Steven D. Orr's Blog
April 8, 2018
Book Reviews: The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World
I. Book Reviews, The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World by Steven D. Orr:
There's no need for trolling the aisles of the fiction section in your local bookstore or searching the countless lists of recommended fiction books online any longer. I've found your next undertaking. Steven Orr chronicles his adventures across the world in such countries as Panamá, Vietnam, Columbia, and Sudan and takes the reader on exciting adventures that most novelists could not duplicate. Orr tosses readers in his backpack and takes them to places most people will never experience. His imagery and recollections are so thorough that they either force readers to call up their travel agents and book their next international vacations, or readers are satisfied with the feeling that they've already been there and turn the page, ready to embark on Orr's next escapade.
How could one not admire the author's ability to transport himself from one hectic, thrilling circumstance to another while fulfilling business obligations and organizing startups and mergers? For those of us old, we'll remember blips of history as Orr journeys us through them. For those of us young, we will see history alive for the first time in this hold-nothing-back memoir. The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World is a memoir that has not met its match.
You can find The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World at www.amazon.com and it is available through Barnes & Noble and in bookstores around the world.
Have a wonderful day!
--Willem Meiners
President of PublishAmerica, Inc.
-PublishAmerica-
II. A PROFESSIONAL REVIEW BY
JAIME POLYCHRONES of PUBLISH AMERICA
The Perennial Wanderer:
An American in the World
by Steven D. Orr
Readers will either envy the life Steven D. Orr has led or be thankful it wasn't theirs to live. His adventures across more than 75 countries (working in 42 countries with the U.S. Agency for International Development, and experienced in another 33 countries) would satisfy any thrill seeker. Steven D. Orr has been a Peace Corps volunteer, military serviceman, refugee officer, USAID worker, and project developer. He was also employed for private corporations such as American Red Cross International Relief and Development and American Red Cross/Disaster Services. Steven has even contracted in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he has seen it all -- every temperature, every terrain, every culture. He has lived and worked in countries such as Panamá, Vietnam, Colombia, Peru, Mozambique, Sudan, and El Salvador, some during their most vulnerable years in modem history.
Steven chronologically presents his experiences and begins with his stint in the Peace Corps in Panamá, from 1964-1966, after living earlier in postwar Japan as a child. A large chapter is devoted to his involvements in Panamá, which supports the assumption that this time period in his life shaped the man he was to become. It was in Spain and in this country that he became proficient in the Spanish language. The imagery present in this chapter decorates the landscape in the reader's mind, and Panamá comes alive on the page. It's almost impossible to keep up with Steven on this adventure! Steven devotes a chapter to a close friend whom he gained in Panamá, Emilio Jose Batista Castillo. This man left an impact on Steven in many ways, but most notably was his character. One can infer that this man must have been someone to treasure if no other person in the remaining 40 years of Steven's life left such an impact.
From 1957-1960, Steven served in the U.S. Air Force. During his time in the military, the U.S. wasn't actively involved in the Vietnam conflict, but Steven could see it heading that way with the access he had to pertinent then-Top Secret information. After his discharge, the U.S. Agency for International Development employed Steven to assist refugees and provide public health operations in Vietnam. This time stands out in particular to Steven because it was during this adventure that he met his wife, Maureen, the woman who has supported him throughout every escapade in the past fifty years.
Steven's latter years consisted of many business ventures and finance positions that shaped his career as a whole. His detailed accounts of each project serve as a backdrop for the emotional and physical tolls that the undertakings forced on him. Seeing the poverty in most of the countries where he lived and worked was enough to propel him forward and into the next position where he could ultimately make a difference in the lives of those with less opportunity.
Steven suffered shrapnel wounds, hostage and near-death situations, contracting in modem war-tom countries in the heat of the conflicts, and more travel than anyone could ever dream of completing in a lifetime. The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World is a comprehensive depiction of a husband, businessman, and, ultimately, a thrill-seeker who could never get enough of the world.
You can find The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World at www.amazon.com and it is available through Barnes & Noble and in bookstores around the world.
Two Reviews at Amazon.com
III. By Atom on September 5, 2017:
Be Inspired in Your own Life to Live Your Own Adventures
I thought this memoir was like a work of fiction with all the dangerous turns and adventures that this author went through in his life. In The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World, Mr. Orr had started out in the military and then became part of the Peace Corps traveling across states in the USA and on to South America and Asia. He talks about being almost to the point of death at times when working with Panamánians to the time when he and Panamánian friends and Peace Corps Volunteers had to put out a forest fire, yup, that had me going whoa! I mean, this guy if all that he says in this book of his is true then he sure should be recognized and honored for it all by either a movie about him or something.
