Marian Haley Beil – Page 3 – Peace Corps Worldwide

Review | IN THE AMBER CHAMBER by Carrie Messenger (Moldova)

Oct 08 2023

In an Amber Chamber, Stories Carrie Messenger (Moldova 1994–96) Brighthorse Books 260 pages August, 2018 $16.95 (paperback) Reviewed by Eugénie de Rosier (Philippines 2006-08) Carrie Messenger’s short stories paint dark and disturbing settings for people who lived in Eastern Europe under strangling communism. Romania and Moldova are noted. The former’s Ceaușescu brutalized his country. Famine was a scourge in the 1940s and in the 1980s, deprivation was widespread; and state enforced-pregnancy led to too many children that couldn’t be supported by their parents. The government opened orphanages which were run by people who seemed unaware of children’s needs. Themes of despair, loss, and vulnerability run through these 18 stories, but there are also uplifting moments . . . when a child’s laugh can be heard, a dog’s bark echoes in frolic, the surprise of a holiday in a new free country. About the stories In Edgewater, three Romanian . . .

“Monadnock”

Oct 07 2023

A story by Giles Ryan (Korea) Here in New England, about forty of us, old friends, have come together again to mark the fifty years since we all first gathered for Peace Corps language training, a shared experience followed by another, our time in Korea as school teachers, after which we were never the same. Tolstoy long ago observed that there are only two kinds of stories — someone goes on a journey, and a stranger comes to town. All of us have done both. We all went on a journey long ago and far away, and then we spread out across Korea, each one of us a stranger come to town. The towns were all different and we each had our own experience, and we were all marked by it for the rest of our lives. We are so pleased to reconnect like this, making eye contact . . .

The Volunteer who became an acclaimed novelist of small-town life — Kent Haruf (Turkey)

Sep 24 2023

by Jeremiah Norris (Colombia 1963-65) Kent Haruf served as a Peace Corps Volunteer English teacher in Turkey from 1965 to 67, after graduating from Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1966. Before becoming a writer, Kent worked in a variety of places, including a chicken farm in Colorado, a construction site in Wyoming, a rehabilitation hospital in Denver, a hospital in Phoenix, a Presidential library in Iowa, an alternative high school teacher in Wisconsin, and various colleges in Nebraska and Illinois. Undoubtedly, these hardcore working experiences served as inspirational foundations to his later life as a novelist focused on the broad subject of small town America. All of Kent’s subsequent novels take place in the fictional town of Holt in eastern Colorado. Holt is based on Yuma, Colorado, one of Kent’s residence in the early 1980s. His first novel, published in 1984, The Tie That Binds, received a Whiting Award and a . . .

“Staying” by Giles Ryan (Korea)

Sep 14 2023

In the winter of 1970 I went to Korea, a country still recovering from a terrible war. The Peace Corps sent me there to teach English at a middle school in the central mountains, near the DMZ (demilitarized zone), where a fragile armistice was not always honored. The winter was colder than what I had known, learning the language was difficult, and in those early months I was often ill. But the true challenge was witnessing a kind of cruelty that most Americans today would call child abuse. For my part, I had been raised in an Irish Catholic environment, so I was no stranger to corporal punishment; indeed, I had my own vivid experience, both at home and in school. But nothing prepared me for what I saw at my school in Chunchon, and I reached a moment when I doubted I could stay. The students were . . .

The Volunteer Who Discovered the First Area of Human Occupation in Costa Rica

Sep 09 2023

by Jeremiah Norris (Colombia 1963-65) Michael Snarskis attended the University of Iowa, graduating in 1964, then Yale University majoring in Spanish in 1967. After one year of law school, he joined the Peace Corps as a Volunteer in Costa Rica, 1967-69. There his interest in archeology was awakened and on his return to the U. S. he studied archelogy at Colombia University. After three years of field work in Costa Rica, he received a Ph. D. in 1978 with a dissertation on the Archaeology of the Central American Watershed of Costa Rica. When he received his doctoral, there was almost no scientific archeology in Costa Rica. Michael founded the archeology department at the Museo National de Costa Rica in San Jose, Costa Rica, and directed it for ten years. As an archeologist and conservationist, Michael worked for the Tayutic Foundation which seeks to preserve and explore the Guayabo . . .

New books by Peace Corps writers | July–August 2023

Sep 04 2023

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/or 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 free copy along with a few instructions. P.S. 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 . . .

Talking with Marnie Mueller (Ecuador) about her new book THE SHOWGIRL AND THE WRITER

Aug 27 2023

PCW: The Showgirl And The Writer is an unusual book about an unusual friendship. What initially drew you to your subject? Marnie: For fifteen years I was friends with Mary Mon Toy, a Japanese American showgirl who had been incarcerated in an America concentration camp during World War II. Our bond was the fact that I, though Caucasian, was born in the Tule Lake Japanese American High Security Camp in northern California, where my parents, young leftists, had gone to work . . . much as I joined the Peace Corps decades later, As Mary aged, I became her Power of Attorney and, when she died, the Executor of her estate, and it was only upon her death that I learned that during her entire theater career, after being released from camp, she had passed as Chinese American. She had often regaled me with the story of her Chinese father, though she did . . .

“Vamos, Let’s Win a Borrego!”

Aug 22 2023

by Becky Wandell (Ecuador 2018 –20) One afternoon, I overheard Margarita, my host-mom, talking on the phone. I usually didn’t understand much of what she said — or much of what anybody said during my first weeks living in Ecuador — but on this day, I clearly heard “Becky is a good baker, she can make the cakes.” Ummm… Margarita? What am I going to do? After finishing her conversation, she pulled me over to the table and patiently explained that her husband Jose’s Dad, Victor, was having a birthday this weekend and they needed some cakes for the celebration. I had been around long enough to know that usually the family just goes to Tio Sam’s bakery for saccharine sweet gelatinous cakes, so if they were asking me to bake them, this was a big deal! And besides, I would do anything for Victor who had welcomed me to . . .

