Search Results for “Mad Woman Part Six” – Page 5

Review — AFRICA MEMOIR by Mark G. Wentling (Togo)

Feb 10 2021

Africa Memoir by Mark G. Wentling (Togo 1970-73) Open Books Publisher 255 pages August 2020 $9.99 (Kindle); $21.95 (Paperback Reviewed by Robert E. Hamilton (Ethiopia; 1965-67) • To review fairly this first volume of three in the Africa Memoir trilogy, it will be generally useful to remember what it is, as a book and concept, rather than what it is not. It is not, for example, a history of the 54 countries in Africa, all of which Mark Wentling has visited (some only briefly). Neither is it a guide book which you would expect, like Lonely Planet or a Rick Steves publication, to be updated annually or regularly. Wentling says in his Foreword: The central purpose of this book is to share my lifetime of firsthand experiences in Africa. I also attempt to communicate my views about the many facets of the challenges faced by each of Africa’s countries. . . .

Carolee Buck’s (Senegal) Pandemic project gets presidential approval

Feb 07 2021

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Laurel West Kessler (Ethiopia 1964-66) by Jim Flint for the Mail Tribune Sunday, February 7th 2021 An Ashland woman’s pandemic project of putting together a memory book about her Peace Corps experiences in the late 1960s in Senegal led to a personal invitation from Senegal’s president to revisit the country. Carolee and Art Buck (Senegal 1968-70) met years ago at the University of California at Santa Barbara and discovered they shared a desire to work and travel around the world. “We were young, starry-eyed dreamers,” Carolee said. They were inspired to join the Peace Corps by the compelling stories of people doing good works in foreign cultures and by the words of John F. Kennedy’s inaugural speech, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” They got married and joined the . . .

Norm Rush (Botswana) — MATING at thirty years

Feb 02 2021

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Bill Preston (Thailand 1977–80) Incorporate Everything, Understand Everything Norman Rush’s Mating Scott Sherman The Point Magazine • “In Africa, you want more, I think.” With that laconic affirmation begins one of the strangest and most sublime American novels of the last half-century. The protracted monologue of a 32-year-old Stanford University anthropologist who is adrift and loveless in Botswana at the dawn of the Reagan era, Mating was published by Knopf in 1991 and went on to win the National Book Award for fiction. John Updike, writing in the New Yorker, hailed it as “rather aggressively brilliant.” It was Norman Rush’s (CD Botswana 1978-83) first novel. He was 58 when it appeared. All through the 1960s and 1970s, Rush, who was born in San Francisco in 1933, had written experimental fiction with negligible success. In 1978, he and his wife Elsa moved from Rockland County, New York, where he . . .

Prudence Ingerman — Peace Corps/Bolivia

Feb 01 2021

PEACE CORPS BOLIVIA I – 1962-1964 1 Training and a Grand Welcome It was March 1, 1962, and I had almost forgotten about my application (# 102) to this new Peace Corps idea of President Kennedy, so when I received the following phone call, I was stunned. “Congratulations,” said a woman’s voice, “you have been selected for the first Peace Corps project to Bolivia. Can you be ready for training in Oklahoma on March 16th?” I babbled, “B..Bolivia? Oklahoma? March 16th?” I must have sounded like an idiot. “Yes, the training is in Oklahoma. It starts on March 16th. ” “ Well . . .” I tried to think intelligently, “yes . . . yes I can be ready.” “Fine, I know this is short notice, so please look for an important packet in the mail in the next day or two.” She hung up and I sat there . . .

Peace Corps Lions of Ethiopia

Jan 31 2021

by Ted Vestal (Ethiopia Staff 1964-66) • The pilot, Captain Paul Wuhrman, was glad to be back over Europe. On the horizon he could see some of the snowcapped mountains of his native Switzerland, neutral, alpine orderly. It had been a long haul flight in Globe Airlines twin-engine turboprop Dart Herald. Before starting with an early morning departure in “the Big Rains” of Addis Ababa in the highlands of Ethiopia, Wuhrman had looked in at the neatly stacked cargo in the fuselage and assumed all was in order. He took his place in the cockpit and started up the Dart 527 engines. The engines roared and the winds buffeted, and he took off from the runway of Haile Selassie I International Airport, popularly known as “Bole” sitting at an altitude of 7,500 feet. Wuhrman flew over the rocky north of the country following the path of the Blue Nile, a route . . .

