Peace Corps writers

Tubob: Two Years in West Africa with the Peace Corps by Mary E. Trimble (Gambia 1979-81) ShelterGraphics $15.95 320 pages 2012 Reviewed by Barbara E. Joe (Honduras 2000-03) Just what does “Tubob” in this book’s title mean? Author Mary Trimble and her husband Bruce, Volunteers sent to The Gambia in 1979, discovered it means stranger or white person. But they didn’t remain strangers for long, though pregnant women shielded their eyes from them to prevent the birth of albino babies. The two were soon given Gambian names; Mary’s was Mariama. They quickly became valued members of their community, she working in health, he in digging wells. By planting a garden and raising chickens themselves, they showed local people how to augment their diet, also debunking a belief that eating eggs causes stupidity. Reportedly newlyweds, I first envisioned them as a young couple, only later learning they were already in their . . .

I Was a Peace Corps Volunteer: Lost and Found in Micronesia By Heather Kaschmitter (Micronesia 2002-04) Create Space, $12 286 pages 2012 Reviewed by David H. Day (Kenya 1965-66; India 1967-69) Age 25 and fresh out of college in Washington State, and newly-accepted in the Peace Corps, Heather Kaschmitter found herself in Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia, a vast string of islands and coral atolls sprawled across tens of thousands of  miles of Pacific ocean. The islands stretch in an arc from Palau in the west, southeast to Kiribati north of Fiji. Today, largely on the margins of our consciousness, it’s an area well-known to the U.S. military, to artists and writers like Melville and Gaugin, and to a slew of anthropologists beginning with the pioneering visits of Bronislaw Malinowski, Margaret Mead and numerous others who have documented island cultures. When offered a chance to review Kaschmitter’s book, I jumped . . .

George Packer (Togo 1982-83) dissects the Republican and Democratic Conventions in “The Talk of the Town” column of The New Yorker, September 17, 2012, issue. Packer writes: “In Charlotte, the Democrats embraced the production values that the Republicans once monopolized: message disciple, clock management, and ego subordination (former Presidents excepted). They staged repetitious, unembarrassed salutes to the military. The Republicans’ allowing Clint Eastwood to improvise like an also-ran at a talent show, on their Convention’s most important night, only heightened the contrast.”  Later, he sums up what struck all of us who endured the events by noting, “In Tampa, the faces were overwhelming white, not young, and surprising impassive. In Charlotte, there was color, youth, and tears.” And this Friday, on The New Yorker Website, Peter Hessler (China 1996-98) now living and writing from Cairo, posted a report on the recent demonstrations against the U.S. government over the anti-Muslim film . . .

Levitate the Primate Michael Thomsen (China & Madagascar 2002-05) Zero Books 255 pages Paperback $24.95 August 2012 Reviewed by Tony D’Souza (Ivory Coast 2000-02, Madagascar 2002-03) I’m prefacing this review of Michael Thomsen’s collection of essays on dating and sex, Levitate the Primate, with the warning that if one is offended, made squeamish, or in any way turned off or hoping to avoid base, explicit, detailed, unguarded, gratuitous, and sometimes simply gross discussions of sex, sexual desire, sexual body parts, sexual love, blowjobs, handjobs, footjobs, rimjobs, assjobs, fucking, sucking, fisting, Matures, creampies, BBWs, married, cuckold, MILFs, trannies, hentai, and bukkake, please do not read this review. Now that you are all reading along! When this slender, slick, pink book came across my reviewing desk earlier this week, it rose directly to the top of my long to-do list, and I ended up banging through it in a couple of hurried . . .

Our RPCV Self-Publishing Guru, Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras, 1975-77), author of Peace Corps Experience: Write & Publish Your Memoir a How-To book published by iUniverse, has interviewed other Peace Corps writers about “how they did it” and given us a wealth of material here. Read on! HIRE A PAID CONSULTANT? Ninety percent of Peace Corps writers are self-published. There is an incredible array of companies that offer support services to self-publishing writers for a price. Paid consultants offer to edit, format, design and even market. Some of our own Peace Corps writers have commented on their experiences. PLEASED TO USE THEM! Will Lutwick (Fiji, 1968-70) author of Dodging Machetes: How I Survived Forbidden Love, Bad Behavior, and the Peace Corps in Fiji, a memoir published by Peace Corps Writers, utilizing CreateSpace services. Developmental editor: I contracted a woman before signing with Peace Corps Writers. She did a very good job, particularly . . .