James Denbow (Malawi) and his love song for his wife

Aug 15 2023

My Life’s Story and Love James Denbow (Malawi 1968–70) • I have worked in African archaeology for almost 50 years, living for many years in Malawi, Botswana, and the Republic of Congo. My first experience in Africa was as a Peace Corps volunteer working in environmental health in a village in northern Malawi. My wife of 54 years, Jocelyne, and I were married in Blantyre, Malawi. Because my BA degree was in archaeology, I was asked by the Peace Corps to carry out an excavation with another Peace Corps volunteer, Wayne Olts, for the Malawi Department of Antiquities at the Old Livingstonia Mission site, established by David Livingstone at Cape McClear. The Peace Corps thought this would be a good way to keep some Peace Corps teachers active during their school holidays. This experience led to my career. After the Peace Corps, my wife and I moved to Maun, . . .

Hesperian Health Guides is having a story contest just for RPCVs

Aug 15 2023

HESPERIAN HEALTH GUIDES is the publisher of the beloved Where There Is No Doctor and 11 other books published in multiple languages that have been used by Peace Corps Volunteers serving around the world to support individuals and communities in their struggles to realize the right to good health since the early ’60s. Hesperian invites PCVs and RPCVs to share your stories of how any of the Hesperian books helped you during your Peace Corps service in your efforts to give care to the people of your communities. AND, if you have them, any photos of our books in action can be sent with your stories. Please email your submissions or any questions you have to vanessa@hesperian.org . Winners will be chosen at random. The deadline to enter this contest is August 25, 2023. PRIZES: 4 winners will be able to send a complete Hesperian Library set to a . . .

The Volunteer Who Became an Astronaut | Joseph M. Acaba (Dominican Republic)

Aug 06 2023

by Jeremiah Norris (Colombia 1963-65) Joseph M. Acaba spent two years in the Peace Corps serving in the Dominican Republic, 1994-96. Ten years later, in May of 2004, he became the first person of Puerto Rican heritage to be named as a NASA astronaut candidate when he was selected as a member of NASA Astronaut Training Group 19. He completed his training on February 10, 2006, and was assigned to STS-119, which flew from March 15 to 28, 2009, to deliver the final set of solar arrays to the International Space Station. In 1990, Joseph had received his bachelor’s degree in geology from the University of California/Santa Barbara, and in 1992 he earned his master’s degree in geology from the University of Arizona. He then went on to earn an M.Ed. in 2015 from Texas Tech University. In between these higher educational endeavors, he somehow managed to . . .

The Volunteer Who Had a Professional Career of Leadership in Agriculture and Economic Development

Jul 18 2023

A Profile in Citizenship Emmy Simmons (Philippines 1962-64) • by Jeremiah Norris (Colombia 1963-65) Emmy Simmons grew up in a farming community of northern Wisconsin before serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Philippines, 1962-64. There, it was just her luck to be assigned as an education Volunteer to a farming community near the “summer capital” of Baguio where the population grew rice for food and pineapples for cash. She found herself drawn to the issues of agriculture and economic development in a context different from that of northern Wisconsin. After Peace Corps, she earned a M. S. in Agricultural Economics from Cornell University. Emmy was able to build a career in food and agriculture in the following decades, from participating in a rural development research program at Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria where she focused on families’ nutrition and women’s microenterprises to serving as the Assistant Administrator . . .

WORDS CREATE WORLDS: Poems by Ada Jo Mann (Chad)

Jun 18 2023

Words Create Worlds: Poems Ada Jo Mann (Chad 1967-69) Peace Corps Writers 147 pages April 2023 $14.99 (paperback) Words Create Worlds is a collection of poems that span the life of the author, Ada Jo Mann, who grew up in Detroit, Michigan, and who was a Peace Corps volunteer in Chad from 1967-69. Her Peace Corps service led to a career in international development which took her to many countries around the world where she focused on building strong communities and organizations using a strength-based approach to change called Appreciative Inquiry. Upon the author’s retirement, she began taking courses at the independent bookstore, Politics and Prose, in Washington, DC. As a participant in the Poetry Circle she was inspired to try her hand at poetry and this collection of her poems was the result. In addition to the international focus of her poems, the author writes about memories of . . .

Review | BIODIGITAL: A NOVEL OF TECHNOPOTHEOSIS by John Sundman (Senegal)

Jun 05 2023

Biodigital: A Novel of Technopotheosis John (F.X, Compton, Damien) Sundman (Senegal 1974-76) Rosalita Associates 2015 $5.99 (Kindle) Review by: D.W. Jefferson (El Salvador, Costa Rica) • This is a novel by a computer, biology, and sci-fi nerd for other nerds in particular, and for anyone who strives to understand the space between technology that we know exists and that which either may currently exist or likely soon will exist in some form. Most of us are likely in this latter category! Sundman states that he is especially interested in the convergence of biological and digital technologies. He has been a hardware, software and science technical writer, and a manager of information architecture in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. Biodigital is a sci-fi thriller about a fictitious Silicon Valley tech genius/messiah named Monty Meekman and the quasi-religious cult of transhumanist computer designers and brain hackers who are his devoted followers. It . . .

New books by Peace Corps writers | May — June 2023

Jun 05 2023

Author - Marian Haley Beil