This is a candid
forthright memoir of a Peace Corps experience in Kikambani, Kenya. Theresa served
for nearly three years as a PCV (2004–07): first in Tala, later in Yatta, both
in Eastern Province. In both places she taught computer literacy as well as engaged
in community projects. The book is a compilation of emails and newsletters that
she sent home. Unfortunately, there is regular duplication as stuff mentioned
in one section is repeated in the following one.
Readers can see the
author grow from naiveté to acquiring a more encompassing view of Kenya, but there
is an over-concentration on sanitation, food, housing, and matatus. However, obviously those were the questions that
pre-occupied the writer, or at least the ones she thought folks at home would
find interesting.
Along the way she does
make some trenchant commentary about Kenyan society at large: corruption,
violent politics, the quest for external aid, plight of abandoned children, and
the gap between rich and poor. Closer to home she despaired of always being the
local muzungu on display for locals
to peruse.
Work-wise, Theresa was a
success. She did her teaching job and enjoyed watching students learn. Additionally,
she wrote Web-based computer-learning programs that were subsequently adopted
for use by other schools and organizations.
She seemed overly
politically correct to me in that she never questioned Peace Corps regulations
or authority and always abided by the rules. She also seemed to imbue the
“Peace Corps” ideal with a sort of mystical power.
Theresa’s story is a personal
one. She focuses on every-day issues that most volunteers confront and the
problems of living in the third world. Like the rest of us, she came to terms
with it all and survived. As is true with countless other volunteers, service
was a life-changing event.
This is certainly a
useful book that chronicles one Peace Corps volunteer’s experience. RPCVs will
find that it reminds them of many of the little hassles that they shrugged off
or have tried to forget.
In sum, however, it is not
the engrossing memorable memoir of Peace Corps Kenya. That book has still yet
to be written. So follow Theresa’s example and cull your material, recall your
memories, and write!
If you don’t have a
memoir in you, then please send Friends of Kenya a couple of paragraphs
describing your Peace Corps experience for inclusion in the history of Peace
Corps Kenya being compiled for the 2014 50th anniversary of PC
Kenya. Many thanks.
