Search Results for “Eres Tu” – Page 27

Mother cut off from PCV daughter after Tonga volcanic eruption

Jan 20 2022

WAVERLY, Iowa (KWWL) – Eastern Iowa and the Island Kingdom of Tonga are 7,000 miles apart. This week, it feels even farther for one family. “It’s been kind of hard not having that connection right now,” Barb Corson of Waverly said. After graduating from Central College in 2016, Barb’s daughter Carolyn joined the Peace Corps and was assigned to Tonga. She began teaching at a Christian boy’s school. “She amazes me all the time,” Barb said. Carolyn stayed in Tonga until March 2020, when the Peace Corps brought all of its people back stateside because of the pandemic. However, in June 2021, she was allowed to return to Tonga because of her status as a teacher. She quarantined in New Zealand for three weeks and then rejoined her boyfriend Fine (pronounced “Fin-a”), who is from Tonga. The two got married soon after. “We were able to watch a livestream . . .

Review — HISTORY SHOCK: When History Collides with Foreign Relations by John Dickson (Gabon)

Jan 20 2022

History Shock: When History Collides with Foreign Relations by John Dickson (Gabon 1976-1979) University Press of Kansas 248 pages June 2021 $26.49 (Kindle); $34.95 (Hardcover) Review by Eric Madeen (Gabon 1981-83) • John Dickson’s recently released book History Shock: When History Collides with Foreign Relations is ambitious and makes good on its ambitions: to delineate where and when America’s foreign policy “spills across national boundaries.” Indeed: how this book spills across the world map! As he notes, recently no other country blundered as much and easily as the United States, resulting in countless faux pas, cross-cultural insensitivities, outright missteps and innumerable aggressions, all adding up to obstructions of cooperative efforts on mutual interests. There’s much ground covered with chapters on Mexico and Canada (both partly concern “Forgotten Wars” there and the shocking reminder that the United States seized half of Mexico’s territory as a result of wars instigated by . . .

‘They’ve covered it up’: Backlash swells over Peace Corps worker’s involvement in death in Africa

Jan 18 2022

by Tricia L. Nadolny, Donovan Slack and Nick Penzenstadler, USA TODAY; Kizito Makoye The mother of a man killed in a 2019 car crash involving an American woman who left the United Kingdom and avoided prosecution said she was stunned to learn a similar incident occurred just days before in Africa. In that case, U.S. officials whisked from Tanzania a Peace Corps employee who killed a mother of three in a car crash after drinking at a bar and bringing a sex worker back to his home. Charlotte Charles — whose 19-year-old son Harry Dunn died when the wife of a U.S. State Department employee driving on the wrong side of the road struck him with her car — called U.S. officials “barbaric” for helping Peace Corps employee John M. Peterson avoid prosecution in Tanzania after he fatally struck Rabia Issa. The U.S. Department of Justice has also declined to pursue charges against Peterson, citing . . .

The Volunteer Who Went on to Become the Solicitor General of the United States — Drew Day (Honduras)

Jan 18 2022

by Jeremiah Norris (Colombia, 1963-65) • After graduation from Hamilton College cum laude in 1963, with an A. B. in English literature, Drew S. Days III, inspired by the civil rights leaders of that time, then went on to earn a law degree from Yale in 1966. He briefly practiced law in Chicago before serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Honduras from 1967 to 1969. Returning to the U. S. in 1969, Drew became the first assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund in New York City. He worked there for eight years, litigating a range of civil rights cases. He was admitted to practice law before the United States Supreme Court, and in the states of Illinois and New York. In 1977, then-President Jimmy Carter nominated Drew to serve as the Assistant General for Civil Rights in the Department of Justice. His tenure was . . .

The Volunteer Who Initiated Critical National Discussions — Charles Murray (Thailand)

Jan 05 2022

by Jeremiah Norris (Colombia 1963-65) • Charles Murray served as a Peace Corp Volunteer in Thailand, beginning in 1965, then stayed abroad for six years. He credits his time in Peace Corps with his lifelong interest in Asia. His tenure with the Peace Corps ended in 1968. Recalling his time in Thailand, in 2014 Charles noted that his worldview was fundamentally shaped by his time there. He went on to comment: . . . most of what you read in my books I learned in Thai villages. I was struck first by the enormous discrepancy between what Bangkok thought was important to the villagers and what the villagers wanted out of government. Secondly, when the government change agent showed up, the village went to hell in terms of its internal governance. His work in Peace Corps and subsequent research in Thailand for research firms associated with the U. S. Government led . . .

