The Foreign Service Journal, November 2020

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2020 41 MEMOIRS Africa Memoir: 50 Years, 54 Countries, One American Life (Volume 1: Algeria–Liberia) Mark G. Wentling, Open Books, 2020, $21.95/paperback, e-book available, 256 pages. Retired USAID Senior Foreign Service Officer Mark Wentling has worked in or visited all 54 African countries over the course of a half century. In his planned three-volume memoir, he shares his firsthand experiences as well as thoughts about the future prospects of all 54 countries in the hope that informa- tion about this fascinating continent will be preserved. This first volume covers 27 countries, from Algeria to Liberia. Volume II will cover Libya to Senegal, and Volume III the Seychelles to Zimbabwe. Despite the varying length of the chapters, which reflects how long he spent in a particular country, the author presents consistently well-told tales that reflect a knack for selecting interesting, oft-overlooked nuggets of political and cultural history. Most Americans do not have a strong knowledge of Africa, with its estimated population of 1.2 billion people, but the continent is expected to have more people than either China or India by 2022, he writes. Nigeria alone is projected to surpass the United States in population in 2050 and become the third most populous country in the world. A Peace Corps volunteer in Togo (1970-1973) and, later, director in Gabon and Niger, Mark Wentling joined the USAID Foreign Service in 1977 and served in Niger, Guinea, Togo, Benin, Angola, Somalia and Tanzania. After retiring in 1996, he worked under contract as USAID’s senior adviser for the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa and as a consultant in Malawi, Senegal, South Africa and Zambia. Assignment Dhaka: A Foreign Service Memoir Margaret Riccardelli, S&H Publishing, 2020, $10.99/paperback, e-book available, 134 pages. When Margaret Riccardelli heard that her first assignment in the U.S. Foreign Service was Dhaka, Bangladesh, she didn’t even know where that was— and that was just the first surprise in store for her. Assignment Dhaka is the story of resilience and adaptation by a woman thrown into a world she never expected. Share her adventures as she attends formal balls, battles mutant cockroaches, experiences a civil uprising and falls in love with the street children of Dhaka. From joining the Foreign Service at age 46 to publishing her first book at age 75, Margaret Riccardelli has never been afraid to try new things. As a secretary with the Foreign Service, she lived in Dhaka, Rome, Havana and Ashgabat, and traveled to Moscow, New Delhi and Mumbai. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, Ms. Riccardelli worked in international aviation, and, so far, has visited more than 50 countries. After retiring from the Service, she started a business giving talks about her travels, Silk Road Lectures: Entertaining Lectures on Obscure Destinations. She also earned her master’s degree in education at age 63. Back to Brazzaville Dan Whitman, New Academia Publishing/VELLUM Books, 2020, $28/paperback, 220 pages. There are two Brazzavilles that author and retired FSO Dan Whitman knows, based on trips to the Republic of the Congo almost four decades apart. In Back to Brazzaville , he draws compari- sons between them, reflecting on his time 38 years ago from the standpoint of his knowledge today. Going beyond experiences and recollections, however, this book is also a captivating history of modern Africa in which the author shares with readers descriptive passages of the city, its people, language and culture. The book’s structure loosely follows a chronology, with a break in the middle to cover the 1997-1999 civil war, and it allows for intentional shifts frommemoir to