June 2020 – Peace Corps Worldwide

PEACE CORPS VOLUNTEERS AND THE MAKING OF KOREAN STUDIES IN THE UNITED STATES

Jun 30 2020

From 1966 through 1981 the Peace Corps sent more than two thousand volunteers to South Korea, to teach English and provide healthcare. A small yet significant number of them returned to the United States and entered academia, forming the core of a second wave of Korean studies scholars. How did their experiences in an impoverished nation still recovering from war influence their intellectual orientation and choice of study — and Korean studies itself? In this volume, Peace Corps Volunteers and the Making of Korean Studies in the United States, former Volunteers who became scholars of the anthropology, history, and literature of Korea reflect on their experiences during the period of military dictatorship, on gender issues, and on how random assignments led to lifelong passion for the country. Two scholars who were not volunteers assess how Peace Corps service affected the development of Korean studies in the United States. Co-editor . . .

Ursula Bendix (Colombia) publishes LAND-HOME-MOUNTAIN VIEW

Jun 30 2020

Ursula Bendix (Colombia 1967-69) was born in Germany in 1945 and immigrated with her family to Portland, Oregon, when she was ten. After receiving her undergraduate degree from Portland State University, she joined the Peace Corps as an educational television volunteer in Columbia, South America. At the end of her two-year volunteer service she returned to Portland, completed her master’s degree, and finished working on a secondary school teaching credential. She moved to Yreka, California, in 1976 teaching adult education and Spanish for the College of the Siskiyous many years. She also taught at a polytechnic high school in southern Chile in 2018 as part of the English Open Doors program sponsored by Chile’s Ministry of Education and the United Nations. She is owner/broker of Bendix Real Estate specializing in Yreka and much of Siskiyou County for twenty years. Bendix’s Land • Home • Mountain View is her first . . .

Review — THE LAST RHINO by Robert Gribbin (Kenya)

Jun 30 2020

The Last Rhino (novel) Robert E. Gribbin (Kenya 1968–70) iUniverse April 2020 218 pages $24.15 (paperback) Reviewed by Sandy Seppala-Gyr (Kenya 1977-79) • Are there any white rhinoceros left in Africa? Who is poaching elephants, which are killed for their ivory to send to China? This book takes you to Central Africa where you’ll see what it takes to overcome strife in the name of conservation to protect wildlife and preserve cultures. Elephants and rhinos were furthest from retired big-game hunter Philippe’s mind as he relaxed on his rigged sailboat in St. Martinique. He’d run chartered tours for five years when his Aussie friend, Sheila, suggested he was bored and getting boring. Agreeing, he guessed he needed an ‘adrenaline rush’. Responding to an advert, he put behind his comfortable life and flew to London to interview with the Elephant Conservation Project for a position in the Democratic Republic . . .

RPCV Opinion: “We are the problem.”

Jun 30 2020

Tasha Prados is a RPCV, Peru (2011-2013). She write from her experience in International Development and fighting for racial equality in the United States. The National Peace Corps Association held a conversation about Equity in International Development. To see the video of that conversation, here is the link:https://www.peacecorpsconnect.org/cpages/home Here is the link to her opinion published by the NPCA The following is the text of the Tasha Prados article. • We are the problem By Tasha Prados “A second-generation American, I grew up knowing how privileged I was simply by the sheer luck of having been born in the United States. Being multicultural and Latinx, I spent most of my formative years between two worlds, never quite fitting in either, eager to connect more deeply with my Latin American roots. I went to El Salvador with a nonprofit organization for the first time when I was 16 years old . . .

Review — FLAMENCO IN THE TIME OF MOONSHINE AND MOBSTERS by David Edmonds (Chile)

Jun 29 2020

Flamenco in the Time of Moonshine and Mobsters David C. Edmonds (Chile 1963–65) St. Petersburg Press December, 2019 375 pages $18.95 (paperback), $18.00 (Kindle) Review by: D.W. Jefferson (El Salvador 1974–76; Costa Rica 1976–77) • Are you looking for a fun read for this Summer of the Corona Virus Pandemic? Then the latest historical novel by David Edmonds may be for you. Modern day Flamenco dancer Amy Romano drives her Prius into a huge southern Florida sink hole and emerges in 1932. Like Alice going down the rabbit hole, Amy emerges in a whole different world. Except in her case it is the Ybor City neighborhood of Tampa during the Great Depression, complete with moonshine, mobsters and G-men! Flamenco in the Time of Moonshine and Mobsters is 375 pages yet is a surprisingly quick read due to the short chapters, filled with action, 99 of them. I found myself . . .