I thought this memoir was filled with events that you would love to read on to find out more adrenaline-rushing moments like the ones I have mentioned above. I think it would take you three to two days to finish it or shorter if you’re a fast reader. I read this in a week because I had a brief encounter with the flu so that’s why. Anyway, this book had me thinking about the Peace Corps society and its benefits in the long run.* Mr. Orr started out small as a volunteer with a stipend but he eventually grew to become a regional director of Latin America and the Caribbean with lots of perks like traveling across the world and meeting with important people as well as a decent salary to live off of.
He met his wife Maureen while he was stationed in Hawaii so isn’t that romantic? The Peace Corps had given him a great life and so did the military. I recommend this book to all those high school graduates as well as college graduates with no sense of direction so why not consider the Peace Corps as a starting point? Now that it’s fall 2017 maybe you need to go see the world and risk all the dangers of those countries just to experience the life outside of America yeah? I could say the same thing about myself haha. I guarantee you that you will not be able to put this book down because this man’s life has all the elements of a bestselling novel: drama, romance, war, sorrow, etc. Get it today and be inspired to live a life of adventures that you if you make it to your 70s will pat yourself on the back and say: “hey, I lived it all! I did not back down but I went forth and experienced life with all its dangers, loves, and rewards!” Enjoy!
AUTHOR NOTE IN 2018
*: When I was in the Peace Corps in the Republic of Panamá in 1964-1966 the organization fielded more than 16,000 Peace Corps Volunteers around the world. In the Peace Corps of 2018 there are but 7,000 Peace Corps Volunteers, worldwide. Peace Corps receives bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress. Peace Corps Volunteers many different categories. Currently, there are more than 20,000 aspirants to become Peace Corps Volunteers, and the number of countries requesting the assignment of Peace Corps Volunteers is impressive. But funding is always dicey. More than 120 military generals and admirals have gone on record as supporting Peace Corps as an important initiative by the United States Government to help save lives of American troops.
IV. By Michelle Geiston October 26, 2017
It isn’t All Nice and Pleasant
This is one hell of a travel memoir! Rather than a compendium of trekking or holiday destinations The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World is something a little different. Steven D Orr’s initial experiences, and a taste for wandering began in the military, then expands out afterwards while still journeying as a civilian. With 75 countries visited by Steven D. Orr there is no shortage of experience to cram in here, and it isn’t all nice and pleasant, but also a taste of the more cruel side of humanity experienced along the way. Being able to get such a first-hand account like this is fascinating, but as entertaining as it is I don’t think I’ll be making journeys like this myself anytime soon.
Author Note at 2018: This reviewer’s saying that I had a taste for wandering began in the military fails to take into account that I was the child of a U.S. Army captain in Japan in 1947-1949 and again in 1950-1951.
You can find The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World at www.amazon.com and it is available through Barnes & Noble and in bookstores around the world.
V. Review of Steven D. Orr's The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World
Posted on Tuesday, April 17th 2012
PeaceCorpsWorldwide.org
The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World
by Steven D. Orr (Panamá 1964-66)
Publish America
402 pages
$29.03 (paperback), $6.60 (Kindle)
Published 2010
Enhanced with two added chapters in 2018
Reviewed by David H. Day (Peace Corps Kenya 1965–66; India 1967–68)
READERS OF STEVEN ORR'S DENSE FARRAGO of his Peace Corps service, global travels, military tours, and work-assignments-both long-term and short-in more than forty countries, should outfit themselves with flak jacket, crash-helmet, insect-repellant and further shield themselves in an armored personnel carrier as they prepare to read The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World. Orr has been knocked out, taken hostage, nearly asphyxiated by sulphuric fumes from Costa Rica's Irazu volcano [and had to flee another volcano in the Democratic Republic of the Congo], narrowly avoided mortar shellings in Iraq, survived a near-fatal motorcycle crash, was wounded in Vietnam, and was rammed off the road by communists in Panamá. When I finally made it to the end of this brisk, hefty narrative, I had to mop my brow and apply more antiperspirant. My own two Peace Corps stints in Kenya and India were a walk in the park by contrast. The guy is, indeed, as his title claims, the "perennial wanderer" and he seems to have been blessed with one of earth's most forgiving and tolerant wives. No grass grows under his feet!
