Bøger udgivet af Peace Corps Writers

Eighteen Peace Corps Volunteers who served in Eritrea share their fond experiences in this Horn of Africa country. Edited by Marian Haley Beil Contributing authors: Marianne Arieux, Mike Bannister, Leo Cecchini, Tom Cutler, Harold Freeman, Walt Galloway, Tom Gallagher, Cathie Hulder, Paul Huntsberger, Wayne Kessler, Cynthia Tse Kimberlin, Neil Kottler, Kurt Peterson, Joann Feldman Richards, Mary Gratiot Schultz, Lois Shoemaker, Judy Smith and Kate Yocum

Several years back, author/editor Jon Thiem mentioned to a young woman (with a Ph.D.) that in the late 1960s he had served with the Peace Corps in Ghana, West Africa. She thought he was referring to a United Nations Peace Keeping operation! The incident inspired him to compile this collection of letters. The passionate 60s were, famously, a time of disastrous war, bloody protest, and disturbing cultural innovation. In this context, Peace Corps became a symbol of hope-a desperate hope that peace and progress might replace government-imposed violence. Thousands of (mainly) young Peace Corps volunteers scattered throughout the world to carry out a variety of humanitarian projects. The body of letters that resulted is a rich but neglected legacy. From August 1968 to June 1970, Thiem was a Peace Corps volunteer in a village in the rain forest of southern Ghana. There he taught English literature at the district secondary school. Every two weeks or so, he sent letters and audio tapes to the States, describing his day-to-day impressions of Ghana-the miseries and splendors of life in the tropics. The letters of Thiem and two other U.S. volunteers offer raw, immediate impressions of the daily routines, hard living, and cross-cultural labyrinths experienced by teachers in a rural equatorial environment. Composed during Peace Corps service, they bear the living marks of their own genesis. These texts are not memoirs informed by hindsight, but naive testimonies, fresh and ignorant of the future, filled with astonishment. Thiem's SDS background gives this collection a lot of political content, which takes in U.S. Vietnam policy, dramatic government changes in Ghana, school politics, village power struggles, and controversies about Peace Corps' mission. The letters not only give fascinating pictures of the United States as seen through Ghanaian eyes (in an era of limited access to world news), but also show how U.S. volunteers in Ghana struggle to grasp the eruptions of civil conflict and violence at home. Peace Corps set in motion energetic and far-reaching development campaigns, yet its efforts were denounced by both the political right and the left (for reasons discussed in the Introduction and letters). Its mission and effectiveness remain controversial to this day. With some justification, Peace Corps volunteers have been called "secular missionaries." This edition of letters takes into account recent studies that challenge the methods, ideologies, and political motives underlying development programs like Peace Corps. Many of the letters highlight the troubling contradictions that arise when a humanitarian organization intervenes in a society whose purposes and norms differ from the project of modernity. And yet the letters also complicate some of the easy generalizations made in such criticisms, which at times underrepresent the achievements of the modernizers and the strong desire on the part of African leaders and their constituents to improve education and health care. Another strand in this book tracks the efforts of Thiem and his colleague "Ohene" Owoahene to collect and translate Asante poems, an endangered oral tradition. It is ironic that Thiem went to rural Ghana to encourage modern thinking, but ended up becoming spellbound by the mythical world of Asante court poetry, which celebrates the bloody deeds and magical powers of ancient kings. The letters by writers other than Thiem make this a truly polyphonic-sometimes cacophonic-collection. There are texts by other Peace Corps volunteers and by correspondents from the U.S. The voices of Ghanaian nationals-teachers, students, politicians, and villagers-are "heard" in the letters and transcribed audio tapes. Other distinctive features of Letters from Ghana are an incisive introduction and individual commentaries that situate the letters in their historical, geographical, and personal contexts. The book includes a map, glossary, timeline, and 29 photos.

