Peace Corps writers

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“Fire in the Huts!!!” by John Chromy (India)
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A Short Story | “The Paperboy” by Chris Honore’ (Colombia) 
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8 U.S. BIKE TOURS by Stephen Foehr (Ethiopia)
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Carolyn Mulford (Ethiopia) sums up her long writing career
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ACROSS THE KENTUCKY COLOR LINE by Lee Durham Stone (Jamaica)
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FROM MOUNTAINS TO MEDICINE by Erica Elliott (Ecuador)
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Pocket Stories by Kathleen Coskran (Ethiopia)
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“How a Guinea Fowl Led Soldiers to Pound on My Door at 4 AM” by Curt Mekemson (Liberia)
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“And the Wall Came Tumbling Down” by John Chromy (India)
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Review | FACE TO FACE WITH WAR by Leo Cecchini (Ethiopia)
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AMERICAN SEASONS by Mark Brazaitis (Guatemala)
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THE CHINESE DETECTIVE by Joseph Theroux (Samoa)
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REFLECTIONS OF AN AMERICAN POLITICAL PRISONER by Michael O. Billington (Guyana)
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THE PLEASURE SEEKER by Robyn Michaels (Malawi)
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YET TO BE REVEALED by Geri Marr Burdman (Bolivia)

“Fire in the Huts!!!” by John Chromy (India)

by John Chromy (India 1963–65)   • • •  Late one afternoon in November of 1964 my Peace Corps housemate, Gordon Louden and I were working at our desks in the Gramsevak Training Center, when we smelled smoke and began to hear people shouting and running toward some informal huts on the outer edge of our Training Center buildings. In India there are numerous wandering, almost gypsy-like, tribes of working people who move to locations where there is seasonal or temporary work to be had. One of those tribes, the Lombardi people had come to Gangawati to work on the construction of feeder lines of the Tungabhadra Irrigation Project. They had established a semi-formal camp of about 50 huts on government-owned land about 40 yards north of our Center. These huts were constructed of a wooden framing, walls made of sticks and shrubbery and roofs covered with straw, coconut leaves and other . . .

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A Short Story | “The Paperboy” by Chris Honore’ (Colombia) 

By Chris Honoré (Colombia 1967-69) • • •  My elementary school was called Allendale, a name I never gave much thought to. It was a massive, pale green, two-story Victorian building on a quiet neighborhood street. I wanted to be a paperboy Two years before I headed off to Jr. High School, I suggested to my folks that being a paperboy would build character, or wobbly words to that effect, and solve my financial situation — I was always short of pocket change for, say, a Superman comic or baseball cards wrapped in waxy paper along with a square of pink bubble gum. To sweeten my argument, I pointed out that the “newspaper shack,” where a cohort of boys gathered each afternoon, waiting for the hot off the presses bundles of newspapers to arrive, was less than a block away from Allendale. “Fine,” my parents said, with some reluctance. “Let’s see how . . .

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8 U.S. BIKE TOURS by Stephen Foehr (Ethiopia)

  8 U.S. Bike Tours Historical Routes by Stephen Foehr (Ethiopia 1965-66) Fohr + Son Publisher 12–18 years January 2024 233 pages $6.99 (Kindle); $12.00 (Paperback)   8 U.S. Bike Tours Historical Routes is a travel book, not a guide book.Routes are given historical context so you are knowledgeable about the place. Descriptions of the rides tells miles, altitude gains, revelations, and practical tips. The physical and emotional experiences on the ride is told from a first-hand account. Description of the rides tells miles, altitude gains, revelations, and practical tips.   Tours featured from Lizard Head Cycling Guides trips Colorado/Utah/Arizona Redrock Canyon and Monument Valley Mississippi Natchez Trace Northern New Mexico South Dakota Black Hills/Badlands Utah National Parks Arizona Trail of the Apaches Pennsylvania Bridges and Battlefields New York-Vermont-Montreal    

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Carolyn Mulford (Ethiopia) sums up her long writing career

  Fall, 1949, is scary, but exciting, for farm-girl Gail Albright. When she begins junior high at the nearby town of Craigsburg, she has no idea of the struggles and friendships she will find. She’s the butt of jokes made by class snob Veronica Holt, and Veronica’s stuck-up clique. And they especially make fun of Gail for wearing a feedsack dress her mother made for her. After Gail’s first taste of humiliation, she knows she must find a way to overcome her embarrassment and anger. The only thing harder than putting up with Veronica’s mean teasing is finding the strength to beat her at her own game. With a little help from her friends, Gail might just pull it off.   Why I Wrote THE FEEDSACK DRESS Posted on February 12, 2024 by Carolyn Mulford  . . .     Over more than 30 years, I wrote and rewrote The Feedsack Dress, . . .

