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The Lima Bear Stories Thomas Weck (Ethiopia 1965–67) and Peter Weck Illustrated by Len DiSalvo $15.95 (hardcover) • The Megasaurus 40 pages May 2011 • How Back-Back Got His Name 32 pages July 2011 • The Cave Monster 32 pages September 2011 Reviewed by Tony D’Souza (Ivory Coast 2000-02, Madagascar 2002-03) THOMAS AND PETER WECK, along with illustrator Len DiSalvo, have created a series of children’s books for 4–8 year olds called The Lima Bear Stories, three of which, The Megasaurus, How Back-Back Got His Name, and The Cave Monster, I have had the pleasure of reading to my two and three-year-olds over the past week. The stories, about a kingdom of lima bean-sized bears and a number of regular-sized animal friends of the bears, are based on stories Thomas told his children. The books are handsome and beautifully illustrated, and knowing what my children would do to the books . . .

Ashley Hardaway (Ukraine 2006–08) has never been able to sit still. It progressively got worse. Far away universities. Backpacking trips. Solo vacations. It wasn’t any big shock when she announced she was joining the Peace Corps – leaving for Ukraine a month after graduating from college. Afterwards, upon moving back to America, Ashley would continuously find herself saying “In Ukraine this one time…” To everyone’s great delight and/or horror she got a publishing deal for a travel guide to Ukraine — Ukraine: Discover the Real Ukraine. Traveling around the county again and writing about it would either rid her of all her thoughts regarding this country, or provide her with even more stories to torment people with at Christmas time. So far, all signs point to the latter. Ashley Hardaway now lives in Florida where she continues to write – about other things besides Ukraine. However, for our site, she wrote a piece on . . .

Back to Pakistan: A Fifty-Year Journey by Leslie Noyes Mass (Pakistan 1962–64) Rowman and Littlefield Publishers $32.95 212 pages (paperback) 2011 Reviewed by  David Day (Kenya 1965–66; India 1967–68) IN THIS ACCOUNT of her initial Peace Corps assignment in rural western Pakistan from 1962 to 1964, and a return visit forty-seven years later, in 2009, Leslie Mass gives us tightly-focused access to the lives of women and a range of attempts to educate them in arguably one of the world’s most dangerous countries. It’s a glimpse not often seen in terrorism-haunted media coverage of this troublesome, strategically important Muslim nation. As part of her titular “journey,” we are taken — with the aid of numerous excerpts from letters written to George (a close friend and later, husband), and verbatim transcripts from tape recordings of conversations — from the dusty alleys of small villages to the snow-capped peaks of the Karakoram . . .

Pages 31-33: There followed a briefing by the Peace Corps Field Assessment Officer, a psychiatrist. Now in sections, we met in a reverberatingly hot classroom of Teachers College. The psychiatrist was a ruffle-haired, soft-cheeked young guy, trying to – suck! suck! – get his pipe lit. Off to one side, half sitting against the desk, was presumable a colleague, a haggard-looking creature with a large balding dome of a head and jutting elbows. The spitting image of Raskolnikov. “We’re meeting today,” said the psychiatrist, “to tell you what to expect in the way of selection procedures. It would be disingenuous of us to pretend that you won’t be observed and assessed throughout training. Most of you will be judged acceptable and sent to Nigeria, but a small percentage will be disqualified. Why disqualified? I will come to that. It shouldn’t surprise you that we want emotionally mature, competent individuals who . . .

[Mathematician, graduate of M.I.T., wanderer through Cuba, Paris, Corfu, Alan Weiss (Nigeria 1963-64) joined the Peace Corps wanting “to become part of something for once.” He entered a summer training program at Columbia University in New York City, preparatory to assignment as a teacher. In his book, High Risk/High Gain, he tells the story of that training program. The book, published by St. Martin’s Press in 1968, had as its subtitle: “A freewheeling account of Peace Corps Training.” From time to time in the years following its publication, I would spot small back-page ads in magazines like The New Republic offering the book for sale. Alan had bought from the publisher copies of his remaindered book and was hawking the book himself. Then the ads disappeared. The book disappeared. And Alan Weiss disappeared.  Since then two RPCVs who served with Alan – Bob Cohen and Ed Gruberg – have kept . . .

[Back in March I wrote a short blog about Lee St. Lawrence who was one of the first ‘mad men’ of the Peace Corps in early ’61. That blog entry came to the attention of Pierre Delva who wrote me about his connection to St. Lawrence, and also to send me the short book he wrote about St. Lawrence, his friend, who he labeled on the title page, “The Man Behind the Peace Corps.” Why, Lee wasn’t  the man behind’ the agency, he was, nevertheless, an important early figure in the Peace Corps. Pierre and Joan Delva knew Lee most of their adult life, and Pierre and Joan, too, have had an interesting and productive life in England and Canada. As Pierre wrote me, “I was a general practitioner for ten years in London’s east end, emigrated  to Canada, did six years training as a pediatrician, (including two at WRU), became an ‘academic’ at . . .

