Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) – Peace Corps Worldwide

Ambassador William Roebuck (Cote d’Ivoire)

Jul 03 2024

RPCVs in the news — Ambassador William “Bill” Roebuck (Cote d’Ivoire 1978-81) is the executive vice president of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. He most recently served as the deputy special envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS and a senior advisor to the Special Representative for Syria Engagement Ambassador James Jeffrey. Prior to his appointment, Roebuck served as a senior advisor to Special Presidential Envoy Brett McGurk from January to December 2018. Roebuck served as ambassador to Bahrain from 2015-17. He was appointed deputy assistant secretary for Maghreb Affairs in January 2013 and assumed additional responsibility for Egypt Affairs in January 2014. He served as Chargé d’Affaires in Tripoli, Libya from January to June 2013, earning the Ryan C. Crocker Award for Outstanding Leadership in Expeditionary Diplomacy. From September 2010 to December 2012, he served as director for the Office of Maghreb Affairs in the . . .

“Writers from the Peace Corps” by John Coyne (Ethiopia)

May 09 2024

John writes — Since 1961, Peace Corps writers have used their volunteer service as source material for their fiction and nonfiction. Approximately 250,000 Americans have served in the Peace Corps. Of these volunteers and staff, more than 1,500 have published memoirs, novels, and poetry inspired by their experience. Many former volunteers have gone on to careers as creative writing teachers, journalists, and editors, while others have discovered a variety of jobs outside of publishing where their Peace Corps years have contributed to successful employment. A Peace Corps tour has proven to be a valuable experience — in terms of one’s craft and one’s professional career—for more than one college graduate. The first to write The first book to draw on the Peace Corps experience was written by Arnold Zeitlin (Ghana 1961–63), who had volunteered for the Peace Corps in 1961 after having been an Associated Press reporter. That book, . . .

The Volunteer Who Has Been Highly Recognized for His contributions to the Creative Arts | Tony D‘Souza (Cote d’Ivoire)

Mar 16 2024

Profile in Citizenship by Jeremiah Norris (Colombia 1963-65) • • • Tony D’Souza served as a Volunteer in Cote d’Ivoire from 2001 to 2002, chronicling his life in a small African village, before, during, and after a Civil War. He was born in Chicago to an RPCV mother (India 1966-68) and Indian father. After graduating from high school, he rode a bicycle across Alaska, then went on to earn a BA in English in two and a half years at Carthage College. Afterwards, he earned a MA in English at Hollins University in Virginia, and then a Master’s in Fine Arts (MFA) at the University of Notre Dame. Tony feels that this degree gave him two years to surround himself with people who loved books, commenting that “most of life isn’t as pleasant as that. Before his time in the Peace Corps, Tony managed to work in a kibbutz in Israel, and . . .

New books by Peace Corps writers | November-December 2022

Jan 11 2023

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 free copy along with a few instructions. P.S. 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 . . .

Review — THE VEGETABLE GROWS AND THE LION ROARS by Gary R. Lindberg (Ivory Coast)

Dec 18 2022

The Vegetable Grows and the Lion Roars: My Peace Corps Service by Gary R. Lindberg (Ivory Coast 1966-68) Self-Published 214 pages March 2022 $ 7.49 (Kindle); $15.67 (Paperback) Reviewed by D.W. Jefferson (El Salvador (1974-76) & Costa Rica (1976-77) • Peace Corps memoirs of 1960s-era volunteers are like precious gems that become more and more valuable as more of those folks pass on. Gary Lindberg wrote this memoir about his Peace Corps service in Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) from 1965-68. Lindberg taught primary school students and teachers various gardening techniques as part of a school gardens program. The memoir includes how he decided to apply for Peace Corps, how he trained, his project, his daily activities, and the friends he made while he was there. He also shares highlights from the travels he took when on vacation breaks, such as his experience on a safari and his visit . . .

THE VEGETABLE GROWS AND THE LION ROARS by Gary R. Lindberg (Ivory Coast)

Nov 07 2022

The Vegetable Grows and the Lion Roars: My Peace Corps Service is a memoir about author Gary R. Lindberg’s experiences as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Ivory Coast in the 1960s. This book offers a fascinating glimpse into what it was like to be a PCV in the early days of the program. This one-of-a-kind memoir presents how he decided to apply for the opportunity, how he trained, his project, the daily life activities, and the friends he made while he was there. He also shares highlights from the travels he took when on vacation breaks, such as his experience on a safari and his visit to the legendary city of Timbuktu. This memoir combines historical elements with personal vignettes as Lindberg elaborates on his many adventures – such as having a broken radiator in the middle of nowhere and how he and his companions got help. In . . .

Tony D'Souza (Ivory Coast 2000-02, Madagascar 2002-03) Goes Back To Teguela

Apr 19 2014

[Tony D’Souza had been a HIV/AIDS Volunteer in a village in northern Ivory Coast when that country’s decade-long civil war erupted in 2002. Evacuated to Ghana, Tony transferred to Madagascar before coming home and writing about his experiences in his 2006 novel Whiteman. Whiteman won most of the major first novel prizes, including from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was excerpted by the New Yorker. In 2007, Tony received an NEA grant, and in 2008, a Guggenheim. Last fall, Tony visited his village for the first time in ten years. In this nonfiction piece for Sarah Lawrence University’s Lumina, he writes of the toll of AIDS on the friends left behind, the ravages of the war, the death of his Ivorian girlfriend, and despite all, the happiness of going back to a place one loves. This essay Les Petites Camionaires (The Guys With the Little Truck) on his . . .