Archive - 2022

1
Review — MY VIEW FROM THE HOUSE BY THE SEA by Donna Marie Barr (Samoa)
2
PROJECT MANAHANA by John Teschner (Kenya)
3
Brian Norris (Bolivia) Fulbright Global Scholar
4
THE MARTHA STEWART OF GABON by Bonnie Black (Gabon)
5
Listen to Rob Schmitz (China) on NPR
6
“Democracy in Africa” by Mark G. Wentling (Togo)
7
FBI JOINS INVESTIGATION INTO SLAIN COUPLE AS FEAR GRIPS NEW HAMPSHIRE TOWN
8
Peace Corps Press Release on Advancing Rights of LGBTQI+
9
Peace Corps Acting Director Carol Spahn Statement on USA Today Article
10
Review — TRIAL AND ERROR by Lawrence Licht (Peru)
11
19 New books by Peace Corps writers — March and April, 2022
12
President Duque granted Colombian citizenship to journalist Maureen Orth
13
“Looking for Albert Schweitzer in Lambarene, Gabon” by Eric Madeen (Gabon)
14
SURVIVING GENOCIDE: Personal Recollections by Donna Chmara (Turkey)
15
RPCV Steve Reid (Niger) and his Togolese wife Murdered in New Hampshire

Review — MY VIEW FROM THE HOUSE BY THE SEA by Donna Marie Barr (Samoa)

  My View from the House by the Sea Donna Marie Barr (Samoa 2007-2008) Independently published February 2022 (paperback), December 2021 (Kindle) 415 pages $15.99 (paperback), $7.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Regina DeAngelo (Ghana 2000-2002) • When the average person imagines a Peace Corps experience, they might picture a red-dirt landscape in a forsaken locale. But some RPCVs get to tell a different story, of perhaps a palm-lined, tropical idyll, set beside a clear aqua sea. This is the spot on which a 57-year-old retiree named Donna Marie Barr found herself with Peace Corps “Samoa Group 78” in of June 2007. Like many PCVs who join later than in their youth (myself included), Barr took a circuitous route to a place she’d always wanted to go. After a service in the Air Force, raising three sons, and a career in real estate management, Barr found herself starting over in her mid-fifties . . .

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PROJECT MANAHANA by John Teschner (Kenya)

  Two men, unified by a string of disappearances and deaths, search for answers — and salvation — in the jungles of Kaua‘i, Hawaii. Together, they must navigate the overlapping and complicated lines between a close-knit community and the hated, but economically-necessary corporate farms — and the decades old secrets that bind them. Project Namahana takes you from Midwestern, glass-walled, corporate offices over the Pacific and across the island of Kaua‘i; from seemingly idyllic beaches and mountainous inland jungles to the face of Mount Namahana; all the while, exploring the question of how corporate executives could be responsible for evil things without, presumably, being evil themselves. Project Namahana by John Teschner (Kenya 2003-05) Forge Books 304 pages June 2022 $14,99 (Kindle); $27.99 (Hardback); $17.86 (audiobook) • John Teschner (Kenya  2003-05) was born in Rhode Island and grew up in southern Virginia. He has worked as a newspaper reporter, professional mover, teacher, . . .

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Brian Norris (Bolivia) Fulbright Global Scholar

  Brian Norris (Bolivia 1997-00), an associate political science professor at Lincoln University, won a Fulbright Global Scholar Award from the U.S. State Department and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, and will begin researching rural local governments in Colombia and Mozambique this summer. The three-year grant will take Norris, who has worked in foreign countries for more than 25 years, to Colombia in 2022 and 2024, and to Mozambique in 2023. Norris will spend the next three summers conducting research and documenting how successful rural governments are at providing basic services and infrastructure to their communities. “The governments of Colombia and Mozambique have granted more power and autonomy to rural local governments that are often in a better position to provide services than the national government,” Norris said in a university news release. “In practice, though, it is very difficult to decentralize power in geographically large and sprawling countries of . . .

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THE MARTHA STEWART OF GABON by Bonnie Black (Gabon)

  by Bonnie Black (Gabon 1996-98) May 6, 2022 • Martha Stewart and I go back aways. We’ve never met, but our lives have followed somewhat parallel paths. We’re about the same age (she’s three years older); both from New Jersey; both were models when young, then later became caterers in New York; we were both about the same size, shape, and coloring; both gave birth to one child, daughters, born within days of each other in 1965; both love cooking, homemaking, gardening… The list goes on and on. She’s uber-famous, of course, and I am not. But that’s quite all right with me. There was a time, though, when I achieved a modicum of Martha Stewart-like fame: when I was a Peace Corps volunteer in my early fifties in Gabon, Central Africa. This experience struck me as funny at the time, so I wrote about it humorously in my . . .

