July 2017 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Sixth Prize Peace Corps Fund Award: Discovering Bhagawan by Sara Wagner (Nepal)

Jul 31 2017

Sara Wagner (Nepal 1996-98) left the United States for the first time on the cusp of her 24th birthday, to become a Community Health Volunteer Coordinator with the Peace Corps. Upon returning Stateside, she delved into public health on the country’s largest tribal nation, with the Navajo Area Indian Health Service. She has lived in Northern Arizona for the past 18 years yet still feels an affinity for distant Himals rising in the north, foothills and river valleys cascading down from every direction, flowing to India, to everywhere – for taking a step back in time, as if into a storybook, to a simpler time and place, awakened her heart. While it sometimes feels like this experience never happened, something, or someone, always comes along to remind her that she did not imagine it, that these people who embody love are real. Discovering Bhagawan By Sara Wagner A magnificent sunset engulfed . . .

RPCV lobbying the White House for Peace Corps directorship

Jul 28 2017

I had a long conversation this morning with an RPCV who is lobbying the White House to be the next director of the Peace Corps. (Yes, Virginia, there are Republican RPCVs). The candidate wants to be Director to improve the agency and the role of PCVs overseas. This former Volunteer served for three years in the Peace Corps, in Africa, and in the early ’70s. A successful business person who wants to improve the agency, the candidate is seeking ‘your ideas’ to take to any forthcoming meetings with the Trump Administration. You can post your opinions and ideas on the site now and I’ll see that the RPCV candidate receives the information. This RPCV candidate for Director will also be attending the NPCA Conference next week in Colorado. The candidate will send me the time and location where you can talk personally in Denver and share your ideas. I’ll post the information . . .

Sixth Prize Peace Corps Fund Award: “Hyena Man” by Jeanne D’Haem (Somalia)

Jul 28 2017

Jeanne D’Haem, Ph.D. (Somalia 1968-70) is currently an associate professor of Special Education and Counselling at William Paterson University in New Jersey. She was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Somalia. She served as an English and math teacher in Arabsiyo and Hargeisa, and taught adult education classes and sponsored the first Girl Guide troop in Hargeisa. Jeanne was a director of special services and a special education teacher for over thirty years. As a writer, she has published two prize-winning books and numerous journal articles. The Last Camel, (1997) published by The Red Sea Press won the Peace Corps Paul Cowan Peace Corps Writers Award for nonfiction. Desert Dawn with Waris Dirie (2001) has been translated into more than twenty languages. It was on the best seller list in Germany for over a year where it was awarded the Corine Prize for nonfiction. Her most recent book is Inclusion: The Dream . . .

Sixth Prize Peace Corps Fund Award: “Honey for the Heart” by Brian Minalga (Niger)

Jul 27 2017

Brian Minalga (Niger 2008-10, Namibia 2010-12) served as an educator in the Peace Corps in Niger and Namibia. He then was a Peace Corps Recruiter from 2013-2014. Brian also completed a Master of Social Work degree as a Paul D. Coverdell Fellow. He now lives in Seattle where he works nationally to advance justice for historically underrepresented communities in HIV clinical and behavioral research. • Honey for the Heart by Brian Minalga A ga kanu ay se. It is sweet to me. THIS IS HOW YOU SAY that you like something in a dusty town called Dosso in Niger, West Africa. The language is called Zarma, and Zarmaphones are very interested in what’s sweet to you: Dunguri nda mo, a ga kanu ni se? (Beans and rice, is it sweet to you?) Kaidiya wate, a ga kanu ni se? (Rainy season, is it sweet to you?) . . .

Review — SEASONED by Tom Zink (Micronesia)

Jul 26 2017

Seasoned: A Memoir of Grief and Grace by Tom Zink (Micronesia 1968–70) An Off The Common Book 2017 238 pages $20.00 (paperback) Reviewed by Michael Varga (Chad 1977–79) • THE DEATH OF Tom Zink’s older brother, Steve, at age 16 is a traumatic event in the life of the Zink family. Conservative Lutherans, the Zinks adhere to a gospel where a death is God’s will, unfolding, in all of its mystery. Tom is only 14 when he loses his brother as they are delivering newspapers and Steve is hit by a car. Tom relies on the adults around him to make sense of this tragic event. But the adults are grieving in their own solitary way and offer little help to the young Tom. He divides people into those who knew about Steve (the “before people”) and those who didn’t (the “after people”). And since so many of those Tom . . .

