All posts by djarmul

I am a Peace Corps volunteer in Moldova, in Eastern Europe, serving in the small city of Ialoveni with my wife, Champa. We are from Durham, N.C., where I was the head of news and communications for Duke University. You can follow our adventures on my blog, notexactlyretired.com.

Portugal Chill

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Chill, with hills.

That was our trip to Portugal: beautiful sights, good food, friendly people, relatively inexpensive and easy to like — if you don’t mind walking up and down hills.

Champa and I traveled there with our friends Karen and Bob after touring Morocco, where our packed itinerary took us from urban bazaars to a tent camp in the Sahara Desert. We figured we could relax once we got to Portugal.

That’s what we did, although “relax” is relative when it comes to Bob and me, the travel planners, who both tend to load activities into itineraries. In Portugal, we would stay in three cities — Lisbon, Coimbra and Porto. We vowed to slow down by orienting ourselves in each one with a free walking tour and then wandering on our own. 

As I’ve written previously, I love these tours since the guides are highly motivated to do a great job. In Portugal, we booked five tours altogether, including three in Lisbon. Four of them were with Sandeman’s, which I’d used in Brussels, Amsterdam, Edinburgh and Dublin. Once again, they were excellent and we tipped our guides accordingly.

We started in Lisbon, staying in an Airbnb in the artsy Bairro Alto neighborhood. The famous Tram 28, which winds through the city, rumbled below our window. Our apartment owner was a professional designer, and his place was filled with paintings, sculptures and art books. It was like living inside Architectural Digest, although we lacked some functional things like a latch to the bathroom and places to put our suitcases. Still, we enjoyed it, including the neighborhood fish restaurant downstairs.

Our Uber driver from the airport was from Nepal. So was our waiter at the breakfast restaurant the next morning. There was a Nepalese restaurant up the street. They were all surprised when I started talking Nepali, much less seeing me with Champa.

We timed our Lisbon visit to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Portugal’s Carnation Revolution, when a military coup toppled the fascist dictatorship of António Salazar. People filled the streets holding red carnations. They cheered as aging former coup members waved from old military vehicles. Given what’s been happening in our own country, the four of us felt like cheering, too, as we watched people reaffirm their commitment to democracy.

Back in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Portuguese were at the forefront of European exploration. They were the first to reach India by sea, settled what became Brazil and established trading posts in Asia and Africa. Despite its small size, Portugal became one of the world’s most powerful countries, as we saw celebrated at the tomb of Vasco da Gama and at Lisbon’s “Monument of the Discoveries.” It’s a fascinating but complicated legacy.

Our second stop was Coimbra, known for its great universities, which we visited as students prepared for graduation in black robes that reminded me of both Harry Potter and the many graduations I attended at Duke. We also went to a concert of fado music, the melancholic genre featuring mournful songs and guitars.

Then we continued north to the Douro Valley, with its stunning scenery and wineries, and Porto, the country’s second largest city. Since there were four of us, we hired cars and drivers instead of riding the trains. It cost only a bit more and proved much more convenient. We were picked up and dropped off everywhere and could stop along the way at the castles of Óbidos, the Batalha Monastery and the “Little Venice” town of Aveiro, among other places.

Oh, yes, the hills. I wrote recently that my experience in Nepal has made me smug about “mountains” around the world. Portugal’s highest mountain, Mount Pico, is a mere 7,713 feet, just over a quarter of Mount Everest’s height. But “hills” are a different story. Portugal has them everywhere, reminding me of San Francisco. They were a great way to walk off some of the pastries we ate, from Portugal’s famous pastel de nata tarts to regional delicacies such as Aveiro’s ovos moles.

Looking back, I guess we were busier than “chill, with hills.” Let’s just say that Portugal left us feeling elevated.

Circling Morocco

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Morocco fascinated us when we visited last month on a 10-day clockwise trip from Casablanca to Marrakech. Here are ten things I’ll remember about this distinctive country in northwestern Africa.

The desert. We spent two unforgettable nights in the Erg Chebbi dunes of the Sahara, where we traveled atop camels. We had our own comfortable tent and delicious food, but we also had wind whipping our tent at night and camels grunting nearby. The next morning we visited local nomads and gazed on an endless horizon. Our American lives felt very far away. 

Amazing sights. Chefchaouen is Morocco’s Blue City. It has narrow streets and busy souks, but what captivates you are its blue walls and steps. Several hours away is Fez , which is much larger and browner, with bustling bazaars and one of the king’s many palaces. We also saw stone “monkey toes” in a mountain gorge, Roman ruins, roads snaking across mountainsides and much more

Natural beauty. Even more than the “sights,” we loved the land itself — the wildflowers, olive trees, wheat fields and fruit orchards. If you think of Morocco as just dry and dusty, you’re in for a pleasant surprise. It is strikingly diverse, with deserts and beach resorts, cities and farms, nomads and technology parks.

