Unfinished Business

Rwanda | Ana Santos

Home: Atlanta, Georgia

Ana Santos had been serving as a Volunteer teaching English since September 2018. After hearing about the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Rwanda, Santos started packing that Sunday, before getting the official evacuation order on Monday. And she began the emotionally taxing and logistically challenging process of saying goodbye.

The government had banned large gatherings and had closed schools. Colleagues had returned to family homes; she couldn’t find many of her students. “I had to go to each of my teachers’ homes individually to greet them and tell them the news. They were as shocked and as upset as I was.”

“Peace Corps is one of the best ideas the United States has ever had.”

Santos coordinated with other nearby Volunteers to hire a bus for the long journey to the capital, Kigali. There they learned the Rwandan government would close the airport in 48 hours. Peace Corps arranged for a charter flight out. 

“I joined the Peace Corps because I wanted to serve and do my part to make the world a better place,” Santos says. “I was excited by the opportunity to immerse myself in a different culture, to work face-to-face with people who were change-makers in their community.” She had to leave, but she holds to this: “Peace Corps is one of the best ideas the United States has ever had.”

—Tasha Prados

Rwanda | Diana Bender-Bier

Home: Washington, D.C. area

Nishimye kubamenya is how you say “Nice to meet you” in Kinyarwanda, the language Diana Bender-Bier began learning in September 2019. She worked in the Southern Province, teaching English to 4th and 5th graders, training teachers, leading an English club. She lived in a larger market town and walked 40 minutes each day to a smaller village and the school where she taught. Her litany of plans: in April, for grades 5 to 12, a full day of classes with another Volunteer and nearby doctor about safe sex, teen pregnancy, risks of HIV/AIDS. In May, a carnival to educate about malaria. In June, a speaking competition for students. Plans to apply for a grant for science lab materials and playground resources. Fundraising for more desks, since in classes of 70 to 100 kids, many had to sit on the floor. 

She says she left her heart there. There’s a moment when we’re talking about her community and she says, “Religion is very big here.” She means there, only she’s not thinking of herself in the Washington, D.C. area but still in Rwanda.

“Most of my colleagues were very confused,” she says. “‘Why are you going there?’ they asked. ‘It’s worse there.’” And it was. 

She got the email that she was being evacuated and had a couple days to say goodbye. Colleagues told her, Oh, she’s not coming back. “I kept saying, ‘No, I’m coming back. I’m coming back. It’s just temporary.’ Though I don’t know how long that is.”

There was something eerie about evacuating Rwanda, she says — an echo of 25 years before, on the eve of civil war, when Peace Corps and others left and the genocide began. One of her colleagues lost both parents. “I felt connected to the genocide in a different way, given my Jewish heritage,” Bender-Bier says. As for her departure for the States, “Most of my colleagues were very confused,” she says. “‘Why are you going there?’ they asked. ‘It’s worse there.’” And it was. 

In Rockville, Maryland, during quarantine she was at her mother’s house while her mother stayed in Florida. With rooms to spare, Bender-Bier provided a home for other evacuated Volunteers.

—Steven Boyd Saum

Rwanda | Levi Rokey

Home: Washington, D.C. area

Baggage of evacuation: Levi Rokey left his community in Rwanda for a hotel room in Washington, D.C. Now he’s working on contact tracing to help his community at home.

This story was first published in WorldView magazine’s Summer 2020 issue. Read the entire magazine for free now in the WorldView app. Here’s how:

STEP 1 - Create an account: Click here and create a login name and password. Use the code DIGITAL2020 to get it free.

STEP 2 - Get the app: For viewing the magazine on a phone or tablet, go to the App Store/Google Play and search for “WorldView magazine” and download the app. Or view the magazine on a laptop/desktop here.

Thanks for reading. And here’s how you can support the work we’re doing to help evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers.

Tonga | Natalie Somerville

Home: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Photo: Mangrove forest, Tonga. Photo courtesy Natalie Somerville.

Mālō ‘etau lava. Ko Navi au. Na’a ku nofo i Tonga. On the beautiful island of ‘Eua, where I was serving as a Volunteer, I’m known as Navi. When we were evacuated, here’s what I left behind: coconut trees, fresh papaya every day, a group of women who had just committed to practicing healthy lifestyles, my best friend and dog (Navi Kiti), and an adoring, patient partner, with deep love, whom I can’t wait to reunite with. I left behind a vegetable garden that was beginning to sprout, children who smile with their all, and people who laugh from their core. I left behind the clearest night sky I’ve ever seen, and a mat to lay down upon while I stare at the Milky Way. 

I left behind the clearest night sky I’ve ever seen, and a mat to lay down upon while I stare at the Milky Way. 

Here’s the unfinished business I’d like you to know about: Practicing healthy living with the Tongans is crucial because the biggest killers out there are preventable. Diabetes and heart disease can be lessened with movement and strengthening of the mind. I want to continue working with the people to extend their happy lives. There is also a group of artists who came to the island I lived on to do a workshop with my students. The importance of self-expression and creativity is food for the soul and crucial for well-being. I hope the Peace Corps keeps a strong connection between education and the arts. Mālō aupito, ‘ofa atu. Many thanks and love to you. 

This story was first published in WorldView magazine’s Summer 2020 issue. Read the entire magazine for free now in the WorldView app. Here’s how:

STEP 1 - Create an account: Click here and create a login name and password. Use the code DIGITAL2020 to get it free.

STEP 2 - Get the app: For viewing the magazine on a phone or tablet, go to the App Store/Google Play and search for “WorldView magazine” and download the app. Or view the magazine on a laptop/desktop here.