Fifth Prize Peace Corps Fund Award: “Where Carbs Mean Friendship” by Lucas Gosdin (Peru)

Jul 26 2017

Lucas Gosdin (Peru 2013-15) served as a community health volunteer in Peru where he had two host families and lots of friends. He loves to visit them and communicate with them through WhatsApp. Lucas never learned how to make good ceviche, but he can make a lot of delicious dishes you have never heard of. Lucas is a doctoral student studying maternal and child nutrition at Emory University. He also conducts research in Peru. • Where Carbs Mean Friendship by Lucas Gosdin EVERY GUEST KNOWS that refusing food might be considered rude. Now imagine being in a place where friendship is measured in food. After hugging me and calling me her new son, the first question my host mother, Teo, asked was, “Qué no te gusta comer?” — what don’t you like to eat? After living in Peru for a few months of training, I knew the connotation . . .

Trump, Lies, and the Peace Corps

Jul 25 2017

Op-Ed in The News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina, July 21, 2017 (Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Bea Hogan (Uzbekistan 1992-94) • Trump, lies, and the Peace Corps BY GENE NICHOL Contributing columnist Gene Nichol is Boyd Tinsley distinguished professor of law at the University of North Carolina. His daughter in a Peace Corps Volunteer in The Gambia. She would be unaffected by Trumps proposals. Several times each week, Americans are pressed with an odd question – how did we come to this? Who would have thought it possible, for example, that when the presidents of the United States and Russia give conflicting accounts of their joint discussions, most of us would assume that a murderous, dictatorial KGB operative was closer to the truth. Even Republicans seemed to wince: “It’s certainly conceivable Putin is lying, but we know Trump lies constantly – all day, every day, whether he . . .

Fifth Prize Peace Corps Fund Award: “The Stories We Tell” by GraceAnne Heater (Rwanda)

Jul 25 2017

GraceAnne Heater (Rwanda 2014-16) served in Peace Corps Rwanda as an ESL high school teacher. She has won many contests, including a pie eating contest at age 10, a cow milking contest at age 17, and a peeps diorama competition at age 28. She is an avid reader and a passionate but undisciplined writer. She currently resides in Philadelphia with her husband and their adopted Rwandan cat. • The Stories We Tell by GraceAnne Heater MURUNDA, MY VILLAGE, was in the only district in Rwanda without a paved road. It was remote, poor, and nearly inaccessible during the rainy season. It was an hour and a half away from the main road, a motorcycle ride that stopped my heart and took my breath, nothing but steep mountains, sharp curves, uneven roads, and views of Lake Kivu with the DRC looming in the distance. Murunda was home . . .

Fourth Prize Peace Corps Fund Award: Peace Corps Poems by Earl Huband (Oman)

Jul 24 2017

Earl Huband (Oman 1975-78) worked for the Oman Ministry of Education. During his first two years, Earl taught 1st – 6th year English 4th–9th grade) in Bukha, a small Musandam fishing village in the northern part of Oman, near the mouth of the Persian Gulf. During his third year, Earl worked in Salalah, the capital of Oman’s southern district, splitting his time between teaching English and serving as assistant to that region’s Chief English Inspector. The following are a few of the 28 poems he submitted. • The Journey from the Interior Airborne over the Batinah plain, we skirt the coast en route to Bukha, a small Musandam fishing village near the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Arabian — not Persian — Gulf: these Arabs never say Persian. This Sky Van, this bumblebee of planes, this flying buzzsaw bears the number nine — one — one emblazoned . . .

More “Fall Out” from Hessler’s Letter From Colorado (Spain)

Jul 23 2017

If you read Peter’s letter about “How residents of a rural area started copying the President” you might have been surprised when you read these two paragraphs. “In Grand Junction, I learned to suspend any customary assumptions regarding political identity. I encountered countless strong working women, some of whom believed in abortion rights, who had voted for Trump. Cultural cues could be misleading: I interviewed one gentle, hippieish Trump voter who wore his gray hair in a ponytail. An experience like leaving a small town for an Ivy League college, which might lead some people to embrace more liberal ideas, could inspire in others a deeper conservatism. And so I wasn’t entirely surprised to learn that Tyler Riehl, like me, was a former Peace Corps volunteer. “He had served in Slovakia. “Every time you get to look at how somebody else lives, it gives you perspective that’s useful,” Riehl told . . .