Islam. Morocco is also a place of religious moderation. Almost all of its people are Sunni Muslims, and there are mosques everywhere, with a welcoming, tolerant vibe. We toured the Bou Inania Madrasa, or religious school, in Fez and marveled at the beautiful Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca, the second largest functioning mosque in Africa.

Handicrafts. We watched artisans build furniture, cure leather, weave rugs, assemble mosaics and paint ceramics. We admired their jewelry, clothing and tiles. Even though we didn’t buy much (we rarely do), Morocco is a shopper’s paradise.

Local markets. We loved wandering among the fruit stalls, spice shops and bakeries of everyday life. One image I shared online, which you can see above, shows a woman chopping meat as cats walk on her table. My friend who is an infectious disease expert at Duke responded in mock horror. He was right, but it was still interesting to see.

Movie sets. Lawrence of Arabia, Homeland, Game of Thrones and other productions have all shot scenes in Morocco. We visited Ouarzazate, a town between the Sahara desert and the Atlas Mountains that locals call Ouallywood. It offers exotic sets and everything else filmmakers might need.

Climate change. As we’ve discovered elsewhere, a good way to learn about global climate change is by actually visiting other parts of the globe. Morocco was no exception. Local nomads and others told us how drought has forced them to move. The photo on the left shows a town that is now largely abandoned.

Superb hotels and food. We stayed in beautiful places across Morocco but none were Western-style hotels. Morocco specilizes in traditional riads — small, distinctive and personal, with great breakfasts. We arranged everything with Best Travel Morocco, a local company that did a great job for less money than we would have paid a U.S.-based operator for a group tour with a similar itinerary.

Excellent companions. We explored Morocco with two old friends, Bob and Karen Simon, with whom we connected in Casablanca. The four of us traveled in a comfortable SUV with the private driver/guide provided by Best Travel. Mustafa took great care of us — explaining everything, making us laugh and guiding us to barbecue restaurants and other spots off the tourist trail. He also had a great Spotify playlist of local artists. Even without their music, Morocco made our hearts sing.

You Call These Mountains?

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When I visited the Andes and Patagonia’s rugged landscape recently, I said the same thing as when I first saw the Grand Tetons: 

“You call these mountains?”

They were spectacular but I couldn’t resist pointing out they were much lower than the Himalayas of Nepal, where I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer 47 years ago and have returned regularly since marrying Champa. I still speak Nepali, am close to our family there and think of Nepal as my second home.

Like many converts, I’ve become a zealot, in my case about Nepal’s status as the home of the world’s highest mountain, Everest, and eight of the top ten overall. I promote them even when I should be praising others.

As you can see from these photos from our trip last month, the mountains of Argentina and Chile are actually stunning. I was spellbound by the snow-covered peaks of Patagonia. When we drove across the Andes from Argentina to Chile, the views were magnificent, such as at Bariloche, below.

The same was true of the Alps when Champa and I hiked there on previous trips (below).

I loved the Cascades, too, when we visited Oregon recently. Despite being less than half the size of the Himalayas — Mount Rainier’s peak is 14,411 feet compared to 29,029 for Everest — they were glorious to hike or just admire from a chair (below).

It’s not like I’m a mountain climber myself, especially at this stage of my life. The highest I ever got in Nepal was 18,519 feet at Kala Patthar, overlooking the Everest base camp. That’s where summit expeditions start, not finish. I could barely walk in the thin air.

Moreover, altitude doesn’t define beauty. Nor does location. The highest peaks, like those in Nepal, can be more deadly than delightful.

Sunrise at Kanchenjunga, the world’s third-highest mountain, near Champa’s home.

My comments are just Himalayan chauvinism and, as Champa reminds me, they’re ridiculous. She glows whenever she visits mountains, whether in Nepal or elsewhere.

In comparison, I sound like a Parisian who sneers at someone else’s cuisine or a New Yorker mocking life beyond the Hudson River. It’s not a good look, so I’m confessing to it here and vowing to finally overcome it. 

In that spirit, let me now state clearly what I thought of the Andes: They were gorgeous, marvelous and impressive. 

That is, if you like hills.

(Top two photos by Nancy Collamer)

Stones of Remembrance

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I used to work near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. I could leave my office at the National Academy of Sciences and walk across Constitution Avenue to the stark black granite wall where millions of visitors come each year to honor American servicemen and women who died in the war.

A few blocks away, the AIDS memorial quilt was spread across the Mall, each of its panels remembering someone who died. 

After I left Washington in 2001, new museums opened to remind visitors of the injustices endured by Blacks and Native Americans in our country. The Holocaust Museum commemorates the millions of murdered Jews.

So how about COVID?

