Download or read book I Miss the Rain in Africa written by Nancy Wesson and published by Modern History Press. This book was released on 2021-05-01 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a time when her friends were planning cushy retirements, Nancy Wesson instead walked away from a comfortable life and business to head out as a Peace Corps Volunteer in post-war Northern Uganda. She embraced wholeheartedly the grand adventure of living in a radically different culture, while turning old skills into wisdom. Returning home becomes a surreal experience in trying to reconcile a life that no longer “fits.” This becomes the catalyst for new revelations about family wounds, mystical experiences, and personal foibles. Nancy shows us the power of stepping into the void to reconfigure life and enter the wilderness of the uncharted territory of our own memories and psyche, to mine the gems hidden therein. Funny, heartbreaking, insightful and tender, I Miss the Rain in Africa is the story of honoring the self, discovering a new lens through which to view life, and finding joy along the path. "Inspiring and educational when it comes to what we can accomplish when we put our best foot forward, I Miss the Rain in Africa shows how Nancy Daniel Wesson and others are putting the needs of others ahead of themselves-and what we can all do when it comes to stepping out on faith and choosing to act." -- Cyrus Webb, media personality and author, Conversations Magazine "I would think that many of us could learn or strive to live life to the fullest by following Nancy's example. Imagine venturing into new realms-especially at a later time in life when we possess meaningful knowledge for analyzing, but also for applying a critical philosophical perspective on new experiences." --Gary Vizzo, former management & operations director, Peace Corps Community Development: African and Asia "I Miss the Rain in Africa is an absorbing record of the exploration of self by a woman who, at age 64, enters a remote area of Africa to work with an NGO. Part adventure, part interior monologue, this is an account of a 21st century derring-do by an intrepid, intriguing and always optimistic woman who will, undoubtedly, enjoy a fourth and maybe even a fifth act wherever she may find herself." --Eileen Purcell, outreach literacy coordinator, Clatsop Community College, Astoria, Oregon "Wesson offers a montage of stories and experiences that introduces the reader to the colorful people and challenging life in Uganda. Wesson's observations are shared with humor, respect, and compassion. For anyone who has ever wondered what serving in Peace Corps or immersing oneself in a radically different life overseas might be like, this book provides a portal." --Kathleen Willis, Retired Peace Corps Volunteer-Community Organizer, former organizational development consultant Learn more at www.NancyWesson.com

Download or read book No Hurry in Africa written by Theresa Munanga and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2010-08-18 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you ever dreamed about joining the Peace Corps? Unemployed and aching to really make a difference in the world, Theresa Munanga applied to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer. When she left for her assignment in Kenya, she had no idea what the three years from 2004-2007 would hold. No Hurry in Africa follows the author as she teaches computer skills to Kenyans, some of whom have never seen a computer before, in areas where electricity comes and goes, and where four computers serve to teach up to forty students per class. Riveting journal entries and emails home introduce Kenya as a beautiful country, yet a country of contrasts: where people walk miles out of their way to direct you to your destination. Where men can have multiple wives. Where women wash clothes by hand and carry babies on their backs. A country with friendly, hard working people, but also a country with a lack of safe drinking water, poverty, corruption, and less than adequate medical services in the remote areas.

Download or read book Service Disrupted written by Tyler E. Lloyd and published by . This book was released on 2017-07-25 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Peace Corps in Malawi written by and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 4 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Tubob written by Mary E. Trimble and published by Sheltergraphics. This book was released on 2012-08-01 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tubob: Two Years in West Africa with the Peace Corps is a memoir of a newly married couple who discover themselves in new light as they work and learn about the culture in a third-world country. They find strength and frustration trying to make a difference. Caught up in a military coup, they seek refuge in a house with 116 other people and wonder if their lives will ever be the same.

