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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 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.
It is the anthropologist’s fate to always be between things: countries, languages, cultures, even realities. But rather than lament this, anthropologist Paul Stoller here celebrates the creative power of the between, showing how it can transform us, changing our conceptions of who we are, what we know, and how we live in the world. Beginning with his early days with the Peace Corps in Africa and culminating with a recent bout with cancer, The Power of the Between is an evocative account of the circuitous path Stoller’s life has taken, offering a fascinating depiction of how a career is shaped over decades of reading and research. Stoller imparts his accumulated wisdom not through grandiose pronouncements but by drawing on his gift for storytelling. Tales of his apprenticeship to a sorcerer in Niger, his studies with Claude Lévi-Strauss in Paris, and his friendships with West African street vendors in New York City accompany philosophical reflections on love, memory, power, courage, health, and illness. Graced with Stoller’s trademark humor and narrative elegance, The Power of the Between is both the story of a distinguished career and a profound meditation on coming to terms with the impermanence of all things.
Everything you wanted to know about the Peace Corps, but were afraid to ask. A rare powerful story with baby boomer appeal showing that despite personal tragedy, you can always forge a new direction.
Jews who have made India their home have flourished without adverse discrimination. Of this, the Baghdadi Sephardic community is very small in number but has produced one of India's greatest contemporary soldiers, Lt Gen. Jack Jacob. This is his fascinating story. As a small boy, Jacob, who was from a business family, was sent to a residential public school in Darjeeling along with his two brothers. When the Second World War broke out, Jacob without informing his family joined the army in 1941 to fight against the Nazis! After Independence, Gen. Jacob became a gunnery instructor for some time and subsequently was trained in an advanced Artillery and Missile course at Fort Sill in the US. A quick learner, he commanded infantry and artillery brigades, headed the artillery school, and finally the Eastern Army. Rubbing shoulders with some of the stalwarts who strode the Indian political and military arena in those times, Gen. Jacob sometimes fell foul of his bosses and twice came close to resigning. But he stuck on and the pinnacle of his career came in 1971, when he planned and oversaw operations leading to the fall of Dacca and obtained an unconditional public surrender, the only one in history, of Gen. Niazi and his army of 93,000. Written lucidly, this autobiography comes to life as a historical document recapitulating some of the most important events of the 1960s to the 90s - from the defeat of the Naxalites in West Bengal, to the problems of Nagaland and Sikkim and the politics of Goa and Punjab. This is not only the story of the life of one great soldier, but provides glimpses of some of the most influential and colourful personalities who wrote the history of those tumultuous times.
A compelling biography of a South Carolina slave who returned to fight the slave trade in his African homeland The inspirational story of John Kizell celebrates the life of a West African enslaved as a boy and brought to South Carolina on the eve of the American Revolution. Fleeing his owner, Kizell served with the British military in the Revolutionary War, began a family in the Nova Scotian wilderness, then returned to his African homeland to help found a settlement for freed slaves in Sierra Leone. He spent decades battling European and African slave traders along the coast and urging his people to stop selling their own into foreign bondage. This in-depth biography—based in part on Kizell's own writings—illuminates the links between South Carolina and West Africa during the Atlantic slave trade's peak decades. Seized in an attack on his uncle's village, Kizell was thrown into the brutal world of chattel slavery at age thirteen and transported to Charleston, South Carolina. When Charleston fell to the British in 1780, Kizell joined them and was with the Loyalist force defeated in the pivotal battle of Kings Mountain. At the war's end, he was evacuated with other American Loyalists to Nova Scotia. In 1792 he joined a pilgrimage of nearly twelve hundred former slaves to the new British settlement for free blacks in Sierra Leone. Among the most prominent Africans in the antislavery movement of his time, Kizell believed that all people of African descent in America would, if given a way, return to Africa as he had. Back in his native land, he bravely confronted the forces that had led to his enslavement. Late in life he played a controversial role—freshly interpreted in this book—in the settlement of American blacks in what became Liberia. Kizell's remarkable story provides insight to the cultural and spiritual milieu from which West Africans were wrenched before being forced into slavery. Lowther sheds light on African complicity in the slave trade and examines how it may have contributed to Sierra Leone's latter-day struggles as an independent state. A foreword by Joseph Opala, a noted researcher on the "Gullah Connection" between Sierra Leone and coastal South Carolina and Georgia, highlights Kizell's continuing legacy on both sides of the Atlantic.
With humor and pathos, a Peace Corps volunteer in post-communist Romania shares her experiences. This collection of observations offers a unique insight into her journey and the indomitable spirit of the Romanian people.
Everyone knows that you are supposed to “follow your dream.” But where is the road map to help you discover what that dream is? You have just found it. In Springboard, award-winning author and teacher G. Richard Shell helps you find your future. His advice: Take an honest look inside and then answer two questions: What, for me, is success? How will I achieve it? You will begin by assessing your current beliefs about success, including the hidden influences of family, media, and culture. These are where the pressures to live “someone else’s life” come from. Once you gain perspective on these outside forces, you will be ready to look inside at your unique combination of passions and capabilities. The goal: to focus more on what gives meaning and excitement to your life and less on what you are “supposed” to want. Drawing on his decades of research, Shell offers personalized assessments to help you probe your past, imagine your future, and measure your strengths. He then combines these with the latest scientific insights on everything from self-confidence and happiness to relationships and careers. Throughout, he shares inspiring examples of people who found what they were meant to do by embracing their own true measure of success. Eric Adler: one of Shell’s former students who walked away from a conventional business career to help launch a revolutionary new concept in public education that has placed hundreds of inner-city high school students in top colleges. Kurt Timken: a Harvard-educated son of a Fortune 500 CEO who found his true calling as a hard-charging police officer fighting drug lords in southern California. Cynthia Stafford: an office worker who became one of her community’s leading promoters of theater and the arts. Get ready for the journey of a lifetime—one that will help you reevaluate your future and envision success on your own terms. Students and executives say that Richard Shell’s courses have changed their lives. Let this book change yours.
The Wiebe family recalls their time in Colombia as Peace Corps volunteers in the early 1970s.
Captain Sad Sam Gerdine is marking time at Camp Pendleton in the summer of 1950. He's finally been given command of the rifle company he worked for with such focus that he lost both his wife and the child he loves. It's not much of a command in the diminished post-World War II Marine Corps, but he's doing his best with an outfit that includes rascals, rejects, and-fortunately-a solid cadre of anxious young officers and savvy, combat-hardened senior NCOs. And then-in the words of Elmore Bates, his competent and colorfully profane Company Gunnery Sergeant-the “defecation strikes the oscillation.” War in Korea and the Marines will be the allied fire brigade against a North Korean juggernaut rolling across the Land of the Morning Calm. In short order, mostly by ignoring rules and regulations, Captain Gerdine proceeds to make Able Company, 5th Marines a combat-ready outfit prepared to face the rigors of war in Korea. From the Pusan Perimeter to the audacious landing at Inchon and on into the frigid, intense combat at the Chosin Reservoir, Sad Sam's Marines mold and meld into a shining example of how U.S. Marines get the job done despite formidable odds.