The Volunteer Who is One of the Most Thought-provoking Analysts of Our Time — George Packer (Togo)

Jan 04 2022

by Jeremiah Norris (Colombia, 1963-65) Since serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Togo, 1982-83, George Packer went on to write for The Atlantic Monthly where he wrote the article “We Are Living in a Failed State,” and two books: Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century, and Last Best Hope: America in Decline and Renewal, both reviewed below. Taken together, the overriding themes constituted a refrain to Mark Twain’s famous comment: “the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated”. Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century George Packer has a thoroughly beguiling style of writing in which the reader is being told a story rather than reading one, as with the opening line in Moby Dick: “Call me Ishmael.” With George in Our Man “you have heard that he [Holbrooke] is a monstrous egotist. It’s true. It’s even worse . . .

Review — NAKHON PHANOM by James I. Jouppi (Thailand)

Jan 02 2022

Nakhon Phanom: The Domino That Did Not Fall (and my Thai hometown) James I. Jouppi (Thailand 1971–73) Liberty Hill Publishing, 2021 450 pages $30.99 (paperback), $2.99 (Kindle), $8.66 (hardcover) Review by D.W. Jefferson • If you want to learn about the Peace Corps in Thailand and in particular about the period of the early 1970s this is an extensively researched memoir you will find useful. An engineer, the author, has an engineer’s eye for detail. Myself, I was surprised to find that Peace Corps remained in Thailand throughout the Vietnam War period. Mr. Jouppi’s book is 411 pages, 79 chapters, maps, a glossary of terms, a list of acronyms, an appendix, a bibliography and 128 endnotes. To fully appreciate how well researched the book is, I recommend reading the endnotes! This is the fourth book this author has written and the third memoir of his experiences in Thailand. His . . .

7 New books by Peace Corps writers: November–December 2021

Jan 01 2022

To purchase any of these books from Amazon.com — CLICK on the book cover, the bold book title, or the publishing format you would like — and Peace Corps Worldwide, an Amazon Associate, will receive a small remittance from your purchase that will help support the site and the annual Peace Corps Writers awards. We now include a brief description for the books listed here in hopes of encouraging readers 1) to order a book and 2) to VOLUNTEER TO REVIEW IT. See a book you’d like to review for Peace Corps Worldwide? Send a note to Marian at marian@haleybeil.com, and we’ll send you a copy along with a few instructions. In addition to the books listed below, I have on my shelf a number of other books whose authors would love for you to review. Go to Books Available for Review to see what is on that shelf. Please, please join in our Third Goal effort!!! • . . .

Establishing the Peace Corps–what we remember 60 years later

Dec 29 2021

The current issue of WorldView (online at the NPCA site) has an informative interview with Bill Moyers and Bill Josphenson on the creation of the Peace Corps. The interview introduces new information about those formative days of the agency. Here is an essay I wrote in the late ’90s about creating the Peace Corps based on interviews I had done with founders like Warren Wiggins and Harris Wofford and others who had been part of the Mayflower Gang that created the Peace Corps. Establishing the Peace Corps Let me start with a quote from Gerard T. Rice’s book, The Bold Experiment: JFK’s Peace Corps: In 1961 John F. Kennedy took two risky and conflicting initiatives in the Third World. One was to send five hundred additional military advisers into South Vietnam; by 1963 there would be seventeen thousand such advisers. The other was to send five hundred young Americans . . .

Winner of the 2021 Peace Corps Writers Maria Thomas Fiction Award

Dec 28 2021

Streets of Golfito: A Novel by Jim LaBate (Costa Rica 1973-75) Mohawk River Press 252 pages October 2020 $9.99 (Kindle); $19.95 (Paperback Review by James W. Skelton, Jr. (Ethiopia 1970-72) • Jim LaBate has crafted an exceptional Peace Corps novel that takes place in Golfito, Costa Rica, the same town in which he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) in the 1970s. One of the main characters is, coincidentally, named Jim, a prospective PCV, who has just arrived in Costa Rica in 1974 to train for his assignment as a Sports Promoter. While attending in-country orientation in San Jose, one of the Peace Corps administrators advises Jim to change his name if he really wants to immerse himself into the culture. The PC official’s reasoning is that Costa Ricans seem to accept the PCVs more readily if they use a name that’s familiar to them. So, Jim adopts the . . .