Thanks for reading. And here’s how you can support the work we’re doing to help evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers.

Fiji | Cynthia Arata

Home: Napa, California

Photo: Moala Island — one of the most remote islands that is part of Fiji. Photo by Cynthia Arata

If you type “Moala Island” into Google, a number of misleading images will populate your search. Make no mistake: there is no tourism on Moala Island.

Despite mislabeled photos online, there is no resort, no hotel, no Airbnb. In fact, there is no paved road. There is no grocery store, market, restaurant or bar. There is no bank, gas station or electricity. It is difficult to illustrate just how remote Moala is, and without visiting, it is unlikely that a person could imagine how pure and peaceful life is there. With extremely limited, infrequent transportation to and from the island, surely, few people will ever travel to Moala.

For nearly six months, I lived on this pristine, 24-square mile tropical paradise in the islands of Fiji, a nation in the South Pacific comprising more than 300 islands and islets.

Moala is part of the eastern archipelago of Fiji, called the Lau Province, which is made up of approximately 60 islands, half of which are inhabited. Moala is one of these inhabited islands with a total population of around 1,300 people. There are eight villages on the island, all which are situated along the calm shores of the Koro Sea. From the water’s edge, communities maintain a traditional subsistence livelihood of fishing and farming.

“The day that I took my oath was one of the proudest days of my life — a feeling of accomplishment unlike any other I have experienced.” Cynthia Arata on Moala. Photo by Shane Grace

Nestled in one of Moala’s lush, fertile valleys is Cakova Village, a community of 153 people. In October 2019, after two months of cultural and language training on Fiji’s largest island, Viti Levu, I swore in as a Peace Corps volunteer, committing to spend two years serving in the Youth in Development sector. My placement was one of the most isolated sites in all of Peace Corps Fiji.

Nestled in one of Moala’s lush, fertile valleys is Cakova Village, a community of 153 people. My placement was one of the most isolated sites in all of Peace Corps Fiji.

My specific role was under the Community Youth Empowerment Project — a partnership between the Peace Corps, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Youth and Sports, which has goals of positive youth development, community engagement and capacity building.

As a Community Youth Empowerment volunteer, I worked with the Youth Group and the Women’s Group in Cakova Village. My role involved helping to facilitate discussions with community members to identify needs, interests, and sustainable projects. Additionally, I worked as the librarian at Cakova’s primary school, focusing on literacy and library development.

In Fiji, the term “youth” describes individuals between the ages of 18 and 35 who, essentially, provide the labor force in rural villages to carry out work such as construction, plumbing, and landscaping. The Youth Group in Cakova Village was highly motivated to accomplish community goals. Project ideas proposed by members were reconstruct footbridges, renovating the community hall and expanding the nursing station.

The island and the world: schoolchildren on Moala. Photo by Cynthia Arata

As a team, we were in the process of leveraging support for the Youth Group from the Ministry of Agriculture for farming tools, as well as the Ministry of Forestry for training on tree and mangrove planting for climate change mitigation.

The Women’s Group had undertaken an economic opportunity plan to generate income in order to rebuild the village canteen, a small business run by the group where basic provisions such as rice, flour, and sugar are sold. A key way for women in Cakova to earn money is by cutting, cooking and drying wild pandanus, weaving the stocks into traditional mats and sending these Fijian handicrafts to merchants in Suva, Fiji’s capital, to be sold in the municipal market.

A passion that I hoped to bring into my service is my love of reading. At the beginning of the year, the teachers at Cakova Village School expressed the need for a new library with more resources and services, a project I felt especially enthusiastic about. The existing library occupied a corner in the administration building, which was also the teachers’ lounge, battery room, and storage space. As such, the library provided a small, outdated book collection, only one computer, and little space for students to explore. Together, we began drafting the library development project, advocating for a new library building, books, shelving, worktables, laptop computers, and solar panels.

In February, as a school staff, we submitted a grant application to the Canadian Fund for Local Initiatives detailing a blueprint for an upgraded water station at the school. The project aligned with national development priorities, in particular, the implementation of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure in Fiji’s schools, standards that are generally achieved with the help of non-governmental organizations non-profit organizations, and volunteers. The concept called for new sinks, faucets, soap dispensers, drinking fountains, drainage systems, and roofing in order to improve water efficiency, sanitary conditions and hygiene.

Five months into my service in Fiji, a number of these projects with the Youth Group, Women’s Group, and primary school in Cakova Village were gaining traction. Though in the early project design stages, there was undeniable excitement and engagement around addressing these community needs.

 Weaver at work — one of the ways women in Cakova earn money for their community. Photo by Cynthia Arata

Just as I had begun establishing my own rhythms and routines as a volunteer, the director of the Peace Corps sent an email to volunteers around the world saying that due to the global pandemic posed by the COVID-19 outbreak, she had made the difficult decision to temporarily suspend Peace Corps operations and evacuate all volunteers back to the United States.

What was more shocking than the news of being evacuated, however, was receiving a second email from the country director in Fiji, determining that my Peace Corps service, along with thousands of other current volunteers in countries all over the world, was being ended by issuing the Close of Service— meaning I was no longer a volunteer.

More messages followed with instructions to pack my bags, grab my passport, and say goodbye and thank you to my community. In a state of shock, my mind raced with questions and concerns — from my outstanding projects and reports to the threat of the virus. My main concern was how to communicate this order, suddenly passed down from the agency, to members of my community that might see me as abandoning them and all of our work together.