In eighteen chronologically arranged chapters, Steven Orr — now retired — narrates . . . no, at times compels us to follow . . . his experiences in largely conflict-plagued areas of the world; these include occasional rather colorful peccadilloes, which decidedly leaven the frequent hardships he's encountered. So detailed are all of these accounts that one imagines either a photographic memory at work or the frequent reliance on daily logs, which Orr admits to keeping on and off. His saga at times reads like a string of dispatches from the "front-line" of troubled areas; he's clearly disenchanted with what he perceives to be hurdles to how the United States manages development assistance around the world and, with considerable experience as a senior-level manager, suggests that "We must take a hard look at what the right-wing elements of our body politic have wrought in the isolationist retrenchment they have led us into for the past fifteen to twenty years."
"The Peace Corps 1964–1966," Orr's initial chapter (following a brief introductory section), finds the author assigned to Panamá where, since about 1963, according to the Peace Corps Panamá Friends web site, there have been some 3,500 Peace Corps Volunteers. This reviewer would have wished for more than the scant 34 pages Orr devotes to his stay in this lush isthmian nation, given the considerable space devoted to his later post-Peace Corps assignments in other countries. But with the perspective of a retiree, his backward gaze over a life so full of adventure and encounters with the cultural Other, he is perhaps obliged to paint his Peace Corps years with broad strokes and then move on. This is, therefore, only partially a Peace Corps memoir. One sees clearly, however, the seminal influence that Orr's Panamánian Peace Corps stint has cast over his subsequent life; notably, his evident multilingualism, a small but tight cadre of friendships he cultivated in Panamá — friends who seem to pop up all over the world, and an entrée into a job with the U.S. Agency for International Development. Most returned Peace Corps Volunteers will recognize in Orr's brief Panamá chapter the myriad skills instilled in PC training and honed in service overseas that carry over into our later lives: tolerance, flexibility, a certain comfort level in the face of difference, even the value of linguistic facility and, of course, a widened sense of America's place in the world.
So what happened in Panamá? Orr was a member of Panamá 7 and first found himself in 1964 with fellow Trainees in Puerto Rico for what he describes on more than one occasion as an "arduous" experience, but he hesitates not a smidgen from admitting he loved the rigors of the groups' Outward Bound-based physical trials — his repelling accident notwithstanding. This reviewer was reminded of his own training for Kenya 2 at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where, one day, we Trainees were escorted to the campus aquatic center, had our feet and hands tied (loosely) [Orr had to go through the same exercise and nearly drowned in the process], and were tossed into the azure pool to attempt to free ourselves. Ah! The old days! Current Volunteers will be amazed that Orr's group then repaired to a training center in Tucson, Arizona for five months! In-country training as a general PC policy had not yet been implemented.
The Tucson-based phase of training included intensive Spanish-language preparation, but there Orr indulged in some extracurricular activities that were not exactly part of the training script. He confesses that he: “. . . didn't wind up being deselected, although if our keepers (Peace Corps employed psychologists) had known my deepest secret, I'm sure they would have sent me packing. Apparently, they never learned about the pretty Spanish teacher I lived with for a couple of months . . . the teacher and I never let on in classes or elsewhere that we even knew each other, much less that we were amorous. Her job, after all, was at stake and my position as a trainee could easily be jeopardized if the managers and psychologists were to learn of this affair.” Orr's actual Panamá experience seems to have been a mixed bag - excitement and boredom. The Volunteers' postings had to take into consideration the reigning ill will many Panamánians harbored under at the time for U.S. control of the Panamá Canal. There had been riots, with 24 deaths. Volunteers were thus posted outside the Canal Zone itself and instructed not to let themselves be seen inside it; Orr admits to disregarding this restriction when, on at least one occasion, he and some chums went bar-hopping inside and outside that forbidden Zone. "I . . . ever the foolhardy one," he broadcasts in another section of the book.
Routine community-development projects are enumerated: assisting in the establishment of small local libraries, curriculum development and eventual general oversight management and orientation of incoming Volunteers. These duties became punctuated with escapades that Orr colorfully details. Unfortunately, he ran afoul of the Regional Peace Corps director in the Santiago office when he and fellow Volunteers, suspecting (on good evidence) that the married director was having an affair with a local Panamanian woman, set out to photograph the tryst. Apparently never formally accusing Orr after this event, the boss, as Orr says, "was very, very cool toward me . . . so a certain ill-defined tension grew between us. . ." That was not the end of things, however, as the Regional Director attempted to slug Orr in the presence of several other PCVs and Panamanian friends, who had to wrestle the director down. Orr was subsequently transferred to the Ministry of Health where he selected sites nationwide for placement of still more arriving Volunteers.
Further peccadilloes are recounted — being run off the road at night by a Jeep load of communists; and Orr's near-fatal motorbike collision with a young Panamanian lad who, as it turned out, was able to recover after a short hospital stay. Incidentally, motorcycles were not allowed to be purchased by Volunteers. Orr's brief court appearance for this accident was one of two during Orr's stay in Panamá. The conflict with his Regional Director, however, was bitter enough that Orr was dissuaded from opting to re-up for another Panamá stint.
