Journey to the Heart of the Condor: Love, Loss, and Survival in a South American Dictatorship

by Martín Almada, Emily C. Creigh

Overview

Emily Creigh learned in November 1974 that she would spend the next two years and three months as a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay, a developing Latin American country with quaint customs and "tranquil" people.

In fact, terror reigned in the US-backed banana republic with its "benevolent" dictator, Alfredo Stroessner, who had held the country in a state of siege for twenty years.

Just days after Emily learned of her assignment, Martín Almada, doctor of education and director of a renowned school in Paraguay, became one of the first victims of Operation Condor, the US-backed secret accord among six Southern Cone countries in South America. Members of Operation Condor would go on to pursue and eliminate tens of thousands of "subversives" (i.e., opponents of the dictatorships) within each other's borders.

Journey to the Heart of the Condor is the true account of a Peace Corps volunteer and a dedicated teacher who shared the same ideals yet found themselves on opposite sides of a "dirty war" in South America. Based on her journals and letters, Emily's poignant, often humorous coming-of-age story unfolds against the backdrop of the regime's villainy, as related by Dr. Almada, now a renowned human rights defender.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781935925644
Publisher:	Peace Corps Writers
Publication date:	02/25/2016
Pages:	460
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.93(d)

About the Author

Emily Creigh earned a BA in international studies before serving with the Peace Corps in Paraguay from 1975 to 1977. She subsequently earned a master's degree in English as a second language and a secondary teaching certificate, going on to forge a fourteen-year career in family literacy. Since retiring in 2011, she has returned to Paraguay three times, including as an election observer in 2013. She has two children and plays "bordergrass" music in the band Way Out West with her husband in Tucson, Arizona.

The discoverer of the "Archives of Terror," Dr. Martín Almada holds a law degree and a doctorate in educational sciences. In 1974 the Stroessner regime falsely accused him of being a communist sympathizer, torturing and imprisoning him for over one thousand days. Now the Right Livelihood ("Alternative Nobel") Award-winner and his wife, journalist María Stella de Cáceres, run the Celestina Pérez de Almada Foundation, dedicated to protecting human rights and environmental sustainability.