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Listen to Rob Schmitz (China) on NPR

  Rob Schmitz (China 1996-98) is NPR’s international correspondent based in Berlin, where he covers the human stories of a vast region reckoning with its past while it tries to guide the world toward a brighter future. From his base in the heart of Europe, Schmitz has covered Germany’s levelheaded management of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of right-wing nationalist politics in Poland and creeping Chinese government influence inside the Czech Republic. Prior to covering Europe, Schmitz provided award-winning coverage of China for a decade, reporting on the country’s economic rise and increasing global influence. His reporting on China’s impact beyond its borders took him to countries such as Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Vietnam, Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand. Inside China, he’s interviewed elderly revolutionaries, young rappers, and live-streaming celebrity farmers who make up the diverse tapestry of one of the most fascinating countries on the planet. He is the author of . . .

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“Democracy in Africa” by Mark G. Wentling (Togo)

Democracy in Africa is Like a Flashlight without Batteries by Mark G. Wentling (Togo 1970-73) May 2022 Promoting democracy has been a central pillar of U.S. foreign policy for decades. This has been true for the dozen U.S. missions in which I have served in Africa over the past half century. Unfortunately, my experiences have left me doubtful about the results achieved by the hundreds of millions of dollars the U.S. has invested to promote democracy in Africa. I arrived in 1970 as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer, West Africa. In my village, I learned that you obeyed the chief’s decisions no matter how illogical they might be. I also learned that it was considered impolite to criticize any of the chief’s decisions. Today it is still best to obey the chief, although he is now influenced by the central government. The overriding concern of the chief and his representative . . .

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FBI JOINS INVESTIGATION INTO SLAIN COUPLE AS FEAR GRIPS NEW HAMPSHIRE TOWN

  April 29, 2022 The FBI has joined the investigation into the fatal shootings of a retired couple whose bodies were found last week on a hiking trail near their New Hampshire home, leaving residents in their town fearful for their own safety, authorities said. No suspects have yet been identified and police have released little information on the mysterious double homicide in Concord, New Hampshire, of retired international humanitarian worker Stephen Reid, 67, and Djeswende “Wendy” Reid, 66. “We’ve been able to provide the information that we have, which is that we have no specific information that there’s any danger to the public in general at this point in time, but be vigilant, and those families are going to have to make those decisions for themselves as to what’s best for their family and what they’re most comfortable with,” Geoffrey Ward, a senior assistant state attorney general, said on . . .

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Peace Corps Press Release on Advancing Rights of LGBTQI+

The Peace Corps Releases Progress Report on Advancing Rights of LGBTQI+ People through its Mission Peace Corps Headquarters One Constitution Square Today, the Peace Corps, in conjunction with the State Department and agencies across the U.S. government,  released a first-of-its-kind report on the implementation of President Joseph R. Biden’s  Memorandum on Advancing the Human Rights of LGBTQI+ Persons Around the World. The progress shared by the Peace Corps highlights the agency’s policies and programming to promote the human rights of LGBTQI+ volunteers, staff and counterparts across the world. “The Peace Corps is incredibly proud of and thankful for the meaningful and unique contributions the LGBTQI+ community has made in service of world peace and friendship,” said Peace Corps Chief Executive Officer Carol Spahn. “We will continue to intentionally foster equity and inclusion for the LGBTQI+ community with policies and work centered on our shared dignity, humanity and connection.” The Peace Corps continues . . .

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Peace Corps Acting Director Carol Spahn Statement on USA Today Article

Video: Volunteers say Peace Corps failed them when reporting sexual assaults April 22, 2021 “USA Today recently published an article on sexual assault experienced by volunteers during their service. To those volunteers who have told their stories about sexual assault in the Peace Corps: I am so very sorry for the trauma you have experienced. You have each shown tremendous courage, and I am grateful that you have come forward. “These are devastating stories, and the agency is working to get to the root of the very serious issues that were raised. “As we approach the return to service of volunteers, we are intensifying and cementing our commitment to mitigating risk, wherever possible, and providing victim-centered and trauma-informed support to sexual assault survivors. We must always be an agency that empowers survivors and tears down barriers to reporting, services and care. “As the new Acting Director of the agency and a . . .

