Archive - June 2016

1
Talking with Frank Rothman, author of BROOKLYN NY TO BOCAIUVA, BRAZIL
2
RPCV NYC Announces 5th Annual Story Slam Returned Peace Corps Volunteers take the stage to share true stories of service abroad
3
Palma de Mallorca inspires another poem by John Coyne (Ethiopia)
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Stephen Mustoe (Kenya) publishes BREVITÉ
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THE WETBACK AND OTHER STORIES by Ron Arias (Peru) due out in September
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A Poem: “Minorca” by John Coyne (Ethiopia)
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Review — HEALING THE MASCULINE SOUL by Gordon Dalbey (Nigeria)
8
Peace Corps Writers MFA Program: Now Open for PCVs and RPCVs
9
“Peace Corps Crown” — A poem by Ada Jo Mann (Chad)
10
Review — WHY STOP THE VENGEANCE? by Richard Stevenson [Richard Lipez (Ethiopia)]
11
Famous RPCV Journalists: The China Gang
12
A set back for RPCVs in North Carolina — maybe temporarily.
13
Advice for the graduate who wants to work in International Affairs
14
“The Peace Corps Radicalized Me” by Thomas Pleasure (Peru)
15
“Escaping Vietnam” — a poem by John Holley (Colombia)

Talking with Frank Rothman, author of BROOKLYN NY TO BOCAIUVA, BRAZIL

  In May Franklin D. Rothman (Brazil 1967–69) published his memoir Brooklyn, NY to Bocaiúva, Brazil: A Peace Corps Love Story with the Peace Corps Writers imprint. Here Frank talks about his Peace Corps days, life after Peace Corps and the writing of his memoir. • What was your Peace Corps project assignment in Brazil? Clubes Agricolas/Rural Community Action in Minas Gerais State (MG). The statewide project in selected municipalities in the interior of the state was conducted in coordination with State Secretaries of Agriculture and Education. Following a pre-assignment drop-off in the municipality of Carandaí, I expressed my desire to be assigned there, to join Lavonne Birdsall, who would be extending for her third year. Tell us about where you lived and worked. In the town of Carandai, I lived in a rented room known locally as the Palácio do Urubu (Vulture’s Palace). The property owner and his family lived . . .

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RPCV NYC Announces 5th Annual Story Slam Returned Peace Corps Volunteers take the stage to share true stories of service abroad

Join the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of New York City (RPCV NYC) on Saturday, June 25, 2016 when returned volunteers take the stage to tell stories of mischief, mayhem, and misadventure around the world. Doors open at 7 pm and the show begins at 7:30 pm at Hostelling International ­ NY located at 891 Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper Westside in Manhattan. Entry is donation based (suggested $5)  with refreshments also available by donation. Proceeds from the event will go towards an underfunded project through the Peace Corps Partnership Program which allows current volunteers  to fundraise for community led projects where they   serve. Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) have the unique experience of having lived and served  abroad for 27 months while integrating into the culture of their host communities. Far from the comforts and convenience of their lives in the U.S. and established family and friends they work at . . .

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Palma de Mallorca inspires another poem by John Coyne (Ethiopia)

  More than twice the size of my small island of Minorca is the island of  Majorca or Mallorca, the largest island in the Balearic Islands archipelago that also includes Ibiza and Formentera. I have been to all of them, and you should travel there as well. Here’s a poem that came out of one of my visits to the big island. Palma De Mallorca The woman in the hotel pool swam in steady lengths, mindless of the Mediterranean, the yellow sun on harbor walls, the dance of docked white yachts. Mindless as well of my gin and tonic, or Robert Graves, buried in the thick crust of Deya. Her blond hair combed the turquoise water. Beyond the high tips of palm trees, Palma de Mallorca rushed by, while she kept pace in her wet world. Swimmers know nothing but their breath, the pull of muscles, and coolness of flesh. She did not know us, watching her slight body, tan limbs . . .

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Stephen Mustoe (Kenya) publishes BREVITÉ

  About Brevité by Stephen Mustoe (Kenya 1983–84) • Brevité is a collection of concise, imaginative stories that range widely in focus and spirit, from poignant to upbeat, unsettling to comical. In Acceptance a son struggles to deal with his mentally ill mother’s impending death. In Dogfish Blues and Blind Faith a young boy, later a teenager, survives hilarious yet terrifying adventures in the company of his outrageous uncle. Parallel Lives has an ailing man considering a series of malaria-induced recollections that might or might not be real. A young woman tries to make sense of a quirky accident that spared her life in Encounter. Each of my brief stories has its basis in either personal experience or an event related by a friend or acquaintance. Nevertheless they are all fictional works, which gave me liberty to make things up as I went along. And that was the truly enjoyable part. . . .

