Ponds of Kalambayi

Ponds of Kalambayi
Author: Mike Tidwell
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2011-10-18
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0762777044

Lovers of fine travel and adventure writing will savor Mike Tidwell’s richly acclaimed narrative of his days as a Peace Corps volunteer. His task was to help people in the remote corners of Zaire raise tilapia in ponds they would dig themselves, with muscle power alone. This book—with a new introduction by the author—is a masterful account of culture clash, generosity of spirit, and true grit. It is a must-read for anyone with aspirations to “change the world.”

Bayou Farewell

Bayou Farewell
Author: Mike Tidwell
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2007-12-18
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 0307424928

The Cajun coast of Louisiana is home to a way of life as unique, complex, and beautiful as the terrain itself. As award-winning travel writer Mike Tidwell journeys through the bayou, he introduces us to the food and the language, the shrimp fisherman, the Houma Indians, and the rich cultural history that makes it unlike any other place in the world. But seeing the skeletons of oak trees killed by the salinity of the groundwater, and whole cemeteries sinking into swampland and out of sight, Tidwell also explains why each introduction may be a farewell—as the storied Louisiana coast steadily erodes into the Gulf of Mexico. Part travelogue, part environmental exposé, Bayou Farewell is the richly evocative chronicle of the author's travels through a world that is vanishing before our eyes.

Voices from the Field

Voices from the Field
Author: Peace Corps Office of World Wise Schools
Publisher: Government Printing Office
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2008-09
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780160815096

The publication "Voices From the Field" contains personal essays written by returned Peace Corps Volunteers, accompanied by standards-based language arts lesson plans and workshops that Stengthen students' reading comprehension and writing skills. Engage and inspire students to respond to the text and create original narratives Broaden students' perspectives on the world and themselves.

When the World Calls

When the World Calls
Author: Stanley Meisler
Publisher: Beacon Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2012-02-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0807050512

When the World Calls is the first complete and balanced look at the Peace Corps’s first fifty years. Revelatory and candid, journalist Stanley Meisler’s engaging narrative exposes Washington infighting, presidential influence, and the Volunteers’ unique struggles abroad. He deftly unpacks the complicated history with sharp analysis and memorable anecdotes, taking readers on a global trek starting with the historic first contingent of Volunteers to Ghana on August 30, 1961. In the years since, in spite of setbacks, the ethos of the Peace Corps has endured, largely due to the perseverance of the 200,000 Volunteers themselves, whose shared commitment to effect positive global change has been a constant in one of our most complex—and valued—institutions.

Nine Hills to Nambonkaha

Nine Hills to Nambonkaha
Author: Sarah Erdman
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 374
Release: 2013-07-16
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1466850051

A portrait of a resilient African village, ruled until recently by magic and tradition, now facing modern problems and responding, often triumphantly, to change When Sarah Erdman, a Peace Corps volunteer, arrived in Nambonkaha, she became the first Caucasian to venture there since the French colonialists. But even though she was thousands of miles away from the United States, completely on her own in this tiny village in the West African nation of Côte d'Ivoire, she did not feel like a stranger for long. As her vivid narrative unfolds, Erdman draws us into the changing world of the village that became her home. Here is a place where electricity is expected but never arrives, where sorcerers still conjure magic, where the tok-tok sound of women grinding corn with pestles rings out in the mornings like church bells. Rare rains provoke bathing in the streets and the most coveted fashion trend is fabric with illustrations of Western cell phones. Yet Nambonkaha is also a place where AIDS threatens and poverty is constant, where women suffer the indignities of patriarchal customs, where children work like adults while still managing to dream. Lyrical and topical, Erdman's beautiful debut captures the astonishing spirit of an unforgettable community.

The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing

The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing
Author: Peter Hulme
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2002-11-21
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1107494443

The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing brings together specialists from anthropology, history, literary and cultural studies to offer a broad and vibrant introduction to travel writing in English between 1500 and the present. This comprehensive introduction to the subject features specially commissioned contributions, including six essays surveying the period's travel writing; a further six focusing on geographical areas of particular interest - Arabia, the Amazon, Tahiti, Ireland, Calcutta, the Congo and California; and three final chapters analysing some of the theoretical and cultural dimensions to this enigmatic and influential genre of writing. Several invaluable tools are also provided, including an extensive list of further reading, and a detailed five-hundred year chronology listing important events and publications. This volume will be of interest to teachers and students alike.

No Greater Service

No Greater Service
Author: Alvin J. Hower
Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
Total Pages: 486
Release: 2020-07-07
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1489727566

March 1, 2021, Peace Corps turns sixty. Its mission—to teach a skill and to spread the Peace Corps brand of goodwill around the world—still resonates. In No Greater Service, author Alvin J. Hower highlights its relevance yesterday, today, and the years to come. This memoir offers a stirring, personal, vivid, and action-packed account of a Peace Corps volunteer’s remarkable life in the underserved areas of the southern Philippines. With curiosity, empathy, and wry humor, Hower creates a distinct Peace Corps photo memoir. An avid photographer, he produced more than 5,000 images of everyday people and the awe-inspiring beauty of a nation of 7,641 islands. He was a teacher and social worker in General Santos City, and a management consultant for a mission school in the remote mountains of Lake Sebu, Surallah, working and living with the indigenous T’boli people featured in the August 1971 National Geographic Magazine. No Greater Service also serves as a history of his host country, providing information about its complex customs and traditions as well as the notable stories of Filipinos he met and their fascinating updates fifty years later. At times hilarious, others sad and grim, it also shares a love story of his romantic alliance with a Filipina girl.

Amazon Stranger

Amazon Stranger
Author: Mike Tidwell
Publisher: Lyons Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2001-11
Genre: Cofán Indians
ISBN: 9781585743407

One man obsessed with the Ecuadorian jungle and desperate to save it and its people chronicles the struggle of the Cofan people against Big Oil.