Peru

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New books by Peace Corps writers | July through August, 2024
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GARDENS OF PLENTY by Ron Arias (Peru)
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New books by Peace Corps writers | March — April 2024
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GARDENS OF PLENTY by Ron Arias (Peru)
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John McAuliff (Peru) | People of the Year Awards Winner
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“RPCVs discover cohousing” by Evelyn Kohl LaTorre (Peru)
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Review | THROUGH GRATEFUL EYES: The Peace Corps Experiences of Dartmouth’s Class of 1967
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Cornell University revisits Vicos, Peru
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Charlie Clifford (Peru) — Creator of TUMI Luggage
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Peace Corps Evacuates Its Volunteers From Peru
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The Peace Corps pulls out of Peru
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Jessica Onsurez (Peru) Takes Over the Las Cruces Sun-News (Peru)
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Review — TRIAL AND ERROR by Lawrence Licht (Peru)
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Review of LOVE IN ANY LANGUAGE by Evelyn LaTorre (Peru)
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Sweet William (Peru) publishes JFK & RFK MADE ME DO IT: 1960–1968

New books by Peace Corps writers | July through August, 2024

New books —  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 maybe  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. PLEASE, PLEASE  join in our Third Goal effort and volunteer to review a book or books!!!   Songs of Mali by Ruth Gooley (Mali 1980-81) Peace Corps Writers May 2024 102 pages $15.00 (paperback) Songs of Mali . . .

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GARDENS OF PLENTY by Ron Arias (Peru)

Kirkus review — BY RON ARIAS ‧ MARCH 18, 2024 An action-packed and historically rich novel with a compelling lead character. In Ron Arias’  (Peru 1963-64)  novel set in the 16th century, a teenage orphan signs up as a ship’s boy on the Mynion, a British trading ship headed for the West Indies. Joseph Fields is 13 years old in 1567, when he flees the orphanage where he’s lived since his parents and sister succumbed to the plague two years ago. His father was a scrivener, as was his father before him, and Joseph learned the skill at his dad’s knee. He gets a job on a trading ship and sails away from England with only three significant possessions: his mother’s wooden spoon, her comb for removing lice and nits, and his father’s penknife, which has a cryptic engraving on the handle. Each will prove to be invaluable on his dangerous journey. . . .

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

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GARDENS OF PLENTY by Ron Arias (Peru)

  Gardens of Plenty by Ron Arias (Peru 1963-64) Peace Corps Writers March 2023 333 pages $9.99 (Kindle), $19.99 (Hardcover), $16.99 (paperback)  • • •  In  Gardens of Plenty, Ron Arias immerses readers in a 16th-century world that is both mysterious and magical, exploring the rich culture of “Amexica” with a tenderness that is both persuasive and captivating. Following the publication of his previous work, The Wetback and Other Stories, which earned praise from Paul Theroux for providing a compassionate glimpse into an adjacent neighborhood, Arias continues his literary journey with this epic work of historical fiction. A seasoned writer and author with a diverse bibliography, Arias brings his narrative talent to Gardens of Plenty, providing a deeply sensitive, first-person account of one man’s early years in the New World. Drawing on his nomination for a National Book Award with The Road To Tamazunchalc, and his skill in crafting truc survival sagas . . .

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John McAuliff (Peru) | People of the Year Awards Winner

  John McAuliff (Peru 1964-66) is Executive Director and Founder of the Fund for Reconciliation & Development, and has been a lifelong activist in student, civil rights, and peace movements. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Peru. In 1985, he founded the Fund for Reconciliation and Development to achieve normal US diplomatic, educational, cultural, and economic relations with post-war Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. After that was achieved in the late 1990s, he changed the primary focus of the organization to obtaining similar normal US relations with Cuba, working especially in policy, travel, and educational and cultural exchange. The Times Review Media Group, publisher of The Suffolk Times, Riverhead News-Review, Shelter Island Reporter, Northforker and Southforker, recently gave John McAuliff one of its annual People of the Year Awards. John has been working since the early 1960s to promote reconciliation and healing and build commonality all over the world. John . . .

