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.