Moreover, at that point, Fiji did not have any cases of COVID-19; and certainly, Moala Island is exceptionally isolated geographically with almost no incoming transit. Explaining to members of my community in Cakova that I was leaving, and why, was devastating and confusing for all of us. Questions of when I would return were impossible to answer for the village and for myself.

Ironically, the first Core Expectation of a Peace Corps volunteer is to “prepare your personal and professional life to make a commitment to serve abroad for a full term of 27 months.” The day that I took my oath was one of the proudest days of my life — a feeling of accomplishment unlike any other I have experienced. I know in my heart that I was determined, no matter the challenges, to see through my commitment to Cakova Village, Peace Corps, and my country. However, this health crisis leaves Peace Corps volunteers and staff with no idea of when the agency will be able to resume operations. Furthermore, on the morning that I left Moala Island the first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Fiji, a secondary concern as the South Pacific battles the end of this year’s cyclone season.

For me, the hardest part, amid all of this not knowing, is hearing the voices of the village children asking me as I was leaving, “Madam, what about the library?”

Although I had been keenly aware of how special my time in Moala was while I was there, now that I am back in the U.S., I have time to reflect more deeply on my experiences.

Quarantined in Napa at my family’s home and bombarded not just with culture shock but also coronavirus chaos, I find refuge in my memories of the simplicity of life in Cakova, a place where a good day means having fish and a breeze. In Cakova, a day’s work is fishing on the reef or crabbing in the low tide, neighbors always have pots of warm food and tea to offer, and children swim in the village creek using mango pulp as body wash for their evening baths.

Without electricity, internet access or cell service, I spent my evenings watering my garden, watching sunsets from my hammock, and reading books late into the night under the stars. And although the pace of things was slow, each day was full of more meaning, purpose, growth and learning about what quality of life means.

For me, the hardest part, amid all of this not knowing, is hearing the voices of the village children asking me as I was leaving, “Madam, what about the library?”

This article originally appeared in the Napa Valley Register under the title “Memories of Moala.” Read it here.

It was also published in WorldView magazine’s Summer 2020 issue. Read the entire magazine for free now in the WorldView app. Here’s how:

STEP 1 - Create an account: Click here and create a login name and password. Use the code DIGITAL2020 to get it free.

STEP 2 - Get the app: For viewing the magazine on a phone or tablet, go to the App Store/Google Play and search for “WorldView magazine” and download the app. Or view the magazine on a laptop/desktop here.

Thanks for reading. And here’s how you can support the work we’re doing to help evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers.

Panama | Danielle Shulkin

Home: Sharon, Massachusetts

Photo: Mangrove reforestation, Los Santos, Panamá — the community where Volunteer Bailey Rosen served and took time to high-five with one of the students taking part. Photo by Eli Wittum

Köbö kuin dere! Ti kä Mechi Sulia Kwatabü amne ti sribire Cuerpo de Paz ben. I served in the Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé, in a mountainous part of an indigenous reservation. The language that I introduced myself in is Ngäbere, which has about 200,000 speakers throughout Panama and Costa Rica. I was a TELLS volunteer — Teaching English, Leadership, and Life Skills, helping teachers improve English language skills and teaching methodologies. I also worked with the guidance counselor at my school to do sexual health education and provide resources for parents.

I had about one hour to pack and say goodbye. A leader of the comarca helped find someone with a car who drove me two hours out of the mountains to the main road — and picked up a few other Volunteers. When we tried to pay, he said, “That’s not my custom.” The night before I left, I had coffee with this man, and we were talking about the possibility of Peace Corps evacuating. He expressed how much the comarca enjoyed having the Peace Corps presence there — and how much they had helped.

As far as what I left behind: material possessions — clothes, a french press, a solar panel, food I had bought when I was anticipating a long shelter-in-place. None of those things matter as much as the connections and the potential left unrealized. 

The new school year had just begun. I had set up a meetings with the guidance counselor and the Padres de Familia — like a PTA. I had a new counterpart who was excited to start new extracurricular opportunities. And I worked as a special education teacher in New York City before joining Peace Corps; special ed is a big need in Panama. I was thinking about extending for a third year to help schools come up with ways to support all students — especially those who need extra help, whether they have a diagnosed disability or not.

One thing that weighs on me is the people to whom I didn’t get to say goodbye. One family I got close to were kind of outsiders in the community. The husband was studying English at a university extension; he needed help. He had dropped out of school as a teenager and earned his diploma through night school. Now he was studying English with hopes of being an English teacher. We worked for hours in his home — made of zinc panels, held up by tree branches, with a dirt floor. His daughter would hold a flashlight over our work while he wrote essays. I often ended up eating dinner with them, and their daughter would braid my hair and watch videos on my phone. His wife made me a nakwa, the traditional dress in my community. They were the first people to bring me into their home and make me feel like I was doing something worthwhile. 

I hope and pray that they’re staying safe. We volunteers are grieving, and missing friends and family so much.

The day that I left, I ran to their house with a bag of food and random things to give to them. Both parents were at work. I left the bag with the daughters, but I never got to say goodbye.

I hope and pray that they’re staying safe. We volunteers are grieving, and missing friends and family so much. A lot of us are hoping to come back one day, and we can sit on your porches and listen to La Patrona and drink the finca-grown coffee and watch the sunset and continue to work hombro a hombro, or shoulder to shoulder. Until that day, we will be here thinking of you and trying to move forward. So, que Dios les bendiga, y que le vaya bien.

See more from Danielle's service

Panama | Eli Wittum

Home: Cleveland, North Carolina

I served as a community environmental conservation extension agent in Panama 2016–18. I collaborated with host country nationals assessing environmental concerns, focused on the increasing deforestation of the Panama Canal watershed. I facilitated environmental trainings on reforestation and acquired a grant to implement new sustainable cook-stove alternatives, which will greatly reduce environmental and health concerns. 

