Archive - November 2024

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Happy Birthday, Sargent Shriver!
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Ah, Where the Light Shines Through, First of four volumes of poetry by Patricia Waak (Brazil 1966-68)
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Chile and Pinochet focus of new memoir from CT author and former Peace Corps Volunteer
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New books by Peace Corps writers | September–October 2024
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Big Black Hole-New Year’s Addis Ababa 1966
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Bob Dylan Enters the World…by Rowland Scherman (First PC/W Staff Photographer)
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Peace Corps Volunteers celebrate decades-old ties with Korea during 2024 Revisit program

Happy Birthday, Sargent Shriver!

Rowland Scherman (PC/W Staff photographer 1961-64) writes: “Here’s the guy who started and ran the Peace Corps, R. Sargent Shriver. I was the first PC photographer, 1961-63. There will be more about this wonderful guy in future Substacks.”

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Ah, Where the Light Shines Through, First of four volumes of poetry by Patricia Waak (Brazil 1966-68)

A walk through the snow, attention to the life that is bursting forth around you, reading the ancient signs of life in the past are some of stories captured series of poems that illuminate the relationship between one’s self and the natural world. The epiphanies that come from being aware of the spiritual unfolding that is possible when you pay attention to the other beings that we share the earth with. Ah, Where the Light Shines Through speaks to the reader of what is always present around us if we but take notice. Available on Amazon.com

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Chile and Pinochet focus of new memoir from CT author and former Peace Corps Volunteer

Connecticut Public Radio | By Katherine Jimenez Published November 4, 2024 at 5:00 AM EST   Two things brought writer Tom Hazuka to Chile: Spanish and baseball. Hazuka, a retired professor of English and writing at Central Connecticut State University, was a Peace Corps volunteer in Chile during the rule of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, whose decades-long dictatorship resulted in the death, internment and torture of tens of thousands of people. Hazuka’s award-winning memoir, “If You Turn to Look Back,” details his time in the country during the Pinochet years and his return 25 years later following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Hazuka left Connecticut for Chile in 1978 to take a position as a coach teaching young children how to play baseball. He was a recent graduate of Fairfield University and said the initial draw to the country was learning the language. “I already knew French. I was hoping to go to . . .

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New books by Peace Corps writers | September–October 2024

New books —  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 include a brief description for each of the books listed here in hopes of encouraging readers  to order a book and maybe  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 free copy along with a few instructions. PLEASE  join in our Third Goal effort and volunteer to review a book or books!!!    Make Room for Healing:40 Tips from a Breast Cancer Survivor by Travis Brady (China 1994) Hay House LLC 176 pages October . . .

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Big Black Hole-New Year’s Addis Ababa 1966

  Submitted by John Coyne for Peace Corps Worldwide Big Black Hole-New Year’s Addis Ababa 1966 by Charlie Ipcar (Ethiopia 1965-68) The “big black hole” reminds me of a New Year’s Eve celebration I and some Peace Corps friends were celebrating in Addis Ababa back in 1966. There was folk music, Ethiopian beer, and curious stuff being smoked in the pipes being passed around. Our new British friend Colin Figue, who had managed to hitchhike into Ethiopia with his friend Bob Herbison, was treating us to his rendition of Bert Jansch’s guitar solo “Angie” which we’d never heard before and which seemed to go on forever. Some time in the early morning we were making our way out the compound gate when one of us remembered the hole, the large black hole freshly dug for the cesspool, and we thoughtfully hollered out “Watch out for the hole!” and Colin actually . . .

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Bob Dylan Enters the World…by Rowland Scherman (First PC/W Staff Photographer)

Rowland Scherman (PC/W Staff photographer 1961-64) was like any other PCV as he traveled the world, photographing PCVs at work. I met him in 1962 in Ethiopia. He would go onto become a nationally known photographer, famous for many of his photographs. This gallery of photographs by Rowland includes images of iconic figures from the 1960s, from musicians Janis Joplin and Bob Dylan, to public figures Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. He has now created a website. Here is one of his first publications with a few of Rowland’s famous photographs..  Bob Dylan Enters the World… In his 1961 inaugural speech, President Kennedy asked us what we could do for the country; and I, like thousands of others, responded. In those days I was what one might call an “advanced amateur.” I knew what an f stop was, and the other basics, but not really much more. By answering . . .

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Peace Corps Volunteers celebrate decades-old ties with Korea during 2024 Revisit program

  Posted by Glenn Blumhorst for Peace Corps Worldwide Excerpted from The Korea Times By Jon Dunbar Alan Taylor first arrived in Korea in 1966, as part of K-1 the first dispatch of U.S. Peace Corps volunteers. He and his wife spent two years in Gongju, South Chungcheong Province, which he described as a “pre-industrial countryside.” “Gongju of the mid-1960s had no private automobiles, and one TV. Farming was done with oxen plowing, and there were few mechanical sound, and so… much physical labor for men and women,” he recalled. “We were immediately struck by how vital and animated Koreans were. I saw more smiling and less rushed pleasure in conversation than it seemed in the U.S. The Korean Peninsula had seen so much tragic violence and dislocation, but the energetic spirit of Koreans was striking to us.” He gave these remarks many times last week, while on a week-long . . .

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