Tears of the Virgin: Edition with Black & White Photos

In early 1964, a wide-eyed, naïve 18-year old from York, PA, was at loose ends a year after completing high school. On an impulse, he applied as a volunteer for the newly established Peace Corps. "Tears of the Virgin" follows this young man from his arduous training at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, to the small village of Nilo, Cundinamarca, Colombia, South America, to Colombia's capital city of Bogotá, to Brandeis University, in Waltham, MA, and his eventual return home. When he arrived in Colombia, Nilo was a sleepy campo village nestled in the jungles of the Magdalena River Valley. The isolated village had no telephones, limited electricity from an unreliable generator, a rudimentary gravity-flow public water system, no indoor plumbing, and no one in the town understood or spoke English. As a Rural Community Development volunteer, his task was to help develop a sense of community by creating and implementing cooperative projects designed to improve the schools and the living conditions of both the townsfolk and people scattered throughout the surrounding area.Due to unforeseen circumstances, the author spent his second year of Peace Corps service in Bogotá where he was instrumental in developing an innovative TV series used by classroom teachers as a groundbreaking way to promote adult literacy in Colombia. Upon returning to the States in June 1966, he was invited to be a Field Coordinator for the Peace Corps Training Program at Brandeis University, teaching new volunteers to continue the program he helped build."Tears of the Virgin" is a transcription of his personal journal and datebook from his two years of service as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Colombia. The book includes many annotations, details, and explanations that the author added anywhere from a few days to several months to 50 years after the fact. The 88 black and white, personal photographs interspersed throughout the book bring this young Peace Corps Volunteer's experience to life in a way that text alone simply could not do.The book also contains some of the author's expository writing, including poems he wrote by candlelight during some of his idle hours in Nilo. These writings provide a glimpse into the soul of this young idealist. This book will appeal to people interested in the very early days of the Peace Corps, and those wishing to learn more about Colombia-its foods, geography, culture, flora and fauna. In addition, and perhaps of most appeal to a wider audience, is that this book is a fascinating chronicle of an optimistic young man who was suddenly thrust into an unfamiliar culture and his efforts to survive and contribute to the society in which he found himself living.