The culture of a new country can be a beautiful thing to behold. Yet, sometimes cultures and traditions of another group can run counter to your believes or even be downright dangerous to those who practice them. Taylor Nelson experienced this first hand, as she worked as a health volunteer while navigating around traditional witchcraft practices of Zambia.
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Nia Chauvin served as an English teacher in small northern town in Mozambique from 2007-2009. While serving, she fell in love with her now husband and fell deeper in love with traveling. Now, Nia continues to travel the world with her husband and their young son. Through her website Born a Backpacker, she wants to show other parents that they can continue to travel with children, especially to countries where Peace Corps Volunteers call home.
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Peace Corps Volunteers come away form their service with amazing stories, like the time when Olivia DiNucci broke her fast for Ramadan with Meryl Streep and later met Michelle Obama. Yet, the things that mean the most to volunteers aren’t usually the stories of adventure or meeting the First Lady. Rather, they are the friendships we make with the citizens of the countries with serve in and the friendship we forge when sharing food and drink. While these are the harder stories to tell, they are the ones that leave the biggest impact.
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Michaela Sanchez served in a village in Nicaragua where she taught English in a community center started by a former volunteer and worked with Nicaraguan English teachers to improve their teaching abilities. Hear her story on this week’s episode of the podcast.
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Ron Tschetter’s Peace Corps story all started in the mid 60’s when he saw a Peace Corps ad and said to his wife, “We’re going to do this work stuff the rest of our lives. Let’s go out and see if we can do some good.” Little did he know he would go on to sit on the National Peace Corps Association board and eventually serve as as the 17th Director of the Peace Corps.
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Veronica Bottalico served in Costa Rica as an English teacher in a community driven by the tourism and ornamental foliage industries. She talks about residing in a house that could have been the set of a telenovela, living in a home overrun with mold, and eventually living in a tropical paradise.
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After being turned away from one opportunity to live and work abroad because of his disability, Tony Skow turned his sites on service in the Peace Corps. While Tony may have a disability, his service was not defined by what he couldn’t do but what he could do better than anyone else.
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Michael Buckler stepped away from a job as a litigator representing Microsoft to pursue his dream to serve in the Peace Corps. During his service, Michael fell in love with Malawi and became increasing frustrated with what he saw happening around him. Even has aid and development groups were pouring a billion dollars into Malawi, resulting in countless projects, the rural poor were becoming poorer. After returning from Peace Corps Malawi in late 2008, Mike began searching for ways to improve development work in sub-Saharan Africa. His answer: Village X.
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Julie Sifuentes would not be here if it weren’t for the Peace Corps (and the picture of Machu Picchu on a National Geographic cover that lured her father to Perú). And while there are so many things that have shaped who she is, being a Peace Corps kid, is a really important one.
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Growing up, Darryl Glotfelty would look around the house at keepsakes that his parents had accumulated over the years, but was particularly drawn to a few objects that didn’t quite fit in with the Appalachian décor. The red drum, batiks, and picture of his uncle in his Togolese dress all piqued Darryl’s interest. Sadly, his uncle passed away during his Peace Corps service, before Darryl was born. Yet, he inspired Darryl to serve many years later.
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