May 2016 – Page 2 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Andy Martin (Ethiopia) still explaining American English to the world

May 15 2016

It is impressive what creative things PCVs do in the classroom to teach and have their students understand — in English — what in the world we Americans are saying. It is more impressive when an RPCV, some fifty years after his tour, is still experimenting with new devices to help foreign students in the US learn our particular (and peculiar) language, this time using the Internet and social media. Meet Andy Martin (Ethiopia 1965–68) who lives in New York City and has come up with two ingenious ways to explain to non-English-speakers our humor and the way we Americans talk among ourselves. As Andy wrote me . . . • When I came home from Ethiopia after three years in the Peace Corps teaching ESL, I had no desire or intent to teach ESL — or anything else. I mostly wanted to play rock and roll and join the revolution. I played at both of these for . . .

A film worth watching: A PASSING OF THE TORCH

May 14 2016

Our Peace Corps History A Passing of the Torch reveals the magical moment in history that lead to one of the first student movements of the 1960’s and the formation of the Peace Corps. Candidate John F. Kennedy gave a three-minute impromptu speech before 10,000 University of Michigan students who had waited in the chill until 2:00 AM to hear him speak. In that speech he challenged them to commit a part of their lives to public service. That speech addressed a yearning among young people in America to make a difference. In answer to that challenge a group of Michigan students began a national student movement that would lead to the formation of the Peace Corps in just a few short months. This documentary explores the incredible events and synchronicity of what happened and it’s relevance today through the perspectives and recollections of those involved including Bill Moyers, Harris . . .

Review — LOVE OR JUSTICE by Rachel Mannino (DC/staff)

May 13 2016

True Crime on the Hawaiian Lei-Away Plan Love or Justice Rachel Mannino (DC/staff) Limitless Publishing October 2015 408 pages $16.95 (paperback), $3.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Kitty Thuermer (Mali 1977–79) • He had me at “bodice ripper.” When John Coyne asked me to review Rachel Mannino’s Love or Justice, it was an easy sell. Too easy. After all, who could resist what a breathless reader called “a sexy, thrilling read . . .. I recommend this to anyone who enjoys a sexy and tough alpha FBI male that’s broody and hot, and a thrill ride with sexiness and a book that will leave you wanting more.” Wanting more? What I wanted was to edit that run-on testimonial and then get out the smelling salts in anticipation of a hot read. Mr. Coyne had, after all, dubbed Mannino the E.L James of Peace Corps —referring to the Fifty Shades of Grey author. . . .

The Snugli, happy babies and the Peace Corps

May 13 2016

Ann Moore was a pioneer Peace Corps Volunteer, a pediatric nurse who went to Togo in 1962. She was a member of a Peace Corps medical group which included doctors, nurses, lab techs, a pharmacist and others. Ann observed the traditional patterns of baby care in Togo. She saw that the babies were always carried by their mothers. She noted “the outstanding emotional well being of the African infant, either sick or healthy”. Ann brought home what she learned and created the baby carrier, the Snugli. Generations of happy babies and parents, the world over, was the result. But, read Ann’s powerful story in her own words. Clink on the statement to which says to “continue reading.” https://americannursetoday.com/blog/the-snugli-story/

FIVE AGAINST THE SEA by Ron Arias (Peru)

May 13 2016

In 1988 Ron Arias (Peru 1963-65), Senior Writer for People Magazine, interviewed five Costa Rican fishermen as they were rescued by a Japanese fishing boat in the Pacific after five months lost at sea and wrote a cover story for People. They had drifted closer to Japan than Costa Rica in Central America. This was a weekend fishing event for these friends, which turned into five months of near death on a day by day basis. Their small day boat, the Cairo, was not equipped for five months at sea, no water, and only the basic food for a weekend. But they had each other and believed their families would be waiting; they had to survive! The men collected rain water to drink, caught fish and birds for food. Ron’s cover story became a book about their ordeal, Five Against the Sea and was translated into Spanish as Cinco contra el Mar. Costa . . .

