February 2019 – Page 3 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Harris Wofford Memorials (Ethiopia)

Feb 07 2019

Please join family and friends to celebrate the remarkable life of Harris Wofford on Saturday, March 2, 2019 at 2:00 pm. The service will be held at Cramton Auditorium, Howard University (2455 6th Street NW, Washington, DC 20059). If you plan to attend, please email rsvp@voicesforservice.org. We also invite you to share a story or anecdote of how Harris Wofford impacted your life. In particular, we are interested in personal stories of when you met Harris and how that shaped or transformed your life or career. Submit your story here.

Review — YOU KNOW YOU WANT THIS by Kristen Roupenian (Kenya)

Feb 06 2019

You Know You Want This: “Cat Person” and Other Stories By Kristen Roupenian (Kenya 2003-05) Scout Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster 225 pages $24.99 (hardcover), $12.99 (Kindle), $23.19 (Audio CD) Reviewed by Marnie Mueller (Ecuador 1963-65) • Let me begin by saying I’m not the best person to be reviewing Kristen Roupenian’s debut book, You Know You Want This: “Cat Person” and Other Short Stories. One would think I would be because I’m a Second Wave radical feminist who agitated for equal rights for women, especially equal erotic rights. As a writer I’ve felt the pinch over the years of the publishing industry’s spoken and unspoken bias toward “likable” women characters. And I have my own bias in favor of difficult, edgy writing, whether by men or women. This said, I’ve now come up against the adage of, “beware of what you ask for.” When I first . . .

Peace Corps Carried On During the Shutdown!

Feb 06 2019

https://www.peacecorps.gov/news/library/peace-corps-sends-over-300-americans-service-abroad-january/ February 6, 2019 WASHINGTON – Over 300 Americans departed in January for Peace Corps service. They will spend the next two years working with communities in Albania, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Ghana, Myanmar, South Africa and Thailand. Peace Corps Response volunteers will undertake shorter-term, high-impact service assignments in China, Eswatini, Liberia, Malawi, Peru, Rwanda, Ukraine and Zambia. The new trainees gathered at staging events across the United States, including the District of Columbia, Los Angeles, Miami and Philadelphia. These pre-departure orientations are the first stage of Peace Corps service for trainees where they receive a stateside introduction to volunteer safety and service aboard. “Welcoming new Peace Corps trainees to Ecuador is an exciting part of my job,” said Peace Corps Ecuador Country Director Michael Donald. “The trainees bring with them different skills and life experiences that will enrich their communities in Ecuador and the Peace Corps community as a whole.” . . .

The Shaman of Turtle Valley by Clifford Garstang (Korea)

Feb 06 2019

The Shaman of Turtle Valley by Clifford Garstang (Korea 1976-77) Braddock Avenue Books Publisher May 2019 $16.95 available for pre-order now (at a discount) Synopsis: The Alexanders have farmed the land in Turtle Valley for generations, and their family and its history is tied to this mountainous region of Virginia in ways few others can claim. When Gulf War veteran Aiken Alexander brings home a young and pregnant South Korean bride, he hopes at long last to claim his own place in that complicated history—coming out from behind the shadow of his tragically killed older brother and taking up a new place in his father’s affections. However, things do not go according to plan. While he loves his young son, his wife, Soon-hee, can’t—or won’t—adjust to life in America. Her behavior growing stranger and stranger to Aiken’s eyes every day until the marriage reaches a breaking point. When Soon-hee disappears . . .

“A Game in the Sun” by John Coyne (Ethiopia)

Feb 04 2019

This collection of stories is drawn from various decades of my life, starting back when I was a high school student. It has recently been published by Cemetery Press and is available now at Amazon.com. I wrote stories and published them in high school, college and graduate school publications, but my first sale didn’t happen until I was 33 years old. In 1972, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine bought “A Game in the Sun” for $150 — the first money I ever earned from writing fiction. My apprenticeship as a novelist was even longer; I wrote seven before I finally got one published, in 1979. That was an occult-horror novel, The Piercing. I followed it up with half a dozen similar books, some of which made best seller lists. I have also written golf novels, love stories, non-fiction and one family saga. In this collection I’ve compiled 13 stories and entitled them A . . .

Review — DRAGONFLY NOTES by Ann Panning (Philippines)

Feb 03 2019

Dragonfly Notes: On Distance and Loss by Anne Panning (Philippines 1988–90) Stillhouse Press September 18, 2018 258 pages $16.00 (paperback), $9.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Kay Gillies Dixon (Colombia 1962–64) • Anne Panning’s memoir successfully brings together eloquent essays mourning the loss of a loving parent while remembering childhood experiences within her family and currently parenting her own two young children. Immediately following her mother’s funeral, the grieving Panning searches for communications from her mother. The first communications she attributes coming from her mother are not of dragonflies, but of a book Better Home and Gardens Sewing Book: Custom Sewing Made Easy. Sewing was embedded in her mother’s DNA. Another sign was of a laminated prayer card she found on the floor of Target: As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you. Isaiah-66. With these signs, she believes her mother is reaching out to her. Then, early in . . .

Former Peace Corps trainee sentenced in case of video voyeurism

Feb 02 2019

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from James Sheahan (Sierra Leone 1961-63) Peace Corps Press Release Former Peace Corps trainee sentenced in case of video voyeurism 01/29/2019 WASHINGTON – On January 24, 2019, former Peace Corps trainee Matthew Walker, 31, was sentenced by a federal magistrate judge to 3 years of probation and 30 days of intermittent confinement for committing acts of video voyeurism. He was sentenced at the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Florida in Pensacola, Florida. On November 13, 2018, Walker pled guilty to three counts of video voyeurism stemming from conduct he engaged in while a Peace Corps trainee in Zambia in 2016. Walker admitted to using his GoPro camera on three occasions to record a fellow trainee, without consent, while the fellow trainee was naked and changing in areas where the fellow trainee had a reasonable expectation of privacy. Inspector General Kathy A. Buller . . .

Archive - February 2019