Talking with Rajeev Goyal (Nepal 2002-03) by John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962-64) When you arrived in Nepal, Rajeev, the Nepalese royal family had just been massacred, Maoists threatened national security, and, as you discovered, a caste system dominated the culture. How did these realities affect your Peace Corps tour? The Maoist war affected every element of life, including education. Bridges, roads, and electricity grids were being blown up all across the country pretty much from the moment we stepped off the plane. So on a physical level, you never quite felt secure. But there was also an ideological “war” taking shape about how the country should move forward, the role and limits of tradition and religion in social and political life. Teachers and students were not shielded from this debate, obviously. The royal massacre had created a political vacuum, which the Maoists were capitalizing on.  Ordinary Nepalis felt squeezed between an . . .

Rajeev Goyal’s new memoir The Springs of Namje, published by Beacon Press, will be launched at The Rubin Museum of Art in New York. The museum opened in 2004 and  is recognized as the premier museum of Himalayan art in the Western world. The Launch Friday September 14, 2012 @ 7:00 PM The Rubin Museum of Art 150 West 17 Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues) Price: $12.00 Member Price: $10.80 About the Book The Springs of Namje A Ten-Year Journey from the Villages of Nepal to the Halls of Congress “The Springs of Namje tells many stories, including, very movingly, how to try to effect real change in Washington, D.C. It’s about idealism and savvy, and it shows how they can mix powerfully.” — Bill McKibben, author of Earth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet In 2001, Peace Corps volunteer Rajeev Goyal was sent to Namje, a . . .

The Turn-around Bird (A Young Adult Book) by Lucinda Wingard (Nigeria 1966–68) Plicata Press $16.00 294 pages 2012 Review by Leita Kaldi Davis (Senegal 1993–96) Aimée and Zoe, African American twin teenagers, accompany their father to Timbuktu, where he pursues historical research on the ancient Mali Empire.  At first, the girls find traveling in the endless desert arduous, and the city of Timbuktu boring, with its sand-colored buildings and weird spires and spikes. But through the magie of a genie, Ifrit, they are catapulted back into 14th century Timbuktu, then a mecca of civilization. The girls embark upon adventures replete with tall, dark, handsome princes, caravans, Tuareg warriors, harems, a Griot, a sorcerer and a Sufi mystic. In the magnificent Mansa Kankan Musa’s Golden Empire, the girls learn many things about ancient Africa.  Aimée, who tends to be bookish and fascinated by words, is told that she inherits the gift . . .

Mark Brazaitis (Guatemala 1991–93) has won the 8th Annual Gival Press Novel Award for his novel Julia & Rod. Mark will receive $3,000 and his novel will be published in 2013 by Gival Press. Mark is the author of four books of fiction, including The Incurables: Stories, winner of the 2012 Richard Sullivan Prize, from the University of Notre Dame Press. Of his book, Thaddeus Rutkowski, final judge of the contest, and author of Haywire, Tetched and Roughhouse wrote: This expressive, touching and at times wrenching novel tells the stories of two young people living in Guatemala during that country’s civil war. Teenagers Julia García and Rodrigo Rax meet at a school pageant and find that they are drawn to each other. Julia, the daughter of an engineer, lives in one of the few two-story houses in town. Rodrigo, who comes from less privilege, is a soccer star. But what begins . . .

The Measure of a Dream: A Peace Corps Story by Lora Parisien Begin (Tunisia 1988-90) Peace Corps Writers $16.96 356 pages July 2012 • Seven Sonnets by Julie B. Dargis (Morocco 1984–87) Createspace $5.99 16 pages 2012 • God and Conflict: A Search for Peace in a Time of Crisis: A True Story by Philip M. Hellmich (Sierra Leone 1985–89) GodandConflict.com Spirit of Peace Press $15.00 (paperback); $7.99 (Kindle) 262 pages 2012 • Every Town Needs A Castle: Especially When Built of Recycled Junk and Spunk by Dwayne Hunn (India 1965–67) Xlibris $19.99 (paperback), $3.08 (Kindle) 319 pages 2010 • I Was a Peace Corps Volunteer: Lost and Found in Micronesia by Heather Kaschmitter (Micronesia 2002–04) CreateSpace $12.00 286 pages June 2012 • The Soft Exile by Eric Kiefer (Mongolia 2006–07) Gentleman Tree Publishing $11.99 (paperback), $5.99 (Kindle) 209 pages August 2012 • The South American Expeditions, 1540–1545 by Alvar . . .