Talking with Rob Schmitz (China), author of STREET OF ETERNAL HAPPINESS

May 12 2016

ROB SCHMITZ (China 1996-98) is the China correspondent for American Public Media’s Marketplace, the largest business news program in the U.S. with more than 12 million listeners a week. He has reported on a range of topics illustrating China’s role in the global economy, including trade, politics, the environment, education, and labor. In 2012, Schmitz exposed fabrications in Mike Daisey’s account of Apple’s Chinese supply chain on “This American Life,” and his report headlined that show’s much-discussed “Retraction” episode. The work was a finalist for the 2012 Investigative Reporters and Editors Award. He has won two national Edward R. Murrow Awards and an award from the Education Writers Association for his reporting on China. Click to hear His Rob’s “Marketplace” stories. We emailed each other over the course of a few weeks for this interview, and I was helped with questions from a press releases from Crown Publishing about Rob’s new book . . .

Do you want to earn your MFA ONLINE?

May 10 2016

I am currently talking to several colleges and universities about developing an online Creative Writing MFA for Peace Corps PCVs and RPCV Writers. This degree could be obtainable within a year of your service–or while you are still overseas–you would have a MFA degree, and, I hope, a book, either a memoir or a novel before you finish your tour. The time frame would be one or two years depending on your schedule. Are you interested? I am working with several non-profit accredited colleges that have MFA online programs so that you could obtain the degree while you are a PCV, or after your tour, wherever you are living in the world….if you have a computer handy. I would teach one of the writing courses, and other RPCV faculty would be involved, including several book editors I know. It would be friendly, ‘hands on,’ and approachable courses that focus on your . . .

Read This and Weep; PC/HQ and the Murder of Kate Puzey and other HQ Crimes

May 10 2016

Last January I wrote about Alan Toth (South Africa 2010-12) and his video project, Posh Corps. He wrote me, “Three years ago, I started working on the Posh Corps project. The idea was simple: to discuss the modern Peace Corps experience honestly. I wanted to cut through the mythology and the marketing, and capture the experience of volunteering in a rapidly changing world.” He has been doing that but recently he started to produce a series of Peace Corps reform podcasts. He recorded the interview with Kellie Greene in Washington D.C. at the end of February 2016. As Alan wrote me, “I spent the last few months tracking down documents and editing the podcasts. I’ve wanted to do stories about internal agency problems for some time. I do support Peace Corps, but I don’t support institutional incompetence. It seems clear that the agency has not focused on improving management for . . .

Lost Letter From Maria Thomas (Ethiopia)

May 08 2016

The Peace Corps Writers’ Maria Thomas Fiction Award is named after the novelist Maria Thomas [Roberta Worrick (Ethiopia 1971–73)] who was the author of a well-reviewed novel, Antonia Saw the Oryx First, and two collections of short stories — Come to Africa and Save Your Marriage and African Visas — all set in Africa. Roberta and Tom Worrick were married with a young son when they went to Ethiopia as a married couple with the Peace Corps. After their tour, they continued to live and work in Liberia and again to Ethiopia. This time Tom was working for US AID. In addition to her life as a wife, mother, and PCV, Roberta Worrick was a wonderful writer. Her stories appeared in Redbook, Story and The New Yorker. She was a Wallace E. Stegner Fellow and received an Overseas Press Club’s commendation for reportage in Harper’s. She was coming into her own as a literary figure when . . .

Tony D’Souza: Summer in Sarasota (Cote d’Ivoire)

May 06 2016

I’ve lived all over the world, and I’d never be able to explain to my foreign friends how important summer is to my American identity. Lots of them don’t even have summer. In West Africa where I was in the Peace Corps, the only seasons were hot and hotter. Central America was like that, too; and in far northern Japan, where I studied the Utari indigenous people, summer was a starving time when the sea ice melted and the seals and whales they hunted headed farther north, leaving them with nothing to eat. But when I was a child in Chicago, summer was a golden season. It meant release from school, from long underwear, from interminable evenings in front of the TV with the world outside dark and frozen and nothing else you dared to do. Summer was like someone had turned the lights back on and we were . . .