Cindy Mosca (Ethiopia) returns to Woldiya in 2019 — A Most Beautiful Day

Jun 28 2020

In 2019, Cindy Mosca (Ethiopia 1967-69) went back to Ethiopia for the first time in 50 years. Former Ethiopia PCV Rick Stoner and his wife Elsa put Cindy and her group in touch with Cheru, an Ethiopian tour guide, who took them all over the country, including Woldia. Cheru, in the red hat here in the video, with Cindy, and her young friend Susan Kosmoski, not an RPCV, and Cindy’s partner, Dennis Schulz (in the red shirt), had a beautiful day in Cindy’s Peace Corps home. Join their visit on YOUTUBE p.s. The next round is on Cindy.

Trump’s move against China for its Uighur oppression makes him look like a hypocrite

Jun 28 2020

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Steven Boyd Saum (Ukraine 1994–96) A high-security facility near what is believed to be a re-education camp where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities are detained in China’s Xinjiang region. June 20, 2020, By Sébastien Roblin (China 2013-15) Even when President Donald Trump finally manages to do the right thing, it’s rarely for the right reasons. Such was the case Wednesday, when he signed a law that allows for sanctioning as human rights violators Chinese officials responsible for running camps imprisoning up to 1 million Muslim Uighurs in the Xinjiang Province of western China. Trump’s been so inconsistent on what should be a core tenet of American foreign policy — opposition to large-scale internment of a minority population — that there’s some truth to claims from Beijing that Trump’s move this week was a hypocritical one motivated by a desire to weaponize the issue against China amid high-stakes trade negotiations. He . . .

Cindy Mosca (Ethiopia) shows us “How To Remember Our Tour”

Jun 26 2020

After the Peace Corps, Cindy Mosca (Ethiopia 1967-69) returned to teaching but eventually left teaching art and went into the field of ESL. She became the Director of the Bilingual Program in Cicero, Illinois. She has a son and a daughter who live in the Chicago area. She and her partner, Dennis live in Bloomington, Indiana. They both love to travel and you can find a record of their travels (including a return to Ethiopia) at ourbetter.blogspot.com/ Since retirement she has returned to painting. You can view samples at her web site. Cindy loves making videos for family and friends. She has transferred old slides for them into videos which can be saved to YouTube, a flash drive, a DVD or somewhere in the heavens via iCloud or Google.

NPCA announces “A Moment to Lean In: Courageous Conversations on Racial Equity in International Service”

Jun 26 2020

Please read the following announcement from the NPCA website about this program. At the end of the announcement there is a link to register. • Now is the time for some tough questions. How do we confront systemic racism as it shapes the work we do — here and around the world? And how do we ensure that our community lives out principles of equity and justice?As part of our commitment to convening‌ ‌conversations‌ ‌around‌ ‌service and‌ ‌opportunity, National Peace Corps Association (NPCA) is joining the Building Bridges Coalition and the International Volunteer Programs Association to host a dialogue about racial equity in international service. Speakers will share their experiences as Black volunteers and staff on service programs, and as organizational leaders with longstanding commitments to institutional and systemic change. Join us for this important dialogue. In the weeks ahead, NPCA is hosting a series of conversations around racial equity. Those will help shape the . . .

Review — HOUSE OF THE ANCIENTS & OTHER STORIES by Clifford Garstang (Korea)

Jun 26 2020

HOUSE OF THE ANCIENTS & OTHER STORIES by Clifford Garstang (Korea 1976-77) Press 53 Publisher 172 pages May 2020 $17.95 (paperback) Reviewed by Bill Preston (Thailand 1977-80) “Bad men,” wrote novelist and short story writer Jean McGarry, “make for more interesting stories.” I imagine that Clifford Garstang would be inclined to agree. You could certainly make that case for many of the male characters in his new collection, House of the Ancients & Other Stories. Such a sentiment crossed my mind more than once as I read through this strange and often disturbing collection. But hold on. What, exactly, do we mean by bad? And just who, really, is qualified to pass such judgment? Those who live in glass houses, as the saying goes, should not be quick to throw stones. Are we not, as human beings, all flawed? The twenty-three stories in House of the Ancients reflect, . . .

