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Apr 14, 2007

Anna rated it:

this was the first of MANY peace corps memoirs i suffered through (reading material choices were limited to our paltry communal bookshelves in the volunteer lounge of the swaziland peace corps office).
anyway, i used to write a monthly literature review box or our volunteer newsletter, and one month i ranted about this genre. below are my thoughts:

Dissecting the Peace Corps Memoir
One of my least favorite genres of nonfiction is hands-down the “peace corps memoir More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

May 06, 2008

Llalan rated it:

One of the first in the new I-joined-the-Peace-Corps-and-this-is-what-I-did genre, Nine Hills joins Peter Hessler's Rivertown as an example for travel writers to try writing about the people they meet and not themselves. A novel concept (ha). Sarah Erdman, though, does do a fine job balancing a narrative that is one part the West African village and the changes it undergoes in two years, and one part living a life as the total and complete other. A fascinating look at one small part of a huge se More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 24, 2009

Debbie (Readerbuzz) rated it:

Erdman relates the stories of the two years she spent as a Peace Corps volunteer in a small village in the Ivory Coast in Africa in the late 1990’s. I had to look up the copyright date after I started the book; was the book taking place in the 1990’s or the 1890’s? It could have been either based on the lives of the villagers. No running water, no electricity. Mothers didn’t know the birthdates or even the ages of their children. Very little reading or writing. No knowledge of birth control or More...

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Mar 13, 2011

Charmayne rated it:

I feel very conflicted about Sarah Erdman's _Nine Hills to Nambonkaha_. Life is a little *too* perfect for the starry-eyed narrator - her integration is almost immediate, barriers (language, cultural and otherwise) are minor, and her projects succeed with only the tiniest of flaws. She was either the poster-child for Peace Corps Volunteers, or she is prone to slightly embellishing. At times, I can share her sentiments and at other times I feel uneasy by her subdued, but nevertheless self-cong More...

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Feb 27, 2011

Yuting rated it:

A beautiful and vivid look at life in a small, impoverished african village and their struggle to eek out a meagre living, raise and feed their children and themselves, and survive in an environment that seems to want the exact opposite for them.

The author, through her words, creates a touching portrait that captures the inherent helplessness, fatalism, and life's utter unfairness while bringing out the humanity behind hopelessness, the despair behind despondence, the personalities beh More...

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Dec 10, 2008

Glenna rated it:

I really enjoyed this book. It was a quick read, easy to read on the bus (it easily breaks down into short stories, in fact I think that one of the chapters has been published in some of the Peace Corps propaganda that I have gotten), and very uplifting for someone like me who is (tantalizingly) "almost" in the Peace Corps.
As a modern memoir I found this narrative good, although it sometimes lacks focus and direction. It also begins and ends rather in a rather unsatisfactory man More...

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Apr 19, 2010

Angela rated it:

As a Peace Corps volunteer in an African village, Erdman finds herself faced with the difficulties of acceptance from a culture that lives completely different that she does. Sent to manage the village's struggles with medical issues, Erdman does that and so much more! Erdman is a real trooper throughout the entire book and soon enough becomes the one and only advocate for a remote village in Africa. She becomes part of the family and educates hundreds of people, all at the same time!

More...

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Jul 25, 2010

Lindsay rated it:

This was the common book all the freshmen had to read my first (and last) year at Winthrop University. It was a good choice for a book to bring people together. I have always been passionate about helping the children in Africa who are victims of the civil war going on in Sudan. And this book told the story of a woman who was doing what I did not have the resources to do. Her story was so detailed and she made you feel like you were right there with her while she helped give birth to a child in More...

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Aug 02, 2009

Djenneba rated it:

So it has taken me years to read this book. It's been sitting on our bookshelf for ages. Written by a PC volunteer who was in northern Cote d'Ivoire about the same time that I was a PCV in Mali, a day long car ride aways. I picked up a few times, and each time, it reminded me so much of my time in Mali that I couldn't continue reading it. I don't know if it was because it seemed boring because I was so familiar with the tale or if it was too much of a reminder of Yangasso too soon. But when I le More...

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Jan 29, 2011

Jesse rated it:

I'm not usually a lover of travel logs and the like, but I actually really liked this book.

I thought it provided a great narrative of Erdman's Peace Corps experience. It was funny, interesting, touching and sentimental in all the right places. She didn't put herself above the culture and wrote sensitively about the community she was a part of for two years.

I think this is how these books should be written. Giving us new perspective on cultures with the occasional insight a More...

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Oct 10, 2009

Eileen rated it:

An honest and informative look at the daily life of a Peace Corps volunteer. I think the author captures the “heart” of the book best on page 48:

“I came here with 3 months of training under my belt. I was packed off to this village with only a collection of health-education books and a head full of vague ideas. I wanted no direction, no preconceived mission, and that’s what I’ve gotten. I am here to see what I can make starting from scratch, and the tiny village of Nambonkaha is my r More...

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Jun 05, 2008

Ami rated it:

I read this during my first month of service as a Peace Corps Volunteer in West Africa and admittedly, found some inspiration reading about another's completed service and the lessons they learned. Erdman writes positively of her village, but I was somewhat disappointed with the way she presented the people in her village as being continually happy, no matter what, because life is just peachy keen in a village in West Africa. One crucial lesson I learned while living in West Africa for 2 1/2 yea More...

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May 08, 2009

Maryam rated it:

Thanks to Sarah Erdman's Nine Hills to Nabmonkaha, I managed to pass my CBEST test and start writing my own vignettes of Liberia. Her writing style is fluid and her story is a beautiful one. I was not only inspired to write my own ordeal in West Africa but also I reveried a great deal of events in my head.
I loved reading this story and highly recommend it to those who like to read about African cultures. Sarah Erdman's experience is about 15 years later than my own, but not so different.

