Peace Corps Worldwide – Page 13 – promoting Peace Corps writers since 1989

Larry Kaplow (Guatemala) at NPR

Jul 01 2024

RPCVs in the news — Larry Kaplow (Guatemala 1988-91) edits the work of NPR’s correspondents in the Middle East and helps direct coverage about the region. That has included NPR’s work on the Syrian civil war, the Trump administration’s reduction in refugee admissions, the Iran nuclear deal, the US-backed fight against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, and the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians. He has been at NPR since 2013, starting as an overnight news editor. He moved to the International Desk in 2014. He won NPR’s Newcomer Award and was part of teams that won an Overseas Press Club Award and an NPR Content Excellence Award. Prior to joining NPR, Kaplow reported from the Middle East for 12 years. He was the Cox Newspapers‘ Mideast correspondent from 1997 to 2003, reporting from Jerusalem during the Second Intifada as well as from Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon. He . . .

Local teacher is taking his skills to the Peace Corps — Caleb Williams (Cambodia)

Jun 29 2024

PCVs in the news MELISSA WHITLER | NBCU Fellow Melissa@DallasVoice.com • • • Caleb Williams has spent the last two years teaching ninth graders in Richardson (Texas) Independent School District. But this August, he will be traveling to Cambodia to teach English as part of The Peace Corps. Williams is originally from Oklahoma but said he was drawn to Texas schools by better pay and more diverse schools. In his time at Richardson ISD, he’s taught students from all over the world, including Nigeria, Iraq and Burma. He’s also had experience teaching across different achievement levels, having taught on-level, special education inclusion and AP English classes. “It has been great getting to teach the full range of freshman students,” Williams said. “Different kinds of students use different parts of your energy, so it doesn’t feel like doing the same thing over and over again each period.” Of course, finishing out this . . .

RPCV Kinky Friedman, singer and novelist who fronted The Texas Jewboys, dies at 79 (BORNEO)

Jun 28 2024

By Andrew Silow-Carroll Kinky Friedman (Borneo 1967-69), the cigar-chomping, mustachioed Texan country singer and mystery novelist whose body of work often seemed like the un-kosher marriage of the Borscht Belt and the Bible Belt, died June 27 from complications of Parkinson’s disease. He was 79. As frontman for the flamboyant 1970s country group Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, he was notorious for satirical songs such as “They Don’t Make Jews Like Jesus Anymore,” a raucous sendup of racism, and “Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in Bed,” which poked fun at feminism. He could also turn serious, with songs dealing with social issues such as abortion and commercialism. His 1973 song “Ride ’em Jewboy” is a haunting elegy on the Holocaust, recorded by Willie Nelson and sung in concert by Bob Dylan. The lyrics transform cowboy cliches into a rumination on Hitler’s victims: Now the smoke . . .

Inaugural Recipient: Harris Wofford Joint Service Award

Jun 27 2024

JUNE 26, 2024 Inaugural Recipient: Harris Wofford Joint Service Award Peace Corps and AmeriCorps! Published by ghettogirltravels Welcome to GhettoGirlTravels.com KJ Hunt, aka “GhettoGirlTravels,” was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. A former sergeant in the United States Air Force and Peace Corps Volunteer in East Africa, Armenia and Ethiopia GGT longs for the open road, a hot cup of tea, and free Internet service. Instagram @Ghettogirltravels TikTok @GhettoGirlTravels Facebook @GhettoGirlTravels View all posts by ghettogirltravels Harris Wofford served as an advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr. Wofford also helped to launch the United States Peace Corps and served as its Associate Director. While a member of the US Senate, Harris led the effort to establish the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) which created the AmeriCorps program. The Harris Wofford award is given to individuals who have successfully completed full-time service in both AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps (including . . .

MISSION TO MALAWI by John E. Fleming (Malawi)

Jun 27 2024

A new book — Mission to Malawi — Memoir of an African American Peace Corps Volunteer by John Fleming (Malawi 1967-69) McFarland Publisher May 2024 227 pages $19.99 (Kindle); $29.99 (Paperback) • • • Unlike the vast majority of Peace Corps volunteers in the 1960s, John Fleming was a young Black man who was assigned to an all-white agricultural project in Malawi, an emerging African country surrounded by White-ruled Southern Rhodesia, Mozambique, and South Africa. John wanted to be a missionary in Africa, but was put off by his encounters with self-serving White missionaries. The Civil Rights and Black Power movements influenced his world view while navigating life in an African country still controlled or greatly influenced by racist Whites. This memoir is a moving story of coming “home” to Africa, where the author developed deep friendships with his Malawian neighbors and colleagues. The author relates his first Christmas spent with . . .

