Riding on the Harmattan by Thomas Nixon
This memoir chronicles Thomas Nixon’s experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa, particularly in Togo, over several years. It explores his travels, personal relationships, cultural encounters, and the challenges faced during his time abroad. The narrative begins with Nixon’s timeline from his university years to his first experiences abroad, including trips to Nicaragua and Brazil, leading up to his Peace Corps service in Togo starting in 2015.
The village of waiting by George Packer
Now restored to print with a new Foreword by Philip Gourevitch and an Afterword by the author, The Village of Waiting is a frank, moving, and vivid account of contemporary life in West Africa. Stationed as a Peace Corps instructor in the village of Lavié (the name means “wait a little more”) in tiny and underdeveloped Togo, George Packer reveals his own schooling at the hands of an unforgettable array of townspeople―peasants, chiefs, charlatans, children, market women, cripples, crazies, and those who, having lost or given up much of their traditional identity and fastened their hopes on “development,” find themselves trapped between the familiar repetitions of rural life and the chafing monotony of waiting for change.
The bight of Benin by Kelly J. Morris
In the fourteen short stories in this book, the author, Kelly J. Morris, draws upon his fifty-year association with Africa to open a window into the countries bordering the Bight of Benin. A long indentation into the coastline of the Gulf of Guinea, the waters of the Bight of Benin have a strong undertow. The region was the source of so many of the enslaved Africans carried off to the Americas that it was called “The Slave Coast.” In these stories set in Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria, we meet the Water Witch, a skinny French brother who claims he can find water with his divining rod; bank employees and African-American immigrants enduring Ghana’s hard times; an extension agent demoted to janitor; subsistence farmers struggling in the money economy; civil servants with secure jobs but with enormous family responsibilities; an apprentice truck driver with ambitions for a better life; small business owners trying to make a living and stay in business; women and girls carving out new roles while trying to maintain respect for their culture; devout practitioners of traditional religions, Christianity, and Islam; true believers and charlatans; and many more.
A yovo in Togo by Karen Story
From 1985 to 1987 I served in the Peace Corps in Togo, West Africa, teaching people to build wood-conserving cookstoves and rain catchment cisterns. They say the Peace Corps is “the toughest job you’ll ever love,” and that was certainly my experience. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, and one of the highlights of my life. This is my story of what it was like to be a “yovo” (a foreigner, a stranger, and a white person) in a small village in northern Togo in the mid-1980s.
Greetings from Jungleland by Michael Fortner
Greetings from Jungleland is an unsentimental, entertaining memoir chronicling the quest of a young, privileged American who joins the Peace Corps to pursue his altruistic goals, dreams of adventure, and assimilation into another culture. Posted in the small, impoverished country of Togo, West Africa, Michael Fortner jumps with both feet into Togolese culture, community development work, and learning new languages, but quickly finds himself in over his head. He comes to rely on the hospitality and patience of the residents of Komlakopé and his new circle of friends to guide him through various cultural, language, and development barriers. Michael’s enlightening journey features bush taxis, mud huts, exotic foods, and a captivating cast of peasant farmers, village chiefs, public servants, voodoo priests, gun-toting gendarmes, expats, zealots, monkeys, Guinea worms, and goats — all composing the magnificent pageantry of life that is uniquely Togolese, yet common to all.
Remembering the Cajun Past by Marc David
In Remembering the Cajun Past, anthropologist Marc David studies the cultural and political dynamics that reconfigured Cajun memory and identity. Focusing on St. Martinville and the Acadian Memorial, he explores how authorities changed their minds about Cajuns and demonstrates how Cajuns’ historical memories took shape. Part ethnography and part history, David examines the racial aspects of the Memorial’s creation in the wake of the Civil Rights movement and the growth of a new Cajun history, one through which individual Cajuns rejected the label’s connotation of “white trash” and embraced belonging within a storied white ethnic group. Based on decades of fieldwork and deep engagement with public history practices, David explores how historical memory and the historic sites that foster it are intertwined with the politics of civic life.
Tales of Togo by Meredith Pike-Bay
What happens when an idealistic young woman sets off in 1971 to live and work in a remote community in sub-Saharan Africa? Propelled by campaigns at home for peace, social justice and racial equality, she joins the Peace Corps and requests a position in the north of Togo, far from the capital city. Once in Africa, her revolutionary zeal is challenged by others who embrace America and its politics. She encounters unfamiliar authoritarianism in a school run by European nuns and reframes her opinion of men in uniform when she falls in love with a policeman. She works hard to fit in, hiring “boys” for help, traveling in mammy wagons, busses and trucks over murderously bumpy roads. She practices expressions in four languages to greet, bargain and teach. Her efforts introduce her to family roles and cultural practices that are shocking. She comes face-to-face with life-threatening illness. Her adventures reveal curiosity and creativity that keep her afloat and result in adaptation and appreciation. She is transformed in the process.
Togo Songbook by Sam Connor
I can contribute my own book of lyrics and music. Look for ‘Sam Connor’s Togo Songbook’ on YouTube for free, Apple mMsic, Spotify etc. Enjoy!
A million miles by Jody Olsen
When Jody Olsen enlisted as a Peace Corps volunteer in Tunisia in 1966, she was fleeing familial tragedy and the stifling societal norms of her Salt Lake City upbringing. However, her service in Tunisia upended her religious and cultural beliefs and propelled her into a six-decade career with the Peace Corps, culminating in her directorship of the agency.
Olsen’s captivating memoir, A Million Miles, reveals the personal and professional challenges she faced throughout her career, which spanned the Reagan era, 9/11, and the Trump administration. She writes candidly about her struggles as a woman in leadership, as well as personal hardships such as the
sudden death of her brother and her emotionally difficult divorce after her husband’s coming out. This memoir is a sharp, vulnerable portrait, a testament to the transformative power of leadership and self-discovery.
Hard as kerosene by Aaron Barlow
Burkina Faso and Mali in the 1980s, two countries in an uneasy relationship marked by spasms of violence, are the backdrop for this tale of descent and, possibly, redemption. An American follows his Peace Corps girlfriend to West Africa but finds something wildly different from what he had expected, ending up staying for four years amid the chaos of a changing continent.
Starting in the coastal nation of Togo before moving up into the Sahel and into the towns at the edge of the Sahara itself, this tale takes Paul Cassamude through loss and learning to the point of leaving, showing the dangers of expatriate life in third-world countries as well as possibilities found there for personal growth.
Stories of West Africa by Hollis Chatelain
Fabric is an essential part of life in West Africa; people wear colorful fabrics not only as a fashion statement, but also as a way to express their views. These 20 exquisite drawings show scenes from daily life—spending time with family, kids pounding millet as part of their daily chores, and even the process of checking bee hives! Each scene includes a textile backdrop featuring the cloth of West Africa. These fabrics are part of Hollis Chatelain’s personal collection from her 12 years in Africa.