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THE WETBACK AND OTHER STORIES by Ron Arias (Peru) due out in September

In the title story of The Wetback and Other Stories by Ron Arias (Peru 1963–65), Mrs. Rentería shouts, “David is mine!” as she and her neighbors gather about the dead but handsome young man found in the dry riverbed next to their homes in a Los Angeles barrio. “Since when is his name David?” someone asks, and soon everyone is arguing about the mysterious corpse’s name, throwing out suggestions: Luis, Roberto, Antonio, Henry, Enrique, Miguel, Roy, Rafael. Many of the pieces in this collection take place in a Los Angeles neighborhood that used to be called Frog Town, now known as Elysian Valley. Ron Arias reveals the lives of his Mexican-American community: there’s Eddie Vera, who goes from school yard enforcer to jail bird and finally commando fighting in Central America; a boy named Tom, who chews his nails so incessantly that it leads to painful jalapeño chili treatments, banishment . . .

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A Poem: “Minorca” by John Coyne (Ethiopia)

I first went to Menorca in the fall of 1967 having just finished a tour as an APCD in Ethiopia. I was looking for a place to live while working on my novel. In my last months in-country I combed the back pages of advertisements in the old International Herald Tribune looking for a place to rent, and it was Mark Foster (Ethiopia 1965-67), reading over my shoulder one day, who spotted an ad for an apartment in Mahon, Menorca, that was renting for $1 a day. “I’ve been to this island with my mother,” Mark said. “We sailed over from Mallorca. No Americans ever go there.” That was just what I wanted to hear! I left Africa in early September and spent the fall of that year on the island. I have been returning to Menorca ever since. Here’s why.     MENORCA From the red tile terrace of the Port Mahón Hotel I . . .

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Review — HEALING THE MASCULINE SOUL by Gordon Dalbey (Nigeria)

  Healing The Masculine Soul: How God Restores Men to Real Manhood Gordon Dalbey (Nigeria 1964-1966) Thomas Nelson 2003 (first published in 1988) 244 pages $12.70 (paperback), $ 4.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Michael Varga (Chad 1977-1979)  • There’s a tear in the western masculine soul and many men struggle with how to make themselves whole, given this wound. Gordon Dalbey draws on a ritual he witnessed during his Peace Corps tour in Nigeria to suggest potential solutions. Based on the “calling out” ceremony of the Igbo tribe, a male initiation rite, where a boy is required to leave his mother’s hut and join the men of the tribe, Dalbey asserts that in western societies most men never have a clear-cut opportunity to bond with men, often including their fathers. They remain tied to their mothers, and thereby often never mature enough to have satisfying relationships with other adults. In his work . . .

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Peace Corps Writers MFA Program: Now Open for PCVs and RPCVs

Peace Corps Writers MFA Program: Now open for PCVs and RPCVs Do you want to earn your Master’s Degree in Creative Writing while serving in the Peace Corps? Or do it today as an RPCV and not have to step onto a college campus? Would you like to write a memoir or book about your Peace Corps experience? Here is your chance to do both! I have arranged with National University in California to offer an online only Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree program for Peace Corps writers. This MFA is sponsored by the National Peace Corps Association (NPCA). PCVs & RPCVs will receive a tuition discount. The tuition for the MFA is in the area of 20K. National University is the second-largest private, nonprofit institution of higher education in California and the 12th largest in the United States. It is one of the very few universities that offer a . . .

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“Peace Corps Crown” — A poem by Ada Jo Mann (Chad)

  In her retirement, RPCV Ada Jo Mann is writing poetry and participates in a Poetry Circle at Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C. Recently her writing group was studying the contemporary poet, Patricia Smith, who writes complicated “crown sonnet” poems. Ada Jo decided to write a crown sonnet poem about her Peace Corps experience. The poem is actually 15 sonnets with the 15th sonnet made up of the first lines of each of the previous 14 sonnets, and her whole poem is focused on just one topic, her Peace Corps country, Chad. • Peace Corps Crown By Ada Jo Mann (Chad 1967-69) The toughest job you’ll ever love, they say And certainly a better choice than war A two-year stint on some forgotten shore So far from friends and family, should I stay? Or say my sad goodbyes and fly away. The choice is made-go forth and join the Corps Soon . . .