RPCV Courtney Bower joins the Ukraine Case Studies

Jun 26 2024

RPCVs in the news — The Ukraine Case Studies Team is delighted to be joined by Courtney Bower, a Ph.D. candidate in regional science at Cornell University and a Senior Fellow at the Portulans Institute. Courtney’s research examines technological resilience and regional innovation systems. Related topics of his research include the circular economy, post-war reconstruction, infrastructure policy, and Black Sea spatial imaginaries. Before attending Cornell, Courtney completed a tour of service as a United States Peace Corps Volunteer in western Ukraine. Courtney joins the research team for the Ukraine Case Studies project to investigate technological resilience from a regional perspective. His work seeks to understand how Ukrainian regions will bounce back or bounce forward in response to wartime shocks across four dimensions: innovation, human capital, digital access, and ICT infrastructure. His study of technological resilience in Ukraine will be one of the embedded case studies of our larger project, and . . .

We Make It Into Worldview Magazine!

Jun 25 2024

The current issue of Worldview (Spring/Summer 2024) has an article by Beatrice Hogan (Uzbekistan 1992-94) entitled Common Cause. It is about RPCVs who have built communities around issues and affinities. We were selected to be profiled. Thank you, Beatrice! Peace Corps Worldwide Friends since their Peace Corps days together, John Coyne and Marian Haley Beil (Ethiopia 1962–64) together produce the blog Peace Corps Worldwide and the Peace Corps Writers imprint. Their efforts lie at the heart of the Third Goal of the Peace Corps — bring the world back home — and they’ve helped hundreds of writers tell their stories and publish their work. “RPCVs are the ones who tell the real story of the Peace Corps,” Coyne said. “They tell of their experiences in essays, articles, short stories, and memoirs. Stories that are the true historical documents of the agency.” Coyne and Beil’s collaboration began in the . . .

Peace Corps Pioneers

Jun 25 2024

Photographed By Dave Buchanan, 2024 Peace Corps Pioneers Marker – 1 Inscription In 1961 President John F. Kennedy established the US Peace Corps, concept originally proposed by Minnesota Senator Hubert H. Humphrey. The Peace Corps was created from the President’s call to “Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.” Among the first Peace Corps Volunteers answering the President’s call in 1962 and completing their tours in 1964 were Plainview area residents: Kenneth Fliés serving in Brazil, Philip Mahle in Sierra Leone, Walter Mischke in Venezuela and Charles Rheingans in Thailand. “I was present at the creation, when the bright flame of conviction took hold in the imagination of the country and the Peace Corps became a promise fulfilled.” – Journalist Bill Moyers In 1962 there were some 25,000 incorporated cities and towns in America, many with populations in the tens . . .

GARDENS OF PLENTY by Ron Arias (Peru)

Jun 24 2024

Kirkus review — BY RON ARIAS ‧ MARCH 18, 2024 An action-packed and historically rich novel with a compelling lead character. In Ron Arias’ (Peru 1963-64) novel set in the 16th century, a teenage orphan signs up as a ship’s boy on the Mynion, a British trading ship headed for the West Indies. Joseph Fields is 13 years old in 1567, when he flees the orphanage where he’s lived since his parents and sister succumbed to the plague two years ago. His father was a scrivener, as was his father before him, and Joseph learned the skill at his dad’s knee. He gets a job on a trading ship and sails away from England with only three significant possessions: his mother’s wooden spoon, her comb for removing lice and nits, and his father’s penknife, which has a cryptic engraving on the handle. Each will prove to be invaluable on his dangerous journey. . . .

What Patrick Shea Has To Say About His Life and the Peace Corps (Georgia)

Jun 24 2024

John interviews — Patrick Shea Patrick, why did you join the Peace Corps? I come from a deeply patriotic family that was in America before America was a country. If my die-hard republican uncle is to be believed, we have family that fought in the Revolutionary War. Myself, well, my father always called me a “conservative hippy.” I have done volunteer work since the seventh grade, and had over 300 hours of volunteer service before I even entered the Peace Corps. I believe everyone should serve their community, and my professors suggested the Peace Corps, as one was a RPCV herself. Where were you assigned? I was a G16 — the Eastern European country of Georgia in 2016-2017. How big was the group? This group was large, it was right around 60 volunteers. What was your assignment? I was an English teacher as I had been volunteering tutoring immigrants . . .

