Search Results for “When the Wall came Tumbling Down”

“And the Wall Came Tumbling Down” by John Chromy (India)

Feb 01 2024

It was in June of 1964 when the “wall came tumbling down” during a sitdown dinner for 6 people. The setting was in a private home in the town of Zaheerabad in Andhra Pradesh State. Four of us Peace Corps Volunteers had been temporarily assigned to develop and teach a pilot health/nutrition/gardening curriculum to be used in training village school teachers throughout Andhra State (population 36 million). This experimental course was conducted at the Zaheerabad Basic Training Institute (BTI), where some 160 future primary school teachers were undergoing training. Amongst the faculty and students at the BTI there was considerable excitement to have Americans teaching at their school. In the 1960s America was mostly an admired country and there was much curiosity about the American people, their way of life and the work of these four American guest instructors. In fact, one of the faculty members very cautiously and . . .

“An Unexpected Love Story — The Women of Bati”

Apr 13 2022

by John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962-64) If the reader prefers, this may be regarded as fiction. But there is always the chance that such a piece of fiction may throw some light on what has been written as fact. — Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast • AT AN ELEVATION OF 4,000 FEET, the town of Bati, Ethiopia, off the Dessie Road, is the last highland location before the Danakil Depression. A hard day’s drive from the Red Sea, it’s famous only for its Monday market days when the Afar women of the Danakil walk up the “Great Escarpment” to trade with the Oromos on the plateau. These women arrive late on Sunday, and with their camels and tents, they cover the grassy knob above the town. They trade early in the next morning for grain, cloth, livestock, and tinsels and trinkets imported from Addis Ababa, 277 kilometers to the south. Numbering as . . .

A Writer Writes: “The Even Keel of a Well Told Lie” by Mark Jacobs (Paraguay)

Jul 28 2020

by Mark Jacobs (Paraguay 1978–80) The Oddville Press Summer 2020 NOBODY HITCHHIKED ANY MORE, not through this America so full of dread and bad history. That did not necessarily mean the thing could not be done. Thumb out. If a person were leaving Broadhope County in south Virginia headed toward a destination he was as yet unable to visualize, it could not hurt to try for a lift. Not on the highway, where police prowled, just a plain old country road. Thumb out. He put the odds at slim to none that somebody would stop and pick him up, this close to a dense wood of loblolly pines, under a gray sky in late October, a quarter mile from a broken-armed scarecrow in a field of corn- stalk stubble. Guilt by association. Slimmer still, those odds, that it would be a woman who stopped, but she did. He did . . .

“An Unexpected Love Story: The Women of Bati” by John Coyne (Ethiopia)

Mar 03 2017

An Unexpected Love Story: The Women of Bati by John Coyne If the reader prefers, this may be regarded as fiction. But there is always the chance that such a piece of fiction may throw some light on what has been written as fact. Ernest Hemingway A Moveable Feast • AT AN ELEVATION OF 4,000 FEET, the town of Bati, Ethiopia, off the Dessie Road, is the last highland location before the Danakil Depression. A hard day’s drive from the Red Sea, it’s famous only for its Monday market days when the Afar women of the Danakil Depression walk up the “Great Escarpment” to trade with the Oromos on the plateau. These women arrive late on . . .

Mark G. Wentling (Honduras 1967-69; Togo 1970-73): African Hunger

Mar 21 2014

Mark G. Wentling spent nine years with the Peace Corps (Honduras, 1967-69; Togo, 1970-73; Peace Corps Staff, Togo, Gabon and Niger, 1973-76) before joining USAID in 1977. As a U.S. Foreign Service Officer he served in Niamey, Conakry, Lome, Mogadishu, Dar es Salaam and Washington, D.C before retiring from the Senior Foreign Service in 1996. Since his retirement he has worked for USAID as it Senior Advisor for the Great Lakes and Country Program Manager for Niger and Burkina Faso. He is a 1992 National War College Graduate. He has also worked in Africa for U.S. Non-Governmental Organizations and he is currently Country Director for PLAN in Burkina Faso. On September 20, he marked 41 years since arriving in Africa in 1970. He has worked in, or visited, 53 African countries. This piece appeared in American Diplomacy. They gave permission to republish it. • Africa’s Hunger by Mark Wentling “Cram-cram,” . . .

Gypsy Street by William Siegel (Ethiopia 1962-64)

Jan 29 2014

[This is the second in a series of short stories written by William Siegel (Ethiopia 1962-64). Will’s stories are about the folk ‘scene’ in Greenwich Village in the Sixties and Seventies. Will wrote me that the character of his story, Harold Childe, is based on Phil Ochs who took his own life by hanging in 1976, and that the original title for “Gypsy Street” was “The Last Days of Phil Ochs.” With the passing of Pete Seeger it is perhaps time to pause and recall that time in our lives. To put us in the mood, here’s “Gypsy Street,” Will’s story of life in the Village that he knew so well when he was preforming as folksinger Will Street.] Gypsy Street by William Siegel Near the end of the third winter Floyd and Dwain spent in Greenwich Village, disappointment and frustration drove them like a horse and carriage to a . . .

Tony D'Souza (Ivory Coast 2000-02, Madagascar 2002-03) Gets to the Big Game

Jan 07 2013

January 7, 2013 Even “Rudy” Can’t Get a B.C.S. Championship Ticket Posted by Tony D’Souza How hard was it to get tickets to Monday night’s Notre Dame vs. Alabama B.C.S. National Championship game? Even “Rudy” couldn’t land one. As much a part of Notre Dame football lore as anyone, especially since the 1993 release of the eponymous film about his time with the team, in the run-up to the game Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger found himself as just another number, one of more than a hundred thousand Notre Dame alumni and donor “friends” who applied for the fourteen thousand and five hundred “face value” tickets allotted to the school by the B.C.S. (Notre Dame took in at least $1.2 million in non-refundable ticket-lottery application fees. Another twenty-five hundred of the university’s tickets went to students.) “I didn’t get one through the lottery,” Rudy told me by phone from Las Vegas, where . . .

A Writer Writes Leita Kaldi (Senegal 1993-96) "Wings for West Africa"

Jun 21 2012

A Writer Writes [Peace Corps Volunteers often have experiences that follow them throughout their lives. Such was the case with Habib Diatta, who came into Leita Kaldi’s life in 1993 to tell her he taught at a school with 800 students and no latrines! She helped him to find funding and develop the project himself, in collaboration with local villagers, to provide sanitary facilities for his students. Habib didn’t stop there. In his rural school with no electricity, he dreamed of providing computers and training to schools throughout Senegal. When he was recruited to a university in Indiana, he realized his dream, founding Wings for West Africa, a non-profit organization that ships computers to every corner of Senegal. Nearly twenty years after meeting Habib, Leita is compelled to share his story.] Wings for West Africa by Leita Kaldi (Senegal 1993-96) “At our school we have eight hundred students and no . . .

Search Results For -When the Wall came Tumbling Down