The Essential Guide to Amharic is a 200+ pages of grammar, phrases, and vocabulary for the national language of Ethiopia. All translations are spelled phonetically, as well as in the Amharic alphabet. The vocabulary section is organized by topic; greetings, foods, furniture, politics, occupations etc. There are over 200 verb definitions with simple conjugation. The grammar section includes in-depth information on how to conjugate verbs in the past, present and future; using adjectives, pluralizing words, asking questions, punctuation, and much more.

The summation of a distinguished career in writing fiction, writing for film, travel writing, and teaching, P.F. Kluge's WORDMAN is a source book for emerging writers and a memorable set of reflections upon a life spent as a journalist, author, and teacher. Kluge's service in the Peace Corps in the early 1960s provided an unexpected geographic focus that has accrued to a lifetime of novels and creative nonfiction.

Shrouded in secrecy and once closed off from the outside world by the Soviet Union, most Americans know very little about Kazakhstan. A Five Finger Feast tells the story of this beautiful place, its vast lands, blue skies, cold winters and hospitable people. Journey with author Tim Suchsland to places less traveled, like the vanishing Aral Sea and the mountain paradise of the Altyn Arashan. Be a guest at a mad tea party, infused with vodka and the sheep-head delicacy called beshbarmak.

From 2007 to 2009, Suchsland served in Kazakhstan in the US Peace Corps-an institution at the heart and soul of what it means to be American. Through his story, Suchsland details the adventure of living abroad as a young American with its ups and downs, excitement and thrill. In A Five Finger Feast, he tells the story about growing up in a place far away from home.

Featured on Travel with Rick Steves (Episodes 764 and 771 - 2024)

Winner of the Moritz Thomsen Award for Best Book about the Peace Corps Experience (2023)

The Showgirl and the Writer, A Friendship Forged in the Aftermath of the Japanese American Incarceration encompasses Mueller's own story, beginning at her birth to Caucasian parents in the Tule Lake Japanese American High-Security Camp in Northern California, and tells the tale of her long friendship with Mary Mon Toy, a Nisei performer who was incarcerated in the Minidoka Japanese American Camp in Idaho during WWII. The two met by chance in 1994. By then, Mueller was a published author, and Mary Mon Toy, by necessity of old age, had retired from an unusually successful career on stage and television for an Asian American actor of her time. After Ms. Mon Toy's death, Mueller penned the previously untold story of Mon Toy's fierce determination to put the Incarceration behind her and her precipitous rise as a working actor.

Frontier Cabin Story is a rare architectural biography of a long-forgotten 18th-century log farmhouse in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Joseph Goss digs into the origins of his ancient home to discover its age and first owner. After months of painstaking detective work, he finds the holy grail of his search. Along the way, the author creates an enthralling story about an unknown frontier house and gives it context by weaving it into the sweep of the region's history from colonial times to the present. Colorful characters from the families of the house's earliest owners populate the story and act on the stages of the French and Indian, Revolutionary, and the Civil Wars. They even take us out to the Osage Nation in Missouri and to Mexico. The women, in particular, reveal themselves in striking detail through never-before-published personal letters from primary sources. Besides stories of the early owners, Goss uncovers tales-some humorous, some gruesome-from the lives of the farmhouse's tenants. Glimpses of slavery surface from multiple historical documents. The author recounts the physical history of the log house in generous detail, tracking changes to it over 240 years. This unique book features 28 illustrations, including maps, drawings, and photographs. Comprehensive footnotes substantiate the author's research. Appendices put forth deed extracts and family trees. An extensive index completes the volume. Frontier Cabin Story adds a new dimension to the investigation of little-known historical houses, not only in West Virginia but in other regions too. Goss aspires not merely to tell his venerable old house's story but to convince future owners to value and preserve it. On a larger scale, he hopes this book will inspire others to prize age-old dwellings and to listen to their voices by showing the wealth of material they too can discover about them.

When Jack Allison joined the Peace Corps in 1967, he never intended to write the number one hit song in Malawi or be described by Newsweek as more popular than Malawi's own president. A poor Southern white boy with a deep love of music, Jack only wanted an answer to one burning question: Should he become a minister or a doctor?

In the end, the answer Jack found was that he would choose medicine as a career. And, living in extreme circumstances in the world's then-poorest country, he would find even more-that he had the inner resources that allowed him to not only thrive but give the best of what he had to those who needed it the most.