Download or read book The Bush Devil Ate Sam written by Curtis Mekemson and published by Bookbaby. This book was released on 2015-02-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scruffy soldiers with guns pointed in all directions were scattered around my yard when I returned from teaching. "What's up?" I asked in a shaky voice that was supposed to come out calm. Liberian soldiers were scary. "Your dog ate one of the Superintendent's guinea fowl," the sergeant growled. The Superintendent, the governor of Bong County, was apparently quite fond of his fowl birds. But Boy, the perpetrator of the crime, didn't belong to me, and he regarded my cat Rasputin as dinner. "Why don't you arrest him," I suggested helpfully, pointing at Boy. "Not him. You " the sergeant roared. "You are coming with us." The interview wasn't going as planned. "I am not going anywhere with you. He is not my dog," I responded as I disappeared quickly into my house. Yanking a Peace Corps Volunteer out of his home for a dead, want-to-be chicken would have serious repercussions. Or at least I hoped that's what the sergeant would think. He eventually left. At 4:00 a.m., he was back, pounding on my door with the butt of his rifle. "Your dog ate another one of the Superintendent's guinea fowl," Sarge announced with glee at the thought of dragging me off into the dark night. I was beginning to seriously question my decision to join the Peace Corps. Nonetheless, joining was one of the best decisions in my life. The way I was raised and educated, even my DNA, had pointed me in the direction of becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer. But there was more. I grew up in the 60s and was a student at UC Berkeley during the 1964 Free Speech Movement. Civil Rights, the Vietnam War, and the student revolution dramatically affected how I viewed the world. The Bush Devil Ate Sam is story of my experience as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Liberia, West Africa. When I arrived, descendants of freed slaves from America ruled the country with an iron grip while the tribal people were caught in a struggle between modern culture and ancient Africa. Out in the jungle, the Lightning Man was said to make lightning strike people, and the Sassywood Man determined guilt with a red-hot machete. I quickly discovered that being a Peace Corps Volunteer was anything but dull. Army ants invaded our house. Students strolled into class with cans of squirming termites for breakfast. The young man who worked for me calmly announced that the scars running down his chest were the teeth marks of the Poro Bush Devil. There were enough challenges in my teaching job to fill a lifetime, but there were also rewards. For example: my high school seniors took top national honors in social studies, but the Liberian government determined that a student government I created to teach democracy was a threat to Liberia's one party state. My students were to be arrested. I was told to pack my bags. These are just a few of the stories you will find in The Bush Devil Ate Sam. I conclude the book with a short epilogue that traces the history of Liberia from the 60s up to the present and a postscript on the recent Ebola crisis. Half of the profits from this book will be donated to Friends of Liberia, a nonprofit organization that has been in existence since 1980 and is made up of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, people who have served on missions in Liberia, experts on international development, and Liberians. The goal of the organization is "to positively affect Liberia by supporting education, social, economic and humanitarian programs." For more information visit my blog at: wandering-through-time-and-space.me.

Download or read book Letters from Zaire written by John S. Jochum and published by Winepress Pub. This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Too many people go to countries trying to do good things and they wind up causing trouble. John's goal was to make people self-sufficient. He shows how someone can make social change and not upend the apple cart. He was an excellent Peace Corps volunteer.” Dr. Brian Polkinghorn, Center for Conflict Resolution, Salisbury University “It was 1975, Zaire had just started its long descent into economic decline when John Jochum arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer. He spent three years in the central African country helping local farmers build fish farms. He also saw first-hand how a politically predatory country takes a toll on its citizens.Jochum regularly wrote letters home, describing his experiences and sending along photos. His mother saved everything, tucking them away safely in a bedroom drawer. When she died recently, Jochum found the letters and realized he had quite a record of his experiences as a young man twenty-nine years ago.” Mary Bargion, The Daily Times, Salisbury, Maryland

Download or read book Every Hill a Burial Place written by Peter H. Reid and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On March 28, 1966, Peace Corps personnel in Tanzania received word that volunteer Peppy Kinsey had fallen to her death while rock climbing during a picnic. Local authorities arrested Kinsey's husband, Bill, and charged him with murder as witnesses came forward claiming to have seen the pair engaged in a struggle. The incident had the potential to be disastrous for both the Peace Corps and the newly independent nation of Tanzania. Because of the high stakes surrounding the trial, questions remain as to whether there was more behind the final "not guilty" verdict than was apparent on the surface. Peter H. Reid, who served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Tanzania at the time of the Kinsey murder trial, draws on his considerable legal experience to expose inconsistencies and biases in the case. He carefully scrutinizes the evidence and the investigation records, providing insight into the motives and actions of both the Peace Corps representatives and the Tanzanian government officials involved. Reid does not attempt to prove the verdict wrong but examines the events of Kinsey's death, her husband's trial, and the aftermath through a variety of cultural and political perspectives. Meticulously researched and replete with intricate detail, this compelling account sheds new light on a notable yet overlooked international incident involving non-state actors in the Cold War era.

Download or read book Voices from the Peace Corps written by Angene Hopkins Wilson and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2011-04-08 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on more than one hundred oral history interviews, [this title] follows the the experiences of Kentuckians who chose to live and work in other countries around the world, fostering close, lasting relationships with the people they served. -- jacket.

