Search Results For -Eres Tu

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Martin Puryear will represent the U.S. at the Venice Biennale (Sierra Leone)
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Peace Corps Fund Sponsors Third Goal Writers’ Workshop this September in Maryland
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PERCEPTION AND DECEPTION — Joe Lurie (Kenya)
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Forbes Magazine — “Communicating Successfully Across Borders: A Q&A With Craig Storti” (Morocco)
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Review — COMING OF AGE IN EL SALVADOR by Jim Winship
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Review — THE MOSQUITO COAST by Paul Theroux (Malawi)
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Review — A GAME IN THE SUN by John Coyne (Ethiopia)
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Dick Irish’s Last Book (Philippines)
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Review — WHAT SAHEL AM I DOIN’ HERE? by Steve Wisecarver (Senegal, etc.)
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“Ex Africa Semper Aliquid Novi” (West Africa)
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Review — BAD NEWS FROM A BLACK COAST by Moritz Thomsen (Ecuador)
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First Peace Corps Auto Mechanics Instructor (Ethiopia)
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Bill Owens (Jamaica) at Altamont . . . Read and remember the ’60s
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PEACE CORPS WRITER’S WORKSHOP THIS SEPTEMBER!
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Peter Hessler (China) Discovers Egypt

Martin Puryear will represent the U.S. at the Venice Biennale (Sierra Leone)

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Gerry Schwinn (Nigeria 1963-65)   On the eve of the Venice Biennale, the artist’s shaping hand frames a view of his troubled, and troubling, homeland.   Martin Puryear, Citizen Sculptor By Holland Cotter May 3, 2019 New York Times “This moment has caught me being as much a citizen as an artist,” said the sculptor Martin Puryear (Sierra Leone 1964-66) on an afternoon in his studio in New York’s Hudson River Valley early in April. In two days he would leave for Venice to begin installing a solo exhibition at the 58th Venice Biennale in which he will officially represent the United States. Rising to that responsibility can’t be easy in an American “moment” tense with divisive politics, resurgent racism, and gun violence. Yet anyone who has followed this artist’s 50-year career, knows he is more than up to the task. Now 77, he is . . .

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Peace Corps Fund Sponsors Third Goal Writers’ Workshop this September in Maryland

       Peace Corps Fund Sponsors Third Goal Writers’ Workshop this September in Maryland   Release Date: May 1, 2019                                                   Contact: Matt Losak (Lesotho 1985-88) 301-588-3987    Want to spend three days in September on the Eastern Shore of Maryland discussing your book with other RPCV writers and published authors? Peace Corps Writers, with support from the Peace Corps Fund, is arranging a small, inexpensiveworkshop for ten to fifteen RPCVs and formers Peace Corps staff working on their own Peace Corps memoir, poetry, or fiction. The workshop will be held from Wednesday, September 18th to Saturday, September 21rd at Shore Retreats on Broad Creek, on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay, Maryland. Costs range from $100 for those on tight budgets, $250 for those of modest means, and $500 for those who can afford it. The retreat facility includes shared living quarters, meals and snacks. The writing program will . . .

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PERCEPTION AND DECEPTION — Joe Lurie (Kenya)

    Joe Lurie (Kenya 1967-68) is the Executive Director Emeritus of UC Berkeley’s International House, and author of Perception and Deception: A Mind-Opening Journey Across Cultures (Nipporica Associates, 2018). C-Span just aired a book  talk in which Joe references discoveries he made while he was a PCV in Kenya that opened his eyes in profound ways, and were the seeds of his book, now in its second expanded edition.  In case the program is of interest, it’s likely to be aired again , but in case you miss it, here it is. A former director of semester and summer programs abroad for the School for International Training in France, Kenya, and Ghana, Joe lived in Europe for four years, and lectures widely for Cal Discoveries in Africa, Asia and Europe. He is fluent in French as well as Swahili. The Joe Lurie Returning Peace Corps Volunteer Gateway Fellow for entering Ph.D . . .

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Forbes Magazine — “Communicating Successfully Across Borders: A Q&A With Craig Storti” (Morocco)

    Craig Storti (Morocco 1970-72) is a nationally known expert in the field of intercultural communications and cross-cultural adaptation. He is Director of Communicating Across Cultures. Internationally known as an expert in intercultural communications and cross-cultural adaptation, he is the author of many books, including Culture Matters, a cross-cultural workbook used by the U.S. government in over 90 countries. He is also the author of a book read by many PCVs, The Art of Crossing Cultures. Craig’s most recent book is Why Travel Matters: A Guide to the Life-Changing Effects of Travel, reviewed on this site.. He has lived nearly a quarter of his life abroad—with extended stays in Moslem, Hindu, and Buddhist cultures—and speaks French, Arabic, and Nepali. In his interview with Forbes Magazine, Laura Brown asked: What does the rest of the business world think of U.S. communication style? And how can U.S.-based businesses communicate productively with their global . . .