More than one million Americans died during the recent pandemic, the deadliest in our nation’s history. One million. It’s understandable that we don’t yet have a national memorial to honor them and to acknowledge that many of their deaths could have been prevented. But given how politicized the pandemic became, and remains today, I wonder if we will ever do right by them.

All of this occurred to me when I visited Buenos Aires recently and was startled to see a COVID memorial directly in front of the Casa Rosada, Argentina’s White House. It’s a collection of stones, each painted with the name of someone who died. The stones surround a statue of General Manuel Belgrano, a military leader in Argentina’s war for independence. 

Argentina lost more than 100,000 people to COVID. In August 2021, hundreds of their family members and friends marched to protest the government’s handling of the pandemic. They placed the stones around the statue, creating a new memorial that’s now protected by a fence. It’s just across the Plaza de Mayo from another recent memorial, to the mothers who led a peaceful resistance movement against the military dictatorship that “disappeared” their children. Both memorials speak truth to power, side by side.

Other countries have also commemorated COVID’s victims, such as with a memorial wall in London and a forest grove in Italy. In our country, there have been memorial flags in Texas, a “drive around” in Detroit and, in 2021, a memorable display that covered the National Mall with small white flags.

I admire these and other initiatives but wish more attention was being paid to the nascent efforts in our country to produce more official remembrances of the pandemic that affected us so profoundly.

I’m not holding my breath to see a permanent memorial in Washington, especially if the upcoming election restores to power the person responsible for so many of the pandemic’s deaths. Right now, with Argentina fresh in my mind, I’d settle for a million stones across from the White House.

I didn’t go to Argentina expecting to think about COVID but I can’t get their memorial out of my mind. If Argentina, with its own deep political divisions, can do this, why can’t we?

Argentina and Chile

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I anticipated the tango dancers, wineries and Messi jerseys when Champa and I visited Argentina and Chile with my sisters and their husbands last month. I also knew that Patagonia’s glaciers, which are receding because of global warming, would still be amazing. (See my video below, which is also available on YouTube.)

However, I wasn’t quite ready for the thousand-peso notes and people obsessed with their dogs.

Both of these countries at the bottom of South America were beautiful but complicated. Argentina is savoring its recent World Cup triumph while grappling with rampant inflation and political division. Chile is more stable but still coping with the legacy of a brutal dictatorship. There’s a European vibe in both places, not to mention great steaks and wine — and all of those dogs.

We packed a lot into our 2-week itinerary, which we organized ourselves with help from an Argentine planner. We learned a lot, too.

We began in Buenos Aires, renting an Airbnb in Palermo near South America’s largest mosque. We took a city tour, then visited several places on our own, including parks, gardens and the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano, which had special exhibits about Frida Kahlo and Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuña. We traveled by international ferry one day to Colonia del Sacramento (below), where we enjoyed strolling and learning about Uruguayan history.

Next was Patagonia, whose mountains and landscapes were even more stunning than we expected. We spent a full day exploring the glaciers near El Calafate (below), by boat and on foot, and then another day hiking in El Chaltén, not far from where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid lived for several years. We also had memorable meals near a rugged, windswept hill and in a cave beside an archaeological site.

Then it was on to Bariloche, home of scenic mountain lakes, designer chocolates and Nazi war criminals. We stayed at the El Casco Art Hotel, where every room is devoted to an Argentine artist and the public spaces are filled with original paintings and sculptures.

Our final stop in Argentina was Mendoza, where we toured downtown plazas (below), visited wineries and shared a hotel with a visiting soccer team from Santiago whose boisterous fans gathered at the entrance.

Finally we traveled to Santiago, by bus so we could see local communities and the Andes Mountains. Despite some online warnings, the bus was luxurious and the border crossing manageable, with views far more interesting than we would have seen in an airport.

After arriving in Chile, we toured both Santiago and nearby Valparaiso (above), a historic port city abounding with colorful murals and street art. We rode a funicular to the top of Santiago’s San Cristóbal Hill and visited the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, which presents the grim history of the Pinochet dictatorship.

We saw a lot and could have seen more, such as Iguazu Falls and the Atacama Desert, if we’d had more time. Perhaps we should return. 

Perhaps you should visit, too, if you’re able. There’s no better place to escape winter in the northern hemisphere while immersing yourself in great history, culture, food and Malbec wines. The tango lessons and the dogs are optional.

What’s On My Plate

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I never ate tacos, ramen or a Cuban sandwich when I was growing up. I didn’t even know what they were.

By contrast, it was unremarkable the other night when Champa and I stopped for dinner and ordered fajitas and enchiladas.

It also felt routine when I cooked Thai food for dinner guests recently: basil chicken with eggplant, Pad Thai with shrimp, coconut-flavored meatballs and sticky rice with mangoes, all served with Singha beer.