There is, of course, a by-now-obligatory narrative of trips taken during scheduled Peace Corps leaves, and Orr made exceptional use of this 30-day period by traveling to a number of South American countries. As his term in Panamá drew to a close, a representative of the U.S. Agency for International Development addressed his group; Orr was enticed by their unabashed eagerness to recruit PCVs and hearing the agency's courtship. Orr's next travel-related job began to take shape in his mind. Of all the important takeaways stemming from Peace Corps service, perhaps none is more important or lasting than the friendships made across often very wide cultural lines. Emilio Jose Batista Castillo was, Orr writes, "just about my best friend in the world." And Orr includes in The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World what is essentially a five-page letter of reference for Emilio, "Un hombre extraordinario." In this heartfelt testimonial, Orr recounts how the two met in 1964 when Orr was a newbie in Panamá. His dedication to his friend is quite poignant.
Emilio was a twenty-eight year-old campesino from a poor family in the province of Veraguas, and had approached the Peace Corps office about building a vocational training school focusing on electronics and auto mechanics. With Orr's help, the five opened their center (three other PC volunteers were in the mix); the then PC regional director for Latin America, Jack Hood Vaughn, was among the dignitaries at the dedication. The Government of Panamá then appointed Emilio to a high post in the Interamerican Institute for Community Development. Political developments associated with Panamá's takeover by General Omar Torrijos caused Emilio to be sent into exile. Upon his return to Panamá Emilio found his life in danger so Torrijos appointed him to Panamá's embassy in Bogota, Columbia. Later, Torrijos summoned Emilio back and put him in charge of deep-water port management at the Panamá Canal. [Orr knew both Omar Torrijos and Manuel Noriega]. Training for this sends Emilio abroad, to Odessa, Tokyo, London and San Francisco, and subsequently leads to an astounding series of high-level managerial responsibilities under the watchful eye of his benefactor, General Torrijos. Orr concludes this section by describing how he sought the intervention of Senator Bob Graham to facilitate his friend's entry into the U.S. with his family when the U.S. invaded Panamá to capture Manual Noriega.
Post-Panamá (and therefore post-Peace Corps) chapters take Orr to Vietnam, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, El Salvador, Iraq, and Afghanistan, with other stops in Florida and New York, but these may hold perhaps less interest for Peace Corps readers.
It's clear that Orr has set out to document a life lived fully; brimful of work experience, personalities encountered, sights seen, troubles courted and endless narrow-escapes, an almost lifelong adrenaline rush. And he's at times self-effacing, at times downright immodest. He's not averse to tooting his own horn. Orr scans the horizon, trying to assess his place in the bigger scheme, his place in history: “I thought about what Ernest Hemmingway did, what famous authors such as Garcia Lorca, and others have done, over time, and over history, and I ask myself: at what point do I qualify? I mean, I have participated in history at many junctures, and I have reported on those crossroads in history. Does no-one care? Or is there an information overload affecting too many people, with too much information, too much happening, too much in the way of too many experiencing everything, whereas in years past, it was only the occasional oddball such as I who recorded history? A pox on all that. I'll write what I wish.”
Orr now lives in Florida, happily retired, but still keeps his hand in international affairs frequently escorting foreign guests on behalf of the State Department; and was honored as a Jacksonville, Florida Volunteer of the Year. "Looks good on your old resume," concludes the perennial wanderer; his is a friendly, at times riveting story . . . not Hemingway exactly, but, well . . . almost a saga as described in his seminal book, The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World.
Reviewer David Day's most recent book, Ruffling the Peacock's Feathers: Stories from Village India is based on his Peace Corps experience in Uttar Pradesh, north India (Xlibris, 2010). He has two previous books, A Treasure Hard to Attain: Images of Archaeology in Popular Film and The Life and Death of a Family Farm: Archaeology, History and Landscape Change. He has also published in Sierra Magazine and Ms. Magazine. He lives in Rochester, New York where he is emeritus professor of Anthropology.
You can find The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World at www.amazon.com and it is available through Barnes & Noble and in bookstores around the world.
There's no need for trolling the aisles of the fiction section in your local bookstore or searching the countless lists of recommended fiction books online any longer. I've found your next undertaking. Steven Orr chronicles his adventures across the world in such countries as Panamá, Vietnam, Columbia, and Sudan and takes the reader on exciting adventures that most novelists could not duplicate. Orr tosses readers in his backpack and takes them to places most people will never experience. His imagery and recollections are so thorough that they either force readers to call up their travel agents and book their next international vacations, or readers are satisfied with the feeling that they've already been there and turn the page, ready to embark on Orr's next escapade.