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Mar 26, 2009

Erin rated it:

Fantastic book that completely reinvigorated my desire to visit Africa and has led to the restructuring of my travel plans for the next year. Erdman writes so beautifully about the Ivory Coast and the people she meets; you can tell this was a real labor of love and that her time in as a Peace Corps volunteer truly changed her life.

Planning to send my copy to a friend stationed with the Peace Corps in Guinea, West Africa, and recommending it to other Peace Corps friends around the wor

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Aug 14, 2009

Barbara rated it:

This was one of the most beautiful and moving books that I have read in a long, long time. Erdman writes beautifully, and it is not about her at all, except as it relates to the people of Nambonkaha. She fell in love with them, and they her. The development of this unlikely symbiotic relationship unfolds with all its mystery, incomprehension, and finally, acceptance as slowly as the village does. I read the ending through tears, amazed that what I had just read was real and not fiction..

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 19, 2009

Joan rated it:

I really enjoyed this book from start to finish. It's a memoir, and the author is really sympathetic in her depiction of an African village that copes with poverty and really adverse conditions, but with joy and a great sense of community. She helps us understand their customs and why they continue to hold on to them despite the additional hardship they create. She makes amusing observations without being patronizing or disparaging of these seemingly naive people.

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Jun 29, 2008

Rebecca rated it:

Erdman details the quintessential Peace Corps experience -- adapting to life in an African village means bucket baths and reading by candlelight, yes, but even more difficult is the attempt to integrate into a new community when all one's assumptions and understandings become null and void. After a frustrating year of learning how to communicate with her fellow villagers, and adapt to a slower pace of life, she finally is able to make some real progress in sharing modern health and hygiene infor More...

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Aug 29, 2010

Lindsay rated it:

Loved this book. I started it right before I started my summer of chaos that included taking my qualifying exams, writing and preparing my dissertation proposal and jetting off to Nigeria to do research. Yikes. I read the first chapter and it got put to the way-side. For some reason I got it into my head it wasn't that interesting. But since I was loaded down with research books I could only take 2 non-research books with me to Nigeria. I figured I'd read it when I got desperate. Now that I've f More...

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Aug 05, 2009

Evan rated it:

Fascinating window into pre-electric village life in West Africa. I traveled to within 50 or 100K of the village described in Nine Hills six years ago. I saw and visited villages like this, but in one week couldn't 'get under the skin'. Erdman could and did. I was impressed with the love and respect she had for the people of her village.

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Oct 28, 2009

edj rated it:

I really enjoyed reading this account by a Peace Corps volunteer of her two years spent in a small village in the north of Cote d'Ivoire. I was surprised at how much I related to this--how much it reminded me of Mauritania. Erdman is a very good writer and she captures the frustrations and joys of an outsider in an African village trying to provide sustainable health education. I really enjoyed this book, and I recommend it.The Elegance of the Hedgehog More...

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Oct 23, 2010

Katie rated it:

I read this b4 I went into the Peace Corps to give me a better idea of what life might be. The author struggled with many of the same problems/challenges I faced, but I still feel her story is a little unrealistic...maybe it's because she is a very good writer and can make it sound so poetic?

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May 26, 2010

Margaret rated it:

I loved this book. I loved young Sarah's honesty ad description of Africa. "People ask me now, 'What was Africa like?' I tell them that the place I came to know is laughing yet troubled, strong yet crippled, and dancing. Africa was like nothing I had known before, until I knew it better."

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Aug 09, 2011

jen8998 rated it:

Peace Corp volunteer lives in IvoryCoast village for two years working as a health worker. Most of the book is a depiction of village life; later author writes about her frustrations trying to provide accurate health information and combat traditions such as female circumcision.

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Dec 30, 2008

Jan rated it:

Great read! Sarah Erdman us a gifted storyteller. Even after I finished the book, I wanted to hear more about the people of Nambonkaha village and was devastated to hear about the war in Cote d'Ivoire which cut off this village from the rest of the world.

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Jul 29, 2009

Grace rated it:

This is a trip to the Ivory Coast, to a vastly different culture, different religions and beliefs as seen through the eyes of a Peace Corp worker. Although this is a work of non-fiction, the book reads more like a fiction presentation. A very good book.

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May 25, 2011

Tracey rated it:

This book made me think of the abundance and waste that surrounds me and how others find a way to live with so much less. At times I thought, how do these people not get totally discouraged? I would recommend Nine Hills.

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Oct 28, 2009

Joann rated it:

I loved this book. The simplicity and caring of the Nambonkaha people was just wonderful. I especially liked the fact that the nurse didn't try to "americanize" anyone. She just tried to make women's lives a little easier.

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Jan 07, 2009

Sammi marked it as to-read

this book was recommended at this morning RESULTS Seattle brainstorming meeting, hopefully to be discussed in a bookclub format. i have one on order at the local library.

has anyone here read it?

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Dec 17, 2009

Sarah rated it:

Just beautiful.
Certainly one of the most interesting reading experiences I have ever had, as the author is a colleague and friend of mine. To not only know the author of a such a personal and touching memoir, but to have her at my disposal to elaborate and answer questions I had, was very cool indeed.
Surprisingly, and I haven't quite figured out why, I think I was initially a little harsh in my judgment of the book... But by chapter 3, that completely changed, and I was hooked. It's More...

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Dec 29, 2010

Elisabeth rated it:

This is a memoir of an American Peace Corps worker who spends a year in a rural village in Cote D'Ivoire. It delves deeply into her struggle of figuring out how to help her new community.

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