A Peace Corps Profile [Paperback]

Kirk A. Hackenberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 6, 2006

Ever wonder what the Peace Corps is all about, how to get involved? This book provides a very descriptive and detailed experience of not one, but two tours of service with the organization!

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

From a very young age the author, Kirk Hackenberg, felt a desire to help those less fortunate. He especially felt a need to help underprivileged children as they are often overlooked in the larger scheme of things. After graduating from college, and feeling the need to make a difference in the world, but having no direction, he found what he was looking for in the Peace Corps. In this fact-filled book he takes you from the sometimes-humorous beginning of learning a foreign language, the heartbreak of realizing he couldn't fix everything, to the triumph of knowing he did make a difference in so many lives. His tender stories of working with the children in these poverty-stricken countries will undoubtedly tug at your heartstrings. A devoted husband, and father of two sons, Kirk has had many experiences and lived in many places, but the Peace Corps years was where he "grew up".

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 3 "Quality Family Time"

...... I was happy to see "Little House on the Prairie" with Michael Landon, in Spanish. The set was black and white but was the main entertainment for this family.

I thought I would take a run at speaking something in Spanish so I put together a couple of words I did know, which were: "casa", meaning house and "chico" meaning little. So I pointed at the TV and said, "casa chico, casa chico". The mother and father got this worried look on their faces, and the next thing I know, there's a dialog going on between them for which I'm at a total loss. In a mad dash the mother runs off and returns with a roll of toilet paper and hands it to me. It didn't take a rocket scientist to piece that one together.

Chapter 7 "Lacking the Social Graces"

...... I was sitting in my room when I heard a commotion across the street and looked out to see what was going on. To my anger I saw her and one of the Nicaraguan engineers that I work with beating her.

I ran across the street and grabbed him by the neck. With my fist raised to give him a pop, I realized there was absolutely no resistance on his part. I was so surprised by this that I didn't hit him. I think he saw the amount of anger in my face and knew I was capable of anything at that moment. His next response was to tell me that they hit the women in his country and I shouldn't interfere.

Chapter 12 "A Social Revolution"

...... After weeks of this increasing intensity, a determining point in my staying in Nicaragua arrived. The Sandinistas asked me if I had a problem with them blowing up the Pan American Highway just outside of town where the main bridge was. The Sandinistas were true to their word and did not want to interfere with my efforts so they just told me what their plan was.

Chapter 13 "Crossing the Boarder"

...... I told her I would walk her and her brother back home. It was then that it hit me like a ton of bricks that I had no idea where that was. We walked, with her leading the way, and when we arrived, I was not prepared for what I saw. Her house was a cardboard box along with many others in an alley of a distant street. Inside were a few tattered clothes and a rag bed. She and her brother went in with their bags of food in hand.

I walked for hours, crying, not knowing what to do or how to help. I would never forget this moment in my life and wondered how much more I would have to see and feel before this was over.

Chapter 17 "Here, There and Everywhere"

My next room was no better and while it had a window, I was renting from the mother of Mrs. Baates from the movie of "Psycho". The first week there I found myself running into the hallway at about two in the morning in my underwear because there was screaming and hollering as if someone was being killed. There in the hallway was the old lady in her nightgown with a kitchen knife in her hand.

I ran up to her totally ready for anything but was amazed that she was asleep.

Chapter 21 "A Life Complete"

...... I participated in the launches of Galileo to Jupiter, and the Magellan to Venus. I helped with COLBE, which gave us our first complete images of our own universe. I stood at the space center and saw the day and night launches of the Space Shuttle up close.

I have gone to the top of the Vertical Assembly Building and seen the space shuttle moved to its pad. I went on to help procure the world's largest robotic machines to fabricate a new space shuttle rocket engine but none of this was as interesting to me as my Peace Corps years.

Product Details

• Paperback: 162 pages
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing (July 6, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155369676X
• ISBN-13: 978-1553696766
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,900,689 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #64 in Books > Travel > Latin America > Central America > Nicaragua

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but limited, October 5, 2006

By 

A. Krikorian (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Peace Corps Profile (Paperback)

Wow, this is tough. Every volunteer has a unique story as amazing as that may seem.

Kirk writes about his time in Nicaragua and Chile. While I enjoyed reading his memoir, I have to say it lacks detail and the structure is too linear. He tends to jump quickly to another topic without a lot of development. I wanted to know what food he ate, what the country people's lives were like among other things and that is rarely included.

I'm glad I read it and feel like I got to know a very unique and admirable individual.

A lot of Peace Corps memoirs are silly and self-indulgent. This is, sadly, the opposite - terse and serious. If I had to choose one book this probably wouldn't be it. I read Moritz Thomsen's Living Poor before I went to S. Korea as a volunteer and recommend it before this good but sparse book.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Most Unusual Experience!, September 13, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: A Peace Corps Profile (Paperback)

A most incredible man, this Kirk Hackenberg. To have gone through two terms in the Peace Corps seems to be unusual enough but to live to tell about it under the circumstances is quite another story. His adventures were death defying on several levels. Interesting to see how governments can actually interfere with and hinder the good intentions of those concerned with the well-being of people in their own countries. A bit of a history lesson as well!