Tom Weck (Ethiopia 1965–67) is the founder of Lima Bear Press. With his son Peter, and illustrator Len DiSalvo, they have created a series of children’s books for 4–8 year-olds called The Lima Bear Stories, three of which,  The Megasaurus, How Back-Back Got His Name, and The Cave Monster were published in 2011 and we are recognizing with this award. These books grew out of bedtime stories about a clan of bears the size of lima beans that Tom told his four children. Four of the planned 10-book series have been published. 2 more are due in 2013.   Each book has an important message (e.g. tolerance, forgiveness). After graduating from Harvard Business School, Tom went with Louis Berger & Associates, a consulting firm, and ran the business as president for the last 12 years. “It was my son Peter who prompted me to start Lima Bear Press, LLC.,” Tom says today. “He felt my stories . . .

In 2011 Stan Meisler published When The World Calls: The Inside Story of the Peace Corps and Its First Fifty Years. It is a comprehensive history of the agency written by someone who knew the Peace Corps almost from its first days. Stan Meisler was a reporter for AP in 1963 when he joined the Evaluation staff at the Peace Corps.  “I was not there in those very first days, the madcap, exciting, glorious beginning. I started my work at Peace Corps headquarters just after the election of Lyndon B. Johnson to a full term as president, a year after the assassination of President Kennedy.” He had misgivings about working for the government, as any reporter might, but the Peace Corps was different. “It was,” Meisler writes, “an oasis of idealism and goodness in the vast Washington bureaucracy. Everyone, even Washington correspondents, loved the Peace Corps.” In his career at the agency he would make a half dozen . . .

The winner of the Peace Corps Collection Award is Jane Albritton (India 1967-69) senior editor of four books of essays by RPCVs published by Travelers’ Tales/Solas House. The books are: One Hand Does Not Catch a Buffalo — Volume One, Africa, Edited by Aaron Barlow (Togo 1988-90) Gather The Fruit One By One — Volume Two, Americas–Edited by Pat Alter (Paraguay 1970-72) and Bernie Alter (India 1967-69) A Small Key Opens Big Doors — Volume Three, The Heart of Eurasia–Edited by Jay Chen (Kazakhstan 2005-08) Even The Smallest Crab Has Teeth — Volume Four, Asia & The Pacific, Edited by Jane Albritton (India 1967-69) Jane Albritton undertook a herculean task: to gather enough Peace Corps personal experience essays to fill a multi-volume anthology. After four years of intense work, she completed the task in 2011 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps’ inception. The four volumes include more . . .

Richard Sitler’s (Jamaica 2000–02) Making Peace with the World: Photographs of Peace Corps Volunteers published by Other Places Publishing has won the Peace Corps Writers’ award for best photography book of 2011. Richard is a photojournalist who grew up in Knightstown, Indiana. He worked at newspapers in Ohio, Indiana, New Hampshire and New Jersey. Most recently Sitler was on staff at The Herald Bulletin in Anderson, Ind. Sitler is a graduate of Blackburn College in Carlinville, Illinois. He also studied at The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland, Maine. From 2000 to 2002 Sitler took a break from his photojournalism career to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer in Jamaica. Sitler was placed in the rural community of Lluidas Vale where he served as an at-risk youth advisor to the Lluidas Vale All Age School. In 2006 Sitler returned to Jamaica as a Crisis Corps Volunteer (now called Peace . . .

Maureen Orth (Colombia 1964-66) is in the “Middle of It” again! Maureen this morning on the TODAY Show defended her October article in Vanity Fair about the Church of  Scientology seeking a bride for Tom Cruise. Maureen told Matt Lauer on the TODAY  Show that “Tom can’t find the Scientology soul mate that he needs to be the No. 2 most important person in the religion, which is what he was called by the head of Scientology.” The church, it seems, wanted Tom to settle on actress Nazanin Boniadi who dated Cruise for a few months in 2004. In VF Maureen wrote that when Cruise was married to Nicole Kidman, the pair “drifted away” from Scientology; the Church then ramped up efforts to get them back by “auditing” (“their kind of confessional”) Cruise once a day for almost a year, and collecting information from spies working in the couple’s home. . . .