Search Results For -Mad woman Part Three

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Former Director of the Peace Corps Mark D. Gearan returns as President of Hobart and William Smith Colleges
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“Downsizing Books” by John Coyne (Ethopia)
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Review — THE GECKO IN THE BATHTUB by Janina Fuller (Philippines)
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Doing the Blitz Peace Corps Recruitment in the ’60s
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Writers From the Peace Corps
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16 New books by Peace Corps writers — May and June, 2022
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Time Before Roe. Somewhere Worse by Jia Tolentina (Kyrgyzstan)
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BRIGHTEST SUN by Adrienne Benson (Nepal)
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Review — THE WORLD AGAINST HER SKIN by John Thorndike (El Salvador)
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“Democracy in Africa” by Mark G. Wentling (Togo)
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RPCV Samantha Croffut on DART team helping Ukraine
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“An Unexpected Love Story — The Women of Bati”
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Inside Peace Corps #5
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Justice for A Girl of a Tender Age by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith (Cameroon)
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Establishing the Peace Corps–what we remember 60 years later

Former Director of the Peace Corps Mark D. Gearan returns as President of Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Following Resignation of Joyce Jacobsen, Gearan Returns as President   Five years after leaving HWS for Harvard, President Emeritus Mark D. Gearan L.H.D. ’17, P’21 returns to HWS   The Hobart and William Smith Colleges Board of Trustees has announced the selection of President Emeritus Mark D. Gearan L.H.D. ’17, P’21 as the 30th president of Hobart and the 19th of William Smith. Gearan takes on the role following the resignation of President Joyce P. Jacobsen who presided over HWS from 2019-2022, engineering a period of exceptional innovation at the Colleges. Jacobsen will join the faculty at HWS as professor of economics.Gearan previously was president of Hobart and William Smith from 1999-2017 and during that time the Colleges’ endowment doubled as he oversaw a capital campaign that raised $205 million to support facilities and annual giving, established 168 new scholarships, and completed 80 significant capital projects. During his first presidency, Gearan made . . .

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“Downsizing Books” by John Coyne (Ethopia)

  When I was growing up on a farm in Illinois all six of us kids (I was the youngest) waited for the  Saturday Evening Post to arrive in Wednesday’s mail so we’d have stories to read over the weekend. After dinner, whichever of my three sisters was washing the dishes that night would prop a book up against the kitchen window so she could read as she scrubbed. Since my job was to dry, I couldn’t pull off that trick. But I loved books too, and before I learned to read, my oldest sister would read to me whatever Jane Austen or Brontē novel she had gotten from the village library. We read so many books, in fact, that soon my older siblings had gone through everything deemed “age appropriate” by the librarian, Mrs. Butterfield. So one day she refused to let my sister Eileen check out the book she’d chosen. My mother, . . .

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Review — THE GECKO IN THE BATHTUB by Janina Fuller (Philippines)

  The Gecko in the Bathtub: Encounters with Marvelous Creatures by Janina Marie Fuller (Philippines 1978-80) with illustrations by Maggie Demorest Peace Corps Writers June 2022 178 pages $17.50 (paperback) Reviewed by Andy Amster (Philippines 1978-80) • The Gecko in the Bathtub, Janina Fuller’s collection of stories about her interactions with a wide variety of animals, in settings both mundane and exotic, is subtitled Encounters with Marvelous Creatures. And I must say that while reading these stories, I came to realize that I was having an encounter with a marvelous writer, one whose love of nature and respect for its ecosystems and their inhabitants artfully enlists the reader into “allyship” in that love and respect. From the moment I glanced at the “Table of Contents” before settling down to read this wonderful book, I knew I was putting myself in the hands of an assured and engaging writer. “So Much Alaska,” “Visit from . . .

