The Foreign Service Journal, October 2011

32 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / O C T O B E R 2 0 1 1 MEMOIRS Answering Kennedy’s Call: Pioneering the Peace Corps in the Philippines Parker Borg, et al., Peace Corps Writers Worldwide, 2011, $25, paperback, 498 pages. On the 50th anniversary of the executive order that estab- lished the Peace Corps, this book showcases the dedication and spirit of volunteerism in which Americans take pride in the form of a collection of short memoirs by nearly 100 of the volunteers who ventured to the Philippines in the agency’s first years. In Answering Kennedy’s Call , early Peace Corps Vol- unteers recount their struggles to find the tools necessary to achieve the impact they desired and the challenges they faced in implementing the new program. With the bene- fit of five decades of perspective, they reflect on the impact that those years had on their lives. The book is co-edited by former FSO Parker Borg, and contains essays from former FS employees Richard Gilbert (“The World’s Worst Peace Corps Volunteer”) and Brenda Brown Schoonover (“On Being an American”). Before joining the Foreign Service, all three served to- gether as Peace Corps Volunteers in the Philippines. Your Diplomats At Work: A Comedy in Seven Acts Franklin E. Huffman, Vellum, 2011, $26, paperback, 280 pages. In Your Diplomats at Work , a new release in ADST’s Memoirs and Occa- sional Papers series, Frank Huffman describes his experiences as a Foreign Service officer and the frustrations, delights and insights that accompanied them. A prologue recounts Huffman’s roundabout journey from Virginia farm boy to academic to diplomat, establish- ing his credentials and background as a world traveler even before joining the Service. Seven chapters focus on his post- ings inGreat Britain, Burma (Myanmar), Morocco, France, Cambodia, New Zealand and Chad, as well as a brief inter- lude in Washington, D.C. He concludes the book with further reflections on life in the Foreign Service. Often quite funny and always thoughtful, Huffman’s ex- periences shed light on the inner workings of the Foreign Service and the travails and opportunities of a career with State. They also touch on the difficulties of being a two- career family, finding education for one’s children abroad and dealing with nonsensical travel restrictions. Though he writes with a delicate touch, Huffman ren- ders a stern assessment of State’s “stifling bureaucracy” and inefficiency in carrying out its goals, then offers pragmatic suggestions for future improvement. Franklin Huffman joined the Foreign Service in 1985, at the age of 51, after teaching Thai, Cambodian, Viet- namese and Southeast Asian linguistics at Yale and Cor- nell University. He retired from active duty in 1999. I Drank My Tea: Family Adventures in Kyrgyzstan Mary Atwood, CreateSpace, 2011, $9.95, paperback, 170 pages. In 1999, the author and her hus- band, USAID FSO Tracy Atwood, relocated to Kyrgyzstan with their three teenage children. Mrs. At- wood’s memoir of four years in Central Asia contains sto- ries of everyday life mixed with accounts of adventurous travel. She makes a home in Bishkek, copes with the chal- lenges of independent study, discovers a Baptist church on a snowy winter morning and makes trips into the moun- tains to visit local people. In their yurts she is served vodka and fermented mare’s milk and is presented with a freshly slaughtered sheep’s head. Though she found the Russian language to be her biggest challenge, Mrs. Atwood and her family made many Russian and Kyrgyz friends. Her children, John, Joseph and Catherine, successfully completed their in- dependent studies and went on to college. The time in Kyrgyzstan was a wonderful experience for the whole family, she avers, and the ties they made there have been lasting. After growing up on a dairy farm near Quincy, Ill., Mary Atwood graduated from the University of Illinois and then studied Waldorf Education at the Waldorf Institute for Liberal Education. Before Bishkek, her Foreign Service postings included Sanaa and Bamako. She now lives at the couple’s permanent home in Falls Village, Conn. C OVER S TORY