How could one not admire the author's ability to transport himself from one hectic, thrilling circumstance to another while fulfilling business obligations and organizing startups and mergers? For those of us old, we'll remember blips of history as Orr journeys us through them. For those of us young, we will see history alive for the first time in this hold-nothing-back memoir. The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World is a memoir that has not met its match.
You can find The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World at www.amazon.com and it is available through Barnes & Noble and in bookstores around the world.
Have a wonderful day!
--Willem Meiners
President of PublishAmerica, Inc.
-PublishAmerica-
II. A PROFESSIONAL REVIEW BY
JAIME POLYCHRONES of PUBLISH AMERICA
The Perennial Wanderer:
An American in the World
by Steven D. Orr
Readers will either envy the life Steven D. Orr has led or be thankful it wasn't theirs to live. His adventures across more than 75 countries (working in 42 countries with the U.S. Agency for International Development, and experienced in another 33 countries) would satisfy any thrill seeker. Steven D. Orr has been a Peace Corps volunteer, military serviceman, refugee officer, USAID worker, and project developer. He was also employed for private corporations such as American Red Cross International Relief and Development and American Red Cross/Disaster Services. Steven has even contracted in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he has seen it all -- every temperature, every terrain, every culture. He has lived and worked in countries such as Panamá, Vietnam, Colombia, Peru, Mozambique, Sudan, and El Salvador, some during their most vulnerable years in modem history.
Steven chronologically presents his experiences and begins with his stint in the Peace Corps in Panamá, from 1964-1966, after living earlier in postwar Japan as a child. A large chapter is devoted to his involvements in Panamá, which supports the assumption that this time period in his life shaped the man he was to become. It was in Spain and in this country that he became proficient in the Spanish language. The imagery present in this chapter decorates the landscape in the reader's mind, and Panamá comes alive on the page. It's almost impossible to keep up with Steven on this adventure! Steven devotes a chapter to a close friend whom he gained in Panamá, Emilio Jose Batista Castillo. This man left an impact on Steven in many ways, but most notably was his character. One can infer that this man must have been someone to treasure if no other person in the remaining 40 years of Steven's life left such an impact.
From 1957-1960, Steven served in the U.S. Air Force. During his time in the military, the U.S. wasn't actively involved in the Vietnam conflict, but Steven could see it heading that way with the access he had to pertinent then-Top Secret information. After his discharge, the U.S. Agency for International Development employed Steven to assist refugees and provide public health operations in Vietnam. This time stands out in particular to Steven because it was during this adventure that he met his wife, Maureen, the woman who has supported him throughout every escapade in the past fifty years.
Steven's latter years consisted of many business ventures and finance positions that shaped his career as a whole. His detailed accounts of each project serve as a backdrop for the emotional and physical tolls that the undertakings forced on him. Seeing the poverty in most of the countries where he lived and worked was enough to propel him forward and into the next position where he could ultimately make a difference in the lives of those with less opportunity.
Steven suffered shrapnel wounds, hostage and near-death situations, contracting in modem war-tom countries in the heat of the conflicts, and more travel than anyone could ever dream of completing in a lifetime. The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World is a comprehensive depiction of a husband, businessman, and, ultimately, a thrill-seeker who could never get enough of the world.
You can find The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World at www.amazon.com and it is available through Barnes & Noble and in bookstores around the world.
Two Reviews at Amazon.com
III. By Atom on September 5, 2017:
Be Inspired in Your own Life to Live Your Own Adventures
I thought this memoir was like a work of fiction with all the dangerous turns and adventures that this author went through in his life. In The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World, Mr. Orr had started out in the military and then became part of the Peace Corps traveling across states in the USA and on to South America and Asia. He talks about being almost to the point of death at times when working with Panamánians to the time when he and Panamánian friends and Peace Corps Volunteers had to put out a forest fire, yup, that had me going whoa! I mean, this guy if all that he says in this book of his is true then he sure should be recognized and honored for it all by either a movie about him or something.
I thought this memoir was filled with events that you would love to read on to find out more adrenaline-rushing moments like the ones I have mentioned above. I think it would take you three to two days to finish it or shorter if you’re a fast reader. I read this in a week because I had a brief encounter with the flu so that’s why. Anyway, this book had me thinking about the Peace Corps society and its benefits in the long run.* Mr. Orr started out small as a volunteer with a stipend but he eventually grew to become a regional director of Latin America and the Caribbean with lots of perks like traveling across the world and meeting with important people as well as a decent salary to live off of.
