What do you think?
Rate this book
Dispatches from Paradise: Two Years in the Land of Smiles
Each year the Peace Corps sends volunteers abroad to assist impoverished countries, experience adventure, lie on white-sand beaches, and get laid. Okay, that may not be precisely how its brochures are worded, but that’s the appeal that drew travel humorist John Wood and many of his fellow 149 trainees to the Philippines.
Wood enjoys getting into trouble abroad, but this odyssey tests even his capacity. He is greeted immediately with dengue hemorrhagic fever. His first host family is abusive. His second one kicks him out. He commits so many cultural faux pas that they could fill a book (this one, actually). As he struggles to learn how to teach and figure out what to do with the rest of his life, his spirits and his town are ravaged by poverty, illness, tragedy, typhoons, earthquakes, killer pit bulls, and dogscaped testicles (“I see more bouncing balls in one day than a baseball equipment manager does in a season, except these have fleas on them�).
Wood's dispatches feature an unforgettable cast of characters: the Monkey People, the Sari-Sari Cowboys, the Pastor, the Red-Flag Man, the Room from Hell, the Red Table, the Celibate 6, and an army of teachers, students, trainers, doctors, and “Team John� who teach him that you’re often stronger than you think you are, you can make a difference whether at home or thousands of miles away, and you can endure anything if you surround yourself with loving people who continually ply you with cheap rum and goat intestines.
Wood enjoys getting into trouble abroad, but this odyssey tests even his capacity. He is greeted immediately with dengue hemorrhagic fever. His first host family is abusive. His second one kicks him out. He commits so many cultural faux pas that they could fill a book (this one, actually). As he struggles to learn how to teach and figure out what to do with the rest of his life, his spirits and his town are ravaged by poverty, illness, tragedy, typhoons, earthquakes, killer pit bulls, and dogscaped testicles (“I see more bouncing balls in one day than a baseball equipment manager does in a season, except these have fleas on them�).
Wood's dispatches feature an unforgettable cast of characters: the Monkey People, the Sari-Sari Cowboys, the Pastor, the Red-Flag Man, the Room from Hell, the Red Table, the Celibate 6, and an army of teachers, students, trainers, doctors, and “Team John� who teach him that you’re often stronger than you think you are, you can make a difference whether at home or thousands of miles away, and you can endure anything if you surround yourself with loving people who continually ply you with cheap rum and goat intestines.
197 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 30, 2020
2 people want to read
About the author
John Wood
4Ìýbooks9ÌýfollowersI'm an author, writer, and former magazine editor based in Los Angeles. A UCLA grad, I'm a Vietnam vet who served in Japan and Vietnam from 1966-1969.
I was the senior articles editor for Modern Maturity magazine for 18 years, and in 1992 a special report I edited was nominated for a National Magazine Award.
I’ve sold travel and humor pieces to such publications as National Geographic Traveler, Islands, Expedia Travels, Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Newsday, and the lead piece in Not So Funny When It Happened: The Best of Travel Humor and Misadventure (Travelers� Tales, 2000).
In 1996 I published How to Write Attention-Grabbing Query & Cover Letters (Writer’s Digest Books).
In 2010 I joined the Peace Corps and taught English in the Philippines for two years.
In 2014 I published my Vietnam memoir Saigon Tease: So, What Did You Do in Nam, Dad? (Amazon Kindle). In 2015 it won the Silver Medal (Nonfiction-Autobiography-Memoir category) in the Global Ebook Awards competition.
In 2014 I published a collection of my humor articles from around the world: How I Killed Off My Ex-Wife and Other Far-Flung Misadventures (Amazon Kindle).
In 2020 I published a memoir of my two years in the Philippines as a Peace Corps teacher: Dispatches from Paradise: Two Years in the Land of Smiles (Amazon ebook and paperback).
I was the senior articles editor for Modern Maturity magazine for 18 years, and in 1992 a special report I edited was nominated for a National Magazine Award.
I’ve sold travel and humor pieces to such publications as National Geographic Traveler, Islands, Expedia Travels, Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Newsday, and the lead piece in Not So Funny When It Happened: The Best of Travel Humor and Misadventure (Travelers� Tales, 2000).
In 1996 I published How to Write Attention-Grabbing Query & Cover Letters (Writer’s Digest Books).
In 2010 I joined the Peace Corps and taught English in the Philippines for two years.
In 2014 I published my Vietnam memoir Saigon Tease: So, What Did You Do in Nam, Dad? (Amazon Kindle). In 2015 it won the Silver Medal (Nonfiction-Autobiography-Memoir category) in the Global Ebook Awards competition.
In 2014 I published a collection of my humor articles from around the world: How I Killed Off My Ex-Wife and Other Far-Flung Misadventures (Amazon Kindle).
In 2020 I published a memoir of my two years in the Philippines as a Peace Corps teacher: Dispatches from Paradise: Two Years in the Land of Smiles (Amazon ebook and paperback).
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 20, 2021
Dispatches from Paradise by John Wood recounts the author’s two years of service in the Peace Corps. The book provides a sort of play by play of Mr. Wood’s experiences in the Philippines, living with host families, becoming immersed in the culture, and teaching. The book touches on interesting themes such as his attempts to connect with the locals without offending them, trying to support young students who are struggling with poverty and lack of motivation, and also touching on the challenges of international development. Mr. Wood also brings to light the resilience of the people, their friendliness, and their ability to endure in the face of hardship. On another level, this is also a useful guide for anyone interested in serving in the Peace Corps.
