Peace Corps Related Books:

To Benin and Back

by Chris Starace

Short Stories, Essays, and Reflections About Life in Benin as a Peace Corps Volunteer and the Subsequent Readjustment Process

So You Want to Join the Peace Corps :  What to Know Before You Go
by Dillon Banerjee

The publisher, Ten Speed Press , February 23, 2000
READ THIS BOOK BEFORE YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT APPLYING!
So, you're looking into joining the Peace Corps and you've got questions galore. Will you have
running water? How will culture shock affect you? Will your work schedule allow you time to
travel and explore the region in which you're stationed? Author DILLON BANERJEE spent two
years as a volunteer in Cameroon and offers an insiders perspective on the organization, the
work, the joys, the trials, and the tribulations Peace Corps volunteers face.In handy
question-and-answer format, SO, YOU WANT TO JOIN THE PEACE CORPS . . . WHAT
TO KNOW BEFORE YOU GO provides the inside scoop which only a returned Peace Corps
volunteer can provide. If you're eager to know what the Peace Corps experience is like, you've
come to the right place. 

Living Poor : A Peace Corps Chronicle
by Moritz Thomsen

A True Portrayal of Peace Corps Life, December 27, 1999  Reviewer: A reader from Boston, MA
Before going to Peace Corps, I read every Peace Corps related book I could find.
Although this book is the oldest of all that I read, it gave me the clearest, most realistic
picture of Peace Corps life. Beyond that, it was a story that touched me deeply. Too
many Peace Corps stories drown in sentimentalism or self-admiration or cutesy life
lessons learned. Living Poor avoids these traps and is a great story, whether or not you
are contemplating Peace Corps.

Mango Elephants in the Sun : How Life in an African Village Let Me Be in My Skin

by Susana Herrera (Hardcover - May 1999)  ,

Book Description When the Peace Corps sends Susana Herrera to teach English in northern Cameroon, she yearns to embrace her adopted village and its people, to drink deep from the spirit of Mother Africa-and to forget a bitter childhood and painful past. To the villagers, however, she's a rich American tourist, a nasara (white person) who has never known pain or want. They stare at her in silence. The children giggle and run away. At first her only confidant is a miraculously communicative lizard.   Susana fights back with every ounce of heart and humor she possesses, and slowly begins to make a difference. She ventures out to the village well and learns to carry water on her head. In a  classroom crowded to suffocation she finds a way to discipline her students without resorting to the   beatings they are used to. She makes ice cream in the scorching heat, and learns how to plant millet and kill chickens. She laughs with the villagers, cries with them, works and prays with them, heals  and is helped by them.

  Village life is hard but magical. Poverty is rampant-yet people sing and share what little they have. The termites that chew up her bed like morning cereal are fried and eaten in their turn ("bite-sized and crunchy like Doritos"). Nobody knows what tomorrow may bring, but even the morning greetings impart a purer sense of being in the moment. Gradually, Susana and the village become part of each other. They will never be the same again.

                  Fishing in the Sky : The Education of Namory Keita  

                       by Donald Lawder  (November 1997) 

Beautifully written; offers new perspective, May 25, 1998 Reviewer: weavner1@aol.com from Los Angeles, California, USA Lawder writes beautifully of his life as an older Peace Corps volunteer in Africa. Rather than present himself as the savior of these impoverished people, he shows how he is,  in a sense, saved. Adopted by a Malian family, he makes a life for himself with them, becoming a de facto grandfather. He portrays the Malians as an intelligent, warm, hard-working people living under difficult circumstances, and it's interesting to "meet" them through this absorbing   

                                         Under the Neem Tree

                                        by Susan Lowerre, 1991

I am a two time Peace Corps volunteer and "Under the Neem Tree" truely captures the Peace Corps experience of many volunteers. The small accomplishments, the major disappoint- ments, the challenge of trying to stay physically as well as mentally healthy are all part of this volunteers story.  

(No Picture Available)

  From the Center of the Earth : Stories Out of the Peace Corps

by Geraldine Kennedy (Editor) 1991  

  This collection of 13 short stories written by Peace Corps volunteers with advanced degrees and American ways of seeing social and economic life, is full of unexpected insights. As the stories unfold, one understands just a bit better why a fish farmer gives away most of his hard-earned first harvest; how school lessons reinforced with   beatings are still considered the only way to make students learn in one village; how young tribal Africans, with good humor, put a young volunteer in his place with an elaborate version of a rural snipe hunt; why one older volunteer chose to remain permanently

                                  Diary Of A Kimbang

                     by James P. McCormick  1998  

Book Description Diary Of A Kimbang is a celebration of the people and culture of Cameroon, West Africa,  as seen through the eyes of an "average guy" Peace Corps Volunteer, Jim McCormick. Based upon his daily journals, the book is an episodic view of the joys and sorrows,  triumphs and tragedies experienced during his two-plus years in the country. Diary Of A  Kimbang is a humorous yet sobering tale of life in the Third World. It is worthwhile reading   for anyone considering Peace Corps service as well as for the countless thousands of  Peace Corps Volunteers who have served around the world.  

Home    Benin Books and Music    Benin Related Fiction   Voodoo    Peace Corps Related Books    Benin History and Culture Beninese Music   Travel Books