The Peace Corps

Grub Street By Joshua David Stein “I’m writing now because through the weird journey of my life I’ve gotten to know Paul and Sheila Theroux.” That’s how writer Joshua David Stein told me that he wanted to interview Paul, the famed travel author. When I reminded Stein that Grub Street is a food site, he assured me that wouldn’t be a problem. In the end, he was right, because the conversation that the two had, over lunch at the very good Mexican restaurant Oxomoco, was not only about food, but also about its ability to, with surprising efficiency, reveal something deeper about the people eating it. — Alan Sytsma, editor, Grub Street Talking Tlayudas and Traffic With Paul Theroux By Joshua David Stein It’s a blustery October day in Greenpoint, and when Paul Theroux — traveler of great repute, climber of mountains and dweller of plains — steps out from his . . .

On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Journey By Paul Theroux (Malawi 1963-65) Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 448 pages October  2019     Reviewed by Mark D. Walker  (Guatemala 1971-73) I’ve travelled much of the world over the last forty years, thanks to Paul Theroux’s many books, which now number 56. I was especially eager to read this book since I’ve made the journey through Mexico several times with my wife in a car (VW bug) and a pickup truck, so I was familiar with some of the challenges and dangers, not to mention adventures the author would encounter. The “Godfather of Travel Writing” follows his own critique for what makes a superior travel book, “not just a report of a journey, but a memoir, an autobiography, a confession, a foray in South America, a topography and history, a travel narrative, with observations of books, music, and life in general; in . . .

National service: Rebuilding America’s civic fabric The Brookings Institution hosted a panel discussion among the member of the National Commission on Military Service, National Service, and Public service.  The video should be able to be viewed by clicking on the phrase” Continue reading” in the announcement or https://www.brookings.edu/events/national-service-rebuilding-americas-civic-fabric/   The wide ranging discussion included strong opinions in favor of making a year of “service” mandatory for graduating high school seniors.  If there was also discussion on how the government would pay for such a mandate, let alone enforce it, I missed it. Mark Gearan, former Peace Corps Director, is Vice Chair of the Commission and  spoke about the efforts of the Commission for National Peace Corps Association, here:  https://www.peacecorpsconnect.org/articles/national-service-an-interim-report-on-the-commission-hearings See also: https://peacecorpsworldwide.org/?s=National+Commission+on+Military%2C+National+and+Public+Service  

A Tanzania national and professor of African history at William Paterson of New Jersey is doing research for purposes of publishing a book on the history of the Peace Corps Volunteers in Tanzania. This endeavor is both personal and scholarly. He was taught by a Peace Corps teacher in middle school at Chilonwa in Dodoma, Tanzania. He says that his Peace Corps teacher, Mr. Thomas Houlihan, made a great difference in his schooling experience and motivated him to do the best he could. Also, as the first American that he met Houlihan impressed him as an amiable representation of American friendliness. That being said, his scholarly interest in the history of the Peace Corps Volunteers in Tanzania is due to the fact that their contribution to Tanzania’s development has eluded the attention of students of Tanzania history, with the exception of a few memoirs by returned PCVs. He would like . . .

Almost 20 years after departing Solomon Islands, the Peace Corps announced it will re-establish operations in the South Pacific nation. Peace Corps’ efforts in Solomon Islands will initially focus on education and will recruit short-term Volunteers with experience in Peace Corps’ education sector to help re-establish the program. This first group of Volunteers is scheduled to arrive mid-2021. In late 2021, the second group of Volunteers is slated to arrive. They will undergo three months of comprehensive cultural, language and technical training before they are given their two-year assignments. From 1971 to 2000, more than 700 Peace Corps Volunteers served in Solomon Islands.

10/14/10 Update for Colorado:  The 50 tickets obtained by RPCV of Colorado were sold out, almost immediately.  They may have additional tickets, contact them at rpcvcolorado.org If no tickets are available via RPCVs of Colorado, tickets for  A Towering Task go on sale at 12:30 pm, today Monday, October 14, 720.381.0813  for non-members of Denver the Film Festival. __________________________________________________________   RPCVs of North Carolina will sponser the first SE showing of “A Towering Task”.The film will be shown on October 22, 2019, 6pm to 9pm EDT.  Here is the link for more information: https://www.ncpeacecorps.org/events/a-towering-task-the-story-of-the-peace-corps-film-screening-happy-hour From the website: “Meet us at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Raleigh for a movie night: the first southeast U.S. showing of “A Towering Task, The Story of the Peace Corps,” with a reception preceding the film from 6pm – 7pm. The screening starts promptly at 7, with no late admittance. This event is sponsored as a community service by . . .

    If you were fortunate enough to see the new and brilliant documentary about the Peace Corps entitled A Tower Task that had its World Premiere at the Kennedy Center last weekend (or if you have just heard about it from other RPCVs) then you can drum up interest in having it shown on your local PBS station simply by calling the station. Your interest will nudge the station into realizing that there is ‘local interest’ in our great government agency and they might contact PBS back in Washington. If there is enough interest ‘out there” then the PBS folks would contact producer and director Alana De Joseph (Mali 1992-94) and ask her to let them show the documentary on all their stations. A little phone call from you can’t hurt and it might help bring the Peace Corps–and what you did as a PCV– into the living rooms . . .

