April 2019 – Page 2 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Michael Meyer (China) “The Quiet Revolt That Saved China,” Op-Ed, Wall Street Journal

Apr 17 2019

The Quiet Revolt That Saved China Forty years ago, farmers in Xiaogang village split their commune into family plots. A record harvest followed. by Michael Meyer (China 1995-97) April 16, 2019 7:35 p.m. ET Wall Street Journal • The People’s Republic of China turns 70 in October and will celebrate with flag-waving and fireworks. But 2019 marks several other major Chinese anniversaries whose public remembrance the Communist Party will suppress—and another milestone whose observance has been surprisingly muted. Twenty years ago, it was Falun Gong adherents being arrested. In July 1999 the Communist Party branded the spiritual meditation group an “evil cult.” On April 25, 1999, 10,000 practitioners, many of them elderly, had held a silent demonstration outside Beijing’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound. It was the capital’s largest protest since those held at Tiananmen Square ended—30 years ago this June—with a bloody military crackdown. Sixty years ago on March . . .

PEACE CORPS WRITER’S WORKSHOP THIS SEPTEMBER!

Apr 16 2019

PEACE CORPS WRITER’S WORKSHOP THIS SEPTEMBER! Want to spend three days in September on the Eastern Shore of Maryland discussing your book with other writers and RPCV authors? Peace Corps Writers, supported by the Peace Corps Fund, is arranging an inexpensive and small workshop for ten to fifteen RPCVs working on their own Peace Corps memoir, poetry, or fiction. This workshop will be held on the Eastern Shore of Maryland from Friday, September 20th to Monday, September 23rd at this lovely location: https://shoreretreatsonbroadcreek.org/ There will be talks, reviews of your manuscripts, individual conferences, stories to tell (and how to tell them) and plenty of time for conversations and relaxation. Space is extremely limited. At the moment we have not set the workshop fee but we want to make it as reasonable as possible for everyone. If you are interested in attending please let me know. jcoyneone@gmail.com Here are the RPCV . . .

Review — WITH KENNEDY IN THE LAND OF THE DEAD by William Siegel (Ethiopia)

Apr 15 2019

With Kennedy in the Land of the Dead A Novel of the 1960s By William Siegel (Ethiopia 1962–64) A Peace Corps Writers Book 355 pages January 26, 2019 $20.00 (paperback), $9.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Sue Hoyt Aiken (Ethiopia 1962—64) • The author, like myself, served in those very early days of the Peace Corps. We had elected to serve as high school teachers throughout Ethiopia at Emperor Haile Selassie’s invitation beginning in September, 1962. Around 300 of us landed in Addis Ababa eager to serve and demonstrate we could carry out President Kennedy’s call: Ask not what the country can do for you but what you can do for the country! Who knew of the tragedies that would unfold starting in 1963 with John F. Kennedy’s assassination up to and including the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King? Camelot was unmistakably over. The author has the narrator, Gilbert . . .

Peter Hessler (China) Discovers Egypt

Apr 14 2019

Editor John Coyne talks with Peter Hessler (China) Peter Hessler Discovers Egypt Peter Hessler is a 1992 graduate of Princeton University, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and was a Peace Corps Volunteer in China from 1996 to 1998. Since that time he has worked in China as a freelance writer for numerous publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, South China Morning Post, and National Geographic. In 2008, he won the National Magazine Award for excellence in reporting, and since 2000 he has been a staff writer at The New Yorker. Hessler has written four books on China. River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, which won the 2001 Kiriyama Book Prize, describes Hessler’s experience as an English teacher in Fuling, a small city on the Yangtze River. Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China, a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award, explores the intersection . . .

Concetta Anne Bencivenga (Thailand), Director of the Transit Museum of New York Subway

Apr 11 2019

Concetta Anne Bencivenga (Thailand 1992-94) is Director of the New York Transit Museum, the largest museum in the United States devoted to urban public transportation history and one of the premier institutions of its kind in the world. The New York’s first subway station opened in 1904 under City Hall with luxuries that today’s subway riders can hardly imagine. Here’s a look at the station today. • Failing New York Subway? Not Always — Once There Were Chandeliers by Winnie Hu New York Times April 11, 2019 New Yorkers once waited for the subway by the glow of chandeliers. Really. When the city’s first subway station opened in 1904 underneath City Hall in Lower Manhattan, it was a testament to New York’s arrival as a world-class city on par with London, Paris or Rome. The ornate station featured chandeliers, ornamental skylights and soaring archways with zigzagging patterns of terra-cotta . . .

