Khaki and Goatskin

Schools - flag ceremony, cinder block, tin roofs, students cut grass with machetes, wear uniforms

pg 61: history of this type education in Togo; good research

pg 68: "learning was unlikely even in the best circumstances..."

pg 69: charade

pg 70-71: the play, a satire on the school

* like our soccer game, an unexpected success, fills us with awe and pride

*I like this little story of the play and would like my book to be short stories - with little stories like these framing smaller, related, stories

ah! story so short!

imagines a kid succeeding in America

pg 75: good insight

Manioc

He starts with the description of manioc, what it is, how it prepared, how it is served.

pg 29: misunderstandings/language

pg 30: good description of his house, surroundings

pg 31: impeccable comparison to museum display (anthropology); market with "dead yovo clothes"

*in Same we bartered too

Ama takes Packer in, teaches him

* how cruel we are to go abroad, where we are taught the local ways by an invested teacher, only to leave again

*while reflecting on the people is important, reflecting on my own thoughts and struggles is more (embarrassment, futility, humility, awe, fear - learning the language slowly, thrilled to finally speak)

pg 42: men constantly buzzed from alcohol (coca leaves, bua)

pg 44: palm wine (tua), "the color of soapy dishwater"

*"The taste of dirty gym socks," Jay would say.

*I want to see the writer writing, thinking about writing, journaling, but why? Would I feel more involved?

pg 45: ghosts/gods

*Timor had them too. Jose told us that if you got lost, turn your clothes inside out and you'll confuse the evil spirits

Is Packer's writing inconspicuous glorification? I wonder.

His Yale prose is beautiful but not real. I want to tell my story as a story, verbal, oral-like, telling a friend

Lost in Lome'

Packer gives his reason for going: to get away (he was a recent Yale grad).

His training was different from Tidwell's, he trains in country. Plus, Packer admits cramming it all into a few weeks is futile.

Packer mentions culture shock - begins in the Lome' market (Tidwell didn't go there)

anthro: describes customs: chief's death, taboos

Tidwell didn't talk about his fellow volunteers. Will Packer? *I will. It was such a huge part of my experience.

He describes Lome', the director and his wife

He does some more research than Tidwell. The first example is here when he realized what they'd been calling him and all white people, yovo, means cunning dog. *I wonder if malae means something like that.

pg 15: We are very much in his Yale-educated mind

Curious...in contrast to Tidwell, I feel I already know this guy

Packer Intro

My first impression is that he is a good writer. He is already insightful and introspective.

He begins with a memorable lunch when a crippled boy played a nose-harp for money, and he uses it to say that his reation to it, laughter and money-giving, was a parallel to his reaction to his experience - he didn't ever understand it but tried to help anyway. Well done.

Tidwell: A Part-time Reflector

To begin, I'd like to note that I got no real help with the question "What is the difference between Peace Corps Memoir, Travel Writing and Ethnography?" because with Tidwell's book a reviewer called it a memoir while the publisher labelled it Travel/Anthropology (I am considering "Anthropology" the same as "Ethnography," since they are quite similar).

Also, as I took notes for this book I realized I was as much a literary critic as I was a researcher. While the critical notes may serve me as I write my own Peace Corps book, they may not work with the topic of my paper. We'll see. I suspect some of the critical notes will sneak in sometimes.

The book begins with a 4-page into that sucked me in with its drama and action. This signifies to me that the writer is a good storyteller. Therefore, according to my assumptions, this will be more artistic/crafted than academic.

Yet, in the first chapter, I see that this book may not dig as deeply (provide as much reflection) as I assumed a memoir would. To quote from my notes:

"I was expecting much more from a "memoir" :

'[After receiving a college degree] It was time, in short, to be a real person...Where was he? Who was he? What kind of work would he do? I wasn't sure. Living in Africa, stripped nearly naked of my own culture, I hoped to give my deepest feelings a chance to produce some answers. I hoped to travel my inner continent, in other words, and come back with a better focused picture.'