Champa and I have sriracha sauce in our cupboard, mango kefir in our refrigerator and phyllo in our freezer. They’re as normal to us as Nepali food is to my sons and their families. When they visit, they look forward to eating curried chicken, lentils, vegetables and rice. The only question is whether Champa will also prepare momos, Nepal’s delicious dumplings (as she’s doing in the photo).

For them, “exotic” might be the meatloaf or chicken with canned fruit cocktail that my mother used to cook for my sisters and me.

Few things have changed as much in my lifetime as what I eat. I grew up in Freeport, Long Island, a suburban town more diverse than most of its richer neighbors. My parents were relatively worldly. Yet we rarely ate “ethnic food” and, when we did, it was pizza or American-style Chinese food. We didn’t go out to dinner much and it was usually at an Italian place where I’d eat spaghetti and meatballs. Quiche and fondue were the height of sophistication.

When I went to college in Rhode Island, my horizons expanded to include quahogs and Portuguese sweet bread. But it was only after graduation in 1975, when I backpacked around the world with a friend, that I truly began to appreciate other cuisines, from pulaos in Afghanistan to shawarma in Egypt. I still remember the Kwality Restaurant in New Delhi where I tried tandoori chicken and naan. They were so good.

My culinary awakening coincided with the broadening of American cuisine generally. From bagels to burritos, foods that were once “ethnic” became widespread. Newer foods like phở and bibimbap entered the mainstream. My daughter-in-law, whose family came from Puerto Rico, introduced me to pasteles and tostones. Now I see these around town, too. Here in Durham, a mid-size city, we have restaurants offering cuisines from Austria to Zimbabwe. Our supermarkets have aisles of international foods. We have several specialty groceries, too. 

If you’d told me when I was younger that I’d enjoy khinkali from Georgia and jerk chicken from Jamaica, I might have guessed you were talking about Atlanta and a stop on the Long Island Rail Road. Little did I know that poke, focaccia and macarons would all become part of my vocabulary. I’d witness the rise and fall of pepper-crusted tuna and molten chocolate cake. I’d buy an Instant Pot and an air fryer. I’d fall in love with Moldovan cuisine and crave Carolina barbecue as a local comfort food.

I don’t consider myself a “foodie.” I haven’t yet embraced some trends such as bubble tea and kombucha and I’ve only tried a few vegan recipes. I still enjoy an occasional burger or Subway sandwich. But I plan to keep an open mind (and mouth) about whatever comes next.

Maybe I should offer a toast to this. Maybe even with avocados.

Posts I’ll Remember

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A family reunion in the Himalayas. An emotional return to Moldova. A big birthday. I wrote about these things and more this year. As we now turn the page, here are excerpts from some of my favorite 2023 posts:

Our family reunion in Nepal: “We heard the drums as our car pulled up to Champa’s family house in eastern Nepal. Then we saw the dancers. Champa’s brother appeared with an armful of flower garlands. His wife held colorful scarves. We’d arrived in Ilam, where Champa grew up and the two of us met when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer. Now it was 45 years later.”

Vietnam: “People seemed genuinely happy we were there and not only because we were bringing them business after the pandemic. They were proud of their history, their culture and their progress. They wanted us to know they are more than the place where America fought a misguided war.”

Discovering craft beer in Phnom Penh: “As an American who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s, I’d associated Vietnam and Cambodia with war and genocide, not with IPAs. I was glad to update my perspective. If I go back, though, I’m still not asking for the fried insects.”

Returning to Moldova: “We returned to our Peace Corps workplaces and learned, after more than five years, that our impact has endured more than we’d realized.”

Visiting Ukraine’s neighbors: “My friends in Moldova, and those on the front lines in Ukraine, don’t know anything about the dysfunction in our Congress. They just need help, and fast.”

Oregon: “At first glance, Oregon matched its stereotype when we visited last week: a coffee-sipping, beer-brewing, wine-tasting paradise filled with hikers and bicyclists wearing Patagonia jackets and REI backpacks. But then we discovered an Oregon far more diverse.”

Hip replacement surgery: “The experience has reminded me of something I haven’t wanted to think about, which is the inevitability of physical decline. No matter how active, engaged and ‘not exactly retired’ we aspire to be in this stage of life, we cannot avoid life’s frailties forever. We’re all in the lobby for the organ recital.”

My 70th Birthday: “I hadn’t been looking forward to this birthday. A decade ago, when I turned 60, I was still working. Five years ago, I was wrapping up my service as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Moldova. But now, I was entering a decade that used to be synonymous with old age.”

Giving Away My Grandfather Clock: “It’s a reality many older Americans eventually confront: Our adult children don’t want our stuff. … We all fill our lives and hearts in different ways. As I’ve been reminded this week, it’s all stuff, and it doesn’t last forever. Time passes even if the clock breaks. Tick tock.”