Schoolgirl in Bajo Corral, Los Santos, Panamá. The mural was painted years ago by Volunteers at a site where evacuated PCV Kiera Morrill served. Photo by Eli Wittum.
 

Since summer 2018, I’ve carried the title of multimedia specialist for Peace Corps Panama. I document work being done by the Environmental Leadership and Training Initiative and bring scientific information to audiences in a form they can understand. I capture the story of this work in photographs and videos. The visual medium has the power to illuminate both damage and progress in the environment, to speak to us intellectually and emotionally.

 Mangrove reforestation: Tito and work well done — more than 6,000 trees planted. Photo by Eli Wittum

Working in poor rural communities, I have also photographed people young and old who had never possessed a picture of themselves. When I travel back to those places, I’ll bring a print — something I hope shows them in their dignity and grace and humanity.

This is what I have left behind. It’s work that remains unfinished.

 Mother and child. Photo by Eli Wittum

This story was first published in WorldView magazine’s Summer 2020 issue. Read the entire magazine for free now in the WorldView app. Here’s how:

STEP 1 - Create an account: Click here and create a login name and password. Use the code DIGITAL2020 to get it free.

STEP 2 - Get the app: For viewing the magazine on a phone or tablet, go to the App Store/Google Play and search for “WorldView magazine” and download the app. Or view the magazine on a laptop/desktop here.

Thanks for reading. And here’s how you can support the work we’re doing to help evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers.

Guatemala | Anna Zauner

Home: Skillman, New Jersey

Photo: Dressed in traditional Mayan traje, as is custom for Sunday  Mass. Anna Zauner, left, with friend Jackelyn Saquic.

We received the evacuation notice at 10 p.m., just hours after the Guatemalan government announced that all school would be canceled for 21 days. Forty-six minutes later I received the follow-up email with my departure date: Tuesday. A full day to say goodbyes and pack. 

I started Monday by telling my host family and what friends I could find the news. I ran into some of my students along the trail to school and told one group of girls that I would be leaving. One of my work partners scheduled a meeting in the town center for me to tell colleagues. My return was uncertain. A follow-up email instructed us to give away all belongings we could not bring. 

My colleague Patty Saquic hosted me for a last lunch in her home. Troubling news kept coming. Volunteers scheduled to leave that morning were on their way to the airport and had their buses turned back. No planes were leaving. The border with Mexico was scheduled to close at 8 p.m.

As I was finishing lunch, I received an update: “Have all of your things packed and ready in an hour to go to your consolidation point.” I was 30 minutes from home with nothing packed.

 Class of first-year secondary school students preparing Jocón. They learned budgeting by saving up for weeks to purchase ingredients for the recipe. Photo by Anna Zauner

As I was finishing lunch, I received an update: “Have all of your things packed and ready in an hour to go to your consolidation point.” I was 30 minutes from home with nothing packed. I ran through the town center to catch a bus. A friend flagged me down: Be careful, she said. Guatemalans were becoming hostile towards “tourists.” I shouldn’t be walking around alone.

At home, I packed a few things, hoisted them into a tuk-tuk, headed for the nearest neighbor with a car.

A flight was chartered for us, departing Tuesday 9 a.m. Then canceled; the plane had not been granted airspace. Negotiations with the government were still in progress. Wednesday, airspace was granted. To keep local police from stopping us, we headed for the airport with an embassy and police escort — multiple vehicles and 20 motorcycles, sirens blaring, lights flashing.

Hours later we touched down in Miami. The entire plane erupted with applause for the hard work our post administration put into bring us home.

As for home: What about the one I left behind?

When I told my host family in Guatemala and tried to explain through tears that I was hoping to come back but unsure if I would be able to, they said to me, “No tenga pena.” Don’t have shame. “We will keep your room for you — this room is yours.”

Though I do have shame — for the lack of proper goodbyes, for leaving the community I pledged to serve for two years. The students I was teaching have been spending their time at home, leaving quiet fútbol courts and classrooms bereft of laughter. I hope the lectures I gave on positive youth development through life skills will propel students forward. There was so much more that I did not get the chance to address: substance abuse, reproductive health, and mental health for starters.

This story was first published in WorldView magazine’s Summer 2020 issue. Read the entire magazine for free now in the WorldView app. Here’s how:

STEP 1 - Create an account: Click here and create a login name and password. Use the code DIGITAL2020 to get it free.

STEP 2 - Get the app: For viewing the magazine on a phone or tablet, go to the App Store/Google Play and search for “WorldView magazine” and download the app. Or view the magazine on a laptop/desktop here.

Thanks for reading. And here’s how you can support the work we’re doing to help evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers.

Peru | Aidan Fife

Home: Lancaster, Pennsylvania

 

When Aidan Fife arrived in the Ancash region in December 2019, he was the third youth development Volunteer to serve as part of a six-year project, stretching over the course of three cohorts. “Kind of a new thing for Peace Corps,” he says.

Though Peace Corps is not new in Peru. The program was established in 1962 and ran until 1974, when it was suspended because of political instability. Volunteers have been back since 2002.

Fife’s aunt served in Paraguay in the 1980s. “She’s my number one inspiration,” he says. She lauded the three-volunteer sequence structure; it showed a more sophisticated Peace Corps engaged in development that would be sustainable.
 