I Joined A Far-Right Group Of Moms. What I Witnessed Was Frightening (Mongolia)

Dec 22 2021

HUFFPOST PERSONAL I Joined A Far-Right Group Of Moms. What I Witnessed Was Frightening. Phoebe Cohen has walked many paths in life, including living in the Gobi Desert as a Peace Corps volunteer and working as a paramedic in several states. Cohen’s work has been featured in Graphic Medicine, Mutha Magazine and BorderX. She regularly posts on her website Merry Misandrist. Cohen is a part-time cartoonist, writer and nursing student. She has been known to go up to five hours without coffee. By Phoebe Cohen (Mongolia 2005-07), Guest Writer “There are about 20 of us. We are all maskless, all (apparently) white, mostly women and all on the younger side.” “Look out for the trigger words,” the woman says. She’s perched on a chair in front of the room. She’s well-dressed yet funky with elegant boots, a demure sweater and some colorful jewelry. “‘Equality,’ ‘diversity,’ ‘inclusion,’ ‘marginalization,’… These words . . .

Tom Bissell (Uzbekistan) Speaks With Literary Hub’s Jane Ciabattari

Dec 16 2021

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Bill Preston (Thailand 1977-80) LITERARY HUB The Author of Creative Types Speaks With Jane Ciabattari By Jane Ciabattari December 14, 2021 Tom Bissell (Uzbekistan 1996–97) has built a career on being a master of the literary pivot. He has written eight books of nonfiction (including The Father of All Things: A Marine, His Son, and the Legacy of Vietnam, in which he and his veteran father return to Vietnam together, and The Disaster Artist, co-authored with Greg Sestero), countless features, essays and cultural criticism for magazines like Esquire, The New Yorker, Harper’s, The New York Times Book Review, and The New Republic; video games (Gears of War: Judgment, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Battlefield Hardline), books about video games (Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter, The Art and Design of Gears of War), and the 2021 TV series, The Mosquito Coast, based on the Paul Theroux (Malawi 1963–65) novel. Talk about versatility. But he is, at his core, . . .

The Volunteer Who Lived Peace Corps’ 3rd Goal — Dennis Grubb (Colombia)

Dec 14 2021

by Jeremiah Norris (Colombia 1963-65) Dennis Grubb was an Eagle Scout when he joined the Peace Corps as a Volunteer in 1961, going on to write the first chapter of its history. He was the youngest Volunteer in one of the first groups ever to be sent abroad, serving in Colombia. He worked in a rural village at the 8,700 elevation of the Andean mountains, a place with no running water or sewers, scant access to electricity, and few paved roads. Illiteracy, malnutrition, dysentery, and TB were rampant. Along with Peace Corps colleagues, Dennis formed a liaison between his village and government officials and secured assistance to build the first cooperative food store, a small medical center, three schools, roads, and a water supply pipeline. Dennis worked with Colombians at all levels, from farmers to national officials to achieve his overall goal which was to convince the community that . . .

The Coins and Currency of Modern North Macedonia

Dec 14 2021

Tyler Rossi (The Republic of North Macedonia 2017-20) is currently a graduate student at Brandeis University’s Heller School of Social Policy and Management and studies Sustainable International Development and Conflict Resolution. Before graduating from American University in Washington D.C., he worked for Save the Children creating and running international development projects. Recently, Tyler returned to the US from living abroad in the Republic of North Macedonia, where he served as a Peace Corps volunteer for three years. Tyler is an avid numismatist and for over a decade has cultivated a deep interest in pre-modern and ancient coinage from around the world. He is a member of the American Numismatic Association (ANA). • By Tyler Rossi CoinWeek, December 13, 2021 Modern-day North Macedonia is a country of breathtaking natural beauty and ancient history that gained its independence in 1991 from the disintegrating Yugoslavia. A majority Slavic nation, North Macedonia has a rich monetary tradition stretching back through the socialist and royal iterations of Yugoslavia, medieval Bulgarian and Turkish empires, the Byzantines, . . .

Peace Corps volunteers were raped and assaulted. A review says the agency still isn’t doing enough.

Dec 13 2021

Nicole Jacobson, who served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Zambia, said she was repeatedly groped by the father in her host family, but Peace Corps staff waited more than a year before pulling her from the site. Nicole Jacobson was far from home and feeling alone, placed by the Peace Corps in a remote village in Zambia with a host father who had five wives and a disturbing interest in the young American volunteer. The man routinely leered at her while touching himself, Jacobson said. He grabbed and groped her, once bursting into her hut and pushing her up against the wall. Yet when she called Peace Corps staff to report him, Jacobson said, staff repeatedly dismissed her concerns. “According to them, I just didn’t understand the situation,” she said, adding that one Peace Corps staff member told her, “It just means he likes you.” Jacobson said staff . . .

Search Results For -Eres Tu