This was all we got. I think more introspection would serve to create a more engaging story. As workshoppers asked of me, how did he summon the courage to go? How did he make the decision? What did his family and friends think? What did he fear?"

There was also this:

"Tidwell goes over his training in Chapter 1. He says it's like torture and illustrates his point, but we don't see how this 21 year old felt about it, no emotion. I can try to imagine myself there but would like to see his motivation for telling the story."

In Chapter 3 Tidwell goes into a little of what I'll call ethnography/anthropology (which I will refer to as ethnography). He explains the people's traditional beliefs and also gives a brief history lesson. This lesson goes back to the Belgian invaders and ends with fish ponds, which takes us to why Tidwell is there (to teach the villagers to farm fish).

He continues to use ethnography throughout the book. In Chapter 4 he illustrates the culture of giving and tries to find the reason behind the peoples' generosity. It is in this chapter that he provides a powerful statement, illustrating the mental shift PCVs encounter:

"Like most people who go overseas to do development work, I did so expecting to find out what it's like to be poor. . . Instead you learn what it's like to be rich, to be fabulously, incomprehensibly, bloated with wealth." (74)

In Chapter 10 Tidwell recounts a hunting trip he went on with the men of the village. I think this is a good example of a favorable mix of literary and academic writing. Admittedly, calling it academic is a stretch, but I do because Tidwell is describing a cultural event. The literary part is the way he uses tension to make the story exciting.

Chapter 11 is another good example. He tells the story of once-respected Lukasa who loses honor in the villagers' eyes because he dies childless. Tidwell continues by explaining why having children is so important to the villagers.

Chapter 15 goes into the culture of mining to temporarily escape poverty. In Chapter 16 he describes primitive medicine and religious practices.

As for introspection and reflection, Tidwell is lacking, which makes the read less engaging than other similar memoirs. In Chapter 3 Tidwell tells an exciting success story of his first pond. Yet, he does not provide much introspection with this and other stories. Though he does make it clear later that he became frustrated with his poor transportation situation, I think he fails to convey the feeling.

Also, in Chapter 5 Tidwell recounts his first fish harvest and when he mentions the crowd that showed up to see, he writes a lame "I was impressed by their show of support." In Chapter 7 he mentions nearby violence in a struggle for power, yet he does give any personal reflections on it. In the next chapter he talks about the many deaths of villagers, yet I only slightly felt the emotion he must have felt. It was here that I realized that I didn't really know Tidwell. I didn't know what kind of guy he was because he wouldn't show me. He was more like a bystander than a participant, more like an ethnographer than a writer. In Chapter 9 he ends a potentially hear-rending scene where a villager names his son after Mike:

"I thought about that for a long time and it almost made me cry." (139)

Yet, in the latter chapters he becomes more reflective and ends with a bang. In Chapter 11 he begins to reflect on over-population. He devotes the whole of Chapter 12 to reflection on acceptance. In Chapter 14, perhaps the best-written chapter, he mourns his absent friend. In 16 and 17, as he nears the end of his service, he reflects on fear of failure, futility and stress. Tidwell ends with two powerful and sad chapters where he battles with his feelings.

I also noticed that Tidwell had a strange habit of forgetting to mention things: his best friend, his dog, other characters who came and went and finally his alcoholism. He doesn't mention his drinking problem until Chapter 17. While it is true that he doesn't admit it to himself until then, as a reflective writer he can drop hints and build tension, foreshadow, for the reader.

Tidwell chose to tell his story this way, with stories and observations front-loaded and introspection and conclusions back-loaded, perhaps to create a slow build up that ends with a bang. While that made a good read, there is still a missing piece. The theme eluded me. There seems to be no central idea. Any conclusions were left unsaid, or remained unclear. In the end, I've heard some memorable stories but not felt any change: I didn't come to any significant realization, nor did Tidwell. I can then ask myself, was this worth reading?

