was raped by local men and impregnated with a daughter, who died at birth. “I started having depression and nightmares and flashbacks,” Flanigan said. In 2012 she got word she would be reimbursed for 50 years of medical bills, but she needed receipts. “Well, . . .

Annual Report of the Peace Corps Sexual Assault Advisory Council

Dec 13 2015

The Kate Puzey Peace Corps Volunteer Protection Act of 2011 mandated that a Peace Corps Sexual Assault Advisory Council be created to evaluate the progress the agency was making on implementing that legislation.The report is made to the President, the Chair, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and Chair, House Committee on Foreign Affairs. The Report was delivered on October 28, 2015. It covers the period Fiscal 2014 to Fiscal 2015. The report addresses many issues that were publicized recently. It is now available online at the Peace Corps’s official website. The Executive Summary is copied below. http://files.peacecorps.gov/multimedia/pdf/policies/PCAC_Annual_Report_2015.pdf “EXECUTIVE SUMMARYIn the years since the Kate Puzey Act was passed, the Peace Corps has worked diligently and meticulously to implement a new Sexual Assault Risk Reduction and Response Program (SARRR) that raises the bar on support and services that are provided to Volunteer victims. The Peace Corps recognized the need for change . . .

Talk less, Write more

Dec 11 2015

I was reading recently that while less people are reading, books themselves are getting longer. James Finlayson at Vervesearch analyzed more than 2,500 bestsellers list and found that the average number of pages in a book has increased by 25 percent in the last 15 years. Books published today have on average about 80 pages more than they did in 1999. According to The Guardian “The first five years of Booker-winning novels average out at around 300 pages, but even taking into account Julian Barnes’s 2011 triumph with his 160-page novella The Sense of an Ending, the last five years of Booker laureates weigh in at an average of 520 pages. This year’s winner was brief only in name: Marlon James’s 700-page A Brief History of Seven Killings.”

Review of John Coyne's (Ethiopia 1962-64) Novel Hobgoblin

Dec 10 2015

Hobgoblin (new issue) John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962-64) Dover Publications September 2015 320 pages $14.95 (paperback) $9.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Bob Arias (Colombia 1964-66) • Boo! Trick or Treat? No, this isn’t a Halloween novel with Ghosts, Vampires, and Witches. This is a murder mystery, with bodies everywhere. From Connecticut, where young Scott attended Spencertown Academy to Flat Rock, a rural high school in Crossroads, New York. Scott and his beautiful Mom Barbara have moved south after his father Warren dies of a heart attack. The mystery just gets started as Barbara takes on the position of Historian for a medieval castle known as Ballycastle. Built by wealthy Irishman Fergus O’Cuileannain, who is a rather weird individual, cared for by another Irish Serf named Conor Fitzpatrick. Conor resembles a fast walking Hobbit always carrying on in his Irish Gaelic. What a setting. Ballycastle is three hours from New York City and . . .

Letters from Nurses in the Peace Corps

Dec 08 2015

Letters from Nurses in the Peace Corps was published in 1967 as a recruiting brochure. It currently is not available on the media website of the Peace Corps. When the transition to the new website, PCLive, is complete, then this digitalized historical document and others may be once again available online on that website. I have copied some letters here. As the work of Peace Corps Volunteers, particularly women, is under discussion, I wanted to show their Peace Corps work, in their own words. • • • • • Letters from Peace Corps Nurses A 1967 Peace Corps recruiting brochure . RUTH REESE WRITES FROM MALAYSIA It was a quiet Sunday when two young girls from the nearest longhouse came to fetch me to deliver a baby — my first such opportunity in six weeks of health work among the 13 longhouses at our community-development center. Birth in an !bah longhouse . . .

Press 53 Editor Clifford Garstang (Korea 1976-77) Looking for Short Fiction

Dec 07 2015

Everywhere Stories Volume II: More Short Fiction from a Small Planet Ends on 12/31/2015 Call for submissions! Following the success of Everywhere Stories Volume I, we are now preparing Volume II for publication in the Fall of 2016. Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet (Edited by Clifford Garstang, published by Press 53 in Fall 2014) is an anthology of short fiction (short stories of any length, short shorts, and flash) set around the globe, including the United States. Volume I consisted of 20 stories by 20 authors set in 20 countries. Volume II will consist of around 20 fictions, with no more than one story set in any one country. Included stories will be a mix of previously published and new work. Each contributor will be entitled to a contributor copy and author discounts on additional copies. Deadline for submissions: December 31, 2015. Writers may submit more than one story. What . . .

Mark Jacobs (Paraguay 1978-80) Publishes "Bitter River" in The Baffler

Dec 07 2015

The current issue of The Baffler has a new story by Mark Jacobs ( Paraguay 1978-80). Mark is the winner of the Peace Corps Writers Maria Thomas Award for his novel Stone Cowboy. A former Foreign Service officer, he has published more than 100 stories in magazines including The Atlantic, The Southern Humanities Review, The Idaho Review, The Southern Review, and The Kenyon Review. His story “How Birds Communicate” won the Iowa Review Fiction Prize in 1998. His five books include three novels and two collections of short stories. His story-“Bitter River”– can be found at: http://thebaffler.com/stories/bitter-river-mark-jacobs The Baffler, est. 1988, is a printed and digital magazine of art and criticism appearing three times annually-spring, summer, and fall. Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is available in the U.S. states and abroad. Mark also has a story “Garbage Can” coming out shortly from Carolina Quarterly.