I also found the book to be quite disorienting. It was challenging keeping track of the numerous people that come in and out throughout the book, and the story becomes this random set of vignettes of day to day life serving in the Peace Corps, teaching students, meeting people. There are a couple paragraphs describing dog testicles, a typhoon, and then the author travels to the mountains to meet up with the family he becomes acquainted with. The author attempted to insert humor throughout the story, but it was a little over the top for me. In sum, while the back drop was interesting, it was hard for me to connect with the individuals in the book.
I did like how Mr. Wood made numerous attempts to reach his students. He found some success with a “red table�, where he sat with students during lunch for conversations. There are a lot of these anecdotal experiments at trying to reach students, but it was hard for me to get a feel about how enduring or useful these techniques were. It just seemed to be him trying random things, hoping something would stick. Nonetheless, I thought that aspect of the book was interesting.
I also found the book to be quite disorienting. It was challenging keeping track of the numerous people that come in and out throughout the book, and the story becomes this random set of vignettes of day to day life serving in the Peace Corps, teaching students, meeting people. There are a couple paragraphs describing dog testicles, a typhoon, and then the author travels to the mountains to meet up with the family he becomes acquainted with. The author attempted to insert humor throughout the story, but it was a little over the top for me. In sum, while the back drop was interesting, it was hard for me to connect with the individuals in the book.
I did like how Mr. Wood made numerous attempts to reach his students. He found some success with a “red table�, where he sat with students during lunch for conversations. There are a lot of these anecdotal experiments at trying to reach students, but it was hard for me to get a feel about how enduring or useful these techniques were. It just seemed to be him trying random things, hoping something would stick. Nonetheless, I thought that aspect of the book was interesting.
January 11, 2021
This book reads like a relic of a bygone age, even though it has been recently released and describes events not long ago.
This memoir is a warts-and-all recounting of John Wood’s two years� service with the Peace Corps in the Philippines. And boy are there a lot of warts.
Animals are tools not pets. Singing and dancing are considered basic social skills. Child prostitutes in school uniforms tout for business on their lunch break and a nearby police officer turns a blind eye. Disgusting food, nasty diseases, natural disasters, the slow-motion-never-ending-human-disaster of poverty, and above all � the lack of opportunities for betterment available to these desperately poor people.
In hindsight, these are the good times.
This is a moment in time where the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was making great leaps toward ridding the world of polio. The Oxfam scandal hadn’t broken yet. The Peace Corps goal of furthering America’s global moral leadership had not yet been tarnished by Trump.
I can practically hear Obama’s catch phrase “Yes We Can� echoing in the background.
That enthusiasm, and its tempering by reality, is captured well by the author.
Thank you, Sir John for your service.
This memoir is a warts-and-all recounting of John Wood’s two years� service with the Peace Corps in the Philippines. And boy are there a lot of warts.
Animals are tools not pets. Singing and dancing are considered basic social skills. Child prostitutes in school uniforms tout for business on their lunch break and a nearby police officer turns a blind eye. Disgusting food, nasty diseases, natural disasters, the slow-motion-never-ending-human-disaster of poverty, and above all � the lack of opportunities for betterment available to these desperately poor people.
In hindsight, these are the good times.
This is a moment in time where the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was making great leaps toward ridding the world of polio. The Oxfam scandal hadn’t broken yet. The Peace Corps goal of furthering America’s global moral leadership had not yet been tarnished by Trump.
I can practically hear Obama’s catch phrase “Yes We Can� echoing in the background.
That enthusiasm, and its tempering by reality, is captured well by the author.
Thank you, Sir John for your service.
December 27, 2020
Well, I suppose it does what it says on the tin. This book is a sprawling essay about the author’s life overseas. It’s kind of like spending a couple of hours flicking through someone else’s holiday photos. If you know the author or anyone else in the book it will probably be vaguely interesting. For an outside spectator/reader though, there’s not much to keep one interested.
There were some sections that were actually uncomfortable to read, particularly where the author keeps mentioning penises or whether some woman or another is attracted to him - even at one point wondering whether someone’s daughter thinks about him that way.
The book is mostly written in the present tense but skips between tenses for no apparent reason. Running the text by an editor may have improved this aspect. There was also a lot of repetition of phrases: chika chika in particular grated on me after reading it several times.
Not for me.
There were some sections that were actually uncomfortable to read, particularly where the author keeps mentioning penises or whether some woman or another is attracted to him - even at one point wondering whether someone’s daughter thinks about him that way.
The book is mostly written in the present tense but skips between tenses for no apparent reason. Running the text by an editor may have improved this aspect. There was also a lot of repetition of phrases: chika chika in particular grated on me after reading it several times.
Not for me.
March 6, 2021
I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review. This was my first book by John Wood. The story was extremely thin and couldn’t hold my attention as a reader. This book is not for a reader who is not comfortable with R rating stuff. There were several typos and editing errors throughout the writing making the task of reading difficult. The bottom-line is, i did not enjoyed this book.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.