Yes, but it leaves me wanting more. Still, this was my first book on the reading list, so I have nothing to compare it to yet. We'll see if the second PC book differs and by much.

Chapter 19

good ending, leaves the reader with a good feeling, a pleased feeling with the book even after a very slow start

I felt as if I had the PC experience with him, sort of

lasting final image, strong

Chapter 18

good reflection again - Tidwell ends with some strong chapters

this one about his own fish harvest, sharing the fish as the locals did, teaching his friend to ride his motorcycle, mixed feelings (his and the villagers')

Chapter 17

Tidwell admits his alcohol problem, good reflection here on futility, stress

*reminds me of my fellow volunteers, how they dealt with their stress

Chapter 16

Anthropology: primitive medicine - gurgle gasoline for a toothache *( in Timor they covered cuts with motor oil)

Tidwell admits fear of failure

more dialogue in this chapter (with a new character, another to add to the list of forgetables)

religious practices

walking on coals *(reminds me of the time kids jumped on broken glass in Timor - so much fear and tension)

Chapter 15

Anthropology: culture of mining

pg 212: figures: "During my two years,more than three-quarters of the villages lost at least one man to the devouring diamond pits of Mbuji Mayi."

touching: "What do you say to someone you're not sure you'll ever see again?"

Tidwell's characters are hard to recall; similar, strange names add to the confusion

Mupeta's story is repeated

hitches rides *(we did that in Timor, some more than others)

Chapter 14

Mbaya the housekeeper returns

Now, this far in, Tidwell mentions he has a dog

touching story of dependence when Mbaya leaves - Tidwell realizes how much he depended on Mbaya, as help and as a friend (stresses the importance of friendship), though I wonder why he only spends this one chapter on his best friend

*In contrast, Bek and I did our own work. It makes me laugh that he can't cook or wash. We took pride in the fact that we could it ourselves.

Pg 205-6: stages of grief for his friends absence; well written, articulated, presented

this is now my favorite chapter

Chapter 13

cotton story; how the locals, with Tidwell's help, took advantage of the government-sponsored Belgian cotton company, and how the Belgian company took advantage of them

an important story of the effects of exploitation on the exploited

Chapter 12

short chapter about acceptance

most reflexive chapter so far

Chapter 11

briefly touches on Challenger disaster (I will go into Katrina in depth), instead he talks about the birth rate

anthropology: cultural reactions to childless Lukasa

maybe fittingly goes on to child mortatlity

pg 174-5: contemplates stars and over-population

*what about maternal mortality? I know that was high, too.

Chapter 10

hunting, exciting, tense, my favorite chapter

this is a chapter with a story, action, drama, and a conclusion

Chapter 9

No characters to follow; they come and go and don't return; how about the boy he mentioned earlier on who worked for him?

* I don't like that I don't know Mike. I want readers to know me

pg 126: beautiful, poor kids (reminds me of Tankai kids), "underneath I was black like everyone else."

*I remember Paulino when we finally convinced him to go to the hospital for his foot

pg 139: a potentialy heart-rending scene ends "It almost made me cry."

Theme? I realized I was selfish in Kalambayi...?

Chapter 8

pg 121: death; I only slightly felt the emotion he must have felt

Also, I don't really know Mike; I don't know what kind of guy he is, I can't tell because he doesn't show us; he is more like a bystander, like an ethnographer

Chapter 7

violence

pg 102: date: Feb 1985

tension builds, but I don't know how he got his facts, and I realize his scenes, dialogue is few and far between

refugees

personal reflections on the violence?

pg 115: distrust vs trust, motivation *(In Timor they didn't know why we were there and we didn't either)

Chapter 6

compares open Africa to closed America

*no trust, CIA accusations, US and Cuban Doctors, the people never knew what we did, but the Cubans' jobs were obvious

Chapter 5

pg 83: harvest, crowd (reminds me of our girl's soccer game, our big moment), But he ends with a lame "I was impressed by their show of support."

pg 84-5: better, shows anger

pg 89: good worldview

Chapter 4

pg 65: killed by generosity

pg 72: epiphany

Pg 66: Anthropological question: what made them so giving? He tries to answer

pg 74: brilliant: "Like most people who go overseas to do development work, I did so expecting to find out what it's like to be poor. . . Instead you learn what it's like to be rich, to be fabulously, incomprehensibly,bloated with wealth."