Keeping Active: “I wonder sometimes whether I’m trying to prove something, to myself above all. Maybe I’m compensating for the fact that I no longer have the title and recognition of a formal job. Indeed, when I return these days to the campus where I used to work, few people recognize me. They just see a random retired guy. So maybe I’ve been filling up my schedule as a way to say: ‘Hey, I’m still here.’”

Favorite Books: “Bless your heart, Demon Copperhead. You’ve beaten my annual Top Ten book list like a borrowed mule and now I’m madder than a rattlesnake in a forest fire.”

Travel Tips

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Travel is my passion and I’ve learned a few things while visiting more than 60 countries and all 50 U.S. states. Looking ahead to 2024, I thought I’d share some “lessons learned” you might find helpful, too,

First, some caveats. Your preferences may differ from ours. Champa and I enjoy planning our own trips, exploring cities, hiking in beautiful places and exploring local cultures and food. We’re less interested in theme parks, spas, shopping and luxury. We prefer a new destination over returning to the same beach every year. We join groups only in certain situations. And, especially as older returned Peace Corps Volunteers, we know how fortunate we are to do any of this.

If any of that resonates with you, here are my dozen tips:

Use local experts. If you’re heading someplace where travel is relatively simple, you can probably plan and book everything yourself. Dozens of sites offer information about where to visit, stay and eat in, say, London or Toronto. It’s easy even in a place like Bruges, above, where English is widely understood. For more challenging spots, you might want to use a local planner, as I did for China, Vietnam and Romania. Local experts are easy enough to find online, do a great job and generally cost much less than a U.S. company (which may be using these same people as subcontractors). Why pay for the intermediary?

Take advantage of online itineraries. I check the online itineraries of trips from Rick Steves, Odysseys Unlimited and other companies. Then I work with a local company, or on my own, to plan the trip. I don’t feel guilty about using their information because I am willing to book their trip if their itinerary and price are good. We did this with an excellent South Africa trip from Friendly Planet.

Be wary of visits to arts centers. Your planner may suggest visits to local studios specializing in a region’s artistic specialties, such as porcelain or textiles. It can be fascinating to watch these artisans and you’re under no obligation to buy anything from them. But if this is going to make you uncomfortable, spend your time elsewhere. Tell the planner in advance about your preferences and review the itinerary carefully

Use free walking tours. As I’ve written previously, I’m a big fan of the free walking tours offered in many popular destinations. The guides work for tips, so are motivated to provide excellent service. (We always tip them generously if they’ve done a good job.) We usually take the tour soon after we arrive. It’s a great way to get the lay of the land and identify local highlights for possible return visits.

Note where walking tours start. If you’re wondering where to stay in a new city, use a trick we learned from our travel heroes, the Senior Nomads: Look for a hotel, Airbnb or hostel near the walking tour’s starting point. This puts you within walking distance of many sights. If these places are too expensive for your budget, you’ll still have a valuable reference point as you consider other locations.

Use Google Maps. You probably use Google Maps already to plan driving trips or find a friend’s house. But it’s more powerful than that. I use it to explore cities on foot and find things I need, like a restaurant in Riga, a winery in Williamette or a tour in Tbilisi. You can also check the weather, find the best times to visit places, create a custom map or download maps for cities where you may have limited Internet access. I stay connected with an international plan from T-Mobile.

Use Google Translate. Online translations have improved dramatically. I now feel much more comfortable traveling in places where I don’t know the local alphabet or language. If I need to communicate, I just speak or type into Google Translate and show the translation. If I can’t understand a local menu or sign, I point my phone camera at the text and read the translation. It’s usually imperfect but good enough.

Charge in local currency. In many countries, cash remains the best way to buy things, whether because of custom (as in Nepal), rapid inflation (Argentina) or limited technology and connectivity. Generally, though, you can pay with a credit card. Be sure to get one that doesn’t add fees every time you use it abroad. If the merchant asks whether you want to process the transaction in dollars or local currency, choose the latter, even though this may seem counterintuitive. The credit card company will convert the charge into dollars at the international exchange rate whereas a transaction made in dollars uses a rate set by local banks or merchants, which is usually worse.

Take advantage of travel credit cards. If you’re a loyal customer of an airline, hotel chain or other travel company, you may already be using their credit card and enjoying the benefits. If you’re less loyal, like me, you can take advantage of introductory offers. United Airlines gave me enough miles to book two long flights after I made some purchases with their Visa card. Before my free year expired, I canceled that card and took advantage of a similar offer from Delta. After Champa and I visit South America next month, we’ll fly home for free.

Use taxi apps. Until recently, I was nervous about taxi drivers in foreign countries, wondering whether they would cheat me. Uber and similar services have eased that problem. When we were in Qatar last year, for example, I used Uber to travel from the airport to the hotel, and then around the capital city, Doha. The driver understood where I wanted to go and the price was fixed. Uber doesn’t work everywhere so, if necessary, I download a local app in advance. In Moldova, I used Yandex Go; in Thailand, I used Bolt. You pay with cash with these apps but they work fine and are much less stressful than haggling with a foreign driver.

