PCV Life in Kenya

 

A review of Jackson’s Kenya – A Peace Corps Story by Richard Otto Wiegand, www.safari-shamba-books.com, 2020.

 

I have long been awaiting a good Peace Corps memoir from Kenya. At last, one arrived in author Wiegand’s remembering his years in Kenya in the early 1970s.  Otto Wiegand was a dairy expert charged with improving animal husbandry in a half dozen of the Settlement Schemes in the trans-Nzoia region between Eldoret and Kitale.  As do most memoirs this one follows a hazy chronological order. The author recounts some events or anecdotes from the 70s and then updates them with a later observation or comment about how things changed or didn’t.  His Kenyan history of what went on around him is broad brushed, and accurate. It is not hard for the reader to put matters into that context.

More to the point, Wiegand’s reminisces about his life in Kenya are chock full of anecdotes about life in rural areas with rural folks. His guide to much of this was a man named Jackson, whom Wiegand employed as a cook, but who subsequently became a friend, Swahili teacher and guide to all things Kenyan – tribalism, corrupt politics, local customs, and culture. Wiegand’s experiences reflected a growing understanding of the environment he was in and with that understanding he became an increasingly effective volunteer. His recitation of the problems that small scale Kenyan farmers encountered clearly illustrated the complexities of economic development in third world countries. 

In addition to rural life, Wiegand recounts some of his travels and the young expatriate social context he enjoyed. All PCVs took advantage of East Africa’s magnificent possibilities – high mountains, terrific game parks, gorgeous beaches. The only error of fact I found in the book was geographical. Wiegand swaps the positions of Masaka and Mbarara, Uganda, in telling of a trip there. 

In summary, Wiegand does an excellent job of describing the life of a volunteer of that era in Kenya. He writes in a frank un-hyperbolic fashion that is a pleasure to read. 

A disclaimer – I was a PCV in the same part of Kenya in the years just before Wiegand arrived. We never met, but I installed the water systems on several of the Settlement Schemes – Ndalu and Kiminini - he worked as an extension agent. The memoir also mentions several volunteers from my group who hung on after I departed.

Gulu in the Rain

 

A review of I Miss the Rain in Africa by Nancy Daniel Wesson, Modern History Press, Ann Arbor, Mi, 2021. 

 

This memoir of Peace Corps service in Uganda in 2012/13 has the immediacy of a blog/diary from which it is drawn. Consequently, it is a cumulation of little horrors of third world poverty and ah-ha’s of cultural insight. Hyperbole characterizes the prose. Everything is reported in near breathless terms. That criticism aside, the author was a first-time visitor to Africa, and she was posted to a difficult place in a difficult time. 

Gulu, a city in northern Uganda was the locus of terrible troubles in the 1980s and 90s when the Lord’s Resistance Army terrorized the region, killing, kidnapping, looting and conscripting inhabitants. Many fled to the relative safety of the city but brought their personal trauma with them. This emotional climate then overlaid an urban environment where traditional values were already under siege from modernity.  Gulu was author Wesson’s posting. She worked for a non-governmental organization which promoted literacy.  Once she found her niche she contributed to the organization’s effectiveness.    She was especially proud of a program to develop libraries for children.

Much of the memoir focuses on the difficulty of life for a Peace Corps Volunteer: poor housing, urban noise, medical issues, food, weather, dreadful public transportation, and more.  Wesson was not an especially happy camper and called them like she saw them. Yet she recognized that Peace Corps was a lifechanging event and a learning experience for her.   I give her credit for hanging in.

The Peace Corps Gulu portion ends about half-way through the book. The remainder relates a bit back to it but continues with the author’s next life experiences.