Ethnography: sharing, trash, poverty

Chapter 3

Tidwell begins with anthrpology, traditional beleifs (Mambamunu), followed by history lesson - invaders. cotton, Belgian fish ponds - which leads us to his story.

He works with Ilunga

Not much introspection, just the stories

Success story

pg 59: frustrastion climaxes (roads, accidents)

Chapter 2

I've noticed that his chapters are not chronological - the stories in them, I mean. They can cover the entire two years. Each chapter is a different subject.

In this chapter he vaguely describes the people. It's mostly his living situation and relationship with Mbaya (an 18 year old who cooks and cleans for Tidwell, though this is the only time he's mentioned - I can vouch for up to pg 126, anyway. And I wonder why he isn't mentioned in Chapter 11 when Tidwell talks about dependence on youth?)

Tidwell uses his own sicknesses, which were awful, to stress that the villagers were much worse and had to endure their entire lives. I felt his pain, but I don't think the comparison was enough. I had trouble imaging worse, I wanted to be told, or shown. Maybe it was too hard to imagine.

Mike Tidwell and his Ponds - Intro and Chapter 1

The intro is engaging, good start.

It reminds me of us - reminded me of "Stanley," a military bag we dyed black, from olive green, to prevent any mistaking us for military. The name "Stanley" was large and white, my uncle's last name - it was a baseball equipment bag that we accumulated when we were younger. I think we left that bag behind in Timor...

I noticed that a reviewer called this book memoir, yet the publisher labelled it "Travel/Anthropology." Interesting, seems there is no distinct line in the sand, or at least there wasn't when this was published, 1988.

pg 12, a hint at his motivation. I was expecting much more from a "memoir" :

"[After receiving a college degree] It was time, in short, to be a real person...Where was he? Who was he? What kind of work would he do? I wasn't sure. Living in Africa, stripped nearly naked of my own culture, I hoped to give my deepest feelings a chance to produce some answers. I hoped to travel my inner continent, in other words, and come back with a better focused picture."

This was all we got. I think more introspection would serve to create a more engaging story. As workshoppers asked of me, how did he summon the courage to go? How did he make the decision? What did his family and friends think? What did he fear?

I know for myself I had the vague hope that my experience would help me "grow up," or "be a man." It seems he felt the same, but did not say why that was important to him. For me, I was newly married and had no career planning, which scared the crap out of me. I feared that I would not be a good husband - my definition of "good" reflecting what I saw from my own father, who worked hard at work, got promotions and raises and made enough money to give us comfortable lives with little financial worry. I feared I would be a poor provider.

Vague and naive hope. I experienced no great change, either.

Tidwell goes over his training in Chapter 1. He says it's like torture and illustrates his point, but we don't see how this 21 year old felt about it, no emotion. I can try to imagine myself there but would like to see his motivation for telling the story. Am I going overboard here?

I also noticed there are no dates anywhere to tell me the year this took place.

Thoughts on Ellis

I’m not sure that was a very helpful read. It was more confusing than informative. I feel I have some idea of what autoethnography is, but like my wife, who will receive her Masters in Public Health next Saturday, said, I need to hear the other side of the story, too, the ethnography story, before I can understand what this is.

I gathered a few nuggets from the creek, which I have below. But perhaps the biggest help was the way the text itself was written. It was a semester’s-worth of material told as if I was in the class. It got the points across, citing related quotes, while making me feel I was in the story – thus making me want to read on and participate. There was a story, a plot to follow.

