Married to Amazement – a memoir, by Kathleen Coskran
This intriguing book is based on a series of vignettes and
reflections that provide insight into cross-cultural experiences and family life as
well as spiritual meditations on what it all means. The author remembers her time as a Peace
Corps Volunteer in Ethiopia, as a PC staff spouse in Kenya, adopting a child in
Columbia, visiting an adopted child’s family in Ethiopia, teaching in China,
hanging out with beach boys in Kenya and more.
Throughout these encounters, Kathleen relates that tolerance, acceptance
of differences and respect triumph over diverging values and misunderstandings.
She writes candidly about family, especially elderly parents, noting that we
take our parents for granted and don’t really know them well, until perhaps –
and hopefully – at the end. Throughout Kathleens’s amazement and love for the
world and those in it comes through loud and clear.
Disclaimer. I liked
the book in part because I know Kathy and have appreciated her writing over the
years. Additionally, I am mentioned – very briefly – in a Kenyan section as one
of the sugar shack guys. Sugar shack because we three PCVs worked on projects
in the sugar cane plantations. Kathy has
a keen eye for cross cultural issues and she bravely got herself entangled in
some, i.e. the beach boys, Ahmed’s family, the Nepali orphanage, in order to
gain understanding of the human condition. That she did, which this memoir ably
demonstrates. It is a good read.