Review — ON THE WIDE AFRICAN PLAIN by Richard Fordyce (Ghana)

Jul 22 2017

On the Wide African Plain — And Other Stories of Africa Rick Fordyce (Ghana 1978—80) Merrimack Media August 2016 175 page $14.00 (paperback) Reviewed by Geraldine Kennedy (Liberia 1962–64) • IN THIS SOMETIMES MOVING, sometimes amusing collection of short stories by Rick Fordyce, snapshots of Ghana in the late 1970s play out for the fly-on-the-wall reader. You can look, but only so far. No touching, no asking questions. Fordyce doesn’t often give much context. No wide-angle shots from him. No detailed backstories. We are dropped into the close-ups, bystanders rafting down the blood stream of the body Africa with our faces in the capillaries and platelets. In the opening, “Away,“ (unfortunately launched with a paragraph that is a long, meandering sentence — 7 “ands,” 5 commas, 2 semi-colons), the white teacher suffers the same deprivations as the villagers. Food is randomly available and there is never enough. He looks at . . .

Review — DIFFERENT LATITUDES by Mark D. Walker (Guatemala)

Jul 21 2017

Different Latitudes: My Life in the Peace Corps and Beyond by Mark D. Walker (Guatemala 1971–73) Peace Corps Writers April, 2017 332 pages $18.00 (paperback), $5.00 (Kindle) Reviewed by John Holley (Colombia 1968–70) • I WAS ASKED to review this book because my life’s work parallels Mr. Walkers in many ways: we both got our start in the Peace Corps, and worked in international development. Furthermore, the Walkers have a strong tie with Guatemala where I attempted to make it my permanent home but failed. Furthermore, having moved around a lot and worked in 50 countries, I have lived a similar family life, and could easily relate to Mr. Walker’s experience. My work, however, was very different from Mark’s: I worked in mainstream development, improving health care systems and programs, hired at one time or another by most of the major donors, such as the World Bank, various UN agencies, USAID . . .

Third Prize Peace Corps Fund Award: “Of That Wide Water, Inescapable” by Eleanor Stanford (Cape Verde)

Jul 21 2017

Eleanor Stanford (Cape Verde 1998-2000) is the author of two books of poems, Bartram’s Garden and The Book of Sleep (both from Carnegie Mellon University Press). Her poems and essays have appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, The Harvard Review, The Iowa Review, and many others. Eleanor’s Peace Corps memoir, História, História: Two Years in the Cape Verde Islands, received the 2014 Peace Corps Writers Moritz Thomsen Peace Corps Experience Award. She was a 2014/2016 Fulbright fellow to Brazil, where she researched and wrote about traditional midwifery. She lives now in the Philadelphia area. • Of That Wide Water, Inescapable • We live in an old chaos of the sun, Or old dependency of day and night, Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, Of that wide water, inescapable. from “Sunday Morning,” Wallace Stevens • MY HOUSE ON THE ISLAND of Fogo was built into the side of the volcano. When I moved in, Gustinha . . .

Peace Corps Writers: Sell Your Books at NPCA Conference This August

Jul 20 2017

At the August Conference of NPCA tables will be available for you to sell your books. Registration fee is $100. Find out more: https://www.peacecorpsconnect.org/events/peace-corps-connect-conference-partner-exhibition

Second Prize Peace Corps Fund Awards: “Samarkand Calling” by Beatrice Hogan (Uzbekistan)

Jul 19 2017

Beatrice Hogan served in the first group of Peace Corps Volunteers in Uzbekistan (1992-94), and in 2001, returned to the region as an International Reporting Project (IRP) Fellow. She’s worked as a book editor, a radio reporter, and a magazine researcher, and her work has appeared in More, Business 2.0 and Marie Claire, among other publications. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English from Georgetown and a master’s in international affairs from Columbia. • Samarkand Calling WE WERE IN UZBEKISTAN, heading for Bukhara, an historic city about four hours outside Samarkand, when a soldier flagged down our car with a white baton. My husband and I stared at each other nervously as our driver pulled into the checkpoint. I was in Central Asia on a month-long journalism fellowship; Kevin had come along as my photographer. The soldier demanded our passports and disappeared into a roadside shack. I realized that . . .

Archive - July 2017