Women Who Travel . . . in The Peace Corps

Jan 26 2021

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Bea Hogan (Uzbekistan 1992-94) What It Was Like to Serve in the Peace Corps, According to 6 Generations of Women No matter when and where they served, volunteers agree: The experience will change your life. BY ASHLEA HALPERN Conde Nast Traveler — January 15, 2021 If you’ve ever known someone who served in the Peace Corps, you’ve probably heard the phrase, “When I was in the Peace Corps . . ..” That’s how universally impactful the experience is. Established by President John F. Kennedy in 1961, the agency has sent more than 240,000 volunteers to 141 nations around the world. Six decades on, its mission remains largely the same — to work with local communities to develop sustainable solutions for challenges in the healthcare, education, economic development, agriculture, and environmental sectors. The Peace Corps will commemorate its 60th anniversary with a themed celebration, “Peace Corps . . .

My Sister, A Journey to Myself by Peter Breyer (India)

Jan 24 2021

My Sister, A Journey to Myself by Peter Breyer (India 1965-67) Miah Books 263 pages 2010 $11.50 (paperback) Reviewed by Stephen Foehr (Ethiopia 1965-67) • Peter Breyer wrote this family memoir when he was a fifty-nine-year-old American white male with a professional career, former Peace Corps volunteer in India, a family man, a Christian who attended Bible study classes at his wife’s Black church. The story recounts his search for a German half-sister he never knew he had, and how the journey brought him face-to-face with the conundrum — how can we do this to each other? Breyer’s parents were German. His mother was well educated from an upper-middle-class Jewish family. His father came from the working class and was a vocal anti-Hitler critic, which brought him to the attention of Nazi authorities. His parents, Max and Marcelle, fled Germany in 1936, when the crackdown on Jews and dissidents . . .

Alana DeJoseph talks about filming A TOWERING TASK

Nov 25 2020

“A Towering Task: The Story of the Peace Corps” Alana DeJoseph Raising the Bar From Quaint to Crucial BY JOAN MEAD-MATSUI NOVEMBER 4, 2020 • Being a returned Peace Corps volunteer herself, Alana DeJoseph, producer, director, videographer, and editor, couldn’t help but think that an in-depth, comprehensive Peace Corps documentary was needed. “Peace Corps Film Director Reflects” ignites future discussions about the significant role the Peace Corps has played in the world with an eye on the future. Alana’s “A Towering Task: The Story of the Peace Corps,” a film she directed, follows the agency’s beginnings, first volunteers, and evolution in a style that will capture your heart and remind you how we can make a positive difference in our world. Alana’s heart has always been in documentaries. She has worked in video and film production for more than 30 years and while reflecting on her experiences in the . . .

“All In My Family” by Rich Wandschneider (Turkey 1965-67)

Nov 23 2020

Published in Writers on the Range When “All in the Family” hit the TV screens in 1971, the war in Vietnam was raging, cities from Washington, D.C., to Detroit, were charred from riots in the wake of Martin Luther King’s assassination, and many young people like me were leaving those cities, moving West to rural America. Archie Bunker stayed in Queens, where a “bar was a man’s castle,” while daughter Gloria and son-in-law “Meathead” tried to help Archie grasp hippies and anti-war protests. We called ours the “back to the land” movement, and we chuckled with Meathead as Archie Bunker got chuckles from our dads. But we were done watching “Leave it to Beaver” and “Ozzie and Harriet.” Our flexible families were radically changing. Well, the family has changed again, and, I’d argue that my own, occasionally dysfunctional family is closer to what’s happening in America now than . . .

A Writer Writes — “A Season of Survivor Was Filmed on an Island Nicer Than Mine“ by Harry Seitz (Tonga)

Nov 21 2020

• I served in the Peace Corps in Tonga from 2014–2016. Some of the volunteers got sent to sites in the capital. They had electricity, running water, supermarkets, the works. A few of the others were sent to ’Eua, a large island close to the capital. Life was a little more difficult there, but they still had all of the basic amenities. The remainder and I were sent to Vava’u, the main island of which is relatively developed, but also much further away from the capital. I alone was sent to Ofu. While technically a part of Vava’u, it is an outer island. No roads, no restaurants, and very limited electricity. Ferries didn’t even run there. I had to hitch boat rides with my neighbors every other weekend to buy food on the main island of Vava’u. Lifuka (Survivor Island) Lifuka is a part of the Ha’apai group of islands. . . .

