Ghana – Peace Corps Worldwide

Review — YOU TRY PAA by Cynthia Ann Caul (Ghana)

Apr 26 2024

You Try Paa: A Love Song in Translation Cynthia Ann Caul (Ghana 2008–10) Independently published 88 pages $9.99 (paperback), $6.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Dan Campbell ( El Salvador 1974 –77 • • • Cynthia Ann Caul’s You Try Paa offers readers a poetic journey through her experiences as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ghana. The book weaves a tapestry of encounters and insights, embodying the spirit of adventure and human connection. Through her poetic narratives, Caul captures the essence of Ghanaian culture with an authenticity and affection that can only stem from genuine engagement and respectful curiosity. The title “You Try Paa” reflects a common phrase in Ghana that expresses encouragement and acknowledgment of one’s efforts. This encapsulates Caul’s experiences in Ghana — constantly learning, adapting, and trying, even amidst challenges. The poems are structured around various themes such as community, resilience, cultural exchanges, and personal growth, each telling a story . . .

FEUD’s Truman Capote by Larry Grobel (Ghana)

Mar 16 2024

In the news — Feud’s Truman Capote Doesn’t Shine Like the Man I Knew Yes, he was a lonely, tormented alcoholic at the end, but he was also a riveting dinner companion and a transcendent writer. by Lawrence Grobel (Ghana 1968-71) Vanity Fair March 13, 2024 Capote does his version of a fan dance to the disco beat at Studio A minute before the Today show’s cameras rolled in February 1985, Jane Pauley smiled and said, “I’ll begin by asking you about Truman’s hate list.” My own smile disappeared, and my eyes widened in fright. I was about to go on national television to promote my first book, Conversations with Capote, and she wanted me to talk about some of the two thousand people Truman Capote claimed to have on his “hate list.” In the seconds before the camera’s red light turned green, my mind whirred through some of those people, and I didn’t feel . . .

New books by Peace Corps writers | November — December 2023

Jan 01 2024

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 . . .

The Death of RPCV Arnold Zeitlin (Ghana)

Dec 29 2023

Arnold Stanley Zeitlin passed away peacefully in his sleep on December 26, 2023 in Fairfax, Virginia. Born on January 13, 1932, Arnold was nearly 92 years old. He was blessed throughout his life with the love and support of his many family members and broad network of friends and colleagues. Arnold Zeitlin (Ghana 1961– 63) was a correspondent for more than 30 years, and bureau chief of The Associated Press, assigned to West Africa, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and the Philippines. For UPI, he served as vice president and managing director of the Asia-Pacific division, based in Hong Kong. From 1998 to 2001, he served as director of the Asian Center of The Freedom Forum, a nonprofit foundation devoted to news media issues. In 2001, he founded Editorial Research and Reporting Associates, Inc., which consults news media and journalism educators primarily in Asia in support of the First Amendment to . . .

REVIEW | HUSTLE: THE MAKING OF A FREELANCE WRITER by Lawrence Grobel (Ghana)

Dec 11 2023

HUSTLE: The Making of a Freelance Writer by Lawrence Grobel (Ghana 1968-71) Independently Published 358 pages August 2023 $19.95 (Paperback), $5.99 (Kindle) reviewed by Rita Settimo • This is a fascinating collection of pieces written over Lawrence Grobel’s entire career, starting back when he was 15 and won a writing contest sponsored by Newsday, and got to meet Robert Kennedy when he was the Attorney General. Reflecting on his life as a freelance writer, even he’s amazed that he managed to survive for six decades. He writes instructively about all the pitfalls and the difficulties of freelancing, including the rejections, and the need to persevere and believe in yourself. He includes and discusses the articles, essays, and interviews that allowed him to keep on going. Whether it was that first published essay, or his first magazine profile about an African sculptor from Ghana written when he was a Peace Corps Volunteer, . . .