 Mount Huascarán in the Ancash Region of Peru. Photo courtesy Wikimedia

Fife was working in a town within view of twin-peaked Mount Huascarán in the western Andes. He studied Spanish and environmental science in college, and in Peru he began learning Quechua. You could get by without it, he says, but he wanted to integrate himself in the community, working with a school and a health center. He was teaching life skills and career orientation and sex education. 

First, he brought out some art supplies for the four children in his host family — aged 18 months to 14 years. They were delighted. “Then I told them I’m leaving. That was hard.”

He had less than eight hours to pack, say hurried goodbyes, get to the regional capital. First, he brought out some art supplies for the four children in his host family — aged 18 months to 14 years. They were delighted. “Then I told them I’m leaving. That was hard.”

That night Peru closed its borders. Nearly all flights were canceled. That made evacuation tough. But Volunteers did get out. Weeks later, there were some 2,300 Americans who were still trying to leave.

Fife is back at his parents’ home. When we spoke, he was in self-quarantine before worrying about what’s next. Evenings, he was on video chats with his host family in Peru. “That’s been nice,” he says, “because then they can meet my family here.” 

—Steven Boyd Saum

Peru | Madeline and Clint Kellner

Home: Novato, California


We were eight weeks into our second Peace Corps service as Response Volunteers in the Peruvian Amazon when we were evacuated. We served previously as Volunteers in Guatemala’s western highlands, 2016–18. In 2020, we were assigned to the nonprofit Minga Peru, dedicated to economic and social empowerment of indigenous women and the well-being of families and communities.

Minga Peru brings vital health information and other important messages to more than 100,000 indigenous residents living in isolated communities along the Amazon through their radio program, “Bienvenida Salud.” To reinforce those messages, they run a project to train promotoras, local lay women health promoters. To share the nonprofit’s success with interested outsiders and to market locally-made artisanal products, they started an educative tourism program called Minga Tour. 

Based in Iquitos, our charge was to work shoulder to shoulder with staff to strengthen and advance these programs. Madeline was focused on strengthening community radio and promotora leadership; Clint’s attention was directed at development and marketing of educational tourism. We were inspired by the successful inroads the nonprofit had already made and by the women leaders we met. 

Promotoras — health promoters with Minga Peru. Photo courtesy Madeline and Clint Kellner

What now? Back in Marin County, we followed the 14-day self-quarantine and then began shelter-in-place. There was no homecoming for us. We can feel the disappointment others are experiencing, with canceled weddings, stalled charitable fundraisers and memorial services for loved ones, postponed surgeries, and delayed trips. Also palpable is the fear, anxiety, and panic in the grocery store, on the streets and trails, and in the media. None of us has ever experienced a situation like this — with so little certainty, no definable end in sight, no assurances that this cannot happen again.

What has brought us a renewed perspective in the midst of so much change? Since our return, we learned that Minga Peru now faces new critical challenges with funding shortfalls and a higher demand for services. The Peruvian Amazon is home to more than 1,000 rural communities, most in isolated riverine areas, with poor access to essential services. COVID-19 dramatically impacts this region already besieged by dengue fever, shortages of hospitals and medical professionals, and high rates of poverty and food insecurity. Tourism has stopped — cutting off an important source of revenue.

What we cannot do in person in the Amazon, we do remotely in the United States.

What we cannot do in person in the Amazon, we do remotely in the United States. We are contacting past and potential donors to help fund Minga’s emergency response plan, beefing up the radio program’s COVID-19 messages and advice, and providing essentials like soap, cleaning supplies, and vegetable plants for gardens.

What helps: keeping the faces of the indigenous women and their families whom we met in our sights. That gives us the motivation we need. It also gives us focus outside ourselves. We don’t know what’s next and if we will be able to return to the Peruvian Amazon. In the meantime, we help out from the confines of our house and maintain a strong link to both the people and place.
 

This story was first published in WorldView magazine’s Summer 2020 issue. Read the entire magazine for free now in the WorldView app. Here’s how:

STEP 1 - Create an account: Click here and create a login name and password. Use the code DIGITAL2020 to get it free.

STEP 2 - Get the app: For viewing the magazine on a phone or tablet, go to the App Store/Google Play and search for “WorldView magazine” and download the app. Or view the magazine on a laptop/desktop here.

Thanks for reading. And here’s how you can support the work we’re doing to help evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers.

Ecuador | Becky Wandell

Home: Portland, Oregon

By 10:30 Sunday night, March 15, I had settled into bed and checked my phone. I scrolled past messages exploding: Start packing. We’re going home.

Not me — I’m extending for a third year! Besides, we’re on a “standfast,” schools are closed. I’m safe with my host family here in Ibarra. The Ecuadorian government is already taking precautions!

My phone rang — my supervisor. Two checked bags. Be ready to leave by midday. 

Upstairs I heard the TV in Margarita and Jose’s room so I knew they were still awake. I banged on the door. Margarita came running. “Que pasó?” The three of us stood in the doorway, holding each other, crying. 

I banged on the door. Margarita came running. “Que pasó?” The three of us stood in the doorway, holding each other, crying. 

The next morning I texted the principal of the school where I had been teaching and training teachers. I had a packet of maps from the U.S. for the school. She came, said she would share my goodbyes. We stood in the street and cried. All morning long my extended family called or came by: I would always be part of their family, their doors were always open, they would wait for my return. Then little Pablo: “No te vayas, Becky! No te vayas!” Don’t go!

Margarita made a lovely soup for lunch — our last meal.

Showing for GLOW: Girls Leading Our World

In a hotel conference room in Quito, we learned our service was officially being terminated. Ecuadorian borders were closed. It took three different flights to get us all from Quito to Guayaquil for a connection to the States. Airport staff were fully suited, masked, gloved. They took our temperature from 12 feet away. They squirted disinfectant gel into our hands.

