Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
  Pulp Fiction! September 2, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
OK let me begin by saying that I have not volunteered yet, but I have been accepted, and I am going to Africa. I have done a substantial amount of research on all aspects of the Peace Corps, and what this book describes seems more like the recruitment of an assassin in the CIA, then joining the Peace Corps.
Problems With Book:
1) The Author describes his initial training in the USA. This is a falsehood. All current Peace Corps training is taken in the country you will be working in.
2) Every volunteer that I have talked to has said the training is intensive, but not too difficult. This book describes a Gulag where volunteers are pushed to the brink of insanity. Doctor interrogate you for hours to see if you are lying, and Men-In-Black make an occasional appearance.
Maybe this Authors volunteer experience was an exceptional one, or maybe the Peace Corps training practices have changed over time? All I know is what I have seen and heard differ vastly from these accusations. Please don't come to a decision about this organization from reading this book alone.
 First of the Trilogy April 23, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Although I was a Peace Corps volunteer I did not read this in preparation of my service (although I wish I had). I was drawn to this book after reading a friend's copy of Moritz's "Farm on the River of Emeralds" which was such an excellent book I wanted to read more of Moritz's writing. I was not disappointed by "Living Poor". As referred to in the subtitle this is a chronicle of Moritz's experience joining the Peace Corps and traveling to Ecuador where he spends most of the next four years working with the people of Rio Verde, a village on the Pacific Coast near Esmeraldas.
I think "Farm on the River of Emeralds" is a better literary work and reflects the development of Moritz as a writer as well as his enriched experience over time in Ecuador. This did not reduce my enjoyment and appreciation of "Living Poor". This is a book that reveals poverty as deeply and as powerfully as Rohinton Mistry's novel on India, "A Fine Balance".
Moritz is an excellent observer of people and writes of their appearance, mannerism, and background with portrait accuracy but also with humor and sensitivity. I remember a description of a woman in the village that was feared by all the families. She was a bruja, a witch that could cast spells and control people with her "brews of secret leaves". Moritz meets and describes her..."She had great square teeth, strong and yellow, and her smile was like some aristocratic but fading French countess right out of Proust. She was in her sixties but her hair was still dark and tied in two teenaged pigtails; they stuck out wildly from out beneath a limp and incredibly well used straw hat, the top of which was broken and hinged. When you talked to her on the beach and a breeze was blowing the top of the hat kept opening and closing mysteriously, as though it was trying to send you a secret message without..her seeing."
I did not read Moritz as having a dark perspective as mentioned by some previous reviewers here. He is just very honest, perhaps a little self depreciative but very capable of showing the struggles, joy and humor of the people of this little village in Ecuador. I now consider him one of my favorite authors and very much look forward to reading "Farm on the River Emeralds" again and his last book about his life in Ecuador "The Saddest Pleasure".
Awesome book! April 6, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A great read. It was so hard to put down. Doing Americorps, I could definitely relate. This will definitely be one of my all time favorites.
Peace Corps Experience June 25, 2006
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
My Peace Corps experience was quite different from Mr. Thomson's on the surface. I went to an Arabic country in Africa as opposed to a South American Country. I was in my 20s as opposed to late 40s. My training was in country and quite different. I was a teacher instead of a farmer and lived in a large metropolitan city.
However, having said all that there were several times I thought"Whoa!" this is exactly what happened to me! And this is something that no non-PCV would ever understand.
For example, he described the emotional feeling he had from living in Equador similar to the feeling of first falling in love except that this feeling was constant. I had that feeling about Morocco and I STILL have it to this day 30 years later.
He doesn't sugar coat the experience either and describes the hardships of which there were many. Underlying these descriptions were a message that they made him a better person. Ah, how I can relate.
Excellent book and I highly recommend it.
Master writer, big heart, great humor, old shoe, the real thing... June 23, 2005
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
This remains one of my favorite books of all time...it's survived four library donations in the past 30 years...
Tried to find Thomsen before he died, unfortunately could not...not sure he ever knew he was a great author...hope others got to him with that snippet of info and that he died happy...
He nailed the peace corps...gave it the best it ever had from any of us...i love the man and wish we had more like him...
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