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“RPCVs discover cohousing” by Evelyn Kohl LaTorre (Peru)

  What is it about Cohousing Communities that attract so many RPCVs to live in some of the 200 cohousing developments in the US? Scores of  Returned Peace Corps Volunteers have joined this growing movement toward a friendly, community-oriented, democratic lifestyle?  They gravitate to these purposeful neighborhoods designed for human interaction after having resided for two years in developing countries. Mission Peak Village cohousing For example, one-third of the current members of Mission Peak Village Cohousing (MPV) in Fremont, California (missionpeakcohousing.org) are RPCVs who joined other like-minded people and purchased 1.25 acres in the suburban setting, 25 miles south of San Francisco. They are designing the kind of supportive neighborhood of singles, families, and elders where they hope to live for the rest of their lives. “I didn’t understand what the word “community” meant until I was assigned to a village on a small island,” says Maria, who was in . . .

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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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Cornell University revisits Vicos, Peru

  Cornell was involved with the community of Vicos, Peru in the ’50s and the ’60s.  Decades later, the Vicos community invited Cornell University to return and evaluate what happened with the  Cornell innovations after so many years.  In the sixties, Cornell University also trained Peace Corps Volunteers to work in Peru.  I believe this report should be a model for all RPCVs and Peace Corps staff.  It simply, at the request of the host community, reviews and reports what worked and what did not.  That is what, I believe, Peace Corps should do. A half-century later, Cornell revisits a small Andean village By Bill Steele July 23, 2009 More than 50 years ago, a Cornell mission to a small village in the Andes introduced social changes that made a profound improvement in the life of the village. Today, echoes of that mission are still visible and may help the community . . .

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Charlie Clifford (Peru) — Creator of TUMI Luggage

  Charlie Clifford (Peru 1967-69)  started TUMI in 1975, after working as a marketing director for an industrial equipment subsidiary of a large food retailer. It takes its name from a Peruvian icon known to Charlie from his Peace Corps days. Charlie says, “I was married in the Peace Corps. We had two terrific years in Peru, traveling throughout South America. I grew personally an enormous amount. I came back and worked in industrial marketing for about four years. Then I invested in a small entrepreneurial company and began covering the eastern region for sales for a company that was doing handcrafted products from South America. He left that after a year or two to found Tumi with a partner as an importer of leather bags from Colombia with a total investment of $10,000. TUMI’s innovative introduction of soft, ultra-functional, black-on-black ballistic nylon travel bags catapulted the company to its . . .

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Peace Corps Evacuates Its Volunteers From Peru

As Political Crisis Worsens Natalia Ningthoujam / Feb 01 2023, Peru’s President Dina Boluarte called for a “national truce” as thousands of protesters continued to call for her to resign. Photo by: AFP/Ernesto Benavides   Peru has been facing a political crisis that has included deadly crackdowns by its government on its citizens. Now, the Peace Corps has evacuated its volunteers from the South American country. The relocation was confirmed by Troy Blackwell, who is a spokesperson for the Peace Corps, reported Politico. Without revealing the destination, he said that Peace Corps/Peru has “temporarily evacuated all volunteers to another Peace Corps post.” He shared that the safety, as well as well-being of Peace Corps volunteers, is their “top priority.” They are closely monitoring the “security situation with local partners on the ground and the U.S. Embassy in Lima.” A source said that the volunteers are headed to the Peace Corps post in Ecuador. This . . .

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The Peace Corps pulls out of Peru

January 30 2023  The Peace Corps has evacuated its Volunteers from Peru amid a political crisis that has included deadly crackdowns by the government on its citizens. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Jim Risch (R-ID) released the following statement regarding the ongoing political violence in Peru. The decision comes after weeks of popular unrest against a government that has taken over following a failed December coup attempt by a Peruvian president facing impeachment. The South American country has had a politically tumultuous few years, cycling through several presidents amid various corruption and other scandals. Peace Corps volunteers often work in areas far from national capitals and with less immediate protections than U.S. diplomats — meaning they are sometimes the first group of U.S. workers to be evacuated when unrest hits.