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Review — TRIAL AND ERROR by Lawrence Licht (Peru)

  Trial And Error (poetry and photography) Lawrence E. Licht (Peru 1963–65) Independently published April 2022 40 pages $15 [plus shipping to the USA, $6-10] (paperback), Contact the author Reviewed by Bill Preston (Thailand 1977-80)  • The array of living forms is staggering, diversity incomprehensible in real terms. A description of even one is like holding the wind with open palm. So begins poet and photographer Larry Licht’s slim and noteworthy book, Trial and Error. Minimalist in design, the book features a series of two-page spreads, arranged in corresponding pages of poetry and photographs. As the poetic opening lines express, ordinary language seems insufficient to describe the natural world in its multitude of diverse forms. Perhaps a more satisfying approach, Licht suggests, is to explore nature’s exquisite intricacy via metaphor and image. Fittingly, each of his twenty spreads is a kind of meditation in words and images on facets of . . .

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19 New books by Peace Corps writers — March and April, 2022

  To purchase any of these books from Amazon.com — CLICK on the book cover, the bold book title, or the publishing format you would like — and Peace Corps Worldwide, an Amazon Associate, will receive a small remittance from your purchase that will help support the site and the annual Peace Corps Writers awards. We now include a brief description  for the books listed here in hopes of encouraging readers  1) to order a book and 2) to VOLUNTEER TO REVIEW IT.  See a book you’d like to review for Peace Corps Worldwide? Send a note to Marian at marian@haleybeil.com, and she will send you a copy along with a few instructions. In addition to the books listed below, I have on my shelf a number of other books whose authors would love for you to review. Go to Books Available for Review to see what is on that shelf. Please, please join in our Third Goal . . .

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President Duque granted Colombian citizenship to journalist Maureen Orth

    From Bogotá, President Iván Duque swore in as a new Colombian to the American journalist and philanthropist, citizenship that was granted to her for her contributions to the country. Maureen Orth (Colombia 1964-66) is a journalist, writer, and special correspondent for Vanity Fair magazine. She also founded the organization Marina Orth Foundation with which she established a model of technology-based education, English learning and leadership in Colombia. The now Colombian has a school in Medellín from which she teaches thousands of children in 22 schools concepts related to technology and English.  

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“Looking for Albert Schweitzer in Lambarene, Gabon” by Eric Madeen (Gabon)

On Mission By Eric Madeen (Gabon 1981-83)   What follows is a reconstruction of memories, which can be likened to partially developed film … at times hazy, at others gaining clarity like images in a developing tray … of one’s mind. My mind. It was first being readied for what lay ahead by intensive French instruction for six weeks, followed by six more during work on rural school construction in Peace Corps/Gabon. With two years of Spanish at university as basecamp, French came easily; classes were named not by level, but by towns in Gabon. It didn’t take me long, however, to learn that mine, Ndende, was at a lower proficiency level. Recent graduates from Ivy League schools to esteemed public ones, we numbered approximately 60 trainees in the programs of TEFL, Fisheries, Agriculture and Construction. We were lodged in a student dormitory whose Turkish shitters went down one by . . .

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SURVIVING GENOCIDE: Personal Recollections by Donna Chmara (Turkey)

  Exiled from her home in Eastern Poland as a baby, the author chronicles the aggression against Polish citizens, Jewish and Christian, by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union during World War II. For many it will be the first time hearing about the deportation of thousands to the Soviet Union for forced labor, a topic they have not met in school or in the media.  Nor do they know about plans to replace Christianity and all religion with deification of Hitler and the Nazi party. The author weaves this type of information into true accounts of survival from 20 eyewitnesses whom she interviewed over the course of 10 years. Surviving Genocide: Personal Recollections expands our knowledge of World War II, that of the attempted genocide against Slavic Christians of Eastern Europe. Most books about surviving the war describe the struggles of one person or family.  This book is different in that the people the author interviewed faced diverse and generally . . .

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RPCV Steve Reid (Niger) and his Togolese wife Murdered in New Hampshire

The Concord, N.H., couple Djeswende Reid and Stephen Reid (Niger 1979-81) were murdered while walking along a hiking trail last week. The Marsh Loop Trail, a 1.5-mile hike within the wetlands of the Broken Ground trail system in Concord. Stephen and Djeswende, who went by Steve and Wendy, were reported missing before their bodies were discovered near the Broken Ground trails on April 21. Autopsies showed that both died from multiple gunshot wounds. No arrests have been made. Stephen Reid was a native of Concord, but his humanitarian work brought him to several corners of the world. He joined the Peace Corps after graduating from Notre Dame, spending four years in West Africa teaching English to middle-schoolers. But it was in Washington, D.C. that he met Djeswende where she was attending college on an athletic scholarship. “They bonded over their mutual love of adventure and fitness,’’ the family statement said. . . .

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