Search Results for “Eres Tu” – Page 100

2010 Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award for 2009 Won by Laurence Leamer

Jul 21 2010

PEACE CORPS WRITERS is pleased to announce that Madness Under the Royal Palms: Love and Death Behind the Gates of Palm Beach by Laurence Leamer (Nepal 1965-67) has won the 2010 Paul Cowan Non-Fiction Award for the outstanding non-fiction book published by a Peace Corps writer during 2009. Leamer will receive a framed certificate and a prize of $200. • Laurence Leamer has had a lifelong career as a freelance writer following a one-year stint as an associate editor at Newsweek. His first book, The Paper Revolutionaries: The Rise of the Underground Press [Simon & Schuster 1972], was written with a grant from the Twentieth Century Fund. Upon publication, Leamer left New York City to live in a trailer park in Lanark, West Virginia where he worked in a coal mine and wrote an article for Harper’s about his experience. That led to other assignments for the magazine including covering . . .

Review of Leita Kaldi's (Senegal 1993–96) Roller Skating in the Desert

Jul 21 2010

Reviewer Tony D’Souza’s new novel The Mule, will be released by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt next year. His other novels, Whiteman and The Konkans, won many prizes including the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Maria Thomas Prize from Peace Corps Writers, and Florida gold and silver medals for fiction. Tony has contributed to The New Yorker, Playboy, Esquire, Outside, Granta, McSweeney’s, the O. Henry Prize Stories, Best American Fantasy, and has received an NEA, a Japan Friendship NEA, and a Guggenheim. He lives in Sarasota, FL, with his wife Jessyka and their two young children. Here he reviews Leita Kaldi’s memoir Roller Skating in the Desert. • Roller Skating in the Desert Leita Kaldi (Senegal 1993–96) PublishAmerica 2007 $24.95 Reviewed by Tony D’Souza (Ivory Coast 2000–02, Madagascar 2002–03) WHAT’S MOST ENJOYABLE about Roller Skating in the Desert, Leita Kaldi’s unique memoir about her three . . .

Mad Man # 7

Jul 19 2010

Returning to D.C. after their Madison trip Gale and Kiker walked into a senior staff meeting and were greeted by cheers and applause, a standing ovation for what they had achieved in Wisconsin. Howard Greenberg was the first to speak up at the senior staff meeting that morning after the round of applause and words of congratulations from the Mad Men & Mad Women. This old tough government bureaucrat was the Associate Director for the Office of Management. He controlled the funds appropriated by Congress, and was a long time government employee. He had seen it all. He wasn’t easily impressed by a couple of guys wet behind the ears when it came to “Washington ways.” He began the meeting by saying: “Gale and Kiker here, went out to Wisconsin two weeks ago and they broke more rules and regulations than anyone in the United States government, as far as I know. Thought I won’t go so far as to say they’ve broken . . .

# 20–A–The Mad Man NEW

Jul 14 2010

In 1962 the Peace Corps received 20,000 applications, compared with 13,000 in 1961. Nevertheless, Recruitment couldn’t keep up with the staggering period of growth. For example, in 1961 the Peace Corps was in 9 countries. A year later they were in another 32 countries. Then, in the early months of 1963, there was a dramatic decline in applications, and the Peace Corps suffered its first shortfalls. This happened just as more and more countries were asking for Volunteers. The head of Recruitment–called then ‘Chief of the Division of Colleges and Universities–was the former Dean of Men at Vanderbilt University, Samuel F. Babbitt, Sam Babbitt was a low-key kind of guy. His idea for recruitment was to set up a single Peace Corps faculty contact on campuses all across the country with instructions to conduct a continuous but unaggressive information program. Babbitt wanted to win the Peace Corps a reputation for honesty and thoroughness which, he told everyone, “would produce . . .

Reed Dickson (Namibia 1996-99) Encourages Namibian Novelist

Jul 13 2010

I recently came across the “Woyingi” blog.” http://woyingi.wordpress.com/ The blogger, a woman, lives in Canada. Her mother is French-Canadian and American German. Her father is Nigerian Ijaw. Her father was deported back to Nigeria when she was a child so she was raised by her mother and her maternal grandparents. She had no contact with her father until she found him in her mid-twenties and have since developed a relationship with him via e-mails. She has yet to meet him in person. She writes on African issues, African writers, and women. She wrote recently about Neshani Andreas who is from Namibia. Now, what is the connection to the Peace Corps here? Neshani trained as a teacher at Ongwediva Training College and taught English, history, and business economics from 1988 to 1992 in a school in rural northern Namibia, where her first novel The Purple Violet of Oshaantu is set. Neshani completed this novel soon after . . .