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ACROSS THE KENTUCKY COLOR LINE by Lee Durham Stone (Jamaica)

  Across the Kentucky Color Line: Cultural Landscapes of Race from The Lost Cause to Integration by Lee Durham Stone (Jamaica (1979-82) Self Published December 2023 300 pages $7.99 (Kindle); $27.00 (Hardback)   In Beloved, novelist Toni Morrison has her protagonist Sethe say that she thought she was “gonna die in wild onions on the bloody side of the Ohio River.” That violent side of the river was Kentucky, the subject of Across the Kentucky Color Line. This study examines Kentucky’s violent history of racial relations from 1865 to 1970, focusing on Muhlenberg County, its seven contiguous neighbors, and others in the Bluegrass State. The author prefaces the book with his experience of a segregated school trip to see “The Ten Commandments” in 1957. Historical topics include Kentucky’s post-Civil War racial strife, the Jim Crow era, Lost Cause politics, and a detailed examination of a trial and public “legal lynching” in . . .

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FROM MOUNTAINS TO MEDICINE by Erica Elliott (Ecuador)

  From Mountains to Medicine: Scaling the Heights in Search of My Calling Erica M. Elliott, M.D. (Ecuador 1974–1976) Lammastide Publishing January 2024 383 pages $19.95 (paperback), $16.99 (Kindle)   Erica Elliott resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she has a busy medical practice. Erica was born into a large family with a Swiss mother and an American father. Throughout her childhood, Erica moved with her family from one part of the world to another due to her father’s work. She began her schooling in England, graduated from high school in Germany, and then studied art in Florence, Italy, before returning to the States to attend college. The seeds for becoming a medical doctor were first sown when she spent a summer in Switzerland learning from her uncle, an eccentric and brilliant medical doctor. It took many years before those seeds sprouted. Erica came to medicine later than most . . .

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Pocket Stories by Kathleen Coskran (Ethiopia)

  Why write stories? A story is the most universal narrative, told by everybody around the world. We all lean forward when somebody says let me tell you about the time when, we wait for the and then, and we watch the story unfold in our mind’s eye. We see him crouched there, hear her voice, feel the stroke of the cat against our leg, hold our breath when the door creaks. Stories are words at their most powerful. Stories make us laugh, cry, sweat, hold our breath, fall in love, and remind us of the infinite ways we are human. Nobody is too young or too old for a story. My stories are short—pocket stories—a title inspired by the Beatrice Schenk de Regniers poem “Keep a Poem in Your Pocket.” I write more stories than poems, but some of them are as short as poems so I post them . . .

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“How a Guinea Fowl Led Soldiers to Pound on My Door at 4 AM” by Curt Mekemson (Liberia)

CURT MEKEMSON JANUARY 29, 2024 First the story about the soldiers. I’ve told it before in my book about my Peace Corps experience, The Bush Devil Ate Sam, and on my blog. Because it involved Guinea fowls, it deserves being told again. It was 1967 and I had just returned from my Peace Corps job of teaching history and geography at the nearby Gboveh High School in Gbarnga, Liberia. Much to my surprise — and dismay — I found soldiers standing in our yard pointing guns every which way. It was an ‘Ut-Oh’ moment. Liberian soldiers were scary. “What’s up?” I asked, trying not to sound nervous. You learned early on not to mess with Liberian soldiers. There was a reason why the government refused to issue them bullets. “Your dog ate one of the Superintendent’s Guinea hens,” their sergeant mumbled ominously. The Superintendent of Bong County was the equivalent to . . .

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

  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 . . .

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Review | FACE TO FACE WITH WAR by Leo Cecchini (Ethiopia)

  Face to Face with War by Leo Cecchini (Ethiopia 1962–64) Independently published October 2022 254 pages $15.00 (paperback), $9.00 (Kindle) Reviewed by Mike Donovan   • • •  Leo Cecchini, the author of Face to Face With War, has lead the kind of life most of us can only imagine. His book takes us from his Peace Corps experience as a geography teacher and soccer coach in Asmara, Ethiopia at the beginning of the 30 year struggle for Eritrean independence to his many experiences in the U.S. foreign service. His first assignment in the foreign service was in Panama where he met some decidedly shady characters trying to run weapons to Biafra during the breakaway war with Nigeria. He outsmarted them! From Panama he was sent to Vietnam during the period of heaviest fighting. He was part of a joint military/civilian program designed to help stabilize the country. Each of his new . . .

