Archive - August 2022

1
2022 Winner of the Marian Haley Beil Award for the Best Book Review(s)
2
“Downsizing Books” by John Coyne (Ethopia)
3
2022 Winner of the Best Short Story Collection — A HUSBAND AND WIFE ARE ONE SATAN
4
2022 Award for Best Book for Young Adults — ADVENTURES OF MAYANA: FALLING OFF THE EDGE OF THE EARTH
5
2022 Moritz Thomsen Peace Corps Experience Award Winner — I MISS THE RAIN IN AFRICA
6
Review — THE GECKO IN THE BATHTUB by Janina Fuller (Philippines)
7
Talking with Jerry Redfield (Ecuador) about WHILE I WAS OUT
8
2022 Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award — MICHAEL GOLD: THE PEOPLE’S WRITER
9
Review — THE COLOR OF THE ELEPHANT by Christine Herbert (Zambia)
10
2022 Maria Thomas Fiction Award Winner — A THOUSAND POINTS OF LIGHT
11
THE DELCO YEARS by Bill Owens (Jamaica)
12
Review–Brazilian Odyssey by Stephen Murphy (PC Staff)
13
Peace Corps Alumnus builds 42 schools in Sierra Leone
14
Naming the Peace Corps
15
RPCV Park Ranger Gregg Moydell (Morocco)

2022 Winner of the Marian Haley Beil Award for the Best Book Review(s)

  Dean W. Jefferson El Salvador 1974-76 and Costa Rica 1976-77     After Peace Corps Dean became interested in the computer software field and made it his profession. He worked first as a software engineer, and later taught programming and database management at a technical collage. Along the way he acquired a masters degree in adult education, and has worked as a Spanish language translator and interpreter. Dean is a long-time member of RPCVs of Wisconsin/Madison —  the people who publish the “Peace Corps International Calendar.” Dean Jefferson has been a stalwart book reviewer for Peace Corps Worldwide for a number of years, and we welcome him to our masthead. In addition, he has volunteered to help authors who will be publishing their books with the Peace Corps Writers imprint, and who are unable to find capable and independent proof readers and/or editors, to fine tune their final manuscripts . . .

Read More

“Downsizing Books” by John Coyne (Ethopia)

  When I was growing up on a farm in Illinois all six of us kids (I was the youngest) waited for the  Saturday Evening Post to arrive in Wednesday’s mail so we’d have stories to read over the weekend. After dinner, whichever of my three sisters was washing the dishes that night would prop a book up against the kitchen window so she could read as she scrubbed. Since my job was to dry, I couldn’t pull off that trick. But I loved books too, and before I learned to read, my oldest sister would read to me whatever Jane Austen or Brontē novel she had gotten from the village library. We read so many books, in fact, that soon my older siblings had gone through everything deemed “age appropriate” by the librarian, Mrs. Butterfield. So one day she refused to let my sister Eileen check out the book she’d chosen. My mother, . . .

Read More

2022 Winner of the Best Short Story Collection — A HUSBAND AND WIFE ARE ONE SATAN

by Jeff Fearnside Kazakhstan 2002–04     I find a great deal of pleasure in reading fiction set in other cultures or countries, especially when the work demonstrates more than a superficial understanding of the place about which it is written. That was one motivation behind the anthology series I curated, Everywhere Stories: Short Fiction from a Small Planet (Press 53 2016). It was also in that context that I first became aware of Jeff Fearnside’s work when his story set in Kazakhstan, “A Husband and Wife are One Satan,” was included in the first volume of that series. I recognized then that, having been a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kazakhstan, Fearnside had the depth of knowledge of his chosen setting to bring the culture and his characters to life in both an informative and entertaining way. It was a joy, then, to discover that the story we published is the title . . .

Read More

2022 Award for Best Book for Young Adults — ADVENTURES OF MAYANA: FALLING OFF THE EDGE OF THE EARTH

by David Perry Belize, 1985-87     The Adventures of Mayana: Falling Off the Edge of the Earth is the story of a 17-year Belizean girl named Mayana who finds herself on an adventure in a fantasyland of magic, monsters, and intrigue. She crosses over from her homeland of Belize to an alternate reality where the laws of nature and science are very different from what she learned. While she attempts to find her way back to Belize, she befriends a young man named Shifu who mysteriously appears, and speaks only in parables. He helps Mayana use her new-found magic powers to fight monsters and witches and to attempt to find her way home. Shifu also helps her to discover the meaning of life, how to understand why people are the way they are, and most of all how to understand herself. All during her journey, she relies on the recollections of . . .

