Ethiopia

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John Rex (Ethiopia) Remembers —
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New books by Peace Corps writers | September — October 2023
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GAELS ON THREE by Don Schlenger (Ethiopia)
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Nyle Kardatzke (Ethiopia) meets President Kennedy at the White House, Summer ’62
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TAKING THE PLUNGE INTO ETHIOPIA by William Hershey (Ethiopia)
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New books by Peace Corps writers | July–August 2023
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Jennifer Ching Peace Corps Response Volunteer (Ethiopia & Botswana)
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Another 1st for RPCV Morris Baker (Ethiopia)
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Ethiopia Professor Launches New Book & Remembers His Peace Corps Teachers
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Review | THROUGH GRATEFUL EYES: The Peace Corps Experiences of Dartmouth’s Class of 1967
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The Volunteer Who Created Compelling Novels out of Her Family’s Oral History — Mildred Taylor (Ethiopia)
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A LESION OF DISSENT by Karl Drobnic (Ethiopia)
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New books by Peace Corps writers | March–April 2023
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One Day in Ethiopia
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A bike trip to Massawa, Eritrea and the Red Sea

John Rex (Ethiopia) Remembers —

The Day Kennedy Died by John Rex (Ethiopia 1962-64)   The most difficult part of my service in Ethiopia was the two year separation from home. In the present Internet era, it is probably hard to believe the extent to which we volunteers were isolated, out of touch with anything outside of Ethiopia. Air Mail from Ethiopia to the USA took about two weeks each way, so it was at least a month before we received responses to our letters.   Ethiopia had no TV  or regular source of news, rather it was the radio, especially BBC and international editions of Time and Newsweek, printed on very thin paper that we received regularly and shared widely. Of course, the biggest change in two years was a change of presidents.  Though my parents were devout Republicans, my involvement in the Peace Corps led to a major shift in my thinking. Along with most . . .

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New books by Peace Corps writers | September — October 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 Third . . .

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GAELS ON THREE by Don Schlenger (Ethiopia)

  Gaels On Three by Don Schlenger (Ethiopia 1966-68) Ink Start Media Publisher September 2023 318 pages $2.99 (Kindle); $13.99 (Paperback)   It’s the eighties in north Jersey with big hair and bad music,  and a love story set around a Catholic junior high school girls’ basketball team. Will and Ramona were childhood sweethearts and neighbors from age four, who tragically broke up weeks before high school graduation in 1976. Will went right into the army, Ramona to college on a basketball scholarship. Six years later, with no interim contact, Will calls Ramona and asks if she will help him coach the girls’ basketball team at St. Ethel of the Holy Oasis Junior High School, close by where they grew up. They negotiate, they bicker, use bad language, argue, and finally she agrees. With conditions: a sixpack of Schaefers and a box of Mrs. T’s on demand. Supporting them are . . .

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Nyle Kardatzke (Ethiopia) meets President Kennedy at the White House, Summer ’62

  In summer 1962, six hundred Peace Corps volunteer trainees were in Washington, DC, preparing for assignments around the world. A visit to the White House was a highlight of our training time. When our Ethiopia group returned from lunch that day, several buses were waiting in front of the dorms. We boarded the buses and waited about an hour until motorcycle policemen arrived to lead us to the White House. They started their thundering motorcycles and turned on their sirens and led us out onto quiet Georgetown streets. Other police were at every intersection, and we zoomed through traffic lights at highway speeds. We were, after all, going to see the President. At the White House, staff members arranged the Peace Corps people into a semicircle on the south lawn, facing the White House. We chattered quietly out of respect for where we were. (My roommate Danny Langdon was . . .

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TAKING THE PLUNGE INTO ETHIOPIA by William Hershey (Ethiopia)

  Taking the Plunge Into Ethiopia: Tales of a Peace Corps Volunteer by William L. Hershey (Ethiopia 1968-70) University of Akron Press September 2023 134 pages $18.99 (Kindle); $24.95 (Paperback) William Hershey  served as the only Peace Corps Volunteer in the small Ethiopian town of Dabat. He taught seventh and eighth grade students the English that they would need to continue their educations and brighten their futures. He became part of the community, eating the local food and doing his best to communicate in Amharic. He also navigated cultural gaffes — having his house stoned by disgruntled students angered at being assigned to clean the outhouses; and nearly sparking international trouble by clashing with a player from a rival school during a heated basketball game. Decades later as a journalist, he used his once-in-a-lifetime Peace Corps experience to reflect on immigration, global goodwill and the hope the United States should . . .

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New books by Peace Corps writers | July–August 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 Third . . .

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Jennifer Ching Peace Corps Response Volunteer (Ethiopia & Botswana)

Thanks for the ‘heads up’ from Don Messerschmidt (Nepal 1963-65)  From the Peace Corps Website, May 25, 2023     Jennifer Ching, a returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Ethiopia from 2016 to 2018, is now a Peace Corps Response Volunteer serving in Botswana. Jennifer, who is Chinese and lived in Malaysia as a child, shares why Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month is important to her, how her Asian American identity impacted her service as a Volunteer, and her favorite cultural traditions.   1) Why is AANHPI Heritage Month important to you? AANHPI Heritage month is important because it increases the exposure and promotion of the presence of these groups of people in the social consciousness. It’s also important to me because it spotlights my people and culture, as well as our contributions in the United States, both historically and during the present day. . . .