Sixteen year old Willem Stoner and his father, together with other New York teamsters, are hired by Colonel Henry Knox to haul almost sixty cannons, some weighing more than a ton, on wagons and sleds 300 miles from Ft. Ticonderoga, New York to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the brutally cold winter of 1775-1776. The artillery is desperately needed by General Washington and the Continental Army, preparing to attack the British in Boston. At the beginning of the arduous trek, Will is befriended by Ensign Nathaniel Holmes of the Marblehead Mariners. Their friendship deepens as the "Noble Train of Artillery," struggles through snow drifts and storms, across the partially frozen Hudson River and over the Berkshire Mountains during a blizzard and on into Cambridge. Using ropes, chains and freshly cut trees as levers, Will and his companions hungry and poorly clothed against the harsh winter, battle to maneuver the massive cannons up steep inclines and to slow the wagons and sleds from running away on the precipitous icy downward slopes and crushing the drivers and their teams of horses and oxen. After the treacherous descent from the Berkshires, the caravan slogs through axle deep mud as the frozen roads thaw at the end of their fifty-day journey. Arriving in Cambridge, Will stays in the barracks with the Mariners who are serving as General Washington's Headquarters troops. He makes friends with Private Adam Cooper one of several African American soldiers, free men who enlisted in Colonel Glover's regiment along with other fishermen from Marblehead and Salem. When a race riot breaks out between the Mariners and some backwoods riflemen, Will finds himself in the midst of the melee, fighting alongside the Mariners. In the early morning hours of the sixth anniversary of the Boston Massacre, Washington's troops occupy Dorchester Heights, overlooking Boston and its harbor. Will, now assigned to Colonel Knox's artillery regiment, hauls a cannon up to the Heights and tensely awaits the assault by the battle tested and disciplined Redcoats and the feared Death's Head Cavalry. Later, on an exposed promontory overlooking the Boston Neck, he is caught in a fierce British artillery bombardment. When the British leave Boston, Will searches for his older brother, Johan who is apprenticed to a Boston merchant. After inquiring in the more respectable areas of the city, he wanders among the grog shops and taverns along the wharves. There, he makes a surprising discovery and is almost tarred and feathered as a Tory sympathizer. Will is rescued at the last minute by his friends in the Mariners and Knox's artillery. Through Will's experiences, this novel explores the divided loyalties that tore families apart and the motives of ordinary people taking up arms against King George. Unlike many historical novels that take substantial liberties with established facts, "Cannons for the Cause," is carefully researched. The End Notes include background information about the events described, different interpretations by prominent historians, and quotes from the historical figures' own correspondence. Original sources used are diaries, newspapers, gazettes and broadsheets. The historical figures emerge from under the cloak of hero worship and the fog of historical mythology as real people, not too unlike modern Americans in their doubts, concerns and aspirations. The fictional characters, based on solid research of those who actually lived through the tumultuous years of 1775-1776, add to the novel's historical authenticity.

These personal recollections of Guatemala III's volunteers reveal a variety of motives for their joining the Peace Corps. Conspicuous among them is the profound influence of President John F. Kennedy. Many members of the group responded to his challenge to, "Ask what you can do for your country." Section II of the book is devoted to the group's recollection of their service in Guatemala. Their "community development" projects scattered them throughout the country. Such projects varied greatly, but all were defined by the needs of the Guatemalans themselves. Financial backing was generally meager unless creative fund-raising measures were launched. Laborers were local people, often unpaid volunteers. Great challenges were faced; inconveniences, discomforts, and "culture shock" was endured. Group members relied upon one another for support, advice, encouragement, comfort, companionship and more. The book's last section offers the volunteers' impressions of the impact of their Peace Corps service on their later lives. For most, it was pivotal and life-shaping. Their perspectives on the world were broadened and deepened. An appreciation of their own society's freedoms, economic opportunities, scientific advancements, and creature comforts was gained. Most agree that they, not the Guatemalans, were the principal beneficiaries of the experience.

