WARWICK, N.Y., June 10, 2016 (SEND2PRESS NEWSWIRE) \u2013- Leaving her comfort zone, having adventurous fun, and being useful are at the heart of Carole Howard\u2019s new travel memoir, \u201cTales of a Silver-Haired Volunteer: Going Far and Giving Back\u201d (ISBN: 978-1619844568). The book documents the author\u2019s and her husband\u2019s late-in-life volunteer travels to Africa and Asia. Some are funny. Some are serious. Many are both.<\/p>\n
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\nIt all started over a meal of spaghetti with sloppy red sauce, wine, and discussions of mortality. Howard and her husband, Geoffrey, had always thought about joining the Peace Corps together some day since he\u2019d been a volunteer many years ago. They just hadn\u2019t realized \u201csome day\u201d had arrived. What now? They\u2019d need to retire from their consulting business. Could they do it? They did.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt made sense to travel after retirement. We\u2019d done a lot of it and were good at it,\u201d Howard says. \u201cBut most of our trips had been the regular 10-day to two-week kind\u00a0– hiking, biking and touring different cities and countries. This would be different.\u201d<\/p>\n
They found that American Jewish World Service (AJWS) sought mid- and post-career professionals for volunteer assignments ranging from one month to one year. This was perfect.\u00a0They applied and were accepted. What began as \u201clet\u2019s give it a shot,\u201d turned into a series of life-changing adventures.<\/p>\n
Published by Gatekeeper Press, each section of \u201cTales of a Silver-Haired Volunteer\u201d consists of \u201cverbal snapshots\u201d of five very different assignments in five countries in the developing world: irrigated agriculture in Senegal, mountain gorilla health in Uganda, orphan care in Namibia, sex education in Thailand and AIDS prevention among sex workers in Ghana.<\/p>\n
Howard\u2019s unique perspective, combined with her sense of humor, provides insights into people and their cultures. It also provides insight into Howard\u2019s self and subsequent evolution.<\/p>\n
\u201cCarole and Geoffrey accepted assignments, settled into whatever accommodations were available, and took on the challenges and satisfactions of living in a different culture, developing relationships with different people and bonding with them over the work to be done,\u201d Ruth Messinger, the president of American Jewish World Service, says in the book\u2019s foreword. \u201cWherever they went, they discovered that most important piece of learning \u2014 the extent to which people everywhere share values and personal stories that can bring us together instead of setting us apart.\u201d<\/p>\n
Howard says that she wrote this book not only to tell tales of the good, the hard, and the laughable, but also in hopes that it might inspire readers to think that they can do something similar.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether it be for a week, a month, a year or in recurring increments over the years, these experiences will change the way readers see the world and themselves,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n
A portion of book sales will be donated to AJWS.<\/p>\n
About the Author:<\/strong>
\nCarole Howard lives with her husband in New York\u2019s mid-Hudson Valley. A world traveler, she has been to more than 50 countries. She is the co-author of \u201cThe Great PARIS WalkPack,\u201d a collection of self-guided walking tours of Paris, and the author of two novels, \u201cAbout Face\u201d and \u201cDeadly Adagio.\u201d<\/p>\n