I got to thinking the other day that I could create a little review of the different Peace Corps or Africa related books that I've read in the last year or so. I have most of them up on goodreads.com (website I learned about through book club). If interested in Peace Corps (PC) or you just want to hear about some different people's stories with PC or Africa check out the info below. The descriptions of the books are taken directly from Goodreads.com to credit the correct source - figured I couldn't rephrase it much better.
Dancing Skeletons life and death in West Africa
by Katherine Dettwyler
Personal account by a biocultural anthropologist illuminates important, not-soon-forgotten messages involving the more sobering aspects of conducting fieldwork among malnourished children in West Africa.
Mango Elephants in the Sun: How Life in an African Village Let Me Be in My Skin
by Susana Herrera
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. Village life is hard but magical. Poverty is rampant—yet people sing and share what little they have. Gradually, Susana and the village become part of each other. They will never be the same again.
Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years with a Midwife in Mali
by Kris Holloway and John Bidwell
Monique and the Mango Rains is the compelling story of a rare friendship between a young Peace Corps volunteer and a midwife who became a legend. Monique Dembele saved lives and dispensed hope in a place where childbirth is a life-and-death matter. This book tells of her unquenchable passion to better the lives of women and children in the face of poverty, unhappy marriages, and endless backbreaking work.
Things Fall Apart
by Chinua Achebe
Tells two overlapping, intertwining stories, both of which center around Okonkwo, a “strong man” of an Ibo village in Nigeria.
The Power of One
by Bryce Courtenay
In this magical novel, an irresistible boy tells the story of his survival and coming of age against the background of South Africa during and just after World War II.
Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle
by Moritiz Thomsen
At the age of 48, Moritz Thomsen sold his pig farm and joined the Peace Corps. As he tells the story, his awareness of the comic elements in the human situation - including his own - and his ability to convey it in fast-moving, earthy prose have made "Living Poor" a classic.
Say You're One of Them
by Uwem Akpan
Compilation of short stories throughout Africa. Every story is a testament to the wisdom and resilience of children, even in the face of the most agonizing situations our planet can offer.
The Poisonwood Bible
by Barbara Kingsolver
The year is 1959 and the place is the Belgian Congo. Nathan, a Baptist preacher, has come to spread the Word in a remote village reachable only by airplane. To say that he and his family are woefully unprepared would be an understatement: "We came from Bethlehem, Georgia, bearing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle," says Leah, one of Nathan's daughters. But of course it isn't long before they discover that the tremendous humidity has rendered the mixes unusable, their clothes are unsuitable, and they've arrived in the middle of political upheaval as the Congolese seek to wrest independence from Belgium.
The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World
by Jacqueline Novogratz
Young, idealistic, and well educated, Novogratz had an admirable goal: to change the world. She traveled to Rwanda, where she found a small boy wearing a sweater she recognized as her own -- one she'd given to Goodwill many years earlier. For Novogratz, that sweater served as a symbol of the interconnectedness of the rich and the poor -- a connection that wasn't working. What the poor wanted was an opportunity, not a handout. The voiceless needed donors to listen to their ideas, not tell them what to do.