He approached me with some trepidation but also with a sense of urgency in his voice. He asked to close the door of my mud-brick house so that he could speak to me in private and was clearly nervous about the issue he wanted to discuss. With some hesitancy, he cautiously proceeded to ask his troubling question. "Was it possible for his friend to dig a well so deep that he would fall through the other side of the earth?" He waited for my response. Early in my two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I thought such questions were naïve and amusing. I soon realized that "real world" meant different things in different cultures. I had many interesting conversations and experiences and have captured a variety of them in Connecting Two Worlds. I lived in the Sahel region of French West Africa. This is a belt of hot, arid land that stretches a from Senegal in the west to the Sudan in the east forming a seamless boundary with the Sahara Desert. The encounters and connections I made have remained vividly alive for me forty years later as I piece together my experiences with the people and the environment then with our world now. Today, as we begin to experience greater uncertainty in ecosystem health and sustainability, as we begin to experience "peak" everything from oil to water, I have suddenly begun to see the convergence of two worlds that had once seemed so very far apart. Throughout Earth's history, nature has controlled the processes that manage species diversity, evolution and extinction with remarkable efficiency. These natural processes began to change with the onset of the Industrial Revolution and in the 200 years since. Resource depletion continues to worsen as growing consumption demands and nature's natural balance are disrupted by rapid population expansion. The world of nature has come under the assault of the world of humans. I have used the contrasting images of Earth and Mars to state the obvious. Visually, our planets are strikingly different. Some of the differences presented in Connecting Two Worlds may also be very obvious. The stories used from my life in sub-Saharan Africa show that what was strange and different to me so many years ago is not so obviously strange today. We may smile at the thought of someone thinking they could dig a well so deep as to be in danger of falling through the planet. We can no longer smile at the thought that Earth's environment is now at a precarious tipping point. When we were merely one billion inhabitants 200 years ago, we had abundant resources. Today, as our global population passes rapidly beyond seven billion, we are experiencing an array of challenges that is the direct result of our success as a species. Throughout the Sahel and in most other developing countries, subsistence determines what nourishment will be provided on any given day. There are no guarantees that tomorrow will be better than today. It will probably be worse. The drought conditions I experienced in Africa have arrived, unannounced, in Australia, in Texas and high in the Peruvian Andes. The factors that necessitated migration from the Sahara to the Sahel to urban areas to find a better and safer home are now encouraging illegal and dangerous cross-border migration along the entire US/Mexican border where the dangers are just as high-risk. The climate change that is contributing to rising ocean levels is no longer just a problem for Southeast Asia but is striking the heart of the Eastern United States. New islands are actively being formed in the Pacific Ocean - not just from volcanic eruptions deep below the ocean surface but from the millions of pounds of discarded plastic that swirl endlessly throughout the numerous ocean gyres. The planet must now awaken to a new urgency of sustainability. Sustainable living may soon become our final strategy for getting things right. "The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones." John Maynard Keynes

Strap yourself in for a wild ride!"Dodging Machetes" is sometimes dramatic and thrilling, other times flat-out funny. And it's always compelling!Will Lutwick, a quirky misfit, gets an MBA at 22, but soon realizes he and the American corporate world are a horrid mismatch. He joins the Peace Corps and is sent to the Fiji Islands, the quintessential tropical paradise. Will finds himself attracted to prohibited pulchritude when Rani Gupta, a beautiful, rebellious 20-year-old from a traditional Hindu family, begins working in his office. Dating is taboo in Fiji's large Indian community, and an interracial couple would be unprecedented. But Rani and Will soon discover their mutual attraction impossible to resist. Their liaison is clandestine, but word gets out, and a cultural firestorm engulfs Rani's community. The two lovers are under constant threat of attack, and violence ensues. Will must confront his personal demons about courage and commitment, while Rani is treated like a pariah by her people. Will the besieged lovers stay together, or will a hostile world tear them apart? In between the dramatic scenes, this serio-comic memoir is savvy and often hilarious. Lutwick deliciously skewers his own behavior and satirizes the people, practices, and protocols he encounters in Fiji and in backstory about his youth.Will Lutwick has woven his provocative insight with the dramatic events of a singular, but timeless, forbidden-love story. The result is "Dodging Machetes"-a story-driven page-turner from an exceptional writer.