He met his wife Maureen while he was stationed in Hawaii so isn’t that romantic? The Peace Corps had given him a great life and so did the military. I recommend this book to all those high school graduates as well as college graduates with no sense of direction so why not consider the Peace Corps as a starting point? Now that it’s fall 2017 maybe you need to go see the world and risk all the dangers of those countries just to experience the life outside of America yeah? I could say the same thing about myself haha. I guarantee you that you will not be able to put this book down because this man’s life has all the elements of a bestselling novel: drama, romance, war, sorrow, etc. Get it today and be inspired to live a life of adventures that you if you make it to your 70s will pat yourself on the back and say: “hey, I lived it all! I did not back down but I went forth and experienced life with all its dangers, loves, and rewards!” Enjoy!
AUTHOR NOTE IN 2018
*: When I was in the Peace Corps in the Republic of Panamá in 1964-1966 the organization fielded more than 16,000 Peace Corps Volunteers around the world. In the Peace Corps of 2018 there are but 7,000 Peace Corps Volunteers, worldwide. Peace Corps receives bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress. Peace Corps Volunteers many different categories. Currently, there are more than 20,000 aspirants to become Peace Corps Volunteers, and the number of countries requesting the assignment of Peace Corps Volunteers is impressive. But funding is always dicey. More than 120 military generals and admirals have gone on record as supporting Peace Corps as an important initiative by the United States Government to help save lives of American troops.
IV. By Michelle Geiston October 26, 2017
It isn’t All Nice and Pleasant
This is one hell of a travel memoir! Rather than a compendium of trekking or holiday destinations The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World is something a little different. Steven D Orr’s initial experiences, and a taste for wandering began in the military, then expands out afterwards while still journeying as a civilian. With 75 countries visited by Steven D. Orr there is no shortage of experience to cram in here, and it isn’t all nice and pleasant, but also a taste of the more cruel side of humanity experienced along the way. Being able to get such a first-hand account like this is fascinating, but as entertaining as it is I don’t think I’ll be making journeys like this myself anytime soon.
Author Note at 2018: This reviewer’s saying that I had a taste for wandering began in the military fails to take into account that I was the child of a U.S. Army captain in Japan in 1947-1949 and again in 1950-1951.
You can find The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World at www.amazon.com and it is available through Barnes & Noble and in bookstores around the world.
V. Review of Steven D. Orr's The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World
Posted on Tuesday, April 17th 2012
PeaceCorpsWorldwide.org
The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World
by Steven D. Orr (Panamá 1964-66)
Publish America
402 pages
$29.03 (paperback), $6.60 (Kindle)
Published 2010
Enhanced with two added chapters in 2018
Reviewed by David H. Day (Peace Corps Kenya 1965–66; India 1967–68)
READERS OF STEVEN ORR'S DENSE FARRAGO of his Peace Corps service, global travels, military tours, and work-assignments-both long-term and short-in more than forty countries, should outfit themselves with flak jacket, crash-helmet, insect-repellant and further shield themselves in an armored personnel carrier as they prepare to read The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World. Orr has been knocked out, taken hostage, nearly asphyxiated by sulphuric fumes from Costa Rica's Irazu volcano [and had to flee another volcano in the Democratic Republic of the Congo], narrowly avoided mortar shellings in Iraq, survived a near-fatal motorcycle crash, was wounded in Vietnam, and was rammed off the road by communists in Panamá. When I finally made it to the end of this brisk, hefty narrative, I had to mop my brow and apply more antiperspirant. My own two Peace Corps stints in Kenya and India were a walk in the park by contrast. The guy is, indeed, as his title claims, the "perennial wanderer" and he seems to have been blessed with one of earth's most forgiving and tolerant wives. No grass grows under his feet!
In eighteen chronologically arranged chapters, Steven Orr — now retired — narrates . . . no, at times compels us to follow . . . his experiences in largely conflict-plagued areas of the world; these include occasional rather colorful peccadilloes, which decidedly leaven the frequent hardships he's encountered. So detailed are all of these accounts that one imagines either a photographic memory at work or the frequent reliance on daily logs, which Orr admits to keeping on and off. His saga at times reads like a string of dispatches from the "front-line" of troubled areas; he's clearly disenchanted with what he perceives to be hurdles to how the United States manages development assistance around the world and, with considerable experience as a senior-level manager, suggests that "We must take a hard look at what the right-wing elements of our body politic have wrought in the isolationist retrenchment they have led us into for the past fifteen to twenty years."
