THE COLOR OF THE ELEPHANT

A Peace Corps memoir recounts a woman’s struggles to adapt to her new life in the remote Zambian bush.

Herbert stood out among her Peace Corps cohorts in Zambia in 2004. While they were young and preening, she was about 10 years older (in her 30s) and consciously tried to adapt to the local customs. The author does a great job explaining why her choice to join the Peace Corps was both surprising and inevitable. “Miss Responsible,” as she calls herself, had a staid lifestyle in the United States; the Peace Corps was a necessary yet daring way to broaden her horizons and do something interesting. What follows in this memoir is an account of how this American woman adapted to life in a Zambian village, learning both the Bemba and Lamba languages, adjusting to the climate and social expectations of her new home, and training villagers in her region in the health sciences. Herbert gives readers some very rich cultural details about her two-year stint. Scenes that stand out include a collective gratitude dance in a mud-hewn church, a game of “beer cricket” with some corps volunteers, and, most memorably, the gross but riveting side effects of a bout of malaria. The author bares all in a book that casts her in some difficult and embarrassing situations—a topic in which she excels. Yet for all her honesty, there’s not a lot that’s different here from other Peace Corps narratives. The story unfolds pretty much as readers would expect. Herbert learned to survive in a remote environment, befriended the local people, and eventually returned home. The author’s writing follows the conventions of the genre, offering few surprises. The pacing is also a bit problematic: Herbert slowly got situated and accepted her life in her post. That said, some relationships are quickly brushed over. The tenderest moment deals with the young, pregnant Mirabel, who deserves a fuller portrayal in these pages. The work devotes a lot of space to the specifics of getting from one place to another when the real draws are the people left on the periphery.

A candid, intriguing, but uneven Peace Corps account.