“THE MAGIC STONE and the Woman who Wrote It!” (Kenya)

Apr 09 2019

While Arthur Dobrin was a student at City College in New York, he heard Harris Wofford speak at the college, and afterwards he went to Lyn and said, “Let’s join the Peace Corps.” In August of 1964, shortly before they were married, Lyn and Arthur Dobrin, applied to the Peace Corps. They were first offered Volunteer placement inThailand. “We didn’t want to do it because the assignment involved moving all over the country. We wanted to stay in one place and Arthur was more interested in Africa so when we were offered a project in cooperative development in Kenya, we said yes.” In addition to her assigned role of working with farmers cooperatives, Lyn had two additional goals. She wanted to write a cookbook and collect folk tales. She had decided before leaving for Kenya that she wanted to “write something that Kenyan children could relate to.” The cookbook never . . .

“East Meets West: An Account of a Trip to West Africa”

Apr 09 2019

East Meets West An Account of a Trip to West Africa – Summer, 1966 by Phillip LeBell (Ethiopia 1965-67) This is an account of a summer 1965 trip to West Africa of four Peace Corps Group IV volunteer teachers who flew from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where we had begun our service tours in January of that year. We were: Sudy Harris and Judy Hagens (stationed in Kombolchia), Letitia (Tish) Coolidge (stationed in Addis Ababa), and me (stationed in Emdeber, Shoa province). We had known each other during our training at UCLA, California in the fall of 1964, but this was the first time we were reunited in this somewhat spontaneous adventure. Attached is a general map of our West Africa trip, along with a map of the itinerary. Our first stop was in Khartoum, where we were well received by local residents who were both amused and surprised . . .

Sargent Shriver’s official memo giving instructions to staff on selection

Apr 08 2019

The University of New Mexico was the training site for Peace CorpsTrainees bound for South America, from 1962 to approximately 1967. Selection was an important part of the training process. Trainees were observed at all times and subject to psychological testing and evaluation in addition to the elaborate background checks. The University of New Mexico has archived important documents from Peace Corps Training. Thank you to the Archivists at the University of New Mexico’ s Center for Southwest Research. The archivist emailed me a digitial copy of the memo. I had to reformate it in order to post it here. The text was not changed. Here is the citation: Box 1 in the Selections 1962-1963 folder of UNMA 150, the Peace Corps Collection, Center for Southwest Research, University Libraries, University of New Mexico. _____________________________________________________________________ PEACE CORPS — Washington 25, D. C. MEMORANDUM TO ALL PEACE CORPS STAFF AND TRAINING PERSONNEL . . .

A Work in Progress: RPCV Authors

Apr 07 2019

A Work in Progress: RPCV Authors Approximately 30 years ago, Marian Haley Beil and I (both Ethiopia 1962-64) began to identify Peace Corps Writers. It was our Third Goal Project to spread the story of the Peace Corps in developing countries by promoting the writings of RPCVs here at home. We did this as two former volunteers, not connected to the Peace Corps agency or the NPCA. We began in April 1989 with a newsletter Peace Corps Writers & Readers and now on a website: www.peacecorpsworldwide.org We announce new books, have them reviewed, interview authors, and publish writings by RPCVs. We also started with Create Space/Amazon a line of Peace Corps Writers Books. Marian Beil is the creative publishing genius behind these projects. Annually we give cash awards in different categories for the best books published every year. We do not receive any money from these efforts, and gifts to . . .

Review — VODKA DIARIES by Richard Sayette (Russian Far East)

Apr 04 2019

The Vodka Diaries: A Peace Corps Volunteer’s Adventures in Russia Richard Sayette (Russian Far East 1994–95) Peace Corps Writers May 2018 330 pages $16.00 (paperback), $9,99 (Kindle) Reviewed by James W. Skelton, Jr. (Ethiopia 1970–72) • I jumped at the chance to review Richard Sayette’s Vodka Diaries: a Peace Corps Volunteer’s Adventures in Russia because I made well over 120 business trips to Russia between 1989 and 2007, working on various international transactions as a lawyer, plus I served in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia in the early 1970s. Since the time I spent in Russia was almost totally dedicated to working on oil and gas deals while residing in hotels in Western Russia, I was fascinated by the prospect of finding out what it was like for Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) to live and work in Eastern Russia in the mid-1990s. I was surprised when I . . .

