Hidden Places

About the Book

This is a story of “growing up” in the sixties, as much as a story of a clueless individual living a foreign experience. After encountering Kennedy’s inauguration, Jake is awakened to literature, joins the first wave of Peace Corps volunteers in order to become a writer, and discovers the cultures of eastern Africa through a host of teaching experiences, culture shocks, and a hike up the biggest mountain in Africa.

About the Author

Before going to Africa, Jim’s upbringing was in Eastern Kansas, in a small beautiful town near Kansas City. As it evolved, his education was in physics, linguistics, literature, and creative writing, and he was privileged that it could be so. His learning also includes sailing, biking, photography, singing, acting, and cats. After the Peace Corps and an MA at UCLA, he did research in the effectiveness of ESL in the various linguistic regions of Uganda and published several primary school textbooks making use of that data. This project began about forty years ago as an attempt to sort out what Jim had learned from the Peace Corps experience and other travels in the ’60s and to put it into a form that others might enjoy. Since then, flexibility of travel and the spirits of the times have changed so drastically it is doubtful that this journey will be replicated. But then again, it might.