I got the sense that it was the lack of emotion in traditional ethnography that autoethnography is railing against (apparently, since I still don't know what traditional ethnography reads like). Ellis seems to stress that it is this emotion that we must insert into research in order to get the reader interested. And it’s the only way to tell the truth; for a researcher to be truthful s/he can not pretend s/he is not a part of the research.

I told my wife about a part in the book where a student presents her “research” to a women’s shelter. It was a play about the student's own domestic abuse. My wife was less interested in the reaction of the shelter’s staff than in how this play the student performs can even be considered any kind of ethnography. It seemed like nothing more than a memoir to her. I couldn't’t defend it, but I did mention the other students in the book and their projects, which included interviews and research.

Here are some 0f the nuggets: take retrospective field notes on your subject, one of the goals is to assist other in telling their stories, a writer who makes himself vulnerable is taking a greater risk but could find greater reward, and understanding of others comes through understanding yourself.

Finally, I liked this quote: "I write because I want to find something out. I write in order to learn something that I didn't know before I wrote it." - Laurel Richardson (pg 170-171)

I will keep my impressions in mind as I continue with this project. I think I will get some reading on ethnography before I start to read the ethnography books on my reading list. I plan to read those last. Today I will start with the Peace Corps Memoirs. I will read Mike Tidwell's The Ponds of Kalambayi first.

Participant Interludes: Autoethnographic Converstaions about Autoethnography

pg 286: She now inserts her conversations with the participants after we read the final draft. It's a bit distracting at first. I see that this section couldn't have been first, that would be too confusing. Maybe if it were interspersed, but no, it would take away from the lessons. I guess this works for what it is.

pg 287: "Yes, [Judy says ,] "by understanding myself better, I think I've become more 'objective.' It's the opposite of science where being objective means keeping yourself out of your research."

"I don't know whether we want to use the language of objectivity," [Carolyn says]. "I like the terms verisimilitude, or lifelikeness, to describe our goals, but I understand what you mean. As Jackson says, understanding of others comes through understanding yourself."

Community Interlude: Taking Autoethnographic Research to a Domestic Abuse Shelter

pg 272-282: here Dr. Ellis has co-constructed an event and written it in the third person omniscient. Interesting. It seems to work. She collected the thoughts of all the participants through interviews and then had them read over her drafts for accuracy. Yet, the way she tells it seems to be out of order - before or after things are needed, or they are repeated.

I am glad to learn the lesson from this piece that problems can arise that I don't forsee, as far as reactions to works. For example, my fellow evacuees and any Timorese who read it, or any aid workers.

Class 10: Evaluating and Publishing Autoethnography

Pg 249: *I feel like I'm taking a course here. Well done.

pg 252-3: on criteria for good autoethonography: "Art's position dovetails with Denzin's insofar as the important criterion is whether the work has the possibility to change the world and make it a better place. Does it advance the promise of 'radical democratic racial justice embodied in the post-civil rights, Chicano/Chicana, and Black Arts Aesthetic movements?' Denzin's position fits with Clough, who argues that good autoethnographic writing should motivate cultural criticism. Autoethnographic writing should be closely aligned with theoretical reflections, says, Clough, so that it can serve as a vehicle for thinking 'new sociological subjects' and forming 'new parameters of the social.' She challenges autoethnography as a practice - autoethnography has not critically engaged the distinction between private and public or western ideologies - while Denzin discusses how it can exist ideally."

"Denzin and Clough resonate for me," says Hector. "The paradigm Denzin is talking about is built on Afrocentic, Chicano/Chicana, Native American, Asian, and Third World views, and includes gender, class, and queer perspectives..."

"Denzin describes these critically engaged texts as poetic, performative, and narrative," I remind. "He argues that they also must be hopeful, well-written, and well-plotted stories that show memorable characters and unforgettable scenes."

pg 256: here she goes over Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

pg 263: here she lists some "mass audience" publications, including Writer's Market, which lists magazines which publish short stories, Chicago Review, Missouri Review and of course, The New Yorker, Harper's and The Atlantic, and she calls the three "crossovers that appeal to a highly educated mass audience." She does acknowledge that "you'll be competing with professional writers for space and most don't care about research authenticity" and that "it's hard to break into literary publications. The rules are stringent and you have to know people and have a record of having published in these outlets."