New books by Peace Corps writers | July–August 2023

Sep 04 2023

HUSTLE: The Making of a Freelance Writer by Lawrence Grobel (Ghana)

Aug 15 2023

HUSTLE: The Making of a Freelance Writer by Lawrence Grobel (Ghana 1968-71) Independently Published 358 pages August 2023 $19.95 Paperback Lawrence Grobel writes: Freelancers are people willing to take risks, willing to gamble that they can succeed without a steady paycheck. Most of the people I’ve written about have had the confidence to believe in themselves, and most can point to how they maneuvered down precarious and uncertain paths. In my career as a freelance writer, I’ve had moments of doubt. I’ve suffered rejections and cancellations. But there were crossroads along the way that allowed me to continue pursuing my dream of working for myself, doing what I wanted to do, and figuring out how to survive. Freelancing is a lifestyle. In preparing this book, I marvel at how I somehow managed to avoid all the pitfalls and not drown in pessimism. When Alfred Hitchcock, Leonard Bernstein, and Fred . . .

2023 Winner of Peace Corps Writers Award for Best Peace Corps Memoir

Jul 22 2023

Turquoise: Three Years in Ghana A Peace Corps Memoir by Lawrence Grobel Ghana (1968-71) • In 1968, Larry Grobel did the party-hardy at the Aboakyere festival in Ghana, a “crazy, wild stoned-out freaky affair! People filling the streets like army ants around a carcass. No space left uncovered, dancing, drumming, singing and chanting, laughing and shouting, moving, jumping, throwing flags, waving swords, guzzling beer, pito, palm wine and akpeteshe, chewing kola nuts, smoking wee,’ celebrating the way a festival should be celebrated: up high and out of sight!” Grobel, then twenty-one, thought he was going to Guyana as a Peace Corps Volunteer. He misread; he was sent to Ghana. The names started with ‘G’ and ended in ‘ana’. One was in South America, the other in West Africa. Didn’t matter, as long as it wasn’t Vietnam, as he explains in his most recent memoir, Turquoise. He opposed the Vietnam War. Turquoise is a panoply of vignettes . . .

Review | GOATS: AND OTHER STORIES by Martin Ganzglass (Somalia)

Apr 30 2023

Goats: And Other Stories Martin R. Ganzglass (Somalia 1966–68) Peace Corps Writers 2021 305 pages $10.00 (paperback) Reviewed by Regina DeAngelo (Ghana 2000-2002) • At age 76, Allison Murphy has found herself widowed and living at a home for retired military personnel in a suburb near Washington. In addition to the usual nuisances of aging, Allie has recently taken a fall on a throw rug. This placed her square in the crosshairs of the administration, who are monitoring her from the newly installed security cameras, as well as through the eyes of the smiley guard at reception, in case she takes another tumble. Then there’s her nemesis, Sergeant Trottman, who’d like to see her and her attitude assigned to the Memory Ward. Amid the mini dramas of life in a retirement home, Allie’s own story unfolds. Fifty years ago, we learn, Allie was flying fighter planes: “nimble P-51s and . . .

“Every Christmas in Ghana”

Dec 24 2022

Every Christmas, all around Ghana, there are tons of these parties and they are full of everything that exists in human life in Ghana and worldwide. by Kathleen Ryan (Ghana 1969-71) The first year I was in Ghana and Christmas was approaching I was a bit sad. It was my first Christmas away from home. The decorations from my mother helped, but I still missed being there until one night still bright in my memory drawer. I was lying in bed under my scratchy blanket. It was cold, harmattan cold. The night air was clear. The stars were so many everything seemed to shine. All of sudden I heard a boy singing We Three Kings. I didn’t know where he was. I figured he was in one of the compounds close to my school, and the night air was carrying his voice to me. He sang every stanza. He brought . . .

Larry Grobel remembers Atar (Ghana)

Jul 17 2022

When I taught at the Institute of Journalism in Accra, Ghana (1968-71), I lived on the top floor of a duplex that came with an extra room behind the house. The room was there if I wanted a houseboy. I didn’t want a houseboy, but when my language teacher came to visit, he explained that he knew many young men who needed housing, and so I agreed to give the room to someone he knew and trusted. That is how Atar entered my life. Over the next three years, Atar and I became close. I visited his village, traveled with him to schools for the blind and the deaf, went to some historical landmarks, and to a fetish ceremony. He taught me how to play board and card games. He shared his life stories with me. When I had completed my Peace Corps service I arranged with my parents . . .