“Order and Progress: A Brazilian Peace Corps Saga” by Jack Epstein and Chuck Fortin

Oct 20 2020

Thanks for the ‘heads up” from Leita Kaldi (Senegal 1993-96) Our RPCVGulf Coast Florida zoomed an extraordinary presentation last Saturday with the two authors of a “Brazilian Peace Corps Saga.” I believe it would be of interest to PCW readers. Here are the authors’ bios and an abstract. It’s not in book form, but is an article that will be published in Brazil. — Leita Kaldi Jack Epstein (Brazil 1968-70) received a BA in Latin American Studies from UCLA. He is the foreign wire editor for the San Francisco Chronicle. He previously headed the newspaper’s foreign service department, overseeing coverage by freelancers and stringers from Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. In 1993, he moved to Rio de Janeiro where he worked until 1999 primarily for the Associated Press and TIME magazine. Charles Fortin (Brazil 1968-70) earned his doctoral degree through the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex . . .

“Nine Days in Wuhan, the Ground Zero of the Coronavirus Pandemic” by Peter Hessler (China)

Oct 06 2020

By Peter Hessler (China 1996-98) New Yorker Magazine October 5, 2020 On my second visit to the site of the former Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, at the intersection of New China Road and Development Road, in central Wuhan, I wore a mask and a pair of sunglasses with a loose frame. It was late August, and three security guards in black uniforms sat at the entrance. They examined my passport, checked my temperature, and asked me to scan a QR code that connected to a registration system. The system, though, required a national I.D. number, and the guards seemed uncertain what to do with a foreigner. I handed over the sunglasses and explained that they needed to be repaired. The earliest documented clusters of coronavirus infections had occurred in the Huanan market. During my first visit, a week earlier, I had left after attracting the attention of a man . . .

A Writer Writes: “The Even Keel of a Well Told Lie” by Mark Jacobs (Paraguay)

Jul 28 2020

by Mark Jacobs (Paraguay 1978–80) The Oddville Press Summer 2020 NOBODY HITCHHIKED ANY MORE, not through this America so full of dread and bad history. That did not necessarily mean the thing could not be done. Thumb out. If a person were leaving Broadhope County in south Virginia headed toward a destination he was as yet unable to visualize, it could not hurt to try for a lift. Not on the highway, where police prowled, just a plain old country road. Thumb out. He put the odds at slim to none that somebody would stop and pick him up, this close to a dense wood of loblolly pines, under a gray sky in late October, a quarter mile from a broken-armed scarecrow in a field of corn- stalk stubble. Guilt by association. Slimmer still, those odds, that it would be a woman who stopped, but she did. He did . . .

John Coyne (Ethiopia) — “The Big Bad Brown Swiss”

Jun 12 2020

A Writer Writes The Big Bad Brown Swiss By John Coyne I was seven or eight years old when I got so drunk at a family party that I ran out of our farmhouse, down to the barn, and attacked our big brown Swiss cow with a broom. I don’t remember this act of animal cruelty, but the next morning, when I woke from a stupor, my mother—as well as my brothers and sisters—told me in detail how I had impishly sipped booze left in cans and glasses on the dining room table until I was so intoxicated my suppressed rage at one of our milking cows exploded into violence. I was quite a sight, I was told, reeling away from the summer afternoon gathering on our farmhouse front porch and running yelling down the driveway with my brothers and sisters and all the relatives in pursuit, amused by my . . .

“Exceptionalism Redux” by Mark Jacobs (Paraguay)

Jun 04 2020

by Mark Jacobs (Paraguay 1978–80) Evergreen Review Sue McNally – Maroon Bells, CO (2014) O, let America be America again — The land that never has been yet — And yet must be — the land where every man is free. — Langston Hughes from “Let America Be America Again” In 1990, in the run-up to the first Gulf War, I did a long string of media interviews. I was working as embassy spokesman in Tegucigalpa, and interest in hearing the US case for intervention in Iraq was high. The State Department was regularly sending out updated talking points by cable to be used by people like me. I memorized those points, made them my own in Spanish, then went to the newspapers, the radio, and TV stations ready to be grilled. I was aware, of course, of anti-intervention sentiment in the US and did not dismiss the . . .

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