A Life In Time: A Woman’s Journey from Orphanage to Peace Corps by Kaye Stone (India 1966-68) The Stone Publishing Group 212 pages $14.95 (paperback) July, 2011 Reviewed by Lawrence F. Lihosit (Honduras 1975-77) KAYE STONE’S PEACE CORPS MEMOIR is an intriguing personal story by a sheltered young orphan, educated in a Christian college, who served in India during that period when the agency fielded more than 15,000 Volunteers worldwide, and 754 on the Subcontinent. Her account via letters is a reminder of both changing American womanhood and an agency in transition. Raised in an orphanage from the age of six, the author seldom traveled or even dated. Until high school graduation at the orphanage, “Dating was complicated . . . The boy had to ask permission. If the superintendent consented, the girl and boy could sit in the living room of the cottage for several hours on a Sunday . . .

The Memoir of Jake Weedsong by Timothy Schell (Central Africa Empire 1978–79) Serving House Books 160 pages $15.00 (paperback), $9.99 (ebook) August 2011 Reviewed by Tony D’Souza (Ivory Coast 2000-02, Madagascar 2002-03) OREGON WRITER TIMOTHY SCHELL’s new novel The Memoir of Jake Weedsong is a meditative book, complex in its construction. A finalist for the AWP Award for the Novel, the story explores bigotry and forgiveness in the Pacific Northwest, where a mixed-race couple is attacked by three young skinheads as they walk through the Parks Block near Portland State University. In court during the skinheads’ sentencing, the eponymous victim’s Japanese wife asks the judge not to send the young men to prison, but rather to a traditional dinner at her home, in which they will be required to wear kimonos. Surrounding this central story is Weedsong’s work on a memoir of his years as an English teacher in an . . .

I FIRST GOT TO KNOW Darcy Munson Meijer (Gabon 1982–84) through her wonderful Friends of Gabon quarterly newsletter, “The Gabon Letter.” Well now she has just edited a new Peace Corps Writers Imprint collection — Adventures in Gabon: Peace Corps Stories from the African Rainforest. It is a pleasure to be involved in a small way with the publication of this book of stories and to be able to preserve the writings by RPCVs that Darcy has lovingly and persistently kept publishing all these years. Here’s what Darcy has to say about herself and the book of stories. Darcy, what did you do in the Peace Corps? I was a TEFL teacher in Gabon from 1982-84. Sadly, PC/Gabon closed in 2005. What are you doing now? I’m in the Middle East. I teach English to Emirati women in the academic bridge program at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi, the United . . .

Years ago Chris Davis graduated from the University of Virginia and went to Kenya (1975–78) as a PCV. He served a year in Maasailand, another year in Kikuyuland and also volunteered with the Flying Doctors, did some field research with a primatologist in Amboseli, and had time to play rock guitar in the pit of the Kenya National Theatre. Coming home, Chris got a job as a speechwriter for the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. And while he was at the NEA, he met Peace Corps writer Moritz Thomsen, and that is what is really important to know. After meeting Moritz, Chris went onto work as a staff writer at U.S. News & World Report covering science and medicine as he had minor in pre-med at UVA. Moving back to New York he worked as a news writer at NBC at 30 Rock and then went to work . . .

Happy Birthday, Nigeria by Bob Criso (Nigeria 1966–67; Somalia 1967–68) THE FLOATS ROLL DOWN SECOND AVENUE from 54th to 44th Street on a dazzling fall Saturday afternoon in New York City. Women draped in a kaleidoscope of African prints and men in ceremonial robes fit for kings are dancing and waving the green and white stripes of the Nigerian flag, their smiles as wide as the Atlantic. The infectious rhythms of West African hip-hop blast from gigantic speakers on the back of the trucks igniting the crowd on the sidewalks to dance along. A flock of supporters surround each float like buzzing bees, dancing, spinning, unable to contain their enthusiasm. Miss Nigeria, resplendent in a regal white gown and sparkling tiara, passes in a chauffeured shiny red convertible, surrounded by a court of attendants in flowing white dresses, like bridesmaids in a royal wedding. On the sidewalks the crowds are . . .

To The Far Side of Planet Earth: A Peace Corps Memoir by Jim McConkey (India 1967-69) Infinity Publishing $17.95 (paperback) 342 pages August 2011 Reviewed by Reilly Ridgell (Micronesia 1971–73) AS MOST WRITERS KNOW there is nothing more important than the firsts: the first chapter, the first page, the first paragraph, the first sentence, and sometimes even the first word. These are so important because they either catch the reader’s attention, hooking him or her so they’ll want to read on, or else turn the reader off, and they don’t buy and read the book. Jim McConkey learned that lesson well, and his first chapter is a clinic on how to capture a reader’s interest while setting up the rest of the book as well. What McConkey has created here is sort of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance meets Paul Theroux. Like a good travel writer, McConkey takes . . .

The Time of the Monkey, Rooster, and Dog Charles A. Hobbie (Korea 1969–71) iUniverse 356 pages Hardcover $34.95, paperback $24.95, e-book $9.99 August 2011 Reviewed by Tony D’Souza (Ivory Coast 2000–02, Madagascar 2002–03) CHARLES HOBBIE’S RECENTLY RELEASED memoir of his Peace Corps service in Korea, The Time of the Monkey, Rooster, and Dog, is an engaging and gentle book. I’ve been accused of offering undue praise in these reviews, and while that’s been occasionally true, I’ll gladly put all my critical capital on the line when I say that this book deserves attention, and Hobbie, accolades for the quality of his writing. As with any reviewer in this day of too many books, the review stack waiting for me is always a small Tower of Babel, most of the voices within, tinny. Hobbie’s book is the reward for the chore, the diamond in the coal mine. I suppose my question . . .