Archive - October 19, 2021

  In early 1911, Isabel Cooper, 17, and her 15-year-old brother, Frederick. they leave their Georgetown home after the sudden death of their Mexican mother. They are determined to find their father, a college professor who – like many American leftists – had joined the Mexican revolution a few months earlier. They travel by train, stagecoach, and wagon, at first put off by what they see of turn-of-the-century American South. But they soon learn of the quiet dignity of their mother’s homeland. After an ugly incident not of their making, they escape the federales with the help of Pepe, a lad of many talents. He leads them to refuge with a ragtag militia on its way to join Carranza’s Army of the North, commanded by a woman known as La Maestra. • After service in the Peace Corps in Colombia, Jerome Adams went to work for The Charlotte (NC) Observer, . . .

  He is talented: able to secure work, develop schools, and convince others to aid these selfless efforts, especially in education. And he is responsible: responsible to the farmers in the co-ops he led, responsible to the students he taught, responsible to the volunteers he prepped and supported, and responsible to his family above all. His work touched the lives of thousands. — Will Newman, former Director, Peace Corps/Nepal.   In this enthralling memoir, Ambika Joshee explains his life experiences through a reflection of his own memories and candid storytelling. Joshee provides a unique perspective into each of his life stages, growing up in a remote village in Nepal and the struggles of his childhood days studying under dim kerosene lamps, looking back at the lessons learned from his mother through the lens of a retired person, understanding the cross-cultural difficulties faced by American Peace Corps volunteers from the perspective . . .