When we arrived in Miami, we headed to customs. No masks, no gloves, no gel. I stepped up to the customs official, expecting questions about where I had traveled from, where I was going. He only wanted to know if I was carrying any agricultural products. I thought, Their script is a little out of date.

Then he said, “Welcome home.” A strange concept when your heart is on a different continent.

This story was first published in WorldView magazine’s Summer 2020 issue. Read the entire magazine for free now in the WorldView app. Here’s how:

STEP 1 - Create an account: Click here and create a login name and password. Use the code DIGITAL2020 to get it free.

STEP 2 - Get the app: For viewing the magazine on a phone or tablet, go to the App Store/Google Play and search for “WorldView magazine” and download the app. Or view the magazine on a laptop/desktop here.

Thanks for reading. And here’s how you can support the work we’re doing to help evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers.

Dominican Republic | Benjamin Rietmann

Home: Condon, Oregon

Photo: Build your dreams: Ben with two students who competed in the Peace Corps "Construye tus Sueños" competition, where they presented business plans trying to win seed money to start businesses. The young woman wants to make and sell yogurt, and the young man wants to start a hardware store.

I’m from a small town in eastern Oregon. I was in the community economic development sector, working with an association of dairy farmers and teaching entrepreneurship to high school-age students. We held the Construye tus Sueños competition — Build Your Dreams — where they presented business plans trying to win seed money to start businesses.

When we were evacuated, I left behind friends and project partners with whom I’d worked to build relationships over the past year. I left behind students who had yet to finish my entrepreneurship and personal finance programs. I left behind my dog, house, furniture.

We held the Construye tus Sueños competition — Build Your Dreams — where they presented business plans trying to win seed money to start businesses.

I was helping several dairy farmers to organize and better understand their finances. I was helping the association administrator learn more computer skills, and I was creating an annual budget for the association. I was helping a students start their own business making yogurt and other dairy projects. Much of what I was doing seemed promising. 

Got milk? The dairy association collection center where Benjamin was working, in process of having a second story built on the building. Photo by Benjamin Rietmann

Coming back to the U.S., I was fortunate to have a place to stay and a family to provide for me during quarantine. As I write this, I’m unsure if I’ll be able to return to Peace Corps service, unsure if I’ll be able to get a job during the pandemic, unsure what the future holds.

See more from Benjamin's service

This story was first published in WorldView magazine’s Summer 2020 issue. Read the entire magazine for free now in the WorldView app. Here’s how:

STEP 1 - Create an account: Click here and create a login name and password. Use the code DIGITAL2020 to get it free.

STEP 2 - Get the app: For viewing the magazine on a phone or tablet, go to the App Store/Google Play and search for “WorldView magazine” and download the app. Or view the magazine on a laptop/desktop here.

Thanks for reading. And here’s how you can support the work we’re doing to help evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers.

Morocco | Joshua Warzecha

Home: Clayton, California

Joshua Warzecha was an Arabic studies and linguistics major at Dartmouth College before joining Peace Corps in September 2018. He was on vacation with his family in the northern part of Morocco when he got the evacuation message and had to race back to his post in Tata, a province in the southwestern part of the country. He worked in the youth development sector, spending much of his time teaching English to teens and young adults.

Back at his parents’ home in the San Francisco Bay Area, in the weeks under self-quarantine he was texting with his former students. They were sad and angry, telling him Tata is too hot for the coronavirus to survive. “A lot of ‘We miss you,’ a lot of ‘Why did you have to leave?’” he says. “We agreed the anger is more frustration.”

—Lisa Kocian for Dartmouth Alumni Magazine.  

Master craftsman Hamid began learning his trade 50 years ago, at age 8. Photographer and Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Dylan Thompson met him at Seffarine Square in Fez.

Read more from Morocco here:

Morocco Country Director Sue Dwyer in “This is Not a Drill.”
Volunteer Giovana Giraldo and Counterpart Omar Lyamyani  in “Shoulder to Shoulder.”

This story was first published as part of  “Mission, Interrupted” in Dartmouth Alumni Magazine. It also appears in WorldView magazine’s Summer 2020 print edition.
 

Read the entire magazine for free now in the WorldView app. Here’s how:

STEP 1 - Create an account: Click here and create a login name and password. Use the code DIGITAL2020 to get it free.

STEP 2 - Get the app: For viewing the magazine on a phone or tablet, go to the App Store/Google Play and search for “WorldView magazine” and download the app. Or view the magazine on a laptop/desktop here.

Thanks for reading. And here’s how you can support the work we’re doing to help evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers.

Togo | Sarah Bair

Home: Bethesda, Maryland

The village of Alibi II is in the center of the country.
“It’s basically the Muslim capital of Togo,” Sarah Bair says. Working with a clinic, she focused on maternal and child health, serving some 3,000 people.

“I went to mosque every Friday. I learned a lot about religion and how that affects health — and how to be conscious about health education through religion.” For attending mosque, she wore a headscarf; walking to work, not necessarily. That led to conversations with people in the village about personal choice.

She coached two girls’ soccer teams, practiced twice a week. “One practice I would use for a health talk — washing hands, nutritional eating, setting goals for a healthy lifestyle.”

Before praying five times a day, one should perform ablutions. “Because of that, and everyone having outdoor showers and no one having indoor running water, there would be a lot of standing water between houses and compounds,” Bair says. “Standing water leads to flies, which leads to many diseases — such as a diarrheal diseases.”