Current New Yorker features Peter Hessler’s (China) new book

Apr 04 2019

“The Refugee and the Thief,” a chapter in Peter Hessler’s (China 1996-98) new book is featured in the April 1, 2019 issue of The New Yorker. The book is entitled The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution. It will be published in May. Manu fled Egypt a little bit at a time. First, he flew to Cyprus, because he knew a travel agent who helped him get a visa. Manu spent a few days in Larnaca, and he got a tattoo in Nicosia, and then he returned to Cairo. The next stop was Saudi Arabia. Visas were easy to get for Egyptians performing the ‘umrah’ pilgrimage, and Manu had a relative in the country. It may have been the first time in history that a gay man was going to Mecca as part of a plan to escape a Muslim country, but Manu wanted his passport stamped. . . .

NPCA President Glenn Blumhorst reports on volunteering at the border

Apr 03 2019

Here is Glenn Blumhorst Report about his experience. From the NPCA webpage: “There is a great need for Spanish-speaking volunteers to serve in hospitality centers at the southern border. NPCA President Glenn Blumhorst (Guatemala 1988-91) recently took a leave of absence to lend a hand. Here’s his story and how you can volunteer with Annunciation House. “I can empathize with them; I’ve been in their shoes,” said Lupe, the Amtrak ticket agent in El Paso, Texas. I was dropping off Fortunato and his six-year-old daughter, Lourdes, for their four-day trip to Bellingham, Washington, with connections in Los Angeles, Oakland, and Seattle. I was moved by how kind and considerate Lupe was to these particular travelers – refugees who had made the arduous journey from their village in Guatemala to the United States, desperately seeking the safety and economic security that we Americans take for granted. “I can too,” I . . .

Museum of the Peace Corps Experience requesting donations

Apr 03 2019

From the website of the Museum of the Peace Corps Experience — “The Committee for a Museum of the Peace Corps Experience was founded by returned Peace Corps Volunteers in 1999 in Portland, Oregon. As a 501(c)(3) private, non-profit organization, the Committee has an established record of artifact acquisition, professional exhibitions and modest fundraising. The Committee expanded its focus to the national level in 2016 during Peace Corps’ 55th Anniversary. Twelve dedicated returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs) from across the country stepped forward to comprise a core planning group. The Committee dramatically increased its activities in 2017 with a planning retreat in Denver preceding the annual Peace Corps Connect conference. Momentum built when Committee members met face-to-face for the first time and reconfirmed their commitment to building a museum, both online and physical. They formulated four strategic initiatives – Operations, Collections, Fundraising, Technology – which provide the road . . .

Review — MAR-A-LAGO by Laurence Leamer (Nepal)

Apr 02 2019

Mar-a-Lago: Inside the Gates of Power at Donald Trump’s Presidential Palace Laurence Leamer (Nepal 1965-67) Flatiron Books Publisher 304 pages January 29, 2019 $27.99 (hardcover), $14.99 (Kindle). $32.45 (Audiobook) Reviewed by Leita Kaldi Davis (Senegal 1993-96) • Mar-a-Lago provides history and insights into President Donald J. Trump that many readers say one must read if one wants to understand the great leader. Leamer’s research includes thirty-six pages of notes, a bibliography and an index, so you know he’s done his homework. Perhaps even more important, Leamer and his wife have lived in Palm Beach since 1994, and have had front row seats for the Donald Trump show since he turned his Mar-a-Lago estate into a club. Leamer never became a member of the club, but he has friends who are members, so he has had access to the tennis courts and dining room, and was able to . . .

Review — USE YOUR OWN VOICE by Dorthy Herzberg (Nigeria)

Apr 01 2019

Use Your Voice! Political Poetry and More by Dorothy Herzberg (Nigeria 1961-63) CreateSpace 74 pages May 2018 $10.00 (paperback Review by D.W. Jefferson (El Salvador 1974–76; Costa Rica 1976–77) • If you, like me, have been struggling to find your voice during the presidency of Donald Trump, this little volume of poetry may help. As the title suggests, author Dorothy Crews Herzberg has not only found her voice, she is using it to express her sentiments toward the President and his unconventional and often decidedly unpresidential behavior. Herzberg was born in 1935, so she has been observing our democracy for a very long time, and through many crises, including World War II. In the Preface to this book of poems she states, “I feel the election of 2016 has profoundly shaken the values, structure, and essence of democracy.” While she states her belief that our democracy will survive . . .

Archive - April 2019