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Doing the Blitz Peace Corps Recruitment in the ’60s

To Preserve and to Learn   by Hal Fleming (Staff: PC/W 1966–68; CD Cote d’Ivoire 1968–72) first published in 2008 at PeaceCorpsWriters.org IN 1966, I CAME DOWN TO WASHINGTON from New York. It was a time in our country when the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War divided the nation. I had been tapped to work as a staff member in the Public Affairs and Recruiting office for the Peace Corps. On my very first work day in Peace Corps/Washington, I was told to join Warren Wiggins, the Deputy Director of the Agency, in his government car for a one-hour ride to a conference for new campus recruiters at Tidewater Inn in Easton, Maryland. Wiggins, preoccupied with his opening speech to the conclave, said very little to me except to read out a phrase or two of buzz-word laden prose, mostly unintelligible to me as the new guy, and . . .

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Writers From the Peace Corps

John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962-64) Editor: PeaceCorpsWriters.org; PeaceCorpsWorldwide.org   The Lost Generation In the 1920s Gertrude Stein coined the phrase “the lost generation.” It was repeated by Ernest Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises, his novel of Paris, and is often used to describe the intellectuals, poets, artists, and novelists who rejected the values of post World War I America. They relocated to Paris and quickly adopted a bohemian lifestyle of excessive drink, messy love affairs, and the creation of some of the finest American literature ever written. We give this lost generation of American writers in Europe a prominent place in the landscape of 20th century American life and culture. They led the way in exploring themes of spiritual alienation, self-exile, and cultural criticism, leaving a distinct mark on our intellectual history. They expressed their critical response in innovative literary forms, challenged traditional assumptions about writing and self-expression, and paved . . .

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16 New books by Peace Corps writers — May and June, 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 include a brief description for each of the books listed here in hopes of encouraging readers  to order a book and/or  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 she will 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 . . .

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Time Before Roe. Somewhere Worse by Jia Tolentina (Kyrgyzstan)

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Bill Preston (Thailand 1977-80)   We’re Not Going Back to the Time Before Roe. We’re Going Somewhere Worse We are entering an era not just of unsafe abortions but of the widespread criminalization of pregnancy. By Jia Tolentina (Kyrgyzstan 2009) The New Yorker June 24, 2022 Illustration by Chloe Cushman In the weeks since a draft of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—a case about a Mississippi law that bans abortion after fifteen weeks, with some health-related exceptions but none for rape or incest—was leaked, a slogan has been revived: “We won’t go back.” It has been chanted at marches, defiantly but also somewhat awkwardly, given that this is plainly an era of repression and regression, in which abortion rights are not the only rights disappearing. Now that the Supreme Court has issued its final decision, overturning Roe v. Wade and removing the constitutional right . . .

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BRIGHTEST SUN by Adrienne Benson (Nepal)

An illuminating debut novel following three women in sub-Saharan Africa as they search for home and family   Leona, an isolated American anthropologist, gives birth to a baby girl in a remote Maasai village and must decide how she can be a mother, in spite of her own grim childhood. Jane, a lonely expat wife, follows her husband to the tropics and learns just how fragile life is. Simi, a barren Maasai woman, must confront her infertility in a society in which females are valued by their reproductive roles. In this affecting debut novel, these three very different women grapple with motherhood, recalibrate their identities and confront unforeseen tragedies and triumphs. In beautiful, evocative prose, Adrienne Benson brings to life the striking Kenyan terrain as these women’s lives intertwine in unexpected ways. As they face their own challenges and heartbreaks, they find strength traversing the arid landscapes of tenuous human . . .

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Review — THE WORLD AGAINST HER SKIN by John Thorndike (El Salvador)

  The World Against Her Skin: A Son’s Novel By John Thorndike (El Salvador 1967-68) Beck & Branch Publishers 306 Pages April 2022 $15.00 (Paperback); $4.99 (Kindle)   Reviewed by Marnie Mueller (Ecuador 1963-65) The World Against her Skin is an extraordinary work, written by a mature, highly published author. John Thorndike defines his book as a “Son’s Novel,” a hybrid memoir/novel or “biographical novel.” It is his endeavor to know his mother, as he openly states in his “Author’s Note, “I want to know everything about my mother,” especially the secrets that were kept from him as her son. He inhabits this woman character in order to know her. His are the height of literary goals; find truth through your imagination, cross boundaries through sympathy and empathy, and do it because you need to for survival. It beautifully flies in the face of current stricture to only write what . . .

