Life
Lessons: Alumni and
Students Share Peace
Corps Experiences
By Ioana Patringenaru | March 6, 2006
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| Peace Corps volunteer Rachael Cleghorn poses with members of the tourism cooperative she worked with in Honduras. The group is on top of a mountain called Congolon, during an excursion organized for Cleghorn’s goodbye celebration. |
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One found a new direction for his life – and a wife – in Niger. Another learned to listen and be humble in Senegal. Another bonded with families in Honduras.
These former Peace Corps volunteers all celebrated the 45th anniversary of the program Tuesday at UCSD’s Career Services Center. They shared their stories and answered questions from an audience of about two dozen people, many of them students interested in enrolling. Then everyone was invited to have a slice of chocolate cake.
As of September 2005,
there were 39 UCSD alumni
currently in the Peace
Corps, said David Briery,
a spokesman for the
program. They worked
in a wide range of countries,
from Nicaragua in Latin
America, to the small
South Pacific nation
of Vanuatu, and to Romania
in Eastern Europe. Eighteen
of these students took
part in health and community
projects, mostly working
on HIV and AIDS prevention,
Briery said.
Last year, UCSD ranked 36th out of about 1200 colleges
in the nation for the
number of students recruited
in the Peace Corps.
Since 1961, the program’s
first year, UCSD has
recruited 524 volunteers,
out of more than 180,000.
By contrast, the University
of California at Berkeley,
is the top recruiting
school with 3,236 volunteers,
he said.
Traditionally, Peace
Corps volunteers come
from a liberal arts
background. But students
who specialize in science
and engineering are
well sought after, Briery
said. Tuesday, Laura
Shields, a graduate
student in chemistry,
had come to check out
her options at the Career
Services Center event.
“I think the experience
sounds really interesting,”
she said, adding she’d
like to explore other
places in the world.
Sitting nearby, George
Lin had a more traditional
Peace Corps background,
as a senior in the law
and society program.
He said programs like
the Peace Corps would
help Americans grow
and learn more about
other cultures.
“A lot of people in the United States take things for granted,” he said.
Several panelists echoed Lin’s comment.
Americans have a tendency
to go to developing
countries with the belief
that they can help,
said Bill Clabby, a
former Peace Corps volunteer,
and now coordinator
of UCSDŐs Opportunities
Abroad Program. But,
often, they canŐt actually
understand the needs
of people who struggle
to survive every day,
he said. To truly help,
they need to learn to
listen, observe and
understand, he said.
He added he thinks about
his experiences during
his two-year stint in
Senegal every day. .
THE MISSION
Clabby and the three other former volunteers who spoke Tuesday trained for several months before taking on their assignments. But once the training ended, they faced very different challenges.
Elinor Lichtenberg
and Rachael Cleghorn,
who both spoke at the
Career Services Center
event, had a defined
mission from the get-go.
Lichtenberg taught math
to middle school students
in Guinea. She also
created after school
activities to try and
empower girls. Cleghorn
took over another volunteer’s
project in Honduras.
She trained guides and
restaurant workers to
work with tourists.
She also worked with
children and with a
medical clinic.
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| Jeremy Parker plays with some of the children in the village of Manahouri, population 500, in Niger. His hut is in the background. |
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By contrast, Clabby had to make things up as he went along. He lived with his wife in a small village of 300 people in Senegal. He had been trained in the wrong dialect and at first knew only two words that villagers could understand.
He mastered the language.
He also realized the
village needed better
wells. Women who took
turns fetching water
at the local well every
hour, every night, had
only one basin of the
stuff to show for their
efforts. It took six
months for everyone
in the village to agree
about the location of
the new wells. But at
the end of it, they
all agreed. Clabby said
that when he left he
had reached his goal
of empowering the villagers.
“I learned much
more from them just
about life and how things
work — much more
than they learned from
me about digging wells,”
he said.
Jeremy Parker, now a student at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, faced a similar challenge. At first, he couldn’t understand the people in his village at all. He too took his time to pick up the language and figure out how he could help. His role, he finally concluded, was to help the village get funds from the local government and from non-governmental organizations.
Parker has a good sense of humor about the experience.
“It’s your classic living in mud huts,” he said. “It’s hot and dusty.”
LIFE CHANGES
Actually, the huts are mostly for storage, he explained. Everyone sleeps and works outside. One of the reasons why Parker is so cheerful about his life in Niger may be that he met his wife there. She was also a Peace Corps volunteer, working in another village. They were married in a traditional local Muslim ceremony. “We’re not Muslim, but you just follow along,” he said.
Parker said he was
somewhat aimless before
heading out to Niger.
His Peace Corps stint
gave him a purpose in
life, he explained.
He now wants to work
for non-governmental
organizations and help
communities all over
the world. His wife,
Karen, shares his goals,
he said.
“My life has been totally changed,” Parker said.
By contrast, Cleghorn said she went into the Peace Corps because of her strong convictions. But like many returned Peace Corps volunteers, she finds herself reevaluating her life in the United States. She misses Honduras and the people she met there. She lived with two families. Her local counterpart and her family became close friends.
“I miss them every day,” she said.
COMING BACK
Some of the other panelists said too they had trouble adjusting when they came back to the United States.
Peace Corps recruiter Diana Gomez said she cried in bread aisle at Vons after she returned from Armenia, where she had volunteered at a music school. There were so many breads at the grocery store, she said. In Armenia, there was only lavosh, a tortilla-like flat bread, white bread and black bread. But the people’s hospitality was great, Gomez said.
Clabby remembers being dumb struck when he went to buy a wedding present for his sister after his two-year stint in Senegal. He just stood there and stared at all the appliances on display, he said.
“Things don’t make you a better person,” Clabby said.
He had one piece of advice for aspiring Peace Corps volunteers. Give up your cell phones, computers and iPods, he told them.
“You’ve got to unplug from the Matrix,” Clabby said. “You won’t know who you are unless you do.”
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