WHEN CORONAVIRUS UNMAPPED THE PEACE CORPS JOURNEY by Jeffrey W. Aubuchon (Morocco)

Jun 24 2024

When Coronavirus Unmapped The Peace Corps Journey by Jeffrey W. Aubuchon (Morocco 2007-08) & Peace Corps Response Nepal 92252 Press 142 pages $2.99 (Kindle).$7.00 (Paperback) On March 15, 2020, the U. S. government recalled the more than 7,300 Peace Corps Volunteers serving in the field, thereby halting active development projects around the globe and the person-to-person diplomacy that has defined the agency’s mission for 60 years. Volunteers returned home to a nation under biological attack from the novel coronavirus with shuttered businesses and skyrocketing unemployment. The newly-designated “Evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers” found themselves neglected by the country they served: unable to collect unemployment benefits, limited to two months of health insurance, and grieving their own disrupted dreams. This book details the unprecedented global evacuation of Volunteers from national headlines as well as village stories of abandoned projects and suspended friendships. Yet, the book also describes the ensuing advocacy . . .

2024 Peace Corps Writers Historical Book Award Winner!

Jun 23 2024

“Look Here, Sir, What a Curious Bird”— Searching for Ali, Alfred Russel Wallace’s Faithful Companion by Paul Sochaczewski Boeneo Island 1969-71) For some 50 years, Paul Sochaczewski (Boeneo Island 1969-71) has been on the trail of famous naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace and his little-known assistant Ali. The result of this quest is an imaginative “enhanced biography” of an illiterate 19th-century teenager from Boerneo who helped Wallace become one of history’s most successful explorers of the natural world. This deliciously speculative book, filled with humor and touching scenes of imagined conversations, takes a hard look at “slippery truth,” and, perhaps most important, asks the question: “Is there someone in your life who has quietly helped you, perhaps without adequate recognition, on your journey?” • • • In this innovative approach to biography, you’ll discover: New clues that expand our knowledge of Ali’s background and career. Why writing the history of . . .

“Pocket Stories” by Kathleen Coskran (Ethiopia)

Jun 23 2024

Kathleen Coskran writes: I am currently working on a collection of essays called Married to Amazement (thank you, Mary Oliver for the title), that opens with an essay called “So This Is Paris” that I wrote shortly after leaving Ethiopia. Those two years in Ethiopia were formative for me and prepared me for a life of discovery and even an adventure or two that would never have happened if I hadn’t landed in Addis Ababa in September 1965, 21 years old and ready for….I had no idea, but knew I was incredibly lucky to be there. That’s what these little stories, that I call Pocket Stories, are because they are so short and would fit in a pocket (inspired by 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 . . .

2024 Peace Corps Writers Maria Thomas Fiction Award Winner!

Jun 22 2024

One Beats The Bush, The Max Donovan Adventures #1 by Riall Nolan (Senegal 1965–68) Riall Nolan (Senegal 1965-68) grew up in upstate* New York, and joined the Peace Corps after graduating from college. He was sent to Senegal, in West Africa, an experience from which he has never fully recovered. While there he began to notice that many development projects didn’t work very well, largely because outside experts lacked basic cultural understanding of local communities. That’s when he decided to become an anthropologist. He headed to the University of Sussex in England where he obtained a doctorate, and began working around the world as a development planner. He spent nearly twenty years overseas, in places like Papua New Guinea, Senegal, Tunisia and Sri Lanka. When he returned to the US at long last, he became a university administrator in charge of international education at several large research . . .

Soraya Bilbao Finds Her Career in Tonga

Jun 22 2024

In the news – Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Bob Arias (Colombia 1964-66) Soraya Bilbao says the South Pacific is where she “fell in love with teaching.” She was a Peace Corps volunteer teaching in a classroom in Atata, an outer island in the Kingdom of Tonga, a nation of 170 islands located west of the Cook Islands and east of Fiji. She taught in a classroom in an area where she was unfamiliar with the native language. So at the same time she taught English, she struggled to learn the language her students spoke, Tongan. It was a challenge that Bilbao sought and embraced. At the time, she was working in the nonprofit sector. Bilbao, who now teaches at Danbury High School, said because of her three years in Tonga, she learned she wanted to become an educator. “It just never crossed my mind to be . . .