Steven Radelet (Samoa 1981-83) Publishes The Great Surge:The Ascent of the Developing World

Dec 06 2015

Steven Radelet (Western Samoa 1981-83) holds the Donald F. McHenry Chair in Global Human Development at Georgetown University, is an economic adviser to the president of Liberia, and the author of Emerging Africa: How 17 Countries Are Leading the Way. He has just written a new book, The Great Surge: The Ascent of the Developing World, published last month, that takes the position that “never before have so many people in so many developing countries made this much progress.” His book states that since the end of the Cold War, the development of new technologies, globalization, courageous local leadership, and, in some cases, good fortune have combined to dramatically improve the fate of hundred of millions of people in poor countries around the world. Early in his book, Radelet quotes another famous Peace Corps writer, Paul Theroux (Malawi 1963-65), who declared in 2013 in a piece for Barron’s that “I . . .

Here's a Comment from Andrew Herman We All Should Read on Peace Corps Fantasies

Dec 06 2015

“Talking with Dr. Molly Geidel about her Provocative Cultural History of the 1960s’ Peace Corps” Comment: Thank you John for facilitating this discussion and giving it quite a rocket engine of a start. First of all, I neither have time nor energy to expose all of the logical fallacies upholding this many-headed argument accusing 50 years of goodwill by Peace Corps volunteers of committing more harm than good. However, I will attack the most egregious of them here. For starters her entire argument assumes the Peace Corps must be guilty by association with the US federal government and never once attempts to quantify how exactly this argument should be upheld. As a scientist I was taught, “if it cannot be measured, it does not exist.” How exactly does Geidel intend to measure Peace Corps’ negative effects on indigenous cultures around the Third World? And even if it were proven fact, . . .

Kent Haruf's (Turkey 1965-67) Last Novel Remembered

Dec 03 2015

The Wall Street Journal’s Encore section on Monday, November 30, 2015, had a collection of recommended books for “The Good Life”. These were the top picks of 2015, a selection of great reads that “cover health, humor, travel and more” written by Diane Cole. She writes: If there is a recipe for aging well, it must involve the mind, the body, the spirit–and the funny bone. You’ll find myriad suggestions for how to do just that in this year’s best books for the territory ahead. On her list of six books is Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf (Turkey 1965-67). Cole writes: Kent Haruf’s spare and elegant novel, Our Souls at Night, was one of the best of the year for any age–but men and women entering new life phases will particularly savor the game courage and dry wit with which its two main characters take an unlikely bet . . .

Peace Corps Reports on Volunteer Safety and Security

Dec 02 2015

The Peace Corps has published the latest Statistical Report of Crimes against Volunteers for FY2014. The Report should be read, and I will not attempt to summarize it because it is so exact and comprehensive. The Report includes definitions of each category of crime and then breaks out the incidents by country and gender. I found it very difficult to read because it brings home in black and white the difficulties that so many Volunteers are facing. Here is the link: http://files.peacecorps.gov/multimedia/pdf/policies/volsafety.pdf On the webpage of Peace Corps there are other direct links to various reports concerning safety and security for Volunteers. Here is the list and links. Many of these reports are for applicants and those entering service and are designed to inform them. Some remind me of the old booklets from colleges, “So Now you are going to College” “What about Safety” This report was updated 9.2.15 Here . . .

How Peace Corps Handled My Sexual Assault

Dec 01 2015

How Peace Corps Handled My Sexual Assault My name is Cait Hakala and I’m a proud native of Tinley Park, Illinois. I graduated with a B.A. in Comparative Literary Studies and a minor in Spanish from Northwestern University in June of 2013. I joined the Peace Corps and began serving as a Secondary Education English teacher in a public high school in East Java in March 2014. A misleading and downright irresponsible article posted on November 30th by CBS News concerning Peace Corps’ response to sexual assaults requires my response. You can read that article here. The author lumps together three very different issues: the question of in-country staff misconduct against host country nationals and a narrative of the termination of a victims’ advocate are sprinkled with tales of horror from PCVs who were assaulted in an attempt to reduce Peace Corps to just as hapless as it is villainous when it comes to dealing with sexual assault. I have absolutely no comment on or . . .

Talking with Dr. Molly Geidel about her Provocative Cultural History of the 1960s' Peace Corps

Nov 30 2015

Several weeks ago I was reading The New York Review of Books and spotted a full page advertisement for new books published by the University of Minnesota Press. Glancing at the page one title jumped out at me. Contacting the press for a review copy of the book, I also sought out (and found) Molly Geidel in England where she is teaching American studies at the University of Manchester. Her official title is Lecturer in Twentieth Century American Cultural History in the Division of English, American Studies and Creative Writing. I am pleased to say, Molly agreed to be interviewed for our site and over the course of a few weeks, while I read her cultural history of the agency, I emailed Molly a series of questions about her book and her study of the Peace Corps in the 1960s. I should start by saying that Dr. Geidel in her . . .

Archive - 2015