Think twice before pre-ordering a visa. If you’re traveling to a country that requires a visa, you’ll probably buy it online — a process that’s become much simpler. Countries now send you QR codes or downloadable visas after you submit the paperwork. Sometimes they require you to do this before you travel. If you can wait until you actually arrive, though, that’s often the best option. It’s usually quick and you’ll avoid paying the fees, which can be substantial, until you’re sure your plans haven’t changed. Check online beforehand and see what other travelers suggest.

Buy a luggage scale. Everyone has their favorite travel device: a pillow, a cosmetics kit or something else. Mine is the small hand-held luggage scale I use to weigh suitcases before heading to the airport. It shows the weight in both pounds and kilograms. No longer do I approach airline counters wondering whether my bags are too heavy and subject to hefty fees

I know these tips address only some of the many questions you may have as a traveler, but I hope you found them helpful. If you have tips of your own, please share them here for me and others to use.

Happy travels in 2024!

Top 2023 Books

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Bless your heart, Demon Copperhead. You’ve beaten my annual Top Ten book list like a borrowed mule and now I’m madder than a rattlesnake in a forest fire.

Barbara Kingsolver’s brilliant novel about young Demon’s perilous life in Appalachia was published last year but I read it too late for my 2022 Top Ten list. It turned out to be my favorite book of the year. I also admired its co-winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, Trust, Hernan Diaz’s novel about wealth and deceit in New York. Likewise for another prize-winner, Nobel Prize recipient Abdulrazak Gurnah, whose spellbinding Afterlives transported me to colonial East Africa.

I’m not a professional critic who receives free advance copies, so I read these three books too late for my list. So, too, for some other excellent novels: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow; Olga Lies Dreaming; The Trees and The Measure.

My new list again highlights ten books published during the year but, as in 2022, 2021 and 2020, it’s limited to those I read by mid-December. Here’s my 2023 Top Ten: 

James McBride’s The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store was my favorite (so far). Set in Pottstown, Pa., it unravels the mystery of a skeleton found in the bottom of a well. McBride draws on his own Jewish and Black heritage to paint a rich portrait of Chicken Hill, a neighborhood whose diverse residents grapple with poverty, discrimination and a rapidly changing world. It’s a whodunit with a huge heart

My other favorite was Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton, an eco-thriller set in New Zealand. A guerrilla collective of environmental activists forms an uneasy alliance with an elusive American billionaire who wants to build a survivalist bunker. His real goals prove more sinister, leading to an apocalyptic confrontation. The title comes from Macbeth and the final act is just as bloody.

Action and violence also abound in Small Mercies, but here the conflict revolves around the Boston school desegregation battles of the 1970s. As in Mystic River, author Dennis Lehane captures that city’s voices. His central character is Mary Pat, a tough “project chick” from Southie with two failed marriages and a son lost to heroin. When she learns her daughter may be involved in the murder of a young black man, she is caught in a whirlwind, just like the city around her.

In Hello Beautiful, Ann Napolitano tells the story of a boy growing up in a loveless house who finds refuge among his basketball teammates. William goes to college on a scholarship and seems to finally find happiness with an ambitious classmate whose Chicago family embraces him. When their marriage falls apart, he discovers even deeper love — and then tragedy — with an unexpected partner. He nearly dies before reconciling at the end with a figure from his past.

Tom Lake, by Ann Patchett,is set mainly in a cherry orchard in northern Michigan. The farm’s mother, Lara, slowly shares with her daughers — and us — the story of her brief acting career and love affair with an actor who became one of the world’s most famous movie stars. One daughter thinks the actor is her father. Her mother reveals the truth while gently prodding her daughters to contemplate deeper truths about family and what matters in life.

For more action, consider All the Sinners Bleed, the latest thriller from S.A. Cosby, whose Blacktop Wasteland and Razorblade Tears appear on my previous lists. This time Cosby opens with a shooting at a rural Virginia school that leads to chilling revelations about the murders of local Black children. The sheriff slowly makes sense of the case while confronting racism, religious zealots, snake charmers and a former girlfriend who became a podcaster.

The remaining four books on my list are nonfiction, led by Jonathan Eig’s masterful biography of MartinLuther King Jr., which draws on a trove of previously unreleased White House telephone transcripts, F.B.I. documents, letters, oral histories and other documents. I thought I knew a lot about King, but I learned many new things about him as both a man and historical figure, as well as about Malcolm X, the Kennedys and others. Most of all, Eig shows us King’s incredible determination and heroism. I came away with even greater gratitude for his life.

