The Village of Waiting
by George Packer
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Book Summary Information
Author: George PackerEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2001-08-01
ISBN: 0374527806
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Book Reviews of The Village of Waiting
Book Review: One of the best PC books ever written
Summary: 5 Stars
If you want to cast moral judgement on George Packer, don't read this book. If you want to read the best Peace Corps book ever written, at least about life in Africa, then pick up this book. I lived in Guinea in the mid-90s, while Packer was in Togo in the early 80s. Yet I felt like he was describing my own village, my own frustrations, my own thoughts and feelings (save the prostitute). This was the book that convinced me not to write a book about my own experience. He did it, only better.
Summary of The Village of Waiting
Now restored to print with a new Foreword by Philip Gourevitch and an Afterword by the author, this book is a frank, moving, and vivid account of contemporary life in West Africa. Stationed as a Peace Corps instructor in the village of Lavi? (the name means "wait a little more") in tiny and underdeveloped Togo, 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.Travel Books
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