Les Livres

Its true that volunteers read quite a lot of books during service. Sometimes we read books that have never interested us before, as the video, So you Want to Join the Peace Corps, claims. That happened to me when the battery on my Kindle ran out, which by the way only lasts one week if you read more than one hour per day. Anyway, since a previous volunteer had left a book at my house that was a collection of Jane Austen's novels, I ended up reading about 20 chapters of Pride and Prejudice. Its actually pretty interesting so I'll probably end up finishing it. Anyway, here's some interesting quotes from books I've read (reread) during my time here in Cameroon:

 " … he quit it to create what later would be called a blog but at the time was just a weird form of communication." -- The Big Short by Michael Lewis

"I learned that a long time ago, you're not paid back for the bad you do nor the good you do. It all comes out uneven at the end." -- Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick

"Since countries with larger poverty problems get more aid, those countries have little incentive to alleviate their poverty problems." -- The Elusive Quest for Growth by William Easterly

"But I've barely had three months training!" -- Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings 

"Besides, that was blackmail, which I am told is very wrong." -- Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

"'I made one decision based on money in my life … and I promised I'd never do it again.'" -- Billy Bean in Michael Lewis' Moneyball

"We keep passing unseen through little moments of other people's lives." -- Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

"After the soil is degraded, no longer usable [for farming], many families join the millions in city slums." -- The Peace Corps' Soil and Water Conservation for Small Farm Development in the Tropics

"… we should do only those things that people cannot, or in the beginning will not, do themselves." -- Roland Bunch's Two Ears of Corn

I also finished Jared Diamond's Collapse, where I learned that deforestation and overpopulation are apparently bad.