"The Peace Corps 1964–1966," Orr's initial chapter (following a brief introductory section), finds the author assigned to Panamá where, since about 1963, according to the Peace Corps Panamá Friends web site, there have been some 3,500 Peace Corps Volunteers. This reviewer would have wished for more than the scant 34 pages Orr devotes to his stay in this lush isthmian nation, given the considerable space devoted to his later post-Peace Corps assignments in other countries. But with the perspective of a retiree, his backward gaze over a life so full of adventure and encounters with the cultural Other, he is perhaps obliged to paint his Peace Corps years with broad strokes and then move on. This is, therefore, only partially a Peace Corps memoir. One sees clearly, however, the seminal influence that Orr's Panamánian Peace Corps stint has cast over his subsequent life; notably, his evident multilingualism, a small but tight cadre of friendships he cultivated in Panamá — friends who seem to pop up all over the world, and an entrée into a job with the U.S. Agency for International Development. Most returned Peace Corps Volunteers will recognize in Orr's brief Panamá chapter the myriad skills instilled in PC training and honed in service overseas that carry over into our later lives: tolerance, flexibility, a certain comfort level in the face of difference, even the value of linguistic facility and, of course, a widened sense of America's place in the world.
So what happened in Panamá? Orr was a member of Panamá 7 and first found himself in 1964 with fellow Trainees in Puerto Rico for what he describes on more than one occasion as an "arduous" experience, but he hesitates not a smidgen from admitting he loved the rigors of the groups' Outward Bound-based physical trials — his repelling accident notwithstanding. This reviewer was reminded of his own training for Kenya 2 at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where, one day, we Trainees were escorted to the campus aquatic center, had our feet and hands tied (loosely) [Orr had to go through the same exercise and nearly drowned in the process], and were tossed into the azure pool to attempt to free ourselves. Ah! The old days! Current Volunteers will be amazed that Orr's group then repaired to a training center in Tucson, Arizona for five months! In-country training as a general PC policy had not yet been implemented.
The Tucson-based phase of training included intensive Spanish-language preparation, but there Orr indulged in some extracurricular activities that were not exactly part of the training script. He confesses that he: “. . . didn't wind up being deselected, although if our keepers (Peace Corps employed psychologists) had known my deepest secret, I'm sure they would have sent me packing. Apparently, they never learned about the pretty Spanish teacher I lived with for a couple of months . . . the teacher and I never let on in classes or elsewhere that we even knew each other, much less that we were amorous. Her job, after all, was at stake and my position as a trainee could easily be jeopardized if the managers and psychologists were to learn of this affair.” Orr's actual Panamá experience seems to have been a mixed bag - excitement and boredom. The Volunteers' postings had to take into consideration the reigning ill will many Panamánians harbored under at the time for U.S. control of the Panamá Canal. There had been riots, with 24 deaths. Volunteers were thus posted outside the Canal Zone itself and instructed not to let themselves be seen inside it; Orr admits to disregarding this restriction when, on at least one occasion, he and some chums went bar-hopping inside and outside that forbidden Zone. "I . . . ever the foolhardy one," he broadcasts in another section of the book.
Routine community-development projects are enumerated: assisting in the establishment of small local libraries, curriculum development and eventual general oversight management and orientation of incoming Volunteers. These duties became punctuated with escapades that Orr colorfully details. Unfortunately, he ran afoul of the Regional Peace Corps director in the Santiago office when he and fellow Volunteers, suspecting (on good evidence) that the married director was having an affair with a local Panamanian woman, set out to photograph the tryst. Apparently never formally accusing Orr after this event, the boss, as Orr says, "was very, very cool toward me . . . so a certain ill-defined tension grew between us. . ." That was not the end of things, however, as the Regional Director attempted to slug Orr in the presence of several other PCVs and Panamanian friends, who had to wrestle the director down. Orr was subsequently transferred to the Ministry of Health where he selected sites nationwide for placement of still more arriving Volunteers.
Further peccadilloes are recounted — being run off the road at night by a Jeep load of communists; and Orr's near-fatal motorbike collision with a young Panamanian lad who, as it turned out, was able to recover after a short hospital stay. Incidentally, motorcycles were not allowed to be purchased by Volunteers. Orr's brief court appearance for this accident was one of two during Orr's stay in Panamá. The conflict with his Regional Director, however, was bitter enough that Orr was dissuaded from opting to re-up for another Panamá stint.