Review of P.F. Kluge's new novel A Call from Jersey

Jul 08 2010

Patrick Chura is associate professor of English at the University of Akron and author of Vital Contact: Downclassing Journeys in American Literature from Melville to Richard Wright. His second book, Thoreau the Land Surveyor, is forthcoming in 2010. He recently returned to Lithuania as a Fulbright lecturer. Here he reviews P.F. Kluge’s new novel that is coming out this September. • A Call from Jersey by P. F. Kluge (Micronesia 1967-69) Overlook Press 352 pages $25.95 September 2010 Reviewed by Patrick Chura (Lithuania 1992-94) IN A CALL FROM JERSEY, P. F. Kluge isn’t out to write an epic or a blockbuster. He’s trying instead for a quiet, emotionally intelligent book about sentiments real to all of us. The main characters in this thoughtful novel are Hans Greifinger, an aging German immigrant who came to the United States in 1928, and his Americanized son George Griffin, a baby boomer who is . . .

"The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there

Jun 30 2010

We all know L. P. Hartley’s famous line from his novel, The Go-Between, “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” Yes, they did, and there is a comment by “Joey” on the site today which reminds me that I should pay more attention to just ‘what they did’ back then, in that other country. I admit I have collected stories from those early years of the agency that paint an interesting time and want, for reasons of my own nostalgic self, to remember the best of times. Joey, however, lived through the worst of times, and she rightly remembers them, as she writes in her comment: “I love reading about the early romantic days of the Peace Corps. That is the Peace Corps I wanted so much to join. The Peace Corps I served in was very different. I try to be as accurate as I can about what I did, what I . . .

Peace Corps Writers Launches New Line Of Books

Jun 24 2010

Marian Haley Beil and I are pleased to announce that Peace Corps Writers — one of the blog of Peace Corps Worldwide — is launching a new line of books written by RPCVs. These books — fiction, non-fiction, travel, memoirs, poetry, etc. — will be published by CreateSpace, a well-known print-on-demand (POD) company that is , will carry the logo of the Peace Corps Writers imprint, and will be featured on our site and sold through Amazon.com. For your book to become part of this new publishing venture, your manuscript must first be submitted to our editors for acceptance. Once that is accomplished, a fee of $150.00 will be charged that will cover the cost of a unique “Peace Corps Writers” ISBN number, rights to use the Peace Corps Writers imprint logo in the production of the book, and inclusion in this new line of books that will be promoted by our website, . . .

A Review of Eric Lax's Faith, Interrupted, by M. Susan Hundt-Bergan

Jun 24 2010

M. Susan Hundt-Bergan lives in Madison, WI, with her husband Hal. Susan is retired from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources where she was team leader for recycling. She is now a certified Lay Minister for the Diocese of Madison. She serves her parish, Blessed Sacrament, and the diocese in various ways, including coordinating the Catholic ministry at the Dane County Jail, a responsibility that takes her to the jail each Thursday night to worship and pray with incarcerated men and women. She is blessed to be the mother of two and grandmother of three. Another joy and challenge is sharing ownership of a family farm with her ten brothers and sisters. • Faith, Interrupted, A Spiritual Journey by Eric Lax (Micronesia 1966–68) Alfred A. Knopf $26.00 288 pages April 2010 Reviewed by M. Susan Hundt-Bergan (Ethiopia 1966-68) IN THIS SPIRITUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY, Eric Lax writes about his journey from a . . .

The Peace Corps Schedules NO Events for 50th

Jun 24 2010

In their first public statement about celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Peace Corps, the current leadership under the direction of RPCV Aaron Williams, is doing little to nothing to celebrate the history and importance of the agency. Today the Office of Communications, run by political appointee and non-RPCV Allison Price, announces with excitement in a single-page pdf that much is happening — but none of it is being staged, organized or supported by the agency itself. Director Williams is terrified, I’m sure, that Congress will be all over his ass for spending dollars on any sort of celebration of RPCVs and the Third Goal. Of course, such an event, as happened at the 25th Reunion on the Mall, generated front page newspaper stories across the country that showed America that the agency was alive and well. A reunion of thousand of RPCVs would show the U.S. that yes, there is still a Peace Corps! It . . .