A Writer Writes — “Reading Masks,” a poem by Tony Zurlo (Nigeria)

Jun 25 2020

My brother-in-law suffered a bad stroke about a decade ago and was stricken with aphasia. In the last couple of years before his death in January 2019, he was in therapy and he made this mask. I thought it was a profound struggle of a “soul” shouting out to a world that had “forgotten him.” Jim’s soul must have been desperately wanting to speak to former friends or even family, and the mask reveals to me a plea for a touch of love, or a simple smile from that outer world that he will never see again. I hope the poem speaks for itself. Reading Masks by Tony Zurlo (Nigeria 1964-66 I. We think we read faces and focus on a people’s eyes, “the windows to the soul.” But each mask speaks a different language, and each mask looks at us with a different set of eyes. Sometimes faces and . . .

Nominate the Best RPCV Books of 2019 — awards will be announced in August 2020

Jun 25 2020

To further fulfill its goals to encourage, recognize and promote Peace Corps writers, RPCV Writers & Readers, the newsletter that was the precursor of PeaceCorpsWriters.org and PeaceCorpsWorldwide.org, presented its first annual awards for outstanding writing in 1990. A total of 163 awards have been given since that time. When possible, Peace Corps Writers Awards are presented at the RPCV Conference Awards Ceremony. The awards are: The Moritz Thomsen Peace Corps Experience Award The Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award The Maria Thomas Fiction Award The Award for Best Book of Poetry The Award for Best Short Story Collection The Award for Best Travel Book The Award for Best Photography Book The Award for Best Children’s Book about a Peace Corps Country Other Awards Send you nomination(s) to John Coyne at jcoyneone@gmail.com (You may nominate your own book. Make sure you are nominating a book that was published in 2019.)

“A Train Took Me 5,000 Miles from Moscow to China—and to a Whole New Life” — Peter Hessler (China)

Jun 24 2020

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Steven Saum (Ukraine 1994-96) An epic journey by rail answers the question: Where am I going? Peter Hessler (China 1996-98) Businessweek, June 24, 2020 A moment on the Trans-Siberian railway line. Photographer: Oleg Klimov/Panos Pictures/ReduxWhen I was 25, I boarded a train, rode it to the last stop, and disembarked with a new sense of what to do with my life. This kind of thing can happen when you’re 25. It also helps if the journey lasts six days and 5,000 miles. The year was 1994, and I was traveling along the Trans-Siberian Railway. I had bought a one-way ticket from Moscow to Beijing. After passing through the western part of Siberia, the train would head south across Mongolia. Back then, the world seemed bigger: no cellphones, no online reservations. Things were heavier, too. In my backpack—Lowe Alpine, internal frame—I carried a tent, . . .

Review — THE TOUGHEST JOB I EVER LOVED by Jonathon Shacat (Gabon)

Jun 23 2020

The Toughest Job I Ever Loved: A Peace Corps Memoir Jonathon Shacat (Gabon 1998–2000) Amazon 2017 181 pages $9.99 (paperback), $4.99 (Kindle Reviewed by D.W. Jefferson (El Salvador 1974–76; Costa Rica 1976–77) • Jonathon Shacat, who is now a journalist, has self-published a well written memoir of his Peace Corps experience in Gabon, central Africa. He was a fish culture extension agent, helping villagers build clay-lined ponds and raise tilapia, from 1998 to 2000. I’ll get my gripes out of the way first. The book does not contain any maps of Gabon, any photos, or even page numbers! But it is an entertaining account that maintains its upbeat tone through incidents involving eating grubs and insects, mixing antelope blood with rice, a machete wound, a bout with Dengue fever and ridding himself of round worms. Though the author’s Peace Corps experience was almost a quarter century after my own, like . . .

“Leaving Guatemala, Part 4: ‘A year in the land of eternal spring’ ”

Jun 23 2020

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Dan Campbell (El Salvador 1974-77) Nathaniel Smith (Guatemala 2019-2020) The Times-Independent Utah, June 18, 2020 A group of Peace Corps Volunteers watch the sunrise from the summit of the volcano Acatenango. Photos courtesy of Nathaniel Smith The van carried me away on the first leg of what would be a multi-stage journey from rural Guatemala to southern Utah. I gazed forlornly out the window as we wove through pine forest and out of the valley. My mind cycled through the list of things I had hoped to do in Guatemala over the next year. Though I planned to return someday, whether as a Peace Corps volunteer or not, this experience proved that even the best-laid plans go awry. That morning, when I still believed I would have the entire day, I made what I thought would be my final trip to the town’s thermal . . .

Archive - June 2020