Angels of Bastogne is based on the true story of a U.S. Army doctor and two heroic Belgian nurses who volunteered in his aid station in Bastogne, Belgium, that was bombed on Christmas Eve, 1944. It is also the story of soldiers and civilians swept up in the struggle for control of the strategic town during the Battle of the Bulge, and of the veterans who reunited in Bastogne fifty years later to reminisce and remember fallen comrades. Angels of Bastogne is a profound exploration of the human condition in the cauldron of mortal conflict: of suffering and compassion, fear and courage, trauma and healing, guilt and redemption, and love, loss and loyalty.
Angels of Bastogne is a great story of love and humanity. Roger Parent
(Reviews, excerpts and more at angelsofbastogne.com)

Poetry Sketches: A Peace Corps Memoir is Eldon Katter's second book of art and poetry. The first, Nature's Poetry, was what he called a senior citizen project and focused narrowly on encounters with nature. This book has a much broader theme than nature. Poetry Sketches is a life's journey through art and poetry. To guide the reader on this personal journey, the author introduces a sequence of themes: Beginning, Becoming & Belonging, Connecting Cultures: The Peace Corps Experience (including excerpts from letters written to his parents, poems written during training, teaching in Harar, Ethiopia, the long trip home, and re-entry crisis), Global Pursuits (including poems and sketches from the post Peace Corps years in Uganda, West Africa, and Middle East), and a final theme Retirement & Reflection (an octogenarian's perspective on then and now.) The author shares excerpts from letters, journal and diary entries, along with copies of sketchbook pages. Through this compilation of ephemera, the author reveals a series of life-changing experiences and a pathway to an expanding world view.

As a single young woman in 1966, the idea of joining the Peace Corps seemed like a great adventure... and was. Letters from a Wondrous Empire chronicles these experiences through a collection of correspondences sent home while serving in Ethiopia. Though challenging at times, life in Woldia was not all seriousness. There was the craziness that came with the small town, like getting off a bus and carrying the turkey for Thanksgiving down the main street, feeling sorry for what was about to happen to him, yet looking forward to the feast he would provide. It was all part of the liveliness to be found in Ethiopia.

In a radio broadcast on October 1st, 1939, Winston Churchill referred to Russia as, a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. During my tenure as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Russian Far East, I found Churchill's words to be accurate, as my limited knowledge about Russia stemmed from Dostoevsky and Pushkin novels. From the summer of 1994 until late 1995, I lived and worked in the Russian Far East as a Peace Corps Volunteer managing a small business center; only a few miles from both the Chinese and North Korean borders. I experienced firsthand the thrilling and often confusing environment as the Russian people established a foothold in a more open society marked by their initial forays into capitalism. My experiences living with a Russian family, managing a business center catering to Russian entrepreneurs and running with and from the Mafia during this tumultuous period allowed me insight into the Russian soul and allowed me to examine my own. Fluctuating between enjoying local celebrity status to being a suspected American spy, I had the opportunity to socialize with Russian and American politicians, various mafia organizations and Russians from all walks of life. The book takes a humorous and insightful look at the cultural differences between America and Russia as well as providing a peek at how my Russian friends and colleagues dealt with the flux of change within every aspect of their lives. Although this book is based on real events, I have changed the names of some of my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers and the Peace Corps staff for reasons of discretion.

In 2001, Harriet Denison realized that international birding was a fresh way to continue her lifetime interest in places and cultures far different from her own. Birding fills her need for an intense experience with the natural world and these international birding trips deliver in spades.More Than Birding is a travel memoir of Denison's adventures on three continents observing birds, animals, and unique breathtaking landscapes found no place else on earth. Brief but rewarding experiences with different people and cultures enriched her birding quests. In this book, Denison shares her adventures and observations of Antarctica in 2001, Madagascar in 2003, and Bhutan in 2007. Denison's writings capture wildlife habitats, cultural experiences, and changing times that have been altered dramatically since her visits.