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Review — COMING OF AGE IN EL SALVADOR by Jim Winship

    Coming of Age in El Salvador Jim  Winship (El Salvador 1970–72) Verdada Press 2014 228 pages $16.95 (paperback), $9.99 (Kindle) Review by D.W. Jefferson (El Salvador 1974–76; Costa Rica 1976–77) • If you are interested in a more in-depth discussion of immigration from Central America, its causes and effects, I highly recommend this book. Though, like the author, I was a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) in El Salvador (1974-76), and have followed events there since, I learned a great deal about the country’s current situation from this book. Jim Winship first lived in El Salvador from 1970 to 1972 as a PCV. He returned there in 2005 as a Fulbright Scholar and has been visiting at the rate of about twice a year since then. This book is based upon research Winship and his colleague Virginia Quintana of the Panamerican University of El Salvador have done, and upon other . . .

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Review — THE MOSQUITO COAST by Paul Theroux (Malawi)

    The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux (Malawi 1963-65) Houghton Mifflin Publisher 374 pages 1982 $21.20 (paperback); $9.99 (Kindle)   Reviewed by Mark Walker (Guatemala 1971-73) • I recently came across an interview of Paul Theroux in “By the Book” in The New York Times, in which he reveals that The Mosquito Coast was his favorite most personally meaningful book. He goes on to say, “…Over a period of two years, knowing it was a great idea and plot, I wrote confidently in rainy, cold, sedate London, and it is, of course, a book set in sunny, warm anarchic Honduras,” at which point I realized that although I had seen the movie, I had never read the book! I had read all of his non-fiction works but only Kowloon Tong in the fiction genre, so I decided to finally read The Mosquito Coast. I was also thinking about the . . .

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Review — A GAME IN THE SUN by John Coyne (Ethiopia)

    A Game in the Sun and Other Stories John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962–64) Cemetery Dance August 2018 $40.00 (hard cover)   Reviewed by Leita Kaldi Davis (Senegal 1993-96) • John Coyne is the author of more than twenty-eight nonfiction and fiction books, including a number of horror novels, and his short stories have been collected in “best of” anthologies such as Modern Masters of Horror and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. His publisher, Cemetery Dance Publications, specializes in horror and dark suspense and includes Stephen King and Ann Rice in its list of authors. That gives you an idea of the high caliber of Coyne’s writing style and limitless imagination. A Game in the Sun is a collection of stories that he has written over a number of years from college days (“The Crazy Chinaman”) to one written last year about Catholic guilt. He has also written and edited books on golf, including The Caddie Who Knew Ben . . .

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Dick Irish’s Last Book (Philippines)

        The late Richard Irish (Philippines 1962-64) posthumous book Allies and Adversaries: Churchill and the Man Who Would Be France was published by his wife Pat Reilly and is about the theatrical collisions between two gargantuan egos: the inexorable force Churchill versus the immoveable body de Gaulle. As Dick wrote: Every melodrama has a villain and mine is Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who tarnished his well-deserved halo by repeatedly attempting to scuttle the Free French movement and consign her founder to history’s trash bin. FDR’s reluctant enabler was Winston Churchill, who by degrees seemed to become Roosevelt’s accomplice but in fact played a crucial role as France’s White Knight. Each personage was driven by something far stronger than mere personal ambition: Churchill incarnated the British bulldog as much as de Gaulle la Furia Française. The quarrels between these leaders, marked mostly by good manners and levitated discourse, were usually due to dissimilar . . .

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Review — WHAT SAHEL AM I DOIN’ HERE? by Steve Wisecarver (Senegal, etc.)

    What Sahel Am I Doin’ Here? 30 Years of Misadventures in Africa Steve  Wisecarver (Senegal 1976–78; Staff-CD Madaagascar, Kenya 2008–2013) Booklocker.com 134 pages $13.95 (paperback) Reviewed by James W. Skelton, Jr. (Ethiopia 1970–72) • If you’re interested in knowing more about the good, the bad and the ugly in Africa, then you’ll enjoy reading Steve Wisecarver’s book entitled What Sahel Am I Doin’ Here? 30 Years of Misadventures in Africa.  The humorous title gives the reader an insight into the approach the author will take with the descriptions of his experiences in the great continent of Africa. In fact, it is stated on the back cover that the book “is a collection of light-hearted tales that captures the bizarre and the exotic as well as the comic, even magical, nature of life on the Continent.”  Steve Wisecarver succeeds in revealing those elements, and more, about living and working . . .

