LETTERS FROM PEACE CORPS, HONDURAS by R. Scott Berg
Excellent memoir--I was pleased to review it and it should be up in a few days. This book brought back…
The story takes place in the late 1970s when the author was in his early 20s as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the rural mountains of Honduras. The book was made possible by writing weekly letters to his Montana girlfriend during their long-distance relationship. The book is, first and foremost, a love story about two young people trying to make love stay.
It is also about the life and death struggles of the poor campesinos, as well as the Peace Corps volunteers, trying to survive and make a difference. The people and situations described in the book are real and authentic. It describes the unique, and in some cases, bizarre events and politics surrounding life in one of the world’s poorest countries. It goes on to cover a three-month odyssey to South America involving encounters with the Maya and Inca peoples engaged in the same travel through life by chicken buses, trains, and vintage automobiles.
It was the ’70s and they were some pretty crazy times and volunteers from that era all shared similar whacky ideas and perspectives on life and death in a developing country. It was also a simpler time before cell phones, the internet, and social media. The book will undoubtedly jog some gray matter memories of other Peace Corps experiences and will likely encourage others to write up their own collection of letters and journals from those early and formative years.
$20 of the purchase price for the book is being given to Amigos de Honduras, an affiliate of the National Peace Corps Association, incorporated as a nonprofit corporation in the state of Washington.
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Letters from Peace Corps, Honduras
by R. Scott Berg (Honduras 1976-79)
Independently published
198 pages
January 2022
$40 (paperback)
To purchase, send $40 to:
Scott Berg
95174 Cook Road
Fernandina Beach, FL 32034
This would be an excellent book to give to VP Harris and her team. The time is much earlier than the migration from Honduras north to the US. But, it is authentic for an important time and place and should educate VP Harris and her team, It also would, I hope, created interest and motivation for officials charged with investigating the huge migration from Central American countries, including Honduras, to further study the work of Peace Corps in those important countries over the last 60 years.
The efforts of Amigos de Honduras should also be highlighted. Thank you for the book and the review.
Thank you for sharing, Scott.
Scott,
Is your book going to be available on Amazon or elsewhere online? I didn’t find it on Amazon. I was a PCV in neighboring El Salvador 1974-76, and would like to compare notes with somebody who was just across the border in Honduras at about the same time.
To capture the proceeds for Amigos, I decided to self-publish. A friend owns a print ship in Annapolis and he printed it. If you would like to order a copy, let me know.
Richard Scott Berg,
Could you please give us an address for either the print shop or yourself if you plan to handle shipping books. I believe the readers of this website are likely to be among those folks most likely to want to read your book. You should figure out about what shipping will cost and add it to the $40 price of the book (and specify in your reply). Then we can order the book from you and send you a check that will include shipping, so Amigos de Honduras and your friend don’t lose on the deal.
D.W. – that is just what I need to make this book accesible to PCWorldwide readers. Thanks
Send $40 to:
Scott Berg
95174 Cook Road
Fernandina Beach, FL
32034
Once I receive the $$, I will send the book to the buyer and $20 to Amigos de Honduras.
The book cost me $32 to design, print, bind and mail. So I am not making any $$ on this deal. It is to raise $$ for Amigos.
Thank you for your contribution.
I’ve got my copy, and highly recommended it!
Brant Miller, Honduras ‘75-‘77
Excellent memoir–I was pleased to review it and it should be up in a few days. This book brought back many memoires of my own experience in Guatemala and Honduras–which was one of the reasons the author wrote it–
Mark