Afghanistan: For an Educator, a Journey Back to a Time of Peace
Afghanistan at a Time of Peace By Robin Varnum Peace Corps Writers Reviewed by Jordan Simmons Friends en route to a provincial school. Photo courtesy Robin Varnum Afghanistan at a Time of Peace traces Robin Varnum’s years as a Peace Corps Volunteer, 1971–73. Varnum chronicles her journey into learning the place she came to call home: adapting to the chilly weather in Ghazni, southwest of Kabul, and understanding why she and other foreigners are mocked as “Mister Kachaloo” (literally, “Mr. Potato” in Dari), and traversing the length and breadth of the country — from Jalalabad to Mazar-i-sharif. As a Volunteer...
Two Years in Afghanistan with the Peace Corps for Parents. And Two Deployments in Afghanistan for their Son.
A Few Minor Adjustments TWO YEARS IN AFGHANISTAN: A PEACE CORPS ODYSSEY By Elana Hohl Independently Published Reviewed by Jordan Simmons Before Elana Hohl and her husband, Mike, traveled to Afghanistan to serve with the Peace Corps 1971–73, she had only been beyond her native Midwest a handful of times. The journey filled her with constant amazement — at the smells and tastes of foods, the splendor and beauty of the land in which she found herself. That includes her first trip north with an Afghan friend, Faiz, to the Salaang Pass in the heart of the...
A Study of Land, the State, and War in Afghanistan Raises Some Big Questions. For Starters, Could It All Have Gone Differently?
Land, The State, and War: Property Institutions and Political Order in Afghanistan By Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili and Ilia Murtazashvili Cambridge University Press Reviewed by Steven Boyd Saum Could it all have gone differently in Afghanistan? That was the premise for a conversation last September with Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili about her recently published book, Land, The State, and War: Property Institutions and Political Order in Afghanistan. Surveys, fieldwork, and historical analysis point to this conclusion, among others: Imposing Western-style institutions is not a panacea. Rather, as Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili distilled in another conversation: “It wasn’t because Afghan social norms don’t...
Lines of Joy and Memory, Death and Rebirth: DEMO by Charlie Smith
DEMO | Poems By Charlie Smith W.W. Norton Reviewed by Steven Boyd Saum Early on in Charlie Smith’s recent collection comes the poem “Samsara,” lines of joy and memory and death and rebirth. How it begins: “The ocean, uncomfortable with itself, bangs and slurs, / mixing flavors, holding its own against infinity, scarred with ice.” Before it ends, he assesses, “I’ve caught up lately on everything / but time.” In between, the poem traverses continents and piano concertos, seasons and marriages, plum flowers and the first pear blossoms. The images summoned are in a voice at once exuberant and...
‘A Virtual Explosion of Colors, Textures, and Life’
Coral Reef Curiosities INTRIGUE, DECEPTION AND WONDER ON THE REEF AND BEYOND By Chuck Weikert Dayton Publishing Reviewed by Steven Boyd Saum Chuck Weikert served as a Volunteer in the Kingdom of Tonga 1977–79. He recounts a snorkeling excursion to the windward side. “The reef opened up in a virtual explosion of colors, textures, and life that stretched into the deep blue beyond. It was mind boggling!” So begins a love affair with the undersea world — captured here in 25 chapters tracing the lives of creatures that inhabit coral reefs, and weaving in the history of humans’ interaction...
Sketches in Words and Images — and an Invitation to Dine with His Imperial Majesty Haile Selassie I
POETRY SKETCHES A PEACE CORPS MEMOIR By Eldon Katter Peace Corps Writers Reviewed by Kathleen Coskran Eldon Katter sketches with images and words alike. He had the foresight to chronicle his time with the first group of Peace Corps Volunteers in Ethiopia (1962–64) through short poems and drawings — both his and his students’. He had the fortune to be assigned to teach in Harar, Ethiopia — one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, the only walled city in Ethiopia, and now a World Heritage Site. I don’t think many subsequent Volunteers received an engraved invitation from...
Letters: Readers Respond to the Special Books Edition of WorldView Magazine
Letters, emails, LinkedIn and Instagram comments, Facebook posts, tweets, and other comments. We’re happy to continue the conversation here and our social media platforms. One way to write us: [email protected] Cover to Cover I want to congratulate you and the whole NPCA team for producing an outstanding magazine. Yesterday I read through the two most recent issues cover to cover and found the content to be rich and very informative. You should be proud of the role that WorldView plays in supporting and connecting the Peace Corps community. Tony Barclay Kenya 1968–70, NPCA Board Chair 2011–15 I have been reading your...
‘You probably shouldn’t tell anyone about being Indian; people can’t tell by looking at you.’
An excerpt from An Indian Among los Indígenas By Ursula Pike Photo by Stephanie Macias Gibson Read a review of Ursula Pike’s memoir here. Bolivians told me all the time that they were proud of their Incan ancestors, and the kids often bragged that Kantuta meant Sacred Flower of the Incas in Quechua. Yet they knew what many people, especially the wealthier, whiter population of Bolivia, thought about los Indios. Few wanted to be seen as an Indian. For a young woman like Ximenita, living in a town for the first time in her life without family nearby, being seen as a cholita made...
Personal Discovery and Historical Clashes
An Indian Among los Indígenas A Native Travel Memoir By Ursula Pike Heyday Review by Rich Wandschneider There are many important aspects to this book. Here are three: Ursula Pike is a fine writer, with an eye for people and places in Bolivia, and an ear for the sounds of languages, buses, and silence; she is deeply reflective about the critical tensions of the cross-cultural experience and the mission to serve; and Pike is Indigenous herself, an enrolled member of the Karuk Tribe of Northern California who grew up an “urban Indian,” largely in Portland, Oregon. This last fact...
GALLERY: The Face of Iran Before …
A selection from Dennis Briskin’s photos from Iran in the late 1960s. His book was recognized with the Rowland Scherman Award for Best Photography Book by Peace Corps Writers. By NPCA Staff Dennis Briskin has published a collection of 60 photographs from the city of Arak and central Iran, where he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer 1967–69. Briskin writes that he calls the collection The Face of Iran Before… because these photographs were taken before “the Islamic Revolution took the country back to oppressive intolerance and brutality. Before oil wealth brought engines and electric motors to replace mule, camel and horsepower, sometimes even human power,...