Review — MY VIEW FROM THE HOUSE BY THE SEA by Donna Marie Barr (Samoa)

May 09 2022

My View from the House by the Sea Donna Marie Barr (Samoa 2007-2008) Independently published February 2022 (paperback), December 2021 (Kindle) 415 pages $15.99 (paperback), $7.99 (Kindle) Reviewed by Regina DeAngelo (Ghana 2000-2002) • When the average person imagines a Peace Corps experience, they might picture a red-dirt landscape in a forsaken locale. But some RPCVs get to tell a different story, of perhaps a palm-lined, tropical idyll, set beside a clear aqua sea. This is the spot on which a 57-year-old retiree named Donna Marie Barr found herself with Peace Corps “Samoa Group 78” in of June 2007. Like many PCVs who join later than in their youth (myself included), Barr took a circuitous route to a place she’d always wanted to go. After a service in the Air Force, raising three sons, and a career in real estate management, Barr found herself starting over in her mid-fifties . . .

Review — TURQUOISE: Three Years in Ghana: A Peace Corps Memoir by Lawrence Grobel

Mar 12 2022

Turquoise: Three Years in Ghana: A Peace Corps Memoir by Lawrence Grobel (Ghana 1968-71) HMH Press 384 pages January 2022 $9.00 (Kindle); $ 20.00 (Paperback) Reviewed by Stephen Foehr (Ethiopia 1965-67) • In 1968, Larry Grobel did the party-hardy at the Aboakyere festival in Ghana, a “crazy, wild stoned-out freaky affair! People filling the streets like army ants around a carcass. No space left uncovered, dancing, drumming, singing and chanting, laughing and shouting, moving, jumping, throwing flags, waving swords, guzzling beer, pito, palm wine and akpeteshe, chewing kola nuts, smoking wee,’ celebrating the way a festival should be celebrated: up high and out of sight!” Grobel, then twenty-one, thought he was going to Guyana as a Peace Corps Volunteer. He misread; he was sent to Ghana. The names started with ‘G’ and ended in ‘ana’. One was in South America, the other in West Africa. Didn’t matter, as long as . . .

TURQUOISE: Three Years in Ghana by Lawrence M. Grobel

Feb 04 2022

The ’60s was a turbulent time in America. It was the Age of Aquarius but also the age of domestic conflict among those who supported the Vietnam War and those who opposed it–particularly the young men being drafted to fight it. For some, there was a better way to serve their country: the Peace Corps. An idealistic venture that kept the Hounds of War at bay. And that’s what led Lawrence Grobel to Ghana, a country he knew absolutely nothing about, located 6000 miles away on the Gold Coast of West Africa. Turquoise is based on the memoir he wrote while teaching at the Institute of Journalism in Accra, the capital city, and traveling throughout Ghana and West Africa. It’s a brilliant collection of snapshots, detailing everything he experienced in real time, from embarrassing cocktail talk at the American Embassy to witnessing fetish ceremonies and meeting hustlers, con men, artists, . . .

Being First: A Memoir of Ghana I — Robert Klein

May 16 2021

by Robert Klein (Ghana 1962–63) Maiatico Mafia On March 2, 1961, the Peace Corps staff, like determined squatters, took over the offices formerly occupied by the International Cooperative Agency. Shriver took more than desks and offices from ICA. Led by Warren Wiggins, a group of ICA officers had joined Peace Corps staff. Some of the early participants gave descriptions of the chaotic character of the beginning and Shriver’s role as ringmaster. Harris Wofford, Kennedy’s special assistant on civil rights, as well as an advisor to Shriver on the establishment of the Peace Corps, recalled early discussions on the establishment of the agency, that the Peace Corps not do any projects directly but that they be contracted out to universities and other agencies. “There was not much chance of that with Shriver running an agency. Sargent Shriver clearly tended toward a fast-moving, hard-hitting, core, central organization. He put enormous weight . . .