Search Results for “Eres Tu” – Page 90

A Review of Chris Starace's To Benin and Back

Dec 28 2011

To Benin and Back: Short Stories, essays and reflections about Life in Benin as a Peace Corps Volunteer and the Subsequent Readjustment Process by Chris Starace (Benin 1995–97) iUniverse 313pages $29.95 (hardback), $19.95 (paperback), $7.69 (Kindle) 2011 Reviewed by David H. Day (Kenya 1965–66; India 1967–68) AS WORDS BEGAN TO TUMBLE off the first pages of Chris Starace’s new memoir of his Peace Corps assignment in Benin, I realized I was in for a riveting ride through the author’s two-year experience in this tropical, sub-Saharan country. I held in my hands a model of confessional humility, self-reflection and exquisite narrative detail this reviewer hasn’t seen in most recent Peace Corps writing. Page after page, Starace’s perceptual antennae tuned to every single cultural subtlety, nuance and innuendo of social interaction, I had absolutely no choice but to applaud this author’s incredible ability to savor every moment — even the hardships and . . .

Saying Goodbye to our 50th Anniversary Year, Saying Hello to the Next Fifty!

Dec 27 2011

Marian Beil and I, and on behalf of all the bloggers on our site, would like to thank you for your support and for your contributions to www.peacecorpsworldwide.org as we close out our anniversary year. When we started this site for the Peace Corps Community our hope was that it would be a gathering place for all RPCVs. Marian and I wanted to draw into our gang of RPCVs writers others who would blog on all sorts of topics, that this new site would have something of interest for everyone. Marian and I began to publish a newsletter for and about Peace Corps writers after the 25th Anniversary of the agency, and we moved to a website in 2000. Next, we moved to this site where RPCVs interested in other issues might blog and share opinions, find news of what was happening with the agency, and like all good PCVs, complain about something or the other! We hope we have been successful. . . .

University of Oregon Alum Magazine Highlights Their Grads in the Peace Corps

Dec 24 2011

Corps Values The UO and the state of Oregon have been long and lasting contributors to the international vision of the Peace Corps. By Alice Tallmadge It was October 1972. The East African country of Uganda was in the grip of the brutal dictator Idi Amin and twenty-two-year-old Peace Corps volunteer Ernie Niemi ’70 was in a tight spot. The Peace Corps had decided to pull its volunteers out of the country, but to avoid retaliation it scheduled a conference in Kampala, the country’s capital and site of its major airport, and said all volunteers were required to attend. On Niemi’s way to Kampala, 300 miles from the boarding school where he had been teaching chemistry and physics for eighteen months, he had to pass through several roadblocks. At one, he was confronted by a security guard whose son was a student of Niemi’s. “He said, ‘You cannot leave. My . . .

Report from Honduras on Peace Corps Volunteer being shot

Dec 22 2011

[Thanks to Amber Davis Collins ( Honduras 2002-04) who forwarded me an email note that is circulating in the Honduras RPCV community. This is from Maggie McQuaid (Honduras 1976-78) who was trying to organize a reunion of Honduras RPCVs.] Several months I asked you all if you’d be interested in a reunion in Honduras in 2012, and I was overwhelmed with your responses. It’s no surprise that we still love the place and dream of returning. This makes it hard to do what I’m going to do next, which is announce that going further with any plans seems to be a very bad idea right now. As many of you are aware, Honduras now bears the terrible distinction of having the highest per-capita murder rate in the world. In recent weeks, a former Honduran government drug czar and a journalist for La Prensa were murdered in Tegucigalpa. Since the beginning of December, a volunteer with . . .

Review of Larry Brown's Peasants Come Last

Dec 16 2011

Peasants Come Last: A Memoir of the Peace Corps at Fifty by J. Larry Brown (India late 1960s) Lucita Publisher $12.99 (paperback), $9.99 (Kindle) 174 pages September 2011 Reviewed by Ken Hill (Turkey 1965–67) A DENSELY POPULATED, complex and important African country, Uganda suffers from a history of violence reflected in names like Idi Amin, Milton Obote and the Lord’s Resistance Army. Peace Corps has entered Uganda three times and left twice since the ’60s. Currently, some 175 PCVs serve in Uganda supported by a staff of 30+. Dr. J. Larry Brown became the Uganda Country Director in late 2008. Peasants Come Last is a punchy and compelling narrative of his latest Peace Corps experience, providing a chilling perspective of the significant challenges faced by Peace Corps in such a post. The book applauds and honors Peace Corps Volunteers and staff in Uganda, explaining the worrisome dangers that must be . . .

