Peace Corps 60th anniversary: Lessons Valley volunteers learned serving abroad

Feb. 28—Susquehanna University Professor Shari Jacobson, says she had to reinvent herself to live in the Congo as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1984.

Her entire experience took a lot of stick-to-it-iveness, she said.

"There was one night when I thought I would leave," she said. "I had malaria, 105-degree fever, I'm shaking, have a headache, there is a horrible thunderstorm outside. I also had a case of worms and I had to go to the outhouse. Immediately. I lit my lantern and made my way out to the outhouse. Pouring rain. Thunder, lightning. I go to do my business in the outhouse. And I feel like my legs are on fire. I look down and I am covered with fire ants. I look up and it looks like the walls of my outhouse are pulsing. The whole thing is covered with fire ants. I run out of there. Try to brush these things off me, I finally do...make my way back to my house. I am soaking wet. Shaking. Feverish. And say to myself, I am leaving tomorrow."

She could have left. Peace Corps volunteers can leave at any time. But she didn't.

Jacobson and other Valley Peace Corps veterans all learned lessons about the cultures in other countries and America's perception of those countries.

"The people I was with are the most hospitable people in the world that I've ever encountered and I've also lived in China, Argentina and France," she said. "These were people who really knew how to live together — really cared about that human fabric. Took care of each other. Shared. Everybody wanted to take care of me. Feed me. They knew I was a stranger. Wanted to send their kids to your house to keep you company.

"It has given me a whole new way of thinking about life. And I am grateful for that," Jacobson said.

Time spent in Mali while serving in the Peace Corps also changed perspective about what's really important and much more for Lewisburg Landscape architect Brian Auman.

"People are essentially the same the world over with a shared humanity," he said. "There is much more that connects us than divides us. Living in a small village of subsistence farmers on the edge of the Sahara desert gives a unique perspective on sustainability, resilience and living in balance with the natural world. Those two and a half years were a gift that changed my life forever."

Auman realized there is brilliance at different levels in different cultures.

"I was just awed by their adaptability to a harsh environment and also their warmth and hospitality and openness. At the time the World Bank had Mali as one of the five poorest countries in the world. You would never know it. The hospitality you were shown as a foreigner, as a guest. It just puts us to shame.

"It was quite the epic adventure," he said.

Laura Lanwermeyer, Bucknell associate director for student learning support who served in Malawi in 1999, learned how much she didn't know about the world.

"I learned how much privilege I had taken for granted my whole life. I learned a lot," she laughed.

Bucknell Professor Eric Martin and former League of Women Voters of the Lewisburg Area president Teri MacBride were along for the exciting ride as Poland and Albania, respectively, embraced democracies.

"I felt very welcome there," Martin said. "Poles very much respected and loved the United States. There is a strong connection. When I was there, the second biggest Polish city, with polish nationals in it was Chicago. People had been leaving during the difficult times in Poland under martial law. So there was a great affinity for the United States."

The U.S. poured a ton of money into Poland right after the Wall fell, Martin said. "We wanted to prop up the closest neighbor to the Soviet Union that we had a good relationship with and Poland was a big, important country, 99 percent white and Catholic with a good relation to the U.S. so it was a good place for foreign assistance to go into."

Even now, MacBride recalls that Albanians were so pro-American ... and kind to foreigners. And generous beyond belief.

"I truly appreciated the humanity of everyone working to improve the lives of their family," MacBride said. "In many ways I learned that people are fundamentally the same around the world. I had a tremendous experience in a country that was evolving and emerging from a state of brutal control. People had lived under a reign of terror for many years. They didn't trust the government. But they were so trusting of Americans.

"I learned how highly regarded this country is," she said.

Gia Ciccolo, a 2014 Bucknell graduate, said her Peace Corps service in Guatemala taught her a lot of things as well.

"I learned that western culture makes a lot of assumptions about how other people live. And what the right and wrong ways to live are," she said. We assume that in other cultures, where it seems that women are oppressed that those women are (for lack of a better term) weak. They are allowing it to happen. But from working with indigenous women in these areas, with very few resources, I realized that they were among the most intelligent, hard-working people I've met in my life.

"There was very little I could teach them. It was more a learning experience for me. I hope they learned that people are interested in them. And that we value them as a people, as a culture, and what they were doing," she said.