There is, of course, a by-now-obligatory narrative of trips taken during scheduled Peace Corps leaves, and Orr made exceptional use of this 30-day period by traveling to a number of South American countries. As his term in Panamá drew to a close, a representative of the U.S. Agency for International Development addressed his group; Orr was enticed by their unabashed eagerness to recruit PCVs and hearing the agency's courtship. Orr's next travel-related job began to take shape in his mind. Of all the important takeaways stemming from Peace Corps service, perhaps none is more important or lasting than the friendships made across often very wide cultural lines. Emilio Jose Batista Castillo was, Orr writes, "just about my best friend in the world." And Orr includes in The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World what is essentially a five-page letter of reference for Emilio, "Un hombre extraordinario." In this heartfelt testimonial, Orr recounts how the two met in 1964 when Orr was a newbie in Panamá. His dedication to his friend is quite poignant.
Emilio was a twenty-eight year-old campesino from a poor family in the province of Veraguas, and had approached the Peace Corps office about building a vocational training school focusing on electronics and auto mechanics. With Orr's help, the five opened their center (three other PC volunteers were in the mix); the then PC regional director for Latin America, Jack Hood Vaughn, was among the dignitaries at the dedication. The Government of Panamá then appointed Emilio to a high post in the Interamerican Institute for Community Development. Political developments associated with Panamá's takeover by General Omar Torrijos caused Emilio to be sent into exile. Upon his return to Panamá Emilio found his life in danger so Torrijos appointed him to Panamá's embassy in Bogota, Columbia. Later, Torrijos summoned Emilio back and put him in charge of deep-water port management at the Panamá Canal. [Orr knew both Omar Torrijos and Manuel Noriega]. Training for this sends Emilio abroad, to Odessa, Tokyo, London and San Francisco, and subsequently leads to an astounding series of high-level managerial responsibilities under the watchful eye of his benefactor, General Torrijos. Orr concludes this section by describing how he sought the intervention of Senator Bob Graham to facilitate his friend's entry into the U.S. with his family when the U.S. invaded Panamá to capture Manual Noriega.
Post-Panamá (and therefore post-Peace Corps) chapters take Orr to Vietnam, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, El Salvador, Iraq, and Afghanistan, with other stops in Florida and New York, but these may hold perhaps less interest for Peace Corps readers.
It's clear that Orr has set out to document a life lived fully; brimful of work experience, personalities encountered, sights seen, troubles courted and endless narrow-escapes, an almost lifelong adrenaline rush. And he's at times self-effacing, at times downright immodest. He's not averse to tooting his own horn. Orr scans the horizon, trying to assess his place in the bigger scheme, his place in history: “I thought about what Ernest Hemmingway did, what famous authors such as Garcia Lorca, and others have done, over time, and over history, and I ask myself: at what point do I qualify? I mean, I have participated in history at many junctures, and I have reported on those crossroads in history. Does no-one care? Or is there an information overload affecting too many people, with too much information, too much happening, too much in the way of too many experiencing everything, whereas in years past, it was only the occasional oddball such as I who recorded history? A pox on all that. I'll write what I wish.”
Orr now lives in Florida, happily retired, but still keeps his hand in international affairs frequently escorting foreign guests on behalf of the State Department; and was honored as a Jacksonville, Florida Volunteer of the Year. "Looks good on your old resume," concludes the perennial wanderer; his is a friendly, at times riveting story . . . not Hemingway exactly, but, well . . . almost a saga as described in his seminal book, The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World.
Reviewer David Day's most recent book, Ruffling the Peacock's Feathers: Stories from Village India is based on his Peace Corps experience in Uttar Pradesh, north India (Xlibris, 2010). He has two previous books, A Treasure Hard to Attain: Images of Archaeology in Popular Film and The Life and Death of a Family Farm: Archaeology, History and Landscape Change. He has also published in Sierra Magazine and Ms. Magazine. He lives in Rochester, New York where he is emeritus professor of Anthropology.
You can find The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World at www.amazon.com and it is available through Barnes & Noble and in bookstores around the world.
January 27, 2013
Books
Blogging via Goodreads comes naturally, especially as I have three non-fiction books to my credit. The first, "The Perennial Wanderer: An American in the World" is available through this website: www.stevendorr.com. The second, "The End of the Civil War in El Salvador: 1992" is at this website: www.elsalvadorcivilwar.com. The third book, "Clan MacKinnon and Clan Orr" is discussed at www.mackinnon-orrclans.com.
Those are the non-fictions. Lots of work went in to all three books. They are important in the order I've shown above.
Next, I'm going to try my hand at fiction. I don't know what it's going to be yet. I'm open to suggestions.
Steven Orr
Those are the non-fictions. Lots of work went in to all three books. They are important in the order I've shown above.
Next, I'm going to try my hand at fiction. I don't know what it's going to be yet. I'm open to suggestions.
Steven Orr