Volunteers — The Movie. The Subplots. The RPCV.

Dec 14 2011

In James Jouppi’s (Thailand 1971–73) long, rambling and detailed memoir — Wars of Hearts And Minds — about his time in-country in Thailand and readjusting to the U.S. — there are a seven pages, 565 to 572, that focus on the cult (to some people) movie, Volunteers released in 1985. For those who missed Volunteers this is briefly the plot: Lawrence Bourne III, played by young Tom Hanks, is a spoiled rich kid in the 1960 with a large gambling debt. After his father, Lawrence Bourne Jr. (George Plimpton), refuses to pay his son’s debt, Lawrence escapes his angry debtors by trading places with his college roommate Kent (Xander Berkeley) and jumps on a Peace Corps flight to Southeast Asia. In the Peace Corps Lawrence is assigned to build a bridge for the local villagers, working with two other PCVs: Washington State University graduate Tom Tuttle (John Candy) and the beautiful, down-to earth . . .

The Peace Corps' First Book About the Peace Corps

Dec 08 2011

In the mid-sixties, the Peace Corps as an agency realized that they had a lot of Volunteer stories that they could use for Recruitment so the Office of Public Information, as it was then called, began its own publications. In September 1968 they published The Peace Corps Reader with the declaimer, “The opinions expressed in the Peace Corps Reader are those of the authors and may or may not coincide with official Peace Corps policy.” Ain’t that the truth! This Peace Corps book, which, by the way, was given away free as a government publication, republished several copyrighted pieces including Jack Vaughn’s “Now We are Seven” published in 1968 in the Saturday Review; and Sargent Shriver’s 1966 essay, also published in the Saturday Review, “Five Years with the Peace Corps.” There was “The Quiet-mouth American” by Donald Lloyd, published in 1963 in Harper’s Magazine. Lloyd was the founder of Resources Development . . .

First Book About RPCVS

Dec 07 2011

Before there were Returned Peace Corps Volunteers there were books about them. In the very early days of the agency everyone was caught up with enthusiasm for these young Idealists going off on their own to do good in Africa, Asia and Latin America. To the best of my knowledge, the first book–paperback, of course, and selling for .50$ (those were the days)–was published by Paperback Library and done with the ‘full’ cooperation of the agency. It is entitled simply, The Peace Corps. Sargent Shriver wrote the Introduction and the photographs were taken by Rowland Sherman and Paul Conklin, the first two great photographers of the Peace Corps. There is one photo in particular that I remember. It was taken of my roommate, Ernie Fox (Ethiopia 1962-64). He is with children of whose parents who were in the leprosarium outside of Addis Ababa. We would go out of town on Saturday mornings to play games . . .

You Can Publish It!

Dec 07 2011

[ First posted on Peace Corps Writers in September, 2008, Lawrence F. Lihosit pushes and shoves RPCVs towards sharing their experiences in print.] You Can Publish It By Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras, 1975-77) Within three years, this nation will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Peace Corps’ inception with parades, speeches, and book sales. It is very rare that a government program captivates the American imagination. In the first half of the twentieth century only two programs did, the WPA and the CCC. In the second half, it was NASA and the Peace Corps. As we near this anniversary, there will be incredible interest in the program and us, the foot soldiers. If you have a story to share, this is a great time to write it down. Keep your dreams humble. After all, you write for your children and grandchildren. If you really cared so much about fame, glory, . . .

How to Format Your Peace Corps Book

Dec 06 2011

by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras 1975–77) After extensive editing but before sending your Peace Corps Experience book to a publisher, consider presentation. Your book will be on the Library of Congress shelf (as well as other libraries) for many years, representing a nugget of history-your experience. This book will aid our children and grandchildren to understand what this American experiment was like. Regardless of who prints it, why not consider quality befitting this role? Just as you did not embark upon a cheap tourist junket but an arduous trek perhaps inspired and most definitely sustained by true grit, this sort of unusual adventure deserves a like presentation. The majority of books published are mass market paperbacks, tiny paperbound books printed with small letters on cheap paper. Although inexpensive, they are more difficult to read, fall apart faster and generally look like a plastic flip-flop. Your book should be more like . . .