Solution: dig a hole by the shower, fill it with rocks and sand, create a way for te water to filter into the ground. Bair worked with a counterpart to get people to construct more than 100 of those in the village. Her job wasn’t to dig; it was to build buy-in.

Then came a phone call at 4 a.m. on Monday, March 16. A friend saying check your email. She had two days to say goodbye.

“Reina — my dearest friend in village and arguably the strongest woman I know,” says Sarah Bair. “There are many obstacles women face in Togo including working multiple jobs while also expected to always cook, clean etc. On top of all of this, Reina raises her three kids alone as her husband is working in another country. With the little time she has left to offer, she spends it helping me with health talks and projects in village. The world is a better place because of compassionate women like her!“ 

She left her cat and the projects and deep friendships, and she knew she’d be carrying the weight of sadness in the leaving — not just for her sake, but also because she’s aware of the fact that Peace Corps hasn’t left Togo since the program was established in 1962. 

She wished she’d had the chance to educate her village on coronavirus and imminent health issues. There wasn’t time. She did say this at the clinic: “Remember that health talk we did on washing hands? We really need to reinforce that.”

She didn’t expect that when she told her host family father — also the head of the neighborhood, “a very serious Muslim man” — he began sobbing. Seeing his genuine sadness and the sadness of others was heartbreaking. 

“In Togo they say, ‘How are you? How’s the family? How’s your job? How’s the house? How’s your courage?’ They keep asking. They care.”

Before she left, there was one small thing that a friend insisted on. In Western Africa, many countries have a tradition of protection scars — like a tattoo, where they break a bit of skin but the color wears off in a few months. Bair had been talking about getting one on her foot. “We’ll get it for you now,” her friend said. “We need to protect you before you go where coronavirus is worse.”

She plans to train as an EMT. In August, she began graduate work in public health at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. She keeps in touch with friends in Togo via WhatsApp, “Which makes me both happy and sad,” she says. “They’re always most concerned about how I am. In Togo they say, ‘How are you? How’s the family? How’s your job? How’s the house? How’s your courage?’ They keep asking. They care.”

—Steven Boyd Saum
 

Togo | Ryan Blackwell

Home: Washington, D.C. Area

Medo gbe lo! ŋkɔnye nye Ryan Blackwell alo Kɔkuvi. Wodzim Kuɖagbe. That’s Ewe, a language widely spoken in southern Togo. Translation: “My name is Ryan Blackwell or Kokouvi” — which is what I was known as in my community. It means that I was born on a Wednesday.

I just got back from serving for almost three years as an English and gender education volunteer in Togo. I also worked a bit with Pathways Togo, a Peace Corps-affiliated organization that provides full scholarships all the way through university for outstanding female students.

Peace Corps Togo staff — Togolese and Americans — are doing incredible work, especially supporting Togo’s education system and girls’ education in the country.

A thousand words: 8th-grade English students show off the monsters that they drew and described to celebrate Halloween in Adeta, Togo. Photo by Ryan Blackwell

I had to leave my colleagues, my friends, my neighbors, and my students. I’ve never felt that connected to a community in my life.

In terms of unfinished business: We need to get the Peace Corps opened up again as soon as possible. Peace Corps Togo staff — Togolese and Americans — are doing incredible work, especially supporting Togo’s education system and girls’ education in the country. I can’t really put into words how grateful I am for being able to be a part of the Peace Corps and being able to work there.

 See more from Ryan's service

This story was first published in WorldView magazine’s Summer 2020 issue. Read the entire magazine for free now in the WorldView app. Here’s how:

STEP 1 - Create an account: Click here and create a login name and password. Use the code DIGITAL2020 to get it free.

STEP 2 - Get the app: For viewing the magazine on a phone or tablet, go to the App Store/Google Play and search for “WorldView magazine” and download the app. Or view the magazine on a laptop/desktop here.

Thanks for reading. And here’s how you can support the work we’re doing to help evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers.

Sasha Kogan | Cameroon

Home: New York City
Photo: Unbridled joy: kids in the village. Photo by Sasha Kogan

January 2020

In the earliest hours of the morning, when the air is still somewhat cool, the sun brings with it the sounds of roosters calling and the cries of baby goats, indistinguishable from the cries of baby humans. The mosquito net slightly filters the incoming light as I rise up from the rectangular piece of foam on which I sleep. Furniture here needs to be made by the village carpenter; I still don’t have a bed frame. Calvin the kitten jumps onto my lap and meows loudly to tell me that he needs sardines right now.

The children here are resourceful geniuses. They build skateboards and scooters out of wood and rusty nails they find. Calvin’s empty sardine boxes become little cars pulled on bits of string. The kids play outside, shoeless, shrieking in French and Kako and Fulfulde. 

“The children here are resourceful geniuses.” Photo by Sasha Kogan

I work on my Community Needs Assessment, a seemingly endless document due in the beginning of March to collect and analyze data about village resources and health problems. I have learned through home visit questionnaires, community relay workers, and health center and village chiefs that the women here usually start having children at 14; that people rarely know the importance of using condoms; that babies often die from malaria; and that there is a lack of vegetables causing intense problems with malnutrition in children. I have also learned that the women are some of the strongest people in the world and share whatever they have without question. That when I am being harassed by men or if I shed a few tears missing home, I am immediately protected, supported, and loved. Though I am often alone here, I have never been lonely.

Trying to describe New York to people here is almost as difficult as describing this place to Americans. I shift between the two worlds, both alien planets to each other, both different versions of normal to me now.