Why Did You Join the Peace Corps?

Jun 16 2010

“Why did you join the Peace Corps?” People are still asking that question as we approach the half century of the agency. Back in May of 1966, Joseph Colman, who was then the Acting Associate Director of the Peace Corps for Planning, Evaluation, and Research, published a paper in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences and recently Marian Beil asked if I knew about this paper. I tracked down a copy of Colman’s paper that reports on several studies of motivation for joining the agency. One was a 1962 study of 2,612 applications’ replies to a motivational question on the application form; another a 1963 interview study of why people who apply later decline a specific invitation to enter training; and the third was a 1964 interview study of college seniors and their interest in the Peace Corps. Colman’s paper concludes [not surprisingly] that Volunteers . . .

Review of Larry Lihosit's South of the Frontera

Jun 15 2010

Peter Chilson’s recent fiction collection, Disturbance-Loving Species, won the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference Bakeless Prize in Short Fiction and Peace Corps Writers’ 2008 Maria Thomas Fiction Prize. He is the author of the travelogue Riding the Demon: On the Road in West Africa, which won the nonfiction award from the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. His essays have twice appeared in Best American Travel Writing. Peter has also published in Creative Nonfiction, Ascent, The American Scholar, TheSmartSet, Audubon, The North American Review, Gulf Coast, and High Country News, where he was an editor. He teaches writing and literature at Washington State University and is working on a book about borderlands in Africa. • South of the Frontera: A Peace Corps Memoir by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras 1975-77) iUniverse $22.95 313 pages March 2010 Reviewed by Peter Chilson (Niger 1985–87) IN 1975 LARRY LIHOSIT LOST HIS JOB and took off . . .

The Rainy Season in Guatemala

Jun 06 2010

by Jason Boog (Guatemala 2000–02) This essay was first published on PeaceCorpsWriters.org in the May 2005 issue, and received the Peace Corps Writers 2006 Moritz Thompsen Experience Award. • How to Make Recycled Paper I shredded paper snowflakes into a bucket of water: Guatemalan newspapers, Peace Corps newsletters, embassy safety bulletins and the Catholic magazines that my mother mailed me each month in care packages. Then I stuck a bean grinder into the word-soup, twisting the plastic knob until the bucket filled up with purplish pulp. I was all alone outside a church in Guatemala. It was May 2001, midway through my first year in Peace Corps. I had walked two hours to get to a wood-shack village called Buena Vista, planning to teach a youth group how to make recycled paper. The project looked so sensible in the “Youth Training Manual” they gave me, just memorize the script in . . .

Moon Rocket

May 30 2010

by Robert E. Gribbin (Kenya 1968–70) First published on the blog of PeaceCorpsWriters.org on February 13, 2007 • I SEE IT NOW IN MY MIND’S EYE — from my house in Songhor — wind blown tufts of light green sugar cane surging like a great sea on Kenya’s Kanu Plains to wash gently against the thousand foot heights of the Nandi Escarpment. Some thirty miles distant, Lake Victoria Nyanza glimmered in the late afternoon sun. The image is clear, yet complicated by the rush of other images, faces, smells, sounds – by the sheer exuberance of memories that so indelibly marked this time in my life. I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Central Nyanza charged with supervising the construction of a rural water system designed to pipe potable water to 1200 farms on three government sponsored Settlement Sugar Schemes. I worked most closely with a group of eight men . . .

Christmas with Eva

May 25 2010

by Peggy Raggio (Poland 1991–92) First published on the blog of PeaceCorpsWriters.org on February 14, 2006 • ON DECEMBER 22, 1991, we took a smelly bus from Suwalki to Warsaw. Marzena, another teacher and I chatted and snacked on sandwiches and hot tea as we rode south for seven hours, through the chill and snowy countryside of Northern Poland. We saw farmers guiding their furry plow horses and wagons through the streets, loaded with silver milk jugs, cabbages and crates of chickens. A long-legged stork landed on her nest on the roof of a farmhouse. After a booster shot at the Peace Corps office in Warsaw, I rode a streetcar to the Marriott Hotel in the center of town for coffee (kawa pronounced “kava”). Violins and a grand piano played on a balcony over the lobby that gleamed festively with bird of paradise in blue and gold jardinières, plush oriental . . .

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