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Jessica Onsurez (Peru) Takes Over the Las Cruces Sun-News (Peru)

  Damien Willis — Las Cruces Sun-News LAS CRUCES – Jessica Onsurez, the news director of the Carlsbad Current-Argus, Alamogordo Daily News and Ruidoso News, has taken over the news operations at the Las Cruces Sun-News, effective Monday, Jan. 1. She takes over for Lucas Peerman, who has been at the newspaper since December 2004. Peerman has served in multiple roles at the Sun-News and has been the paper’s news director since 2017. He is leaving for a position within the newly created digital team at the Albuquerque Journal. Jessica Onsurez was born and raised in Loving, New Mexico, in the eastern part of the state. After graduating from Loving High School, she earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism at Eastern New Mexico University. She worked for a time in Washington, D.C., in the U.S. Senate for then-Sen. Pete Domenici. She later worked for a nonprofit organization while pursuing her master’s degree at American University. After that, she . . .

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Review — TRIAL AND ERROR by Lawrence Licht (Peru)

  Trial And Error (poetry and photography) Lawrence E. Licht (Peru 1963–65) Independently published April 2022 40 pages $15 [plus shipping to the USA, $6-10] (paperback), Contact the author Reviewed by Bill Preston (Thailand 1977-80)  • The array of living forms is staggering, diversity incomprehensible in real terms. A description of even one is like holding the wind with open palm. So begins poet and photographer Larry Licht’s slim and noteworthy book, Trial and Error. Minimalist in design, the book features a series of two-page spreads, arranged in corresponding pages of poetry and photographs. As the poetic opening lines express, ordinary language seems insufficient to describe the natural world in its multitude of diverse forms. Perhaps a more satisfying approach, Licht suggests, is to explore nature’s exquisite intricacy via metaphor and image. Fittingly, each of his twenty spreads is a kind of meditation in words and images on facets of . . .

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Review of LOVE IN ANY LANGUAGE by Evelyn LaTorre (Peru)

  Love in Any Language: A Memoir of a Cross-Cultural Marriage by Evelyn Kohl LaTorre (Peru 1964-66) She Writes Press 320 pages September 2021 $9.95 (Kindle); $16.95 (Paperback)   Reviewed by Mark D. Walker (Guatemala 1971-73) • I have a soft spot for books written by tough, honest women who bring an inner sense of who they are and what’s different and unusual around them. I also appreciate simply told memoirs from fellow travelers, especially Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. As I told the author, her timing couldn’t be better (the book drops later this month), since my Guatemalan wife and I are closing in on our 50th anniversary, making this an opportune time for me to appreciate, reflect and celebrate our matrimonial journey and what makes for a successful blended marriage. I’ve already reviewed the author’s most recent book, Between Inca Wall, and according to the president of the National . . .

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Sweet William (Peru) publishes JFK & RFK MADE ME DO IT: 1960–1968

  In this fast-paced, fact-packed memoir of The Sixties, a veteran social activist (WM Evensen Peru 1964-66) recalls the idealism of the Kennedy Brothers’ push for peace and how it shaped him and others to become peacemakers. With eloquent words the brothers laid out their peace agenda — from JFK’s call in 1960 to join the New Frontier to RFK’s “End the War” Presidential Campaign of 1968.   In June of 1963, JFK’s “Strategy of Peace” speech given in response to the nuclear-war standoff with Russia, motivated a recently graduated UCLA couple to volunteer for the Peace Corps. They were assigned to serve in Peru. This richly informed memoir documents how these two Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs), and others, made a difference in U.S. international relations in ways that money could never buy.  The emotional heart of this book is the emergence of RFK. Following his 1964 election to the U.S. . . .

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