Gift of the USA [Paperback]

Ruth Moss (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 2002

This is a non-fiction book set in the former Soviet Union six years after its collapse. The United States has for years sent sacks of flour to impoverished countries stamped Gift of the USA. But the people in those countries can t read that. They don t know that the food they are receiving is a gift from the people of the United States. The US also sends Peace Corps volunteers to needy countries to spread the good will of our people. The American taxpayer tends to consider the Peace Corps to be the equivalent of motherhood and apple pie not knowing that the inexperienced and often self serving volunteers cause many hardships for the people they are sent to serve, mainly by taking the jobs of wage earners in areas of vast unemployment. This and other imprudent actions of these well educated but inexperienced volunteers give rise to resentment and animosity towards the US instead of imbuing the good will the American taxpayer thinks he is getting for his tax dollars. This is the story of the suffering caused by Peace Corps volunteers in the former Soviet Union and the resultant anger felt by the local people towards America.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ruth Moss served in the Peace Corps in the former Soviet Union shortly after its collapse. She wrote and taught Economics of the Free Market System: Capitalism, at Taraz State University. A former teacher of English and English as a Foreign Language, she founded the Rose Kaplan English Language School in Taraz, Kazakhstan, in 1998.

Product Details

• Paperback: 444 pages
• Publisher: Writer's Showcase Press (December 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595254144
• ISBN-13: 978-0595254149
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,329,258 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars No Gift To The Reader, January 30, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Gift of the USA (Paperback)

What could have been an interesting letter home describing the difficulties of being a Peace Corps Trainee and Volunteer or perhaps a letter to the Editor of a magazine or newspaper about the tremendous cost of each Peace Corps Volunteer overseas, is instead a 430 page novel explaining point by point the superiority of the heroine "Ann" to everyone involved with the United States Peace Corps from the Director down to the receptionist at the front desk of her host country

Although this book is well written and fast paced, it is difficult to read page after page of the main character "Ann" correcting fellow Volunteers' grammar, correcting the Country Directors mis-pronounciation of a difficult and long name, and basically attempting to correct everything and everyone around her.

It is interesting to note that the author and heroine "Ann" quit the Peace Corps half way through her two year commitment.

There are many books and essays written by former Peace Corps Volunteers that would give a more balanced picture of the organization through the years. I would suggest reading "From the Center of the Earth" or "Going Up Country" for quality stories by former Peace Corps Volunteers on their experiences.

3.0 out of 5 stars Read it for what it says NOT how she said it, June 25, 2008

By 

Kaz-5er - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gift of the USA (Hardcover)

I read this book and found it poorly written, poorly organized and frankly containing an unlikeable main character... that said I enjoyed the book :)

I was in the Peace Corps in Kazakhstan with Ruth and have similar feelings about the organization. At the time I served the majority of it was filled with people, like myself, just out of college and given jobs they either couldn't complete and/or were poor representatives of organization in how they conducted themselves mostly due to their age and inexperience (not because they were bad people). There are countless stories about volunteers buying pot from their high school students, people having sex in the Peace Corps office, drunken fights in the streets with locals, volunteers pushing their sexual preferences and agendas to local high school kids and then experiencing a local backlash for it, school directors using and abusing volunteers, the list could go on and on.

To compound the problem the organization failed the volunteers on many, many levels. The organization was never really designed to operate in a place like Kazakhstan and the former USSR (which at the time was a crumbling, cold, miserable and often hostile place) and I have personally seen some good people go through some terrible psychological experiences there (and those former Kaz-5ers reading this know EXACTLY who and what I am talking about).

I would read her book through the eyes of someone who frankly was abused there and still, honestly, did a good job (2 years or not). I cannot say it was well written. I wish she had done a better job in that as it doesn't serve her in making her point, and like everyone else I didn't like how her character Ann was portrayed... again it acts as more of a distraction to the main point of showing what life there was really like at that time.

In the end don't pay any attention to how she portrays the main character, the main character is just a vehicle for Ruth's anger at the organization. Read between the lines and pay attention to the events and the overall experiences. I cannot vouch for all of them, as I was in a different city, but I know a lot of really bad things (and some good as well) happened to a lot of good people as a result of putting these men and women in this situation with an ineffective organization.

Finally, the reader has to understand that Kazakhstan at that time, and outside of Almaty probably still is, referred to as "The Wild East" by many expats who live and work there. Combine this image with a poorly run organization and, by in large, a bunch of young immature and inexperienced people and you start to understand why she wrote it the way she did.

To those of you out there who are considering going to the Peace Corps I would say think really carefully about it before hand and do a lot of research. I don't regret my decision to go to Kazakhstan but I don't think I would do it over again with the Peace Corps. That said I understand the organization may be more effective in other areas.

5.0 out of 5 stars I Believe It Now, December 24, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Gift of the USA (Paperback)

When I first read this book, I didn't believe it. But then I read that Russia expelled the US Peace Corps. Now I read that attacks against Peace Corps volunteers all over the world have doubled. Why? Do our volunteers really do things like those revealed in this book?

These allegations should be investigated by someone like 60 Minutes. They could interview the Pres. of the University who was forced to submit to the volunteers' demands in order to get back the valuable asset, worth thousands of dollars, that the volunteers had hijacked from the truck. They could talk to the two local teachers whom the Peace Corps volunteers supposedly tried to get fired, and they could see if our Peace Corps volunteers are teacing in the cities where they are putting local teachers out of work rather than in poor villages where they are needed because there are no English teachers. And most of all, they could speak to the family of the mother of 3 who was killed because she was riding in the mountains in a Peace Corps van that didn't have winter tires. No wonder our volunteers are attached! I didn't believe all this at first, but somehow, I do now.

I also went back to another book I read before, The Horse Whisperer. The heroine speaks highly of one Peace Corps volunteer she met. She says the others were potheads or bores, or both and tells of one volunteer with pink eyes who bragged that he has been high for a year. Maybe we should take these things seriously and see what our image is all over the world because of the Peace Corps.