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“Democracy in Africa” by Mark G. Wentling (Togo)

Democracy in Africa is Like a Flashlight without Batteries by Mark G. Wentling (Togo 1970-73) May 2022 Promoting democracy has been a central pillar of U.S. foreign policy for decades. This has been true for the dozen U.S. missions in which I have served in Africa over the past half century. Unfortunately, my experiences have left me doubtful about the results achieved by the hundreds of millions of dollars the U.S. has invested to promote democracy in Africa. I arrived in 1970 as a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer, West Africa. In my village, I learned that you obeyed the chief’s decisions no matter how illogical they might be. I also learned that it was considered impolite to criticize any of the chief’s decisions. Today it is still best to obey the chief, although he is now influenced by the central government. The overriding concern of the chief and his representative . . .

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RPCV Samantha Croffut on DART team helping Ukraine

  On February 24, 2022, USAID immediately deployed an elite Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) to address growing needs stemming from Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified war on Ukraine.     The DART, made up of more than 30 disaster experts from USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, has worked in five countries to lead the U.S. humanitarian response to the fastest growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. For the past seven weeks, the DART has been identifying critical needs, conducting up-to-the minute humanitarian assessments, and quickly ramping up aid for affected communities.   • In the second of a two-part series, we wanted to introduce you to three additional members of our DART, who have put their own lives on hold to save others thousands of miles away from home. One of the women is RPCV Samantha Croffut, a Seattle native, spends much of her days working with humanitarian . . .

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“An Unexpected Love Story — The Women of Bati”

 by John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962-64)   If the reader prefers, this may be regarded as fiction. But there is always the chance that such a piece of fiction may throw some light on what has been written as fact. — Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast • AT AN ELEVATION OF 4,000 FEET,  the town of Bati, Ethiopia, off the Dessie Road, is the last highland location before the Danakil Depression. A hard day’s drive from the Red Sea, it’s famous only for its Monday market days when the Afar women of the Danakil walk up the “Great Escarpment” to trade with the Oromos on the plateau. These women arrive late on Sunday, and with their camels and tents, they cover the grassy knob above the town. They trade early in the next morning for grain, cloth, livestock, and tinsels and trinkets imported from Addis Ababa, 277 kilometers to the south. Numbering as . . .

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Inside Peace Corps #5

  Chief Executive Officer’s Message: Since the new year, words from Amanda Gorman’s “New Day Lyric” have been echoing in my mind. In it she says, “Tethered by this year of yearning, we are learning, that though we weren’t ready for this, we have been readied by it.” I cannot help but repeat these words as I reflect on the Peace Corps’ journey to return Volunteers to service overseas. There have been bumps in the road, but we have learned a great deal along the way. The challenges have prepared us to meet the moment by infusing new innovation into our time-tested approaches, holding our most valued partners – the communities where our Volunteers are invited to serve – at the center of all we do, and aligning our work more explicitly to our values. The return of Volunteers will be intentional, balancing the health and safety considerations of host communities . . .

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Justice for A Girl of a Tender Age by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith (Cameroon)

  In Girls of Tender Age, Mary-Ann Tirone Smith (Cameroon 1965-67) fully articulates with great humor and tenderness the wild jubilance of an extended French-Italian family struggling to survive in a post-World War II housing project in Hartford, Connecticut. Hanging over this American childhood is the sinister shadow of an approaching serial killer. The menacing Bob Malm lurks throughout this joyous and chaotic family portrait, and the havoc he unleashes when the paths of innocence and evil cross one early December evening in 1953 forever alters the landscape of Smith’s childhood. Mary-Ann, who wrote the first published Peace Corps novel, Lament For A Silver-Eyed Woman in 1985, writes in this memoir of her childhood friend who was killed by a serial killer in her hometown, and how Mary-Ann helped to achieve justice for her childhood friend Pidgie D’Allessio who identified the killer who had also attached her. What follows is Mary-Ann’s account of . . .

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Establishing the Peace Corps–what we remember 60 years later

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 . . .

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