Posted by in Pink Flamingos In 1971, my first year as a 20 year-old Peace Corps volunteer in Zorgowee, Liberia, my role was to teach health education to mothers regarding antenatal and well-baby care. In the 70s, infant mortality in the first two weeks of life and maternal mortality was 40%, respectively. This meant that 4 in 10 mothers and…Read more »
Posted by in Never the Same Again, Pink Flamingos WARNING: This blog may be longer than most and more difficult to read, but for those who want to understand what happened in Nimba County and to the Liberians in my village of Zorgowee including the surrounding areas in 1990, I give you the courage to read on. Do you ever make assumptions from what…Read more »
Posted by in Pink Flamingos Those of you who have read my memoir, In Search of Pink Flamingos, may recall Clara as my house girl in Zorgowee, Liberia. Her real name is Sarah. (I have permission to use her name.) Sarah was older than I thought when I was in Liberia. Though she hadn’t finished grade school, she was about…Read more »
Posted by in Pink Flamingos The Covid epidemic put a damper on many of the class reunions over the past two years. This June I returned to Nebraska for a special gathering of my rural one-room grade school students. I write about this iconic school in my memoir. In Search of Pink Flamingos. However it was demolished due to school…Read more »
Posted by in Pink Flamingos When I arrived in Nebraska in early June, I was returning primarily for my 53rd high school reunion – delayed 3 years because of the pandemic, and a reunion of students from my one-room school house. Both of which I wrote about in my memoir, In Search of Pink Flamingos. But along with reuniting with…Read more »
Posted by in Never the Same Again, Pink Flamingos An epilogue is a writing at the end of a piece of literature, usually used to bring closure to the work. When I published my memoir, entitled In Search of Pink Flamingos, the epilogue reflected upon my Peace Corps experience and gathered historical information about Liberia that told a narrative summary of what happened there…Read more »
Posted by in Pink Flamingos Have you ever met someone and said, “I want to be like that person some day?” When I was twenty, serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Liberia in 1971, I met such a woman, Ruth Jacobson. Here she is in 1940 graduating with her 3-year diploma of nursing from Tacoma General in WA State.…Read more »
Posted by in Pink Flamingos Once a year, my local bookstore, Village Books provides a writing challenge. This year I was to write something relating to the theme Interconnectedness. Yes, it’s a mouthful. But in the end, we and everything on this planet from the solar system right down to the food chain is connected. I knew immediately what I…Read more »
Posted by in Pink Flamingos 5 decades later I would have hoped things could be better for young girls and women in many parts of the world. But click on this article in the Guardian to learn that the beliefs about womanhood run very deep. Read this article in the Guardian a few days ago. (Delete all the popups so…Read more »
Posted by in Pink Flamingos I arrived in Tonga in 1973 as Peace Corps volunteer supervising a TB and Typhoid vaccination campaign throughout the islands. Here is an excerpt from my memoir, In Search of Pink Flamingos, Chapter, An Island Paradise, about the my work and the wonderful people of Tonga. Despite the general good health of the population, I…Read more »
Susan E. Greisen 