Download or read book The Mountain School written by Greg Alder and published by Greg Alder. This book was released on 2013 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Kingdom of Lesotho is a mountainous enclave in southern Africa, and like mountain zones throughout the world it is isolated, steeped in tradition, and home to few outsiders. The people, known as Basotho, are respected in the area as the only tribe never to be defeated by European colonizers. Greg Alder arrives in Tsoeneng in 2003 as the village's first foreign resident since 1966. Back then, the Canadian priest who had been living there was robbed and murdered in his quarters. Set up as a Peace Corps teacher at the village's secondary school, Alder finds himself incompetent in so many unexpected ways. How do you keep warm in this place where it snows but there is no electricity? How do you feed yourself where there are no grocery stores let alone restaurants? Tsoeneng is a world apart from his home in America, but Alder persists in adapting. He learns to grow food, he learns to speak the strange local language, and he makes enough friends such that he is eventually invited to participate in initiation rites. Yet even as he seems accepted into the Tsoeneng fold, he sees how much of an outsider he will always remain-and perhaps want to remain. The Mountain School is insightful and candid, at times accepting and at times rebellious. It is the ultimate tale of the transplant.

Download or read book Being First written by Robert Klein and published by Wheatmark, Inc.. This book was released on 2010 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Robert Klein, one of the initial Peace Corps volunteers who served in Ghana from 1961-1963, describes the creation of the Peace Corps and the experiences of the first cohort of volunteer teachers serving in Ghana.

Download or read book Americans Do Their Business Abroad written by Jake Fawson and published by Other Places Publishing. This book was released on 2008-12 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Herein reside seventeen stories (and one poem) written by Peace Corps Volunteers from across the generations and across the planet. Such writing often brings expectations for a certain type of book (heartwarming, uplifting, nice). Many books give you that experience. And we like those books. They are good books. The world needs those books. This is not that book. Americans Do Their Business Abroad is a collection of stories a little too goofy, a little too personal (and maybe a little too gross) to belong anywhere else. Latrines. Goat eyeballs. Pickpockets. Whimsy. Wisdom. And arson in the name of hygiene. Enjoy.

Download or read book A Life Inspired written by and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2005-12-31 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contains a collection of autobiographical reminiscences written by about 28 former Peace Corps volumteers.

Download or read book Ganyesa written by John Campbell and published by Bookbaby. This book was released on 2017-01-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In July 2007 John and Christine Campbell boarded an airplane headed for South Africa to perform 26 months of voluntary service with the U.S. Peace Corps. After about two months of Peace Corps training in South African history, social and health affairs, and the Setswana language, they found themselves living in the Northwest Province of South Africa, a high desert area resembling the Mojave Desert of our native Southern California. The Peace Corps had allowed them to choose the continent of Africa for service. They chose it out of some vague notion that the culture would be interesting and very different from anything we had experienced before. South African culture they supposed would have different music, food and customs than anything they knew. What actually happened during their service in the Northwest Province village of Ganyesa bore no resemblance at all to what was expected. They knew they might live in more primitive physical circumstances, and indeed lived in a small tin roof hut with no running water. That turned out to be the least of the problems. They discovered that even with a smattering of the Setswana language, usually talking with people that had pretty good English language skills, they had very little understanding of people's everyday goals and activities. People simply didn't act in a way that was expected. The only way to explain what happened is to tell you the stories of everyday activities. These stories are what follow.

Download or read book The Village of Waiting written by George Packer and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now restored to print with a new Foreword by Philip Gourevitch and an Afterword by the author, The Village of Waiting is a frank, moving, and vivid account of contemporary life in West Africa. Stationed as a Peace Corps instructor in the village of Lavié (the name means "wait a little more") in tiny and underdeveloped Togo, George Packer reveals his own schooling at the hands of an unforgettable array of townspeople--peasants, chiefs, charlatans, children, market women, cripples, crazies, and those who, having lost or given up much of their traditional identity and fastened their hopes on "development," find themselves trapped between the familiar repetitions of rural life and the chafing monotony of waiting for change.

Download or read book Power Lines written by Jason Carter and published by National Geographic. This book was released on 2003 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At once clear-eyed and compassionate, this incisive account of life in contemporary South Africa by Peace Corps volunteer and first-time author Jason Carter opens a rare window on a world racked with turmoil yet full of hope. 8-page color photo insert.

Download or read book Inside Outside written by Sydney Kling and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the journal of a woman who, shortly after retirement at the age of 67, decides to apply to the Peace Corps. As she begins to document her thoughts in a journal, Sydney Kling details not only her new and baffling daily experiences as a Peace Corps applicant, but also the roller coaster of emotions she finds herself on, whether dealing with the application process or contemplating the reality of leaving home and family for two years in a foreign country.