Class 8: Autoethnographic Forms of Writing

from 5.7.08

pg 196: "resesarchers present their stories as case studies, life histories, bios or autoethnography. Their goal is to evoke a situation the author has been in or studied."

I thought I knew what this meant...

*For my PC story, I am an expert now on ET and PC and evacuation - that is why I should tell my story

pg 197: Thinking with a story = narrative analysis, thinking about a story=analysis of narrative

pg 201: *A note on Ellis' writing - I find myself scanning paragraphs to find speaker tags. She puts them far away, making it hard to tell who's speaking.

Pg 213: "In an astute analysis, [A.J.] Muhr compares blogs to more traditional, objective research: on-line informational blogs to taking field notes, and on-line journals with an emphasis on telling and analyzing a good story to autoethnography. Many on-line diarists, she says, are 'still in the field note stage of autoethnography, a listing of events, peppered with feelings and random or tengential thoughts.' Some 'write evocatively with concrete detail, action, and dialogue. They tell a real story. They help me understand more about them, myself, society, the world... . That's the stuff of autoethnography!'"

Class 7: Writing as Inquiry

from 5.7.08

pg 170-171: "I write because I want to find something out. I write in order to learn something that I didn't know before I wrote it." - Laurel Richardson

pg 178: "We may not have a reason to tell a story, but we ought to have a reason to publish it." - L. Richardson

Class 6: Writing Therapeutically, Vulnerably, Evocatively

from 5.5.08

pg 136: "My research usually has therapeutic value for me, other participants, and/or readers, and any dialogue between my participants and me can become a process of mutual exploration."

*Would interviewing the other PC ET evacuees be a good idea?

pg 138: a note on vulnerability. Dorothy Allison said she wants to "take the reader by the throat, break her heart, and heal it again."

pg 139: one of the students writes about the first time she had sex with her husband after cancer treatment. That's vulnerable. Could I go there - relations in the PC?

Class 5: Writing Field Notes, Interviews, and Stories

from 5.5.08

pg 116: writing art vs science - art is a way "to convey the meanings you attached to the experience."

pg 117: "Whether you're writing during, immediately after, or mauch later, I recommend that you start by taking retrospective field notes on your life." I can do that.

"Annie Dillard says that if you value your memory, don't write a memoir."

pg 126: "the worst offense is omitting details that don't fit or playing down their importance."

Class 4: Autoethnographic Projects

from 5.1.08

pg 88: "Making sense of the sensations"

from 5.3.08

pg.101-102: I have the idea to interview others in similar positions. So for my PC book I can interview other evacuees, from East Timor and elsewhere.

Also, the acronym IRB came up. This has to do with getting permission to do a survey or project, Bekah told me. It will be brought up again later and explained.

pg 109: "In my experience men have a lot more trouble than women with talking about emotions and revealing their vulnerabilities.

pg 110: a list of male authoethnographical writers

* I still see Ellis' writing as amateurish, which distracts me at times. Perspectives shift, the dialogue is unnatural (long). Yet I know this is a simulation of a class, and perhaps this is the best way to tell this story. But why the writing bothers me is a good question. Maybe it's important to me to be able to write my stories without such distractions.

pg 110: "Like analysis, autoethnography often centers on pain."

pg 110: "Sometimes [the impetus for writing autoethonography] come from desire to remember and honor the past."

Class 3: Autoethnography in Interview Research

from 4.29.08

pg 72: "And that should be one of our goals - not just to tell our own story but to assist others in telling theirs."

Class 2: The Call of Ethnographic Stories

from 4.27.08

pg 48: "Readers want to know why they should believe you."

Impressions on Ellis

from 4.4.08

My first impression is that the writing is untrained, unattractive.

The sociological language is over my head.

The fictional characters and the nonfiction stories are confusing.