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Review — WHY STOP THE VENGEANCE? by Richard Stevenson [Richard Lipez (Ethiopia)]

  Why Stop the Vengeance? (A Donald Strachey Mystery — Volume 14) Richard Stevenson [Richard Lipez (Ethiopia 1962–64)] MLR Press 2015 248 pages $14.99 (paperback), $6.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Robert Keller (Albania 2008–09) • Well, I’m hooked. I put down Why Stop at Vengeance? ready to pick up another Donald Strachey mystery novel. And if the others are anything like this one, then they’re perfect summertime, beach reads. The lead, Donald Strachey, is a good-at-heart but slightly ambiguous private detective who rolls around Albany, NY getting into and out of trouble with less than reputable characters. Some are saints, others are down toward the other end of the spectrum. Why Stop at Vengeance? centers around an unholy alliance of right wing Christian zealots who spend millions to terrorize African countries with anti-gay propaganda and legislation. Strachey comes to the aid of a poor African man under political asylum; a man . . .

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Famous RPCV Journalists: The China Gang

Although the Peace Corps has given a start to many well-known writers—Paul Theroux, Maria Thomas, Philip Margolin, Bob Shacochis, among them—it has fostered relatively few journalists and editors. One of the first journalist was Al Kamen, a Volunteer in the Dominican Republic during the early 1960s.Recently retired after 35 years at the Washington Post, Kamen wrote a column, “In the Loop,” and also covered the State Department and local and federal courts. He assisted his Post colleague Bob Woodward with reporting for The Final Days and The Brethren. Other Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) of the 1960s who became well-known journalists include Vanity Fair’s special correspondent Maureen Orth, an urban community development volunteer in Colombia, and one of the first women writers at Newsweek, and MSNBC HardBall host Chris Matthews, who served in Swaziland. There are more, of course, with that kind of media power who went into film and the arts . . .

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A set back for RPCVs in North Carolina — maybe temporarily.

The Washington Times published the following AP report from the North Carolina legislature.  Associated Press, Wednesday, June 1, 2016 RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – Bipartisan legislation allowing North Carolina public school teachers and government employees with previous Peace Corps service to improve their pensions has been side-tracked in the House after a strong majority originally supported the legislation. The House initially voted 94-14 Tuesday for the bill, which would require workers to pay both their personal contribution and the government’s share to “buy” retirement credits for up to five years in the Peace Corps. But several Republican lawmakers asked Speaker Tim Moore to have their “yes” votes changed to “no,” setting the stage for procedural motions to cancel the previous approval. Some legislators then criticized the bill, saying Peace Corps veterans shouldn’t be treated the same as military veterans, which have a similar option. The bill was then returned to a committee.” . . .

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Advice for the graduate who wants to work in International Affairs

Morgan Courtney is a “Design thinker + foreign policy/international development practitioner working for social impact” who wrote an article for the Huffington Post.  She offers  ten points of advice for the “Graduate Who Wants to Work in International Affairs.” Of interest to the Peace Corps community and prospective applicants is #2 from Courtney. Get field experience. Many field jobs in international development require prior field experience. It’s a Catch-22. How do you get field experience if jobs require you to already have field experience? There are a couple of different ways. Firstly, your summer or semester in South Africa doesn’t count as much as you think it does. Sorry. What employers are looking for is real work experience, not classroom time, in another country. (What IS good is language proficiency from your time abroad!) So what can you do after college to get field experience? In my estimation, the very best . . .

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“The Peace Corps Radicalized Me” by Thomas Pleasure (Peru)

The following article was published on Argonaut Online — the web presence of The Argonaut, a local newspaper for the westside of Los Angeles — on June 1, 2016 under the title “Opinion Power to Speak.” We are delighted to have received permission from the author to repost it here. •   •  The Peace Corps Radicalized Me by Thomas Pleasure (Peru 1964–66)   SINCE FRANK MANKIEWICZ’S DEATH in 2014, activists, historians, cineastes, journalists and spinmeisters had been awaiting publication of his posthumous memoir, So As I Was Saying . . . My Somewhat Eventful Life. I imagine we all felt that Frank — son of “Citizen Kane” writer Herman Mankiewicz, nephew of director Joseph Mankiewicz and a political force of the 1960s and ’70s in his own right — had a special message for us. We were right. Movie buffs will lap up Frank’s tales of growing up in Hollywood and his conversation . . .

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“Escaping Vietnam” — a poem by John Holley (Colombia)

  A Writer Writes • Escaping Vietnam   Prime draft bait I was: twenty-four years old and able-bodied, with my educational deferment fast expiring as the enraged war machine scrambled to find fodder to cast into the useless Vietnam whirlpool deathtrap it could never convincingly justify. To avoid the inevitable and stall the military until the magic age of twenty-six when recruits were rejected for their resistance to blind obedience, I had applied for alternative service in the Peace Corps, which while still promising a warm and distant clime, would be of more merit than killing, safe, and maybe even fun. It was an angry and turbulent time: emerging from my tiny student garret where I hungrily pursued graduation as my ticket to physical survival, I found the university surrounded by blue uniforms in response to protests against the war I was trying to avoid: classes and exams were canceled . . .

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