Imagine a remote community in Paraguay, South America, where you read by
candle light, draw your water from a well, cook your meals on an open
fire and attend to your needs in a rickety outhouse. To reach the
nearest bus stop and telephone requires a long hike that lasts for hours
along a road rutted by ox carts. In Shade of the Paraiso, Mark
Salvatore relates his Peace Corps* experience (1989-91) in such a place
beginning with his first day in the country--the day of a coup. His
memoir transports the reader through his two years of volunteer service
with its challenges, its failures, its joy, and his wedding in a leper
colony.
*Shade of the Paraiso recounts Salvatore's experience and he does
not represent Peace Corps, Peace Corps Paraguay, or any other
volunteer's experience.