Customer Reviews

Peace Corps: The Toughest Job They'll Ever Mismanage

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The title of this book represents itself to be a critical analysis (or, at least, an analysis) of the Peace Corps. As I will be going to Albania as a Peace Corps volunteer in March, I thought this would be a helpful explanation of the negatives that I might expect when I got there or perhaps helful advice of what to do to avoid a bad experience. However, the book was not aptly named. A better title would be Bill Curlott's crappy experience in the Peace Corps and how he whined and complained for two years. That might seem harsh, but the book is really terrible.

It isn't even well written, the author goes on tangents, skips around with very little focus (unless he's ranting), and there are sentences that really just make no sense. I definitely do not recommend this book...if you are going to be in the Balkans area...read "Balkan Ghosts" it is an unbelievable book, chocked full of information and very well written.

A brief background to help situate this review. I spent my own two years in the Peace Corps in Ecuador much more recently than the author (and much more pleasantly it seems). Yes, I also consider myself a writer with a few paid published pieces although I don't make a career of it.

I bought this book and read it fully once it arrived expecting consideration of the Peace Corps experience through management (country and program directors). This is not that book. The best way to describe and summarize this book is 297 pages of complaining by the author regarding his life and his Peace Corps experience. Each country program within the Peace Corps is different and no experience is "typical," but you get out of it what you put in to it. From the beginning of the book the author seems to be waiting for life to happen to him, rather than realizing the impact his own actions have on the experience. For example, a repeated theme within the work seems to be the rumors regarding his drinking, and yet there is constant mention of buying alcohol and drinking, etc. When somebody gets drunk, and then becomes lost and injured due to being drunk, it would seem to me that concerns about that person's drinking are perhaps warranted, especially when you add in being in a foreign country, not knowing the language, and that the person in question may guide the region's idea of Americans, then even more so. Management within the Peace Corps has to be responsible not just for an individual's safety but for that of the program in general.

If you're looking for a coherent viewpoint on the Peace Corps, positive or negative, try a different book.

The author states early in the docunovel that the characters are fictitious and the events are actual. This protects the innocent as well as the guilty. This also eliminates too many protagonists and makes the book easier to read. This also takes the book out of the autobiographical catagory. The statement about the Jewish people was followed by the statement that the protagonist always admired Jewish people because of their respect for education. The reference to gay bashing is inacurate because one of his best friends during the confusion and accusations was gay and was one of the four to whom the book was dedicated. Also the terms Gays and Lesbians are used for one of the organizations within the Peace Corps. Maybe there was misunderstanding of terminology and situations because of lack of knowledge of the Peace Corps in Ukraine as well as reviewing docunovels. The author states that the main point of the novel is that the Peace Corps should be organized as an international university and administered by people with that kind of background. Two secondary premises are there should be more relevant and effective training and there should be a memorial for the volunteers who gave their lives in service to their country. When a person is dealing with a country where there is no freedom of the press, hence there is no freedom of the press in the Peace Corps and countless other circumstances that have to be experienced to believe, there will be a better understanding. The document section of the novel will be a better explanation of some of the circumstances that took place as seen by the Ukrainian people and what the administration of the Peace Corps did or did not do.