Considerably less admirable are many of the characters in David Grann’s The Wager. Set mainly in South America in the 1740s, it’s a page-turner about a British vessel that wrecks off the coast of Patagonia while pursuing a Spanish galleon. Its survivors are marooned and then embark on a harrowing journey. Those who reach Brazil are hailed as heroes until several other castaways appear and accuse them of mutiny. Who is telling the truth? Author Grann, who wrote Killers of the Flower Moon, presents the evidence he uncovered during years of research.

Timothy Egan’s A Fever in the Heartland takes place closer to home, in Indiana during the 1920s. A charismatic charlatan named D.C. Stephenson leads the Ku Klux Klan to national power, culminating with a march through Washington, D.C. He recruits politicians and others to his movement, which appears unstoppable until his abuse of a local woman leads to his downfall. Especially in today’s world, it’s a sobering reminder of how easily hate groups can attract followers.

My final book, also nonfiction, is a memoir by the historian Drew Gilpin Faust. Necessary Trouble describes her childhood in rural Virginia, a life filled with horses, privilege and racism. Young Drew is a precocious child, as you’d expect of someone who would become Harvard’s president, and she struggles to make sense of her life. Her perspective keeps changing as she travels to Eastern Europe, gets involved in the Civil Rights Movement and protests the Vietnam War. I was moved by her empathy and beautiful writing.

I’ll also salute two excellent nonfiction books that didn’t make my Top Ten: The Undertow, Jeff Sharlet’s journey into far-right extremism, and Traffic, Ben Smith’s origin story about online disinformation, featuring his time at Buzzfeed.

Equally disturbing, although fiction, was Emma Cline’s The Guest, about a young woman who uses sex and manipulation to con her way through the luxurious world of the Hamptons. I was engrossed by her odyssey of desperation and, after finishing it, went on to read Cline’s earlier (and even more chilling) The Girls, based on the women who followed Charlie Manson.

Other novels I enjoyed were much lighter, such as Pineapple Street, about Brooklyn’s wealthy elite; Romantic Comedy, featuring a writer who finds love at a show resembling Saturday Night Live; and The Chinese Groove, about an overly optimistic immigrant who confronts the realities of America.

I love crime fiction and this year discovered Don Winslow, specifically City of Dreams and City on Fire. They’re both set in Providence, where I once lived. I also enjoyed a pair from Ruth Ware: Zero Days and The It Girl. I liked two other thrillers, Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead and Every Man a King by Walter Mosley, but found both less compelling than previous work from these two distinguished writers.

A book even older than those I cited at the beginning is Richard Ford’s 2014 novel Let Me Be Frank With You. It’s the fourth in Ford’s series of novels about Frank Bascombe of New Jersey, who is now confronting the indignities of older age. It made me laugh (and cringe) more than any other book this year.

I was less enthusiastic about two of the year’s most honored books, The Bee Sting by Paul Murray (too long; couldn’t finish) and The Rediscovery of America by Ned Blackhawk (an overdue history of Native America but too scholarly for me). I also gave up on Under the Wave at Waimea by Paul Theroux, usually one of my favorites.

Finally, a salute to Cormac McCarthy, who died in June. I’d read several of his books but never All the Pretty Horses, whose brilliance reminded me of his singular talent. I will miss his voice even as I look forward to 2024 and a new year of great books — regardless of their publication dates.

As always, if you have suggestions of your own, please share them here.

Peace Corps Macho

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I received a message recently from someone thanking me for an article I wrote in 1979 before returning home from my first stint as a Peace Corps Volunteer, in Nepal.

The message came from a woman in Tennessee who served in Swaziland (now Eswatini) around the same time. “I pulled out a scrapbook and found a copy of your Peace Corps Macho article,” she wrote me. “That saying has reminded me many times not to get too caught up in myself over the years. I thought to look you up and I’m glad to see that you are still writing thought-provoking words on a very interesting life.”

I’d nearly forgotten the article, which appeared in the July/August 1979 issue of Peace Corps Times (which no longer exists). I found it online and, despite some gendered language and outdated phrases (e.g., “Third World,” “villagers,” “far out”), much of it remains timely.

Just in case you missed the article 44 years ago, I’m sharing it here along with some photos of my time in Nepal.

Item: A fellow Volunteer chose one of the most isolated posts here in Nepal. A few months later, he was visited by a Peace Corps staff member. The Volunteer’s quarters were, the staff member later told me, “a hovel worse than anything in the whole village. His kitchen was dirty and he wasn’t boiling his water. It was unbelievable. When I asked him why he didn’t improve his living standard, he said, ‘Well, I didn’t join the Peace Corps to be comfortable, you know.’”

Item: My lifetime friend, Mitch, joined Peace Corps/Nepal a year after me. At the end of his training. he had to choose between Kathmandu and another town, Pokhara, for his post. If he lived in Kathmandu, we could have shared my house and had a great time together. But Mitch chose the other post. One of the main reasons was that we both felt funny about doing something that we would so obviously enjoy. It would lessen the hardship we associated with Peace Corps service.

