Ethiopia | Peace Corps Worldwide

Review — IT ATE ONE HUNDRED by Bill Sugrue (Ethiopia )

Jan 22 2020

It Ate One Hundred By Bill Sugrue (Ethiopia 1969-73) Self-Published 223 pages May 2019 $8.99 (paperback) Reviewed by Phillip LeBel (Ethiopia 1965-67) • Bill Sugrue, a career Foreign Service Officer with USAID, has written a memoir of his four-year experience as a Peace Corps volunteer in the village of Wajifo, in southern Ethiopia. Covering the 1969-1973 years, his account displays the enthusiasm and frustrations of rural life in Ethiopia at a time when elsewhere in the U.S. the Vietnam war and racial conflicts were dividing the country. His account evokes the emotional attachment that so many experienced when confronting their sense of personal identity in a developing country context. It is an engaging account, full of humor, sadness, and joy that unfold through a series of events that are recounted in discrete anecdotes. The title itself suggests the humor found in a cross-cultural experience. Local villagers, whose farming . . .

ERADICATING SMALLPOX IN ETHIOPIA by 15 PCVs (Ethiopia)

Dec 26 2019

Eradicating Smallpox in Ethiopia: Peace Corps Volunteers’ Accounts of Their Adventures, Challenges and Achievements Editors: Gene L. Bartley (Ethiopia 1970-72, 1974-76), John Scott Porterfield (Ethiopia 1971-73), Alan Schnur (Ethiopia 1971-73), James W. Skelton, Jr. (Ethiopia 1970-72) Peace Corps Writers 486 pages November 26, 2019 $ 19.95 (paperback) This book contains a wide variety of unique and perceptive stories about the experiences of the Peace Corps Volunteers who worked in the Smallpox Eradication Program (SEP) in Ethiopia between 1970 and 1975. There are 21 chapters, written by 15 former PCVs, Dr. D. A. Henderson, the Director of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global SEP, and Dr. Ciro de Quadros, WHO Epidemiologist in charge of field operations in Ethiopia. All of the stories provide insights into the personal, practical and technical aspects of the work. The PCVs’ stories include vivid, first-hand descriptions of the living and working conditions in . . .

“Our Wonderful Cook, Aragash Haile” by Richard Lyman (Ethiopia)

Dec 17 2019

Our Wonderful Cook, Aragash Haile by Richard Lyman (Ethiopia 1962-64) Marty Benjamin, John Stockton, Dallas Smith and I who shared a house in Gondar had the naïve notion that we were going to be self-sufficient and live without servants. Little did we realize that in Gondar servants had servants. It took us several months to put aside the quaint notion of complete independence and hire much-needed help. The fact that of the four of us only Dallas liked to cook should have been a red flag from the start. Within a week we opened a charge account at Ato Ghile Berhane’s “Ghile’s Store.” It was a wide glass-fronted store just around the corner on the Asmara road from the post office. Behind a tall counter were two engaging young men who would retrieve what we wanted from the floor to ceiling shelves. Our bulk purchases like rice . . .

“Remembering Zewale Zegeye” by Richard Lyman (Ethiopia)

Dec 16 2019

Remembering Zewale Zegeye by Richard Lyman (Ethiopia 1962-64) It was better than any college or high school reunion to see old friends and colleagues with whom 49 years ago I shared an adventure and life-changing experience. On September 13th, The Embassy of Ethiopia, in honor of the fiftieth year anniversary of the founding of the Peace Corps, hosted a reception and delicious Ethiopian buffet for Peace Corps volunteers who served in Ethiopia from 1962 through the start of the turmoil in the ’70s. It was my honor to be a member of “Ethiopia I,” among the first 280+ Peace Corps teachers invited to Ethiopia by Emperor Haile Selassie in 1962. At the time the secondary schools of Ethiopia were a bottleneck through which too few students were able to graduate and pass on for additional training and/or attendance at the University. Twelve of us were assigned to . . .

First Volunteers to Ethiopia in 1962 sing Christmas carols for the Emperor

Dec 24 2017

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy Ethiopian New Year

Sep 09 2017

Sixth Prize Peace Corps Fund Award: “Hyena Man” by Jeanne D’Haem (Somalia)

Jul 28 2017

Jeanne D’Haem, Ph.D. (Somalia 1968-70) is currently an associate professor of Special Education and Counselling at William Paterson University in New Jersey. She was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Somalia. She served as an English and math teacher in Arabsiyo and Hargeisa, and taught adult education classes and sponsored the first Girl Guide troop in Hargeisa. Jeanne was a director of special services and a special education teacher for over thirty years. As a writer, she has published two prize-winning books and numerous journal articles. The Last Camel, (1997) published by The Red Sea Press won the Peace Corps Paul Cowan Peace Corps Writers Award for nonfiction. Desert Dawn with Waris Dirie (2001) has been translated into more than twenty languages. It was on the best seller list in Germany for over a year where it was awarded the Corine Prize for nonfiction. Her most recent book is Inclusion: The Dream . . .

“Disillusionment in the Delta” by William Seraile (Ethiopia)

Jul 03 2017

After his Peace Corps service in Ethiopia, William Seraile returned home to earn his masters in ’67 from the Teachers College at Columbia, and a doctorate in American history from the City University of New York in 1977. Now a professor emeritus — after 36 years teaching African American history at Lehman College, CUNY in the Bronx — Bill lives in New York, and is the father of two and grandfather of four. In a 3-part review published on this site in 2016 of The Fortunate Few: IVS Volunteers from Asia to the Andes written by Thierry J. Sagnier (2015), I wrote about Seraile and other RPCVs (33) and Peace Corps Staff (15) who joined the International Voluntary Services (IVS) and went to Vietnam, and I wrote about the four IVS veterans who went from IVS into the Peace Corps. What follows is Bill Seraile’s account of his Vietnam experience. — JC • Disillusionment . . .

Review: FAMINE, WAR AND LOVE by Stephen C. Joseph (Nepal)

Apr 04 2017

Famine, War and Love By Stephen C. Joseph (Nepal Peace Corps Staff 1964-66) Bookbaby March 2017 181 pages $14.99 (paperback), $8.99 (Kindle) Review by Randolph Marcus (PCV/Ethiopia 1966-68) • STEPHEN C. JOSEPH, A PEDIATRICIAN with extensive medical experience in developing countries, has written an historical fiction novel surrounding two unrelated famines in the Netherlands in the last months of World War II and in Ethiopia in the mid-eighties. He brings these seemingly disparate events together in an unusual format: a series of first person essays by members of two families — the Dutch Vermeers and the American Rileys. In this short but engaging book, Joseph displays a talent for becoming the characters whose voices carry the story forward. Each chapter appears as a journal entry and alternates between generations and the two families. The story begins with 18-year old Christina Vermeer’s account of her life as a young girl . . .

“An Unexpected Love Story: The Women of Bati” by John Coyne (Ethiopia)

Mar 03 2017

An Unexpected Love Story: The Women of Bati by John Coyne 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 Depression walk up the “Great Escarpment” to trade with the Oromo tribe on the plateau. These tribeswomen arrive late on . . .