Master writer, big heart, great humor, old shoe, the real thing...

books:


	• Living Poor: A Peace Corps Chronicle Moritz Thomsen University of Washington Press, 1997 - 280 pages average customer review:based on 16 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Master writer, big heart, great humor, old shoe, the real thing...

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...

His other one is good too...

I'm in the process of getting my hands on Living Poor, but also highly recommend Thomsen's book "The Farm on the River of Emeralds." Where 'Living Poor' sounds like it has more of an ex-pat spin on it, "The Farm" focuses more on his on personal experiences, observations, and self-questioning in running a farm with his Ecuadorian business partner, Ramon. Very interesting.

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First of the Trilogy

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".

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Peace Corps Experience

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.

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Awesome book!

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.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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