Ep 13: Mutual Aloha, Peace Corps Piranhas & When No Thing Works (with Jeff Yamada)

Jeff Yamada and I met in 1995 as Peace Corps volunteers in Suriname, and thirty years later our friendship has survived marriages, divorces, career changes, and plenty of ridiculous stories. We revisit a lunar-eclipse mud fight, Jeff’s run-in with a piranha, and what Peace Corps taught us about community and connection. Jeff chose Norma Wong’s When No Thing Works, which leads us into seven-generation thinking, “mutual aloha,” his work with Liberation Pathways, and what we owe the people around us—and those who come after us.Music for Doug Reads with Friends by Eiren Caffall.00:05 — INTRO: Jeff Yamada, 30 years of friendship, and Peace Corps Suriname 03:15 — Peace Corps, village life, and learning to improvise 08:40 — Mud fights, blood moons, and a piranha bite 15:36 — Lutheran Volunteer Corps, divorce, and friendship across decades 19:32 — Land-based healing, Indigenous wisdom, and becoming the forest ranger after all 23:27 — OK, now the book: When No Thing Works by Norma Wong 30:20 — Seven generations, future stories, and building in the cracks 35:28 — Mutual aloha, belonging, and the modern village 40:20 — Returning to Suriname—and imagining where friendship goes next 42:14 — Next time: Another friend, another book