Item: My first post in Nepal was a village called llam. For medical reasons, I was transferred to Kathmandu. My salary was raised by $16 per month. Now I go to an occasional film or cheap restaurant. When Volunteers come in from their isolated posts, I am sometimes asked whether I have forgotten in my “luxury” what the real Peace Corps experience is about.

The implication is clear: You have to suffer to be a PCV.

It’s an attitude that I call “Peace Corps Macho.” It occurs when the willingness to endure hardship in the course of helping the poor turns into the belief that hardships have an intrinsic worth of their own.

Peace Corps Macho. You have to suffer to sing the blues.

Turning the inevitable hardships of Peace Corps life into a psychic combat medal is, of course, one way to cope with problems beyond our control. We can laugh at our troubles. It gives a sense of camaraderie.

But the problem is that many Volunteers I know — myself included — sometimes feel they have to seek out these hardships to prove how much they can “take,” thus showing how much they are willing to sacrifice to help humanity.

For example, a typical conversation in the Peace Corps/Nepal medical office:

“Hey, guess what? My lab test just came back and I’ve got the amoeba!”

*Oh. that’s nothing. I just got over pneumonia. I almost got a trip to Bangkok out of it, but I got better too soon.”

“Really? Say, did you hear about Bob? He came down with typhoid and had to be helicoptered out. Pretty amazing. First he had hepatitis and malaria, now he’s got typhoid.”

“Well, you know, Bob’s a far-out guy.”

This is the ethic of the missionary. Suffering brings prestige. Like the priest in Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory, the taking on of suffering elevates the soul.

The trouble with this is that Peace Corps Volunteers are not missionaries. Nor are we in Outward Bound. Nor the army. By the Peace Corps charter, we are here for three reasons. The primary one is to help the poor. Second is to give foreigners a chance to see Americans. And third is to create a body of American citizens sensitive to the needs of Third World development.

There’s not a word about suffering.

The line is not always clear, of course, about when hardship is a necessary part of getting our job done and when it becomes a spiritual ego ride. For example, to live in a simple house is to show solidarity with local farmers. But it’s ludicrous not to do what you can to catch the rats, keep your room clean and be happy.

Likewise, if you eat local foods instead of tinned goodies from home, it is a sign of fellowship with the poor. But some Volunteers carry this to the extreme by eating a protein-deficient diet, well knowing that they are endangering their health. Why? To be like their neighbors.

I feel the pressure myself. My lob and life here have been going extremely well. My teaching is successful, I have launched a series of special projects and have made many friends. And yet I sometimes feel guilty because things aren’t more difficult.

Peace Corps itself is ambiguous in its attitude towards hardship. On the one hand, it frets over Volunteer safety, programs and the like. But on the other, it prints recruiting brochures that ring something like: “Sure it’ll be tough. You’ll be vomiting up spiders and wishing those poisonous snakes would finally put you out of your misery. But you’ll be a Peace Corps Volunteer!”

The tension doesn’t only concern physical health, but mental health, too. Consider the Volunteer who has been at his post for six months, but who is not supposed to come to the capital for another two months. He is lonely and really wants to see his friends and have a decent meal. Too often a Volunteer in that situation will feel that he has to visibly freak out before he is morally justified in seeking relief. So he stays — after all, hardship is what Peace Corps is all about. Maybe he will tough it out after all. But maybe he won’t.

Another example: During my training, we had several conversations about whether there were times when we ought to drink unboiled water. In certain social situations, shouldn’t we just be gracious and take a few sips?

Well, as one who has now been through giardiasis, amoebic dysentery, hookworm and roundworm, I have no doubts anymore what the answer to that question is. What are you going to gain by drinking the water and vomiting for days: impress the villagers?

There seems to be a need here for balance between our own needs and the commitment we feel to help the poor. Too often there is a tendency among those involved in social service to make the worst of things so as to assure themselves that they are genuinely committed.

The issue is even more pronounced these days since many of us (I include myself) feel a certain repulsion toward the narcissism of many in the so-called human potential movement, what Tom Wolfe and others have called the “Me Generation.” For myself, I feel that many such people, well meaning though they may be, have become so wrapped up in themselves that they have forgotten the poverty of half the world’s people.

But they have their point, too. It’s a fool who doesn’t watch out for himself. So somewhere between suffering to show “compassion” for the poor and getting Rolfed and ESTed all day, there’s got to be a balance.

In any case, Peace Corps should face this issue a lot more squarely than it does now. Is hardship to be maximized as a requirement for successful service? If not, why does Peace Corps so often glorify unhappiness? And more important, why do so many PCVs let themselves get sucked in by such self-destructive logic?

Peace Corps Macho, to be sure, is not one of life’s basic human needs.