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Another 1st for RPCV Morris Baker (Ethiopia)

RPCVs in the news Dr. Morris Baker  (Ethiopia 1966-68) McMurry University, in Abilene TX, is in the midst of celebrating its 100th anniversary. A 1963 graduate of the then McMurry College, Morris Baker (Ethiopia 1966-68) enrolled there in 1959. He was the first African American student to enroll and the first to earn an undergraduate degree at that institution. As a result of that event, in October he will be recognized as one of the McMurry 100.  One-hundread alumni who brought a moment of historical significance to the university. As the first African American to graduate from McMurry he was a PCV in Ethiopia and then worked in for the agency before returning to his alma mater as a professor of psychology and taught from 1983 to 1994. Dr. Baker was also named a Distinguished Alumni 1987. He currently serves on the McMurry Board of Visitors. McMurry was founded in . . .

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Ethiopia Professor Launches New Book & Remembers His Peace Corps Teachers

Addis Ababa University Lifetime Professor launches a new book with great fanfare July 7, 2023 Professor Bahru Zewde, Lifetime Professor and the board member of Addis Ababa University (AAU), has launched his new autobiographical book entitled, ‘Hibir Hiwote’, in collaboration with the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Office of External Relations, Partnerships and Communications, Society of Friends of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies and History Department of AAU at the historic Ras Mekonnen Hall on July 6, 2023. Shimelis Bonsa (PhD), an associate professor and researcher of African modern and contemporary history as an associate professor at Stony Brook University in New York, stated that Professor Bahru’s autobiography is the first autobiographical essay written by a pioneering Ethiopian historian in the field of autobiographical writings. “According to my view and understanding, the key idea of the book is the great idea of unity, and it refers to his academic, social and . . .

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Review | THROUGH GRATEFUL EYES: The Peace Corps Experiences of Dartmouth’s Class of 1967

  Through Grateful Eyes: The Peace Corps Experiences of Dartmouth’s Class of 1967 by Charles A. (Chuck) Hobbie (Korea 1968-71) — Compiler/Editor iUniverse Publisher 273 pages July 2022 $2.99 (Kindle); $39.99 (Paperback); $31.95 (Hardback) Reviewed by Evelyn Kohl LaTorre (Peru 1964-1966) • “Talk less and listen more.” “Accept the values of the population you’re working with.” “Adapt to being comfortable being uncomfortable.” These are a few of the sage learnings found in this 2 ½ pound, 8 1/2” x 11” tome that relates the Peace Corps experiences of 19 members of the Dartmouth class of 1967 and several of their spouses. All served in the Peace Corps in the late sixties and early seventies, and their exploits are a sampling of the 30 Dartmouth ’67 graduates who went on to join the Peace Corps. Their fascinating, and often humorous, stories are punctuated with 146 photos that show the youthful volunteers . . .

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The Volunteer Who Created Compelling Novels out of Her Family’s Oral History — Mildred Taylor (Ethiopia)

  by Jeremiah Norris (Colombia 1963-65)   Mildred Taylor served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ethiopia, 1965-67, after having graduated from University of Toledo in 1965. She was born in Jackson, Mississippi in 1943, and is the great-granddaughter of a former slave who was the son of an African-Indian woman and a white landowner. After returning to the U. S. following her Peace Corps experience, she earned a MA degree in journalism at the University of Colorado where she was instrumental in creating the Black Studies Program as a member of the Black Alliance. Mildred’s works are based on oral history, told to her by her father, uncles and aunt. She said that without her family, and especially without her father, her books “would not have been.” She’s stated that these anecdotes became very clear in her mind, and in fact, once she realized that adults talked about the . . .

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A LESION OF DISSENT by Karl Drobnic (Ethiopia)

  A Lesion of Dissent by Karl Drobnic (Ethiopia 1966-68) Self Published July 2011 216 pages $0.99 (Kindle)   A searing liaison in the sacred chambers of Egypt’s ancient pharaohs as Israeli warplanes rain down terror… frenzy and vengeance as rioting Arabs storm through the strafed streets… and Paul Rhodes’ journey of exile through post-colonial Africa and Asia has just begun. Buffeted by the smuggling, black market deception and patriotic fervor that marked those continents’ passages to independence in the tumultuous Sixties, Paul is impelled country by country to the wild counter-culture havens of San Francisco and a stunning, fateful confrontation with the military powers that stand between him and the woman he cannot forget.

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New books by Peace Corps writers | March–April 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 . . .

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One Day in Ethiopia

  This is a letter I wrote when I was a PCV in Ethiopia. It was published in the collection Letters From The Peace Corps in 1964, selected and edited by Iris Luce. She wrote in her introduction to her book. It was my good fortune one evening to be seated with the wife of Senator J. William Fulbright, whose daughter was working here in Washington at Peace Corps Headquarters. Mrs. Fulbright suggested that someone should compile a collection of letters from Peace Corps Volunteers in the field to give Americans a firsthand report on the triumphs and the hardships that these people have experienced while working in the Corps “One Day in Ethiopia” was a letter I had written home to my family and friends, several at the agency in Washington that Iris Luce found and included. In her introduction to the chapter, “One Day in Ethiopia,” she wrote: . . .

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A bike trip to Massawa, Eritrea and the Red Sea

  My first trip to Massawa was on a bike   by John Coyne (Ethiopia 1962–1964)   In January of 1963, my  group of PCVs to the Empire, some 280 + of us, assembled for a conference in Asmara. On the Friday between workshops, four of us: Tim Bodman, Charlie Michener, Ernie Fox, and myself — all Ethie Ones — decided to rent bikes for the 70-mile trip from Asmara  down the mountains, across the Danakil Desert, and to the shores of the Red Sea. None of us was stationed in Eritrea, so did we know the way to Massawa. We just knew it was downhill from Asmara, at an elevation of 7,628 ft., to the sea. Starting before sunrise we pedaled five miles to the edge of the mountains. At that level, we were above the billows of white and gray clouds that lay perfectly still, enclosed the valleys below and encased the rugged . . .

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