Lawrence F. Lihosit on “Self-Published Quality Format”

Dec 05 2011

Self-Published Quality Format by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras 1975–77) After extensive editing but before sending your Peace Corps Experience book to a print-on-demand publisher or printer, consider presentation. Your book will be on the Library of Congress shelf (as well as other libraries) for many years, representing a nugget of history-your experience. This book will aid our children and grandchildren to understand what this American experiment was like. Regardless of who prints it, why not consider quality befitting this role? Just as you did not embark upon a cheap tourist junket but an arduous trek perhaps inspired and most definitely sustained by true grit, this sort of unusual adventure deserves a like presentation. The majority of books published are mass market paperbacks, tiny paperbound books printed with small letters on cheap paper. Although inexpensive, they are more difficult to read, fall apart faster and generally look like a plastic flip-flop. . . .

William Evensen Writes About: The Enigmatic Five-Year Rule

Dec 02 2011

Peace Corps’ Enigmatic Five-Year Rule: Updating the ‘In-Up-Out’ Myth by W.M. Evensen ( Peru 1964-66) Long ago I decided to make the cross-country trip to attend Peace Corps’ Fiftieth Birthday Party. I wanted to revisit the heroic beginnings, marvel at Peace Corps’ low-cost accomplishments, the indigenous leaders discovered, the NGOs invented. As it turned out, I found out some modern day things about the Peace Corps that left me bummed and bewildered. My trip to the 50th ended up shattering my most cherished Peace Corps belief: Sargent Shriver’s clever answer to bureaucratic Alzheimer’s, his legendary ‘In-Up-Out’ Five Year Rule, that limited staff to five years service. Because of Shriver’s trenchant ‘In-Up-Out’ Five Year Rule, bureaucratic careerism would not hamper the Peace Corps. Instead, the Agency would be re-born, again and again, by the hiring of newly returned PCVs – the ‘Up’ element: the best of the best – to run a . . .

Review — MAYA 2012 by Joshua Berman (Nicaragua)

Nov 29 2011

Maya 2012: A Guide to Celebrations in Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras by Joshua Berman (Nicaragua 1998–2000) Moon Travel Guides 128 pages $7.99 (paperback) October 2011 Reviewed by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras 1975–77) TRAVELERS WHO PLAN TO EXPLORE the Mayan world this coming year need this book! Even the seasoned trekker with a worn and patched backpack, creased boots, frayed hat and a passport bulging with extra pages will want to buy Maya 2012 before it’s sold out. It has it all: great maps, background information, descriptions of tours, transportation and discount hotels. It also contains conversion tables, an index, Mayan words and phrases, interesting interviews with important Mayan scholars and even a suggested reading list. This ain’t no guide to overpriced hotels and do-dads, but a book written for us serious wayfarers. For those with only a whiff of Mayan history, this book will convince you that the place . . .

Review of Phillip L. Peters: What Do I Do Now?

Nov 24 2011

WHAT DO I DO NOW? by Phillip L. Peters (Guatemala 1962–64) and Kathleen Peters National Information Services $16.95 (paperback) 169 pages September 2011 Reviewed by Leo Cecchini (Ethiopia 1962–64) READING What Do I Do Now? is akin to watching one of those 4 am TV shows with a self-made millionaire pitching his plan for how to make a fortune. The pitch always starts by promising that you will make lots of money, and ends with selling you a program or system for selling a product or service. The author tells the story through a character, Luke. based on his personal life starting as a Peace Corps Volunteer through becoming a successful “social entrepreneur” selling “wellness” products. Luke in turn tells the story in the form of reflections on his life as he prepares to go to the Peace Corps’s 50Th Anniversary Celebration in Washington DC this past September. Luke recalls . . .

"Love and the Peace Corps"–PRI's The World Story by Nina Porzucki (Romania 2002-04)

Nov 23 2011

Love and the Peace Corps By Nina Porzucki ⋅ November 22, 2011 ⋅ THERE’S AN EXPRESSION that was my mantra through college: “Peace Corps, the toughest job you’ll ever love.” The idea was that after graduation I would join the Peace Corps, and do the toughest job I’d ever love. In 2002, I arrived in Washington, DC for orientation to teach in Romania. I sat terrified in a conference room thinking about the next 27 months. The first thing I remember was a guy raising his hand and asking the Peace Corps official, “Is it true that 80 percent of volunteers come back married, engaged or in love?” I was floored. Here I was trying to imagine what Romania looked like and where I’d be living. I had never even considered love. Janice Sims was one of my fellow volunteers in Romania. It turns out she was just as surprised . . .

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