Each year the Peace Corps sends volunteers abroad to assist impoverished countries, experience adventure, lie on white-sand beaches, and get laid. Okay, that may not be precisely how its brochures are worded, but that's the appeal that drew travel humorist John Wood and many of his fellow 149 trainees to the Philippines. Wood enjoys getting into trouble abroad, but this odyssey tests even his capacity. He is greeted immediately with dengue hemorrhagic...