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“Ex Africa Semper Aliquid Novi” (West Africa)

    Ex Africa Semper Aliquid Novi Travel with Phillip LeBel (Ethiopia 1965–67) • In the July of 1968, I finished spending three and a half years as a secondary school history teacher in Emdeber, Shoa, Ethiopia. Two and a half years were as a Peace Corps Volunteer, while the third was as a contract teacher with the Ethiopian Ministry of Education. Having taught a cohort of students passing through the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grades, it was now time to return to the United States. With a graduate fellowship in economics awaiting me in Boston, I took a somewhat meandering trip across Africa, tracing some paths I covered in 1965 while still in the Peace Corps, while others were a journey of exploration. It marked an abiding attachment to Africa that has shaped my professional career ever since. I had traveled to East Africa during the summer of . . .

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Review — BAD NEWS FROM A BLACK COAST by Moritz Thomsen (Ecuador)

  Bad News from a Black Coast By Moritz Thomsen (Ecuador 1965-67) Independently Published 370 pages $12.00 (paperback)   Reviewed by Mark D. Walker (Guatemala 1971-73) • Like many Thomsen enthusiasts, I’ve wondered where his last, elusive manuscript was, and how it might come to be published, bringing the total number of  his travelogue classics to five. So when it suddenly appeared on Amazon, published, I jumped with joy. At last, 28 years after his death! And I was not disappointed; it was worth the wait. Thomsen began talking about this book in 1980 and sent some of the manuscript to fellow Returned Peace Corps Volunteer and author, Christopher West Davis, who told him that it was some of his best work: “he was in the zone, in top form, etc. encouraging him to keep it up…” But later on Thomsen would lament the difficulties getting it published. This first . . .

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First Peace Corps Auto Mechanics Instructor (Ethiopia)

First Peace Corps Auto Mechanics Instructor  By David Gurr (Ethiopia 1962-64) I entered Peace Corps Training to serve in Ethiopia at Georgetown University in the summer of 1962.  Initially, Georgetown assigned me to teach geography because I had more credits in that area than any other Trainee.  However, because of my earlier experience with repairing and building automobiles, my country director, Harris Wofford, told me that the Peace Corps wanted me teaching auto mechanics.  I was assigned to a group of other technical-skilled Trainees comprised of a machinist, a sheet metal worker and two draftsmen. Our group received little or no instruction in technical training, unlike the classes preparing others teaching academic subjects.  Little stands out other than a tour of the US Steel plant in Sparrows Point, Maryland.  Two officials from the Ethiopian Ministry of Education came to one session.  They told us that there were two such schools: . . .

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Bill Owens (Jamaica) at Altamont . . . Read and remember the ’60s

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Marian Haley Beil (Ethiopia 1962-64)   Bill Owens (Jamaica 1964–66), is our most famous RPCV photographer. Back in 1972 Bill published a collection of photographs on suburbia entitled Suburbia. In this cult classic book, photographer Owens acted as an anthropologist objectively documenting suburban inhabitants, their native environs, and their daily rituals. By pairing the images with quotes made by the subjects, Owens created a hilarious and absurd account of life in the suburbs. A life that included Tupperware parties, backyard barbecues, and going to the hairdresser. In 2004 the fourth and final volume in his landmark Suburbia series — Suburbia (1973; 1999); Our Kind Of People (1975); Working — I Do It For The Money (1977) — Leisure (2004) was published. In his introduction to Leisure, photographer Gregory Crewdson writes: Owens’ photographs belong to an American aesthetic tradition of art that explores the intersection of everyday life and . . .

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PEACE CORPS WRITER’S WORKSHOP THIS SEPTEMBER!

PEACE CORPS WRITER’S WORKSHOP THIS SEPTEMBER! Want to spend three days in September on the Eastern Shore of Maryland discussing your book with other writers and RPCV authors? Peace Corps Writers, supported by the Peace Corps Fund, is arranging an inexpensive and small workshop for ten to fifteen RPCVs working on their own Peace Corps memoir, poetry, or fiction. This workshop will be held on the Eastern Shore of Maryland from Friday, September 20th to Monday, September 23rd at this lovely location: https://shoreretreatsonbroadcreek.org/ There will be talks, reviews of your manuscripts, individual conferences, stories to tell (and how to tell them) and plenty of time for conversations and relaxation. Space is extremely limited. At the moment we have not set the workshop fee but we want to make it as reasonable as possible for everyone. If you are interested in attending please let me know. jcoyneone@gmail.com Here are the RPCV . . .

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Peter Hessler (China) Discovers Egypt

    Editor John Coyne talks with Peter Hessler (China)   Peter Hessler Discovers Egypt Peter Hessler is a 1992 graduate of Princeton University, a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and was a Peace Corps Volunteer in China from 1996 to 1998. Since that time he has worked in China as a freelance writer for numerous publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, South China Morning Post, and National Geographic. In 2008, he won the National Magazine Award for excellence in reporting, and since 2000 he has been a staff writer at The New Yorker. Hessler has written four books on China. River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, which won the 2001 Kiriyama Book Prize, describes Hessler’s experience as an English teacher in Fuling, a small city on the Yangtze River. Oracle Bones: A Journey Through Time in China, a finalist for the 2006 National Book Award, explores the intersection . . .

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