The Foreign Service Journal, November 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2022 39 carefully, from the gray skies of Lima to the social tension around translation issues. Also included are pieces from Ravin’s travels to Tanzania during the pandemic and her return to Peru. Judith Ravin currently serves as consul general at U.S. Consulate General Chennai in India. She served previously in Peru, Pakistan, Dominican Republic, Sudan, Cameroon, and Mexico. Before joining the Foreign Service in 2003, she worked as an editor, journalist, and translator. She has written and contributed to numerous other published works, including Beyond Our Degrees of Separation: Washington Monsoons and Islamabad Blues (2017) and Ballet in the Cane Fields: Vignettes from a Dominican Wanderlogue (2014). A Life Unimagined: The Rewards of Mission-Driven Service in the Peace Corps and Beyond Aaron S. Williams, with Deb Childs, International Division, UW Madison, 2021, $30/hardcover, e-book available, 258 pages. Aaron S. Williams’ story is an uncon- ventional one, beginning on the South Side of Chicago and eventually encom- passing the directorship of the Peace Corps. His story conveys the complexity of U.S. foreign policy and development efforts while spotlighting how the American ethos of hard work and determination can come to fruition. Williams was a public school teacher before joining the Peace Corps and serving in the Dominican Republic. He then joined the USAID Foreign Service. Work as a USAID FSO took him to many parts of the developing world on challenging missions of international development. He retired after 22 years in the Foreign Service and was appointed director of the Peace Corps in 2009, serving until 2012. Throughout these experiences Williams emphasizes the value of following one’s intuition, having a willingness to take risks, and how notions about what is important in life must account for the unexpected. Aaron S. Williams is a senior adviser emeritus for international development and government relations at RTI International. The recipient of numerous career service awards and honorary degrees, he lives in Virginia with his wife, Rosa. They have two sons and five grandsons. A Cowboy in Mongolia: Journeys in the Steppe and Gobi Desert Daniel Miller, Blurb Books, 2022, $12.99/paperback, print only, 168 pages. A wealth of anthropological and ecological insights and lived experi- ences combine in Daniel Miller’s A Cowboy in Mongolia: Journeys in the Steppe and Gobi Desert , which explores through both narrative and photo essays Mongolian grasslands and herdsmen who live off them. Miller draws comparisons to other distinctive landscapes he has worked on from the plains of Montana to the Tibetan Plateau. Known to some as the “wild yak man,” Miller notes: “Despite the vast distance that separates the ranges they ride across taking care of livestock, the herders of Mongolia and the cowboys of the American West still speak the same basic language.” Daniel Miller grew up on a dairy farm in southern Minnesota and served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal. He studied rangeland ecology at the University of Montana and worked as an outfitter before contributing to development projects with the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, and other organizations. He joined the Foreign Service in 2003 and served as a USAID agricultural officer with postings in Afghanistan, India, Philippines, Pakistan, and Mongolia. After retiring in 2017, he worked as an adviser to Mongolians raising cattle and settled in his current “home on the range” in Buffalo, Wyoming. The Island in Winter: Living Year Round on Kelleys Island Alexi Panehal, University of Toledo Press, 2021, $19.95/paperback, print only, 132 pages. The largest island on Lake Erie, Kelleys Island has for decades been a small hub for those in search of a sunny, easygoing getaway dur- ing the summer months. Residents who brave the winters there, however, face a test of “planning skills and psychological fortitude”—against harsh weather and without certain modern amenities or regular access to main- land Ohio. Retired Foreign Service Officer Alexi Panehal speaks to both experiences in The Island in Winter: Living Year Round on Kelleys Island . A lifelong visitor, she now looks through the