The Early Years of Peace Corps in Afghanistan: A Promising Time, by Frances Hopkins Irwin and Will A. Irwin, February 2014 In 1962, nine U.S. Peace Corps volunteers arrived in Kabul. Half a century later, at a critical moment of transition in Afghanistan, this book describes what Peace Corps Volunteers learned during the Cold War about how diversity among peoples can be used to enrich cultures, rather than homogenize or destroy them. Before Peace Corps left Afghanistan in 1979, 1650 volunteers had experienced slices of a rapidly changing Afghanistan. This is the story of the first four years, how, under the guidance of first director Robert L Steiner, the volunteers learned to work within Afghan culture and overcame the initial skepticism of Afghans and the Kabul international community, and how by 1966 Peace Corps had grown from a cautious start with five English teachers, three nurses, and a mechanic all in Kabul to 200 volunteers working in all parts of Afghanistan. Fran and Will Irwin frame the story around conversations with Bob Steiner, who brought his ability to speak Persian and his experience growing up and working as a U.S. cultural affairs officer in Iran to building the Peace Corps program in Afghanistan. They draw on their own experience as volunteers, the recollections of other volunteers and staff members, and materials from personal and public records. The book includes 80 pages of writing by volunteers in Afghanistan for now hard-to-find 1960s publications as well as two dozen photographs and a discussion of sources. "The authors have prepared a book of historic significance for the Peace Corps." Foreword by Saif R. Samady, former Deputy Minister of Education in Afghanistan "What makes this book a must-read-for Afghans, Americans, and others interested in international cooperation-is that it provides an example of an appreciated and cost-effective aid program, one that worked." Nour Rahimi, former Editor of the Kabul Times "A Promising Time is thus an essential work for anyone interested in the history of American/Afghan relations." Carl H. Klaus, Founding Director, University of Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program

A superb collection of stories and anecdotes by Peace Corps Volunteers in Gabon, Africa.

After two years as an early Peace Corps volunteer teacher in Liberia, one woman's five decade effort to learn about and to educate Americans about African peoples and countries.

A Legacy of America's Global Volunteerism: International Voluntary Services 1953-2002 explores the philosophical and organizational growth of international volunteerism. The book describes the International Voluntary Services, Inc. (IVS) innovative use of volunteers in relief and development projects and the challenges faced in both its public-private partnerships and field operations. Analysis of impacts and lessons from IVS's fifty-year lifespan may provide guidance for future international voluntary service institutions and programs. Volunteers' personal stories highlight issues inherent in international development and volunteerism. Section I, History of International Voluntary Services, Inc., covers events from the start of IVS in 1953 to its closure in 2002. Described are programs initiated by the U.S. Government and private organizations that engaged American volunteers in development and relief activities worldwide. Initially focused on sensitive areas of the Middle East and Indochina, IVS programs expanded and internationalized throughout the Global South. Section II, Volunteer Experiences And Impacts, describes the wide-ranging experiences of individual volunteers and the challenges of evaluating the impact of volunteer programs. Section III, International Voluntary Services Partners, identifies partnership programs ranging from "Peace Church" volunteer programs that inspired IVS, to recent U.S. Government volunteer initiatives, and the formation of the U. S. Peace Corps. Section IV, Implications and Questions for Future International Volunteerism, analyzes lessons learned from the IVS experience and their implications for future international volunteer activities. The author of the book's first chapter, entitled IVS Origins and Early Years, is a former Peace Corps volunteer; the following chapters were written by IVS alumni and professionals in the field of volunteerism who frame the IVS experience in the context of a broader international development picture. Individual volunteer stories throughout the book describe the challenges they faced and their wide-ranging successes and failures. The book highlights the dramatic changes throughout the world during the second half of the Twentieth Century and how these changes impacted international volunteerism. It concludes that international volunteerism remains relevant today, as reflected in the Peace Corps, which has had 241,000 volunteers serving in 143 countries since 1961.