When Catherine arrived in Nigeria as an idealistic Peace Corps volunteer, she had no idea of the wealth of customs and traditions she would come to love. With her marriage to a Nigerian electrical engineer, senior manager in the country's power industry, she became part of his family, clan, and village. She learned to speak the Igbo language and not only adapted to, but adopted, some of the customs of his people. In this intimate portrayal of family members, she reveals the secrets of the ties that bind her to his community. Through the striking accounts of her husbands' parents in their youth and with nods to customs from other tribes and countries, she paints an unforgettable picture of African life in times past. She evokes the atmosphere of the village market, the religious rituals, and the ceremonies that accompany life's major events. The author also reveals the challenges between the Christianity adopted by her husband's family and the traditions they sometimes abandon and sometimes preserve.The reader is brought into an African village with its richness of music, dance, ritual, and mystery. Throughout the book, the importance of family is stressed. She demonstrates the importance of showing respect for elders, honoring the ancestors, and caring for children communally. She contrasts this sense of community to the individualism experienced by people in the West. With her vivid descriptions of Igbo names and religious beliefs, she adds to the readers' understanding of an African society. How she found her own community is revealed in the last chapters of this intriguing book. She has taken her message of the importance of family and community to many venues. Four sermons she has presented are included in the appendix. Suggested discussion questions for book groups are also provided.

With Kennedy in the Land of the Dead begins on the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. Gilbert Stone, a Peace Corps volunteer teacher in Ethiopia returns home shattered and lost in the shadow of his hero.The intervening years tell the story of Stone's struggle integrating his experience of the Peace Corps and the trauma of Kennedy's death. His new life as a graduate student in San Francisco explodes into the 1960's hippie movement. Stone finds himself losing his identity as a member of a commune, alienated from his former life and finally living on the streets of the Haight Ashbury.His battle with drugs, insanity and the anti-Vietnam war protests casts light on the baby boomer transformation into hippies and flower children. From the first dances at the Fillmore to the Human Be-in at Golden Gate Park, Stone's struggle reflects cultural changes for generations to come.The novel ends on the day Martin Luther King was murdered in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968.

To do the thing that was necessary-wasn't that at the heart of our mission? And wasn't it obvious what we needed to do? Plant trees; teach others to plant trees; save the crops from the inexorable forces of erosion. ... But was that the only task that would be needed of us?

Walking With Evaristo is a gripping journey-at turns lyrical, occasionally boisterous-venturing deep into the heart of a breathtakingly beautiful country torn by strife. And as the story unfolds, it also becomes a radical exercise in the recovery of personal memory. Nill chronicles three turbulent years working as a Peace Corps volunteer in a deeply traditional Mayan community that fell under the shadow of the sinister forces of oppression. Immersing his readers in the vibrant tapestry of life in a town called Rabinal, the author gradually becomes a witness to Guatemala's escalating civil war-and a brutal counterinsurgency campaign that could only be called genocide.

Through his intimate reflections as an environmental professional and as a witness, Nill confesses his shortcomings while at the same time forcing us to think hard about America's role in perpetuating the conditions of oppression. Prepare to be immersed in a thought-provoking odyssey that intertwines the personal and political. Walking With Evaristo is a poignant memoir that will forever change how you perceive the world.

Ann Hales, Ph.D. is a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner, who has worked for almost fifty years providing mental health services to her community --- whether it be Tennessee, Colorado, Idaho, Liberia, New York, New Mexico, or New Zealand. Throughout her academic career, she was a Professor of Nursing at Cuttington University in Liberia, West Africa and at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. Prior to that she was the Director of the Housing and Feeding the Homeless Program in the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University and taught the School's first service learning course.

Dr. Hales served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Liberia from 1981 until 1983. She received her Ph.D. at Cornell University. While teaching at New Mexico State University, she became the first psychiatric advanced practice nurse to receive prescriptive authority in the state of New Mexico. She was a visiting professor in New Zealand from 2000 - 2001 when she assisted the New Zealand Council of Nursing with their policies regarding prescriptive authority for advanced practice nurses. She currently works as a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner and lives with her husband in Upstate New York.

A Legacy of America's Global Volunteerism: International Voluntary Services 1953-2002 explores the philosophical and organizational growth of international volunteerism. The book describes the International Voluntary Services, Inc. (IVS) innovative use of volunteers in relief and development projects and the challenges faced in both its public-private partnerships and field operations. Analysis of impacts and lessons from IVS's fifty-year lifespan may provide guidance for future international voluntary service institutions and programs. Volunteers' personal stories highlight issues inherent in international development and volunteerism.

Section I, History of International Voluntary Services, Inc., covers events from the start of IVS in 1953 to its closure in 2002. Described are programs initiated by the U.S. Government and private organizations that engaged American volunteers in development and relief activities worldwide. Initially focused on sensitive areas of the Middle East and Indochina, IVS programs expanded and internationalized throughout the Global South.

Section II, Volunteer Experiences And Impacts, describes the wide-ranging experiences of individual volunteers and the challenges of evaluating the impact of volunteer programs.