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AMERICAN SEASONS by Mark Brazaitis (Guatemala)

  American Seasons by Mark Brazaitis (Guatemala 1991-93) Main Street Rag Publisher 228 pages June 2024 $18.95 (Paperback)  (*Buy now at a pre-publication discount of $10.95)   Mark Brazaitis’ third novel and ninth book, American Seasons, will be published as a paperback original in June by Main Street Rag. • • •  American Seasons is about a small college basketball team in the early 1960s, its ambitious coach, his young, idealistic, beautiful wife, the team’s two star players (one black, one white), and the sports editor who hopes to chronicle a championship season. All goes well  . . . until it doesn’t. Past secrets and present tensions threaten to upend the team’s magical season — and explode the lives of everyone connected with it. American Seasons, Brazaitis says, began as a play, “but with all the ambitions I had for it, it would have run nine hours.” In addition to basketball, the novel is about . . .

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THE CHINESE DETECTIVE by Joseph Theroux (Samoa)

  The Chinese Detective: Hawaii’s Real Charlie Chan by Joseph Theroux (Samoa 1975-78) Kilauea Publications January 2024 228 pages $5.00 (Kindle); $12.00 (Paperback) Reading Age 15 and up .  .  . Honolulu, 1920 — Lloyd Osbourne witnesses the remains of a body that has washed up on the Waikiki shore, and soon finds himself working alongside a remarkable local Chinese detective. Other dead bodies appear and the detectives draw up a list of missing men in the city. Writer Earl Derr Biggers is also vacationing at Waikiki and one morning his wife suddenly disappears. A search for her results in the kidnapping of Lloyd, and a massive opium enterprise is uncovered. A scandal at the Customs House involves the suicide of a cashier named William Wilder. Is Honolulu Sheriff Charles Rose merely incompetent or is he an active conspirator in the opium ring? And how is the violent murder of . . .

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REFLECTIONS OF AN AMERICAN POLITICAL PRISONER by Michael O. Billington (Guyana)

  Reflections of an American Political Prisoner: The Repression and Promise of the LaRouche Movement by Michael O. Billington (Guyana & Thailand 1967-71) EIR News Service 2015 435 pages $9.99 (Kindle); $19.99 (Paperback)   As part of a book tour for his autobiography Reflections of An American Political Prisoner: The Represssion and Promise of the LaRouche Movement, as seen by Michael O. Billington,  Billington, the last of the LaRouche political prisoners to be released on parole, after ten years in jail–two years in Federal prison, and an additional eight years as a inmate of the Virginia Correctional system (his sentence in Virginia was 77 years!), wrote a personal account of his political, philosophical, and moral development over nearly 35 years, including his work in the Peace Corps in the late 1960s. Most of the book is dedicated to his life and work, over the period since he became, in 1972, . . .

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THE PLEASURE SEEKER by Robyn Michaels (Malawi)

The Pleasure Seeker by Robyn Michaels (Malawi 1992) Self Published January 2024 326 pages $2.99 (Kindle); $14.95 (Paperback)   This is a coming-of-age story and involves real African history. Dayal Singh is brilliant, quirky, and has Asperger’s. Son of parents trafficked  to East Africa from India just before independence, he knows he’s Sikh, African, and calculus is the evidence of God. He becomes fascinated by a broken piano. and is offered a piano to buy, buys it and learns to play. Mentored by his older brothers, he follows them to Singapore to further his education, he then goes to Switzerland. He falls in love  with the granddaughter of the man who bought his father. She tells him that the situation is impossible, and that he must stay in school as long as his way is paid. His youth is fraught, being an other. In Switzerland, he is constantly proselytized to, which only defines for him . . .

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YET TO BE REVEALED by Geri Marr Burdman (Bolivia)

  Yet to be Revealed: Finding Paths to Meaning by Geri Marr Burdman, Ph.D. (Bolivia 1962-64) GeroWise Books November 2023 124 pages $16.95 (Paperback)   Yet to be Revealed: Finding Paths to Meaning is a book to dive into as you grapple with the increasing challenges and chaos of today’s world. You will emerge with newfound purpose and passion for what counts in your life. Drawing from her experiences as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bolivia as well as years of health work in the Caribbean, Central and South America, USA, Asia, Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, Geri Marr Burdman shares riveting stories of people around the world who are living purposefully even in the midst of uncertainty and tumultuous circumstances. The author invites us to find a proactive route to meaning in the midst of the multifaceted challenges of our times-loss and grief, despair, inner emptiness, caregiving, parenting pressures, global . . .

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