The Village of Waiting.

• Author: Lipez, Richard

The Village of Waiting. George Packer. Vintage, $8. 95. Soon after arriving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Togo in 1982, Packe"the feeling of being trapped, vulnerable, in a place where nothing had any meaning and I had none to provide." Out in the village of Lavie, where he teaches English in a middle school, "each class met me with the same blank, puzzled, or amused stares." His own efforts-raising the level of English, helping promote latrines-seem to him practically worthless, though some readers will disagree. What Packer is good at is using an often novelistic approach to catch the...