Section III, International Voluntary Services Partners, identifies partnership programs ranging from Peace Church volunteer programs that inspired IVS, to recent U.S. Government volunteer initiatives, and the formation of the U. S. Peace Corps.

Section IV, Implications and Questions for Future International Volunteerism, analyzes lessons learned from the IVS experience and their implications for future international volunteer activities.

The author of the book's first chapter, entitled IVS Origins and Early Years, is a former Peace Corps volunteer; the following chapters were written by IVS alumni and professionals in the field of volunteerism who frame the IVS experience in the context of a broader international development picture. Individual volunteer stories throughout the book describe the challenges they faced and their wide-ranging successes and failures.

The book highlights the dramatic changes throughout the world during the second half of the Twentieth Century and how these changes impacted international volunteerism. It concludes that international volunteerism remains relevant today, as reflected in the Peace Corps, which has had 241,000 volunteers serving in 143 countries since 1961.

This Salted Soil, by Jamie Kirkpatrick, tells the story of the North African Campaign in World War II, America's first, but often-overlooked, involvement in the war against Nazi Germany that helped to shape and ultimately secure the Allied victory in that bloody conflict.

Using both historical and fictional characters, This Salted Soil is the story of the battle for Tunisia that took place between November, 1942 and May, 1943. The novel also explores two other related themes: Tunisia's struggle for independence from France, and the role of Third World countries in the ideological struggle between East and West in the post-war era.

Jamie Kirkpatrick is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Kasserine, Tunisia from 1970 to1972. He was also the Associate Peace Corps Director in that country from 1974 to 1976. Now retired after careers in international service organizations and education, Jamie is a writer and photographer whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Washington College Alumni Magazine, and American Cowboy Magazine.

When Mary joins the Peace Corps the shah reigns in Iran and John F. Kennedy has left his mark on the world. Sent to Kerman, a conservative city on the Iranian plateau, she teaches English to high school girls. In the classroom, or walking through the bazaar amid turbaned Baluchi tribesmen and chanting Sufi dervishes, she is the exotic one. The adobe walls that seclude women exclude her, a bareheaded foreigner. Woven throughout are dusty travels from the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea, colorful feasts, rich history and hidden romance. Walled In, Walled Out recounts her convoluted, often humorous journey from ignorance to understanding in a country where the people speak with many voices.

The Emperor and the Elephants is a deeply moving memoir chronicling one Peace Corps volunteer's fascinating experiences in the Central African Republic during the late 1970s.

After hiking the Appalachian Trail in 1975, author Richard W. Carroll joined the Peace Corps, signing on as a fisheries extension agent in the heart of Africa. Balancing the rose-tinted writings of an optimistic twenty-three-year-old volunteer with pragmatic reflections from over forty years later, most of which he spent in Africa as a wildlife conservationist for the World Wildlife Fund, Carroll draws readers into a wildly unique place and time.

In 1977, under the brutal rule of Jean-Bidel Bokassa, the self-proclaimed president for life, the Central African Republic became the Central African Empire, and it's against this political backdrop that Carroll served-first in small villages, discovering the rich cultures of a warm and welcoming people, then as a wildlife biologist in Manovo-Gounda St. Floris National Park, in the remote north.

The Emperor and the Elephants abounds with vivid, often poetic descriptions of the wildlife, close encounters, peaceful revelations, and thoughtful reflections on a location that's as far from mountains and ocean as one can get on planet Earth.

Parents Kevin and Kay Dixon have always had a passion for travel that they love to share with their four daughters. In the late 1970s, a contract for Kevin to work in Saudi Arabia, that came with family benefits and a lucrative travel package, landed on their doorstep in an American suburb. The Dixons could not pack their bags fast enough. This was their opportunity to provide two fundamental values to their offspring - roots and wings. During their travels, the Dixons chose to spend little time wandering through archaic cathedrals, but looked beyond featured attractions for experiences to imprint into their children's memories. Readers may find themselves holding their breaths or giggling as the family's adventures unfold in Tales of Family Travel. Admittedly, successful globetrotting with young girls required patience and special considerations. Among them - always one daughter needed to use a bathroom, and never at a convenient time or place, and more often than not, it was the author who spent time searching for acceptable WCs or loos. Kay narrates this story with finesse and descriptions that take you along on a journey that includes travel by many means and experiences that including meeting a Baba in Nepal, checking out a diamond shop in The Netherlands, visiting a Maasai village in Kenya and more.