Mike Shatzkin is a widely-acknowledged thought leader about digital change in the book publishing industry. He has been actively involved in trade book publishing since his first job as a sales clerk in the brand new paperback department of Brentano’s Bookstore on Fifth Avenue in 1962.  The Shatzkin Files is one of the most closely-watched ongoing commentaries on digital change in trade publishing. The Shatzkin Files More than two decades into its digital transition, book publishing has evolved so that a capital-intensive infrastructure is no longer a requirement to successfully develop a book, or a list of books, and bring the books to market. This has resulted in a self-publishing segment, so far almost entirely author-driven, that is substantial in reach and readership and which offers ongoing competition to the commercial publishing business largely because of its ability to price its ebooks below what would be survival levels for commercial . . .

    “The National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service is a bipartisan, 11-member Commission created by Congress to develop recommendations to inspire more Americans—specifically young people—to participate in military, national, and public service and to review the military selective service process. The Commission was established on September 19, 2017 and launched in January 2018. We released an Interim Report on January 23, 2019. Addressed to the American public, Congress, and the President, the Interim Report outlines issues we are exploring and summarizes our work to date. We will publish our Final Report, complete with policy recommendations and legislative proposals, by March 2020. Our work will conclude by September 2020.” The Commission is comprised of eleven commissioners who bring together diverse experiences from service in the military, public office, Capitol Hill, and not-for-profit organizations.” https://inspire2serve.gov/content/who-we-are   Peace Corps is included in the list of National Service opportunities.  The Commission . . .

  Welcome to the Writer’s Life by Paulette Perhach (Paraguay 2008–10) Sasquatch Books Publisher 320 pages $ 18.95 2018     INTRODUCTION Hello there. On the day that changed me from someone who wanted to be a writer to someone working to be a writer, I was a twenty- six-year-old Peace Corps volunteer in the capital of Paraguay, on a swamp-hot bus packed mostly with office workers on their way home. The bus squealed to a stop, and the driver opened the door. Since so many of the stories, both hilarious and traumatizing, that I told my family and friends back home started with someone getting on the bus, I’d developed a reflex to watch that door, waiting for whoever or whatever was next. A young woman, maybe twenty, hopped on and stood at the front, smiling. She greeted us hello in Guaraní, not with the usual booming voice of . . .

THE WEEKEND INTERVIEW How Mexicans See the U.S. and Trump The border fence is ‘a visible example of national paranoia,’ author Paul Theroux says. Yet he thinks Americans are right to be afraid. By Tunku Varadarajan Sept. 27, 2019 5:58 pm ET  ILLUSTRATION: KEN FALLIN Sandwich, Mass. If Paul Theroux’s new book on Mexico is a commercial success, he’ll have Donald Trump to thank for it. But the initial inspiration came from a young man who worked in a doctor’s office. In 2014 Mr. Theroux visited a clinic in this Cape Cod town, where he spends his summers. The assistant who registered him made an instant and irksome impression. “ ‘Take a seat, Paul,” Mr. Theroux quotes him. “ ‘Fill in these forms, Paul. The doctor will see you shortly, Paul.’ It was Paul, Paul, Paul.” Mr. Theroux, 78, recalls the incident with somewhat startling venom: “I’m in my 70s. I said to myself: . . .

The New York Review of Books (October 10, 2019) carries a long review of The Buried: An Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution written by Ursula Lindsey who writes about culture, education, and politics in the Arab world. She lived in Egypt and Morocco and is now based in Amman, Jordan. Lindsey writes, “The Buried promises to uncover an essential truth about Egypt, but this is a promise that it can’t keep. What it does deliver is original, richly layered, and often delightful reporting. Hessler has a sharp sense of humor, a gift for observation, a healthy skepticism, and a knack for using memorable characters and anecdotes to demonstrate larger truths.” Lindsey goes onto write, towards the end of her long review, “Hessler’s book is neither an overview of the many factors that led to the Arab Spring, nor an account of how it was thwarted. And even when one disagrees with his . . .

Workshops hosted by published authors like Elizabeth Gilbert and non authors like Caroline Calloway have commodified creativity.                                            Elizabeth Gilbert, one of a number of well-known authors who also host                                            writing and creativity workshops. By Katherine Rosman  Published Sept. 18, 2019  New York Times In a video that began making the rounds last month, Meg Stalter describes herself as a writer in New York City (“can you get any more cliché than that, no you can’t” she said), and gives some writerly advice. “Write every day, every second of the day. When you wake up, you should be looking, ‘Where’s my writing stuff that I use to write?’” Ms. Stalter . . .

‘On the Plain of Snakes’ Review: Why María Left Oaxa After a visit to the Mexican border, Paul Theroux (Malawi 1963-65), resolved to return by car and find out why so many risk crossing furtively into the U.S. The author, near the Mexican border, talks to a man who had been deported after working for 12 years in the U.S. PHOTO: STEVE MCCURRY By Andrew R. Graybill Wall Street Journal Sept. 25, 2019 7:10 pm ET A couple of years ago, the novelist and travel writer Paul Theroux visited the U.S.-Mexico border. South of the line he interviewed several people at a shelter serving migrants and deportees, and his memory of an encounter with a woman named María stalked him thereafter “like an apparition.” She wept as she told Mr. Theroux how she had left her three young children with their grandmother in Oaxaca, deep in the Mexican interior, so that she . . .