"She lives in a thatch-roofed hut with no electricity. She bathes in a river and beats her clothes on a rock. She single-handedly fends off tarantulas. And every night, Peace Corps Volunteer Nancy Heil writes about these adventures in letters to God. She initially sets out on her journey to "save the world;" what she doesn't realize is that God actually designed the experience to rescue her. Through intimate first-person accounts, Woven invites you to accompany Nancy on her pilgrimage into the jungles of Belize, where she will introduce you to the beautiful Mayan families she comes to love. Through Nancy's reflections, you will breathe in the captivating beauty of the K'ekchi Maya culture, face the loneliness caused by separation from loved ones, and witness the building of the village's first-ever library. Journey with her as she struggles to maintain her former relationships --- especially with her college sweetheart, Dan Wagner --- and watch as God gently "untangles" an ordinary girl and weaves for her an extraordinary tale of adventure, romance, and true friendship"--

"The poems in Strange Beauty of the World invite readers to reflect on the ways the past impinges on the present, how events long ago continue to inform who we are now; to consider acts taken and not taken, and the way actions have unintended consequences; to bear witness to cruelty and injustice; to summon the creative imagination to resist the mundane, challenge the rehearsed response. In particular, they pay homage to beauty, and its weird, wonderful diversity and expression"--

Frontier Cabin Story is a rare architectural biography of a long-forgotten 18th-century log farmhouse in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Joseph Goss digs into the origins of his ancient home to discover its age and first owner. After months of painstaking detective work, he finds the holy grail of his search. Along the way, the author creates an enthralling story about an unknown frontier house and gives it context by weaving it into the sweep of the region's history from colonial times to the present. Colorful characters from the families of the house's earliest owners populate the story and act on the stages of the French and Indian, Revolutionary, and the Civil Wars. They even take us out to the Osage Nation in Missouri and to Mexico. The women, in particular, reveal themselves in striking detail through never-before-published personal letters from primary sources. Besides stories of the early owners, Goss uncovers tales-some humorous, some gruesome-from the lives of the farmhouse's tenants. Glimpses of slavery surface from multiple historical documents. The author recounts the physical history of the log house in generous detail, tracking changes to it over 240 years. This unique book features 28 illustrations, including maps, drawings, and photographs. Comprehensive footnotes substantiate the author's research. Appendices put forth deed extracts and family trees. An extensive index completes the volume. Frontier Cabin Story adds a new dimension to the investigation of little-known historical houses, not only in West Virginia but in other regions too. Goss aspires not merely to tell his venerable old house's story but to convince future owners to value and preserve it. On a larger scale, he hopes this book will inspire others to prize age-old dwellings and to listen to their voices by showing the wealth of material they too can discover about them.

Some were paid. Some felt compelled by a duty to God. Some volunteered. Some died doing it. All flew on rickety old aircraft into a nighttime, wartime patch of African forest called Biafra. Far Away in the Sky gives the personal account of one of them, a young American volunteer who joined the largest civilian humanitarian relief airlift ever attempted. In 1968 millions of people, mostly children, were starving due to a military blockade of Biafra, the former Eastern Region of Nigeria. The World Council of Churches and Caritas International mounted a relief airlift. Flying at night to avoid Nigerian MiGs, without radar or any modern navigational aids, landing amid bombs on a stretch of road in the rain forest, the old planes delivered thousands of tons of food and medicines. UNICEF recruited six former United States Peace Corps Volunteers, including the author, to help unload the planes. The former volunteers had served in Nigeria and were familiar with the area and the people. To David Koren the people of Biafra, his former students and fellow teachers, constituted his motive for joining the airlift. "Sometimes after unloading our planes in the dark, we evacuated children in the final stages of starvation. One boy, lying limp on a mat near the plane, looked up at me in the gloom and said, 'My father, why don't you speak to me? Don't you know me?' As he was about to pass into eternity he felt that no one - not his father, not God, no one - knew who he was. He survived. He grew up to be a successful adult. He has a name. Nearly a half a century later, because I wrote Far Away in the Sky, I learned his name. Now I want you to know his name." More than the story of a daring humanitarian rescue, this book reveals the astonishing future of the rescued children and their descendants.