Read More

2022 Moritz Thomsen Peace Corps Experience Award Winner — I MISS THE RAIN IN AFRICA

by Nancy Daniel Wesson (Uganda 2011-13)   At a time when her friends were planning cushy retirements, Nancy Wesson instead walked away from a comfortable life and business to head out as a Peace Corps Volunteer in post-war Northern Uganda. She embraced wholeheartedly the grand adventure of living in a radically different culture, while turning old skills into wisdom. Returning home became a surreal experience in trying to reconcile a life that no longer “fits.” This becomes the catalyst for new revelations about family wounds, mystical experiences, and personal foibles. Nancy shows us the power of stepping into the void to reconfigure life and enter the wilderness of the uncharted territory of our own memories and psyche, to mine the gems hidden therein. Funny, heartbreaking, insightful and tender, I Miss the Rain in Africa is the story of honoring the self, discovering a new lens through which to view life, and finding . . .

Read More

Review — THE GECKO IN THE BATHTUB by Janina Fuller (Philippines)

  The Gecko in the Bathtub: Encounters with Marvelous Creatures by Janina Marie Fuller (Philippines 1978-80) with illustrations by Maggie Demorest Peace Corps Writers June 2022 178 pages $17.50 (paperback) Reviewed by Andy Amster (Philippines 1978-80) • The Gecko in the Bathtub, Janina Fuller’s collection of stories about her interactions with a wide variety of animals, in settings both mundane and exotic, is subtitled Encounters with Marvelous Creatures. And I must say that while reading these stories, I came to realize that I was having an encounter with a marvelous writer, one whose love of nature and respect for its ecosystems and their inhabitants artfully enlists the reader into “allyship” in that love and respect. From the moment I glanced at the “Table of Contents” before settling down to read this wonderful book, I knew I was putting myself in the hands of an assured and engaging writer. “So Much Alaska,” “Visit from . . .

Read More

Talking with Jerry Redfield (Ecuador) about WHILE I WAS OUT

Two Years That Changed America A Peace Corps Memoir   Jerry, what was your educational background, and did it help you as a PCV? My undergraduate education at the University of Wisconsin, Madison aided me somewhat, as I was a political science major with an emphasis on Latin American Studies. Along with three years of Spanish it gave me at least an understanding of, and foundation for, my Peace Corps experience. However, it did not prepare me for some of the many cultural and personal conditions I was to encounter.   Tell about your Peace Corps experience. I served in the Peace Corps in Ecuador on a School Construction and Community Development Program. Our group was designated Ecuador V, and served from July of 1963 to July of 1965. I served in three locations, Cangonamá, Catamayo, and Gonzanamá all in the southernmost province of the country, Loja. I spent most . . .

Read More

2022 Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award — MICHAEL GOLD: THE PEOPLE’S WRITER

  by Patrick Chura (Lithuania 1992-94)   Counterintuitively, the hardest to write book reviews are for ones you most admire. And Patrick Chura’s biography, Michael Gold: The People’s Writer is one such book. Reading Chura’s text has been an intimate labor of love for me. In the very last pages of his story of the life of Michael Gold a sentence stood out to describe my deep attachment. “. . . (Michael) Gold managed the challenge of proving the existence of another America, and how difficult it made his life.” In writing of Michael Gold, an avowed and uncompromising Marxist, a man who has fallen out of the literary canon, out of the political history of America, despite his major contributions and successes, Chura has told the story of my parents and people like them, who dedicated their lives to making a better, more equitable nation, and suffered as a result of their . . .

Read More

Review — THE COLOR OF THE ELEPHANT by Christine Herbert (Zambia)

  The Color of the Elephant: Memoir of a Muzungu Christine  Herbert (Zambia 2004–06) GenZ Publishing January 2022 $15.99 (paperback), $5.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Rebecca M. Zornow (eSwatini 2011–13) • I visited the landlocked country of Zambia from the landlocked country of eSwatini, practically neighbors. As a Peace Corps Volunteer on leave, I wished for more than the cursory understanding of Zambian culture, even more than the quick mist of the thunderous Victoria Falls. But as a Volunteer from another country with much to see, I wouldn’t get that chance until reading Christine Herbert’s memoir, The Color of the Elephant. Christine arrives in Zambia in 2004 and quickly learns to eat nshima (cornmeal porridge) and wear citenge (sarong) but wonders throughout training if she’ll be enough to live up to the experience of two years making a difference in the remote countryside. On a trainee outing with an established Volunteer, Christine wonders, . . .

Read More

2022 Maria Thomas Fiction Award Winner — A THOUSAND POINTS OF LIGHT

  by MARC-VINCENT JACKSON (SENEGAL 1986–89)     Beautiful and determined, an outcast Senegalese woman clings relentlessly to dreams of her beloved savior, a lost folklore hero, returning to her from across the ocean … Broken, but wise, a devoted griot painfully witnesses and faithfully tells her dogged plight, loving her from afar and mostly in vain … Committed American volunteers zealously navigate a developing, culturally rich African country, becoming intimately immersed, and sometimes, unwittingly entangled … Alienated and frustrated, one unsuspecting volunteer bitterly chronicles his uneasy experiences with unsparing criticism … A desperate journey, an unspoken heart, patriotic dedication, and a candid diary lyrically meld into a seamless mystical reality with surprising results. Inspired by his U.S. Peace Corps service during George H.W. Bush’s presidency, Marc-Vincent Jackson has written A Thousand Points of Light, an insightful debut novel that is an artfully written with an engaging tale of interwoven lives . . .

