Customer Reviews

Gift of the USA

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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.

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.

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.

The writers of two of the previous reviews prove the premise of this book, lack of understanding due to inexperience. They chose to condemn the author by picking out of the numerous revelations in the book a couple of minor examples of what was exposed and objecting to their being exposed: the insult to the local officials who were invited to address the audience at the graduation and swearing in ceremony and a three week "business trip" to another country that the Peace Corps receptionist was sent on.

They saw nothing wrong with the inexperienced volunteers attempting to get two breadwinners of families fired, maliciously, and another almost accomplishing this through his immaturity. They failed to grasp, or didn't care about, the anger of the teachers where the resource center, their teaching tools, was stolen and kept from them for a year and only returned when the President of the University succumbed to the volunteers'demands, which they could never have implemented. Did that create good will towards America, or anger? They didn't notice that many volunteers were working only a few hours a week, or not working at all, and those that were working were teaching in the cities, taking jobs from local teachers, not out in the villages where they were needed, where there were no English teachers. Instead, they criticize the author for not doing what they did, stick it out and continue the secret so they could travel. And most of all, they didn't seem to notice that a Peace Corps local employee, a mother of three, was killed because she was traveling on Peace Corps business in a Peace Corps vehicle that was not equipped for winter conditions in the mountains.

Having been in the Peace Corps in Europe, I agree with the writer of the first page of the epilogue, another Peace Corps volunteer who served at the same time as the author and said he found it impossible to do his job so he had fun, instead, for two years. And the author's reference to the Washington Post article about Russia not renewing visas for many Peace Corps volunteers to stay for their second year of service has since been followed up by Russsia expelling the US Peace Corps stating that the volunteers were poorly trained and not equipped to do their jobs.

One review writer was so angry he couldn't even finish the book? I found Gift of the USA fast, gripping reading, and I learned a lot. This book is non fiction and an excellent expose of America's sacred cow. I just checked the Rose Kaplan School website. There are now over 500 students in the school, many heads of households have gotten jobs with the English they learned there, and 20% of the students are tuition free, those from poor villages who are even given bus fare to come to the school, youngsters from orphanages, and people who just can't afford the tuition.

Though many readers may not be happy to hear this, Ms. Moss did give a true reflection of what Peace Corps volunteers were really accomplishing in Kazakhstan. All of these characters are real characters. As one of them, I could easily identify the true names of the PCVs.

First of all, the story of the Taraz PCVs Taraz stealing the English Resource Center did occur. It split the entire Peace Corps volunteers of Taraz into two groups, those supporting Sherman and Tim and those supporting Ann. In the long run, Ann gained more respect by the local school teachers and students for opening up the Rose Kaplan School. The other volunteers were well known for their parties and "rigged" English competitions. To show you what the Peace Corps thinks of Ms. Moss, the current Peace Corps staff in Kazakhstan considers the Rose Kaplan School as one of the most successful projects initiated by PCVs.

The book is not complete. Readers do not know about how PCVs continued Ann's work after she left. They also do not know about Ann's return trips to Taraz to help run the Rose Kaplan School.

It will be easy to criticize Ms. Ruth Moss for making some cultural mistakes in her book. Let the reader be forewarned, she may have intended to do that to protect some of her close Kazakh and PCV friends.

Expect this to be a popular book in the future. Ruth Moss should be praised for openly questioning the work of the Peace Corps around the globe. Unfortunately you do not hear these stories since many RPCVs do not have the same resources or influences such as Ms. Moss to get the word out.

Having spent a great deal of time in the region and working with Peace Corps I thought this might have some insight into how a good organization could be better. But unfortunately it reads like a bad romance novel (which I should have surmised from the cover).
Every comment and critique sounds like the culture shock first impressions that some business people have coming into Kazakhstan. The cultural descriptions are inaccurate, her facts are wrong, and overall this sounds like a bitter commentary that someone wrote in response to being excluded by cultures--American, Kazakh, and Russian--to whom she condescends.
I confess that as much as I wanted to I couldn't get to the end of this ... account. It's just not worth the time to finish, or even begin for that matter.

Well, I don't believe it. Not the book. I believe that. What I don't believe is that someone had the courage to say that the Peace Corps isn't so wonderful. My parents met in the Peace Corps in Afghanistan. They were always proud of what they did there. I grew up knowing I would go into the Peace Corps, like they did. But like the hydro expert and the construnction guy in the book, I was forced to do something I knew nothing about and didn't want to do, teach elementary school English like they did. That guy in the Washington Post article when Russia wouldn't renew visas for the Peace Corps volunteers was in a business program even though he said he knew nothing about business. I'd have been better in that program, even though I don't know anything about business, either. But unlike the volunteers in the book, we had grammar lessons, about as good as the training Ruth Moss describes. We didn't learn grammar because we were taught by volunteers who had finished 1 or 2 years there who had been taught by volunteers who had finished 1 or 2 years there. None of them knew any grammar. What we learned was to answer any question as the character in the book did, dodge it, tell them we aren't there yet and hope they forget about it.

I never had the guts to tell people how it really was. It's bettet to let them admire me and remember the fun I had partying with the other volunteers and dating the local girls. But if I can help it, my kid won't waste 2 years like this. If I have a son and he wants to have fun for a couple of years, ok. But if I have a daughter, I'm going to make her read the part in this book that says that all the countries the Peace Corps is in have 1 thing in common, they're not the USA. Girls don't go out at night. They sit alone and read books. I agree with the author. Peace Corps should be straightened out.