To be honest, I didn't want to get inside Jones's head. Every time I wrote about Jim Jones I practically had to tie myself to my chair to force myself to do it; I hated him so much. He wanted to go down in history and he did. He's had hundreds of books and articles written about him. I was much more interested in the stories of the rank-and-file members of Peoples Temple, what drew them to Jones, and what they did once they were trapped in Jonestown and realized Jones was intent on killing them.

I remember one of my writer friends asking me, "Jonestown? Everyone knows the ending. What's new or surprising that you can say about it?" I told him that although people may know that almost one thousand people died in the massacre, they don't know what happens to my five people. Some escaped, some did not.

Escuela Caribe preyed upon parents' fears of secular culture to recruit students. Parents could send their kids to a place where they'd be sheltered from evil secular influences - sex, drugs, alcohol, and a questioning mentality. A place where children would be forced to become good little clones of their parents.

I spent so much time at Escuela Caribe denying my true emotions and avoiding conflict that I became unsure of what my feelings really were. This is something that affects me to this day. I feel extremely uncomfortable during arguments, to the point of shutting down and not saying anything, like a turtle retracting into its shell. I can't stand conflict.

To be honest, I didn't want to get inside Jones's head. Every time I wrote about Jim Jones I practically had to tie myself to my chair to force myself to do it; I hated him so much. He wanted to go down in history and he did. He's had hundreds of books and articles written about him. I was much more interested in the stories of the rank-and-file members of Peoples Temple, what drew them to Jones, and what they did once they were trapped in Jonestown and realized Jones was intent on killing them.

As kids, my brother David and I longed for acceptance. We were desperate to belong. We would have been thrilled to see the pews of Jones's church in San Francisco, with blacks and whites sitting side by side. And Jim Jones's sermons on social justice and equality would have had much greater appeal to us than the soporific morality tales we were accustomed to hearing. Jones promised real racial equality. He promised to create a truly equal community in the jungle in Guyana.

Before I went to Escuela Caribe, my parents showed me the school's brochures featuring smiling kids at the beach or on horseback. The propaganda was greatly appealing to a kid from rural Indiana who hated her high school anyway. I also got reassurances that I could return if I didn't like it. But shortly after the gates closed behind me, I learned I'd been deceived; the beach was far away and I couldn't return home until I'd completed the program.