Read More

THE DELCO YEARS by Bill Owens (Jamaica)

  Bill Owens has written an irreverent, funny dystopian novel about a pandemic mitigated by drinking unpasteurized beer. Rich with illustrations by Italian Illustrator Francesca Cosanti, this book is a unique interactive experience. THE DELCO YEARS is the story of how a community of craft beer drinkers flourish and survive after a dystopian event. Hunting and gathering would be at Costco, Target, Home Depot, and CVS. Eventually, they would barter wine for salt, sugar, flour, and hay to feed the horses and cows. From the unhappy Bobby releasing the pandemic to the world in revenge for the televangelists’ sins to the various members of the Craft Beer community who thrive in Livermore Valley and beyond, THE DELCO YEARS is a darkly whimsical romp.  See more at THE DELCO YEARS website here: delcoyears.com. The Delco Years: A Dystopian Novel Bill  Owens (Jamaica 1964–66), Francesca Cosanti (Illustrator) Delco Years Publishing April 2022 $32.85 (paperback), $42.58 (hardcover) Bill Owens Biography Bill Owens was born on September 25, . . .

Read More

Review–Brazilian Odyssey by Stephen Murphy (PC Staff)

Brazilian Odyssey By Stephen E. Murphy  (Regional Director, Inter-Americas Region, 2002-03) bookhouse publishing 246 pages 2022 $18.95 (Paperback)       Reviewed by Stephen Foehr (Ethiopia 1965-66) It’s a forever story, little guy armed with idealism takes on big, bad, and corrupt. This evergreen theme kindles, and rekindles, the flame of hope. We keep turning the pages to find out about Evil vs Good, the tag team Greed/Power against Humanity/Right. Can justice prevail? Is it possible that personal integrity need not be a sacrificial lamb on the altar of you lose, I win? Do the good guys have a fighting chance? The destruction of the Brazilian Amazon is a reoccurring headline of doom; the oxygen-giving rainforest decimated for profit; the indigenous peoples murdered for their land, their way of life transformed into poverty and cultural extermination. American professor Luke Shannon takes a group of students from Seattle University on a . . .

Read More

Peace Corps Alumnus builds 42 schools in Sierra Leone

  By Concord Times 8 August 2022   Peace Corps Volunteers serve for two years and return to the US, but not Cindy Nofziger (Sierra Lierra 1984-86). After arriving in Sierra Leone from Maryland in 1984, her commitment to grassroots development in the West African nation continues to this day. Cindy has built 42 school buildings and three libraries and provided thousands of scholarships to children from low-income communities. In 2005 Cindy returned to Masanga, Northern Sierra Leone (the first time it was possible to do so since the end of the decade-long civil war), where she had worked as a volunteer at the district leprosy hospital. While there, she reconnected with John Sesay, an old friend from the ’80s. The war had rolled back all educational gains. Rural communities like Masanga were the worst hit. Schools were destroyed, or they just hadn’t been built. John asked Cindy to help . . .

Read More

Naming the Peace Corps

Naming the Peace Corps by John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962–64) THOSE OF US WHO follow the history of the Peace Corps agency know the term “peace corps” came to public attention during the 1960 presidential election. In one of JFK’s last major speeches before the November election he called for the creation of a “Peace Corps” to send volunteers to work at the grass roots level in the developing world. However, the question remains: who said (or wrote) “peace corps” for the very first time? Was it Kennedy? Was it his famous speech writer Ted Sorensen? Or Sarge himself? But — as in most situations — the famous term came about because of some young kid, usually a writer, working quietly away in some back office that dreams up the language. In this case the kid was a graduate student between degrees who was working for the late senator Hubert Horatio Humphrey. . . .

Read More

RPCV Park Ranger Gregg Moydell (Morocco)

   Gregg Moydell doing a research study on brants geese in Fairbanks Alaska Photo By Tiffany Natividad |   Story by Tiffany Natividad, Tulsa, OK August 8, 2022   Having grown up in Fort Gibson and enjoying many years of recreation on Fort Gibson Lake, park ranger Gregg Moydell (Morocco 1990-92) is happy to be able to spread his knowledge as a U.S Army Corps of Engineers employee and enjoys the family-type atmosphere of working with the Tulsa District. Gregg began his educational path receiving Wildlife Management and Wildlife Research Biology degrees from North Dakota State University and the University of Alaska-Fairbanks respectively. Upon completion of his degrees, Gregg performed and participated in research studies on Brant geese, moose, grizzly bear, and polar bear populations in Alaska. After that he joined the U.S. Peace Corps and traveled to Morocco where he authored a feasibility study for the creation of a nature preserve for . . .

Read More

Copyright © 2022. Peace Corps Worldwide.