KINGDOMS IN THE AIR by Bob Shacochis (Eastern Caribbean)

May 05 2016

From the Internet: Kingdoms in the Air: Dispatches from the Far Away brings together the very best of Bob Shacochis’s culture and travel essays in one live-wire collection that spans his global adventures and his life passions; from surfing, to his obsession with the South American dorado, to the time he went bushwhacking in Mozambique. In the titular essay “Kingdoms,” the longest work in the collection, Shacochis ventures to Nepal with his friend, the photographer Thomas Laird, who was the first foreigner to live in Nepal’s kingdom of Mustang as the forbidden Shangri-la prepared to open its borders to trekkers and trade. When the two men return a decade after Laird first lived there, Shacochis observes in brilliantly evocative prose both the current cultural and political landscape of the country, and the changes with which his friend has to reconcile. Replete with Shacochis’s signature swagger, humor, and crystalline wisdom, . . .

“The View from Birauta” by Don Messerschmidt (Nepal)

May 04 2016

When Don Messerschmidt (Nepal 1963-65) graduated from the University of Alaska/Fairbanks, cass of 1963, he was only vaguely aware of the Kingdom of Nepal. With a degree in education he thought he’d become a teacher in the Alaskan bush. But, by accepting an invitation to join the Peace Corps that summer, his life changed dramatically. By September he was in Nepal doing development work in the (then) remote central hills. Since 1963, Don has lived and worked in the Himalayas as a development advisor, anthropological researcher, teacher, and writer/editor. The epicenter of Nepal’s April 2015 Gorkha Earthquake was very near Don’s Peace Corps village. After the quake, he returned twice to help with the recovery work and documentation, under auspices of the all-volunteer non-profit Gorkha Foundation. As a member of the Board of Advisors, Don helps raise funds for rebuilding schools destroyed in the quake. Don can be contacted at . . .

Peace Corps Gap Year PCVs

May 03 2016

“The President and Mrs. Obama announced today that their daughter Malia will attend Harvard University in the fall of 2017 as a member of the Class of 2021,” the office of the first lady announced on Sunday. “Malia will take a gap year before beginning school.” Suddenly, the Gap Year is Hot! Those of us old enough to remember when there were No iphones and No Internet, will remember Peace Corps’ ATPs? No, an ATP wasn’t some sort of pain medication; it stood for Advance Training Programs and juniors in college applied early to the Peace Corps and spent the summer between their junior and senior high school year on a college campus somewhere in the States listening to boring lectures on their Country of Assignment before returning home for their senior year, and then off again the next summer to Peace Corps Training for real, often at the same . . .

A Writer Writes: “Peace Corps Reflections” by Bob Criso (Nigeria)

May 03 2016

In the Peace Corps Bob Criso (Nigeria 1966-67) was in southeastern Nigeria, the village of Ishiagu, and then in the Somalia 1966-67 in the village of Bulo Burte. After the Peace Corps he worked in mental health, and also at Princeton University as a psychotherapist for students and with a private office in Princeton. He retired seven years ago and currently lives in New York City where he reviews plays, take photos (four exhibits), and writes memoir articles. • Peace Corps Reflections Bob Criso There I was, back in the sixties, teaching English at a rural school in eastern Nigeria, raising chickens in a coop behind my house and hustling to promote sales of the beautiful pottery in the village of Ishiagu. It seemed like a great gig — a house of my own, a humongous book locker filled with classic and contemporary gems, motivated students, friendly colleagues and, in . . .

“The Nzeogwu I Knew” by Tim Carroll (Nigeria)

May 02 2016

Editor’s Note: In February 2015, Roger Landrum (01) 1961–63, in the email below, alerted the newsletter staff of what he believed to be an interesting story about a friendship that had developed in Nigeria in 1965 between Peace Corps Volunteer Tim Carroll and a young major in the Nigerian army. Jim. I recently read Achebe’s Biafra memoir, There Was a Country. It has a brief section on Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu, one of the five military majors who led the coup that triggered the chain of events leading to the Biafran secession and the civil war. Achebe calls Nzeogwu “a mysterious figure.” Maybe not all that mysterious! There was a Nigeria PCV named Timothy Carroll posted in Kaduna who was friends with Nzeogwu. I’m trying to convince Carroll to write a piece for the FON newsletter called “The Nzeogwu I Knew.” I think Nigeria RPCVs would find this fascinating. It . . .

Archive - May 2016