This village is 900 people in 200 houses made of mud slathered onto a frame of sticks and topped with roofs of palm fronds. The road is compact earth, which smothers the leaves in red-brown dust every time a car passes by. The surrounding jungle is a dense and leafy ecosystem where hunters bring back whatever meat they can find: deer, monkey, lizard, pangolin. Night falls fast, the same time every day all year round, bringing with it an intense scattering of stars. They ask why I look up so much, and I try to explain in my broken French the idea of light pollution back home. But trying to describe New York to people here is almost as difficult as describing this place to Americans. I shift between the two worlds, both alien planets to each other, both different versions of normal to me now.

June 2020 

I wake up in the middle of the night from vague and dark dreams, shifting figures of the people from my village in my field of vision but frustratingly out of reach. Mama Jean cries soundlessly, the same tears the day I left. The children are playing happily together, but never seeing me, even as I try to reach out to them. I wake up feeling a physical ache in my chest. 

Only one member of my village has WhatsApp, the chief of my health center. Sometimes he sends a brief voice message from people I miss the most. I cling to every word. I play them over and over again just to hear their voices. Sometimes he will FaceTime me, though the service is so delayed I can only see a pixelated version of his face. But the chief and his smartphone are leaving the village soon, and my one broken connection to the world I knew will be lost.

The chief and his smartphone are leaving the village soon, and my one broken connection to the world I knew will be lost.

My time in Peace Corps was brief: six months in country, three months in village. There are not enough words to express the gratitude I feel for the time in Cameroon. Although it was sooner than expected, it’s important for me to be in America right now. I have seen the power of small and local changes in Peace Corps. And I am seeing how people in the States are mobilizing and calling for changes that are long overdue in this country. I feel hopeful that America can truly change, through grassroots movements the likes of which I have never seen. One day I will return to Cameroon. For now, there is more than enough work to do here.

This story was first published in WorldView magazine’s Summer 2020 issue. Read the entire magazine for free now in the WorldView app. Here’s how:

STEP 1 - Create an account: Click here and create a login name and password. Use the code DIGITAL2020 to get it free.

STEP 2 - Get the app: For viewing the magazine on a phone or tablet, go to the App Store/Google Play and search for “WorldView magazine” and download the app. Or view the magazine on a laptop/desktop here.

Thanks for reading. And here’s how you can support the work we’re doing to help evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers.

Madagascar | Danielle Montecalvo 

Home: Rochester, New York

I had been serving since September 2018 as an English educator at University of Mahajanga.

Here’s what I left behind: My 200 first-year engineering, computer science, and applied language students, as well as 275 university students returning for their second and third year.

My host family: Papa, Mama, four host sisters—Vesna, Johanna, Fifa, and Anyah.

My host cousins, Tafar and Zela.

My counterpart, Mrs. Jemima Johnson.

University colleagues and staff. Neighbors, market sellers, store vendors, and friends throughout the city. 

And here’s the unfinished business I’d like you to know about: My grant to acquire refurbished computers through World Computer Exchange. My English and malaria contest — to develop a community of educators, health professionals, and regional officials to support motivated high school students as they learn malaria awareness, prevention strategies, and practice sensitization skills in English. My student-run English club, English Practice Mahajanga, to engage the local community in language, leadership, team-building, and volunteering in their local communities.

I hope that everyone in Madagascar will continue to stay safe. And that Volunteers can return to communities across the red island soon! 

I left inspiring projects with students and members at the American Corner of Mahajanga, sponsored by the U.S. Embassy. We conducted field trips, translation projects with Operation Smile and Starkey’s Foundation, STEM education workshops through NASA’s GLOBE program, workshops to acquire tangible skills for personal and professional development.
I think about them often and chat with my community daily. I hope that everyone in Madagascar will continue to stay safe. And that Volunteers can return to communities across the red island soon! 

Hosting the Ambassador

See more photos from Danielle's service

This story was first published in WorldView magazine’s Summer 2020 issue. Read the entire magazine for free now in the WorldView app. Here’s how:

STEP 1 - Create an account: Click here and create a login name and password. Use the code DIGITAL2020 to get it free.

STEP 2 - Get the app: For viewing the magazine on a phone or tablet, go to the App Store/Google Play and search for “WorldView magazine” and download the app. Or view the magazine on a laptop/desktop here.

Thanks for reading. And here’s how you can support the work we’re doing to help evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers.

Namibia | Charles Castillo

Home: Medford, New Jersey

 
Watch the video I put together about my unfinished business as a Volunteer and you’ll see and hear me speak a few different languages. The messages all begin: “How are you? My name is Charles Castillo.”

First, in American Sign Language. In Namibian Sign Language. In Oshiwambo, a language spoken in my community in Northern Namibia — where the question “How are you?” changes depending on the time of day: “Wa lala po” (morning), “Wu uhala po” (afternoon), and “Wa tokelwa po (evening) amuhe?”

Edhina lyandje oShali. My name is Charlie.

And in Afrikaans, also spoken in Namibia: Hoe gaan dit met almal? My naam is Charles Castillo. 

For seven months I served as a Volunteer in northern Namibia, teaching information communication technology and art classes to deaf students. When we were evacuated, I left my students, my coworkers, and all the Namibian friends I made. If I am able to be reinstated as a Volunteer in my original site, then I will most likely go back. Otherwise, I would like to go back to Namibia as a grad student doing research on cross-cultural perceptions of and education of deaf people in the United States versus Namibia.

I hope Peace Corps continues to send Volunteers who are Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing or have ties to the Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing community to countries where there are significant Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing populations. In serving these communities, I would like to see emphasis on strengthening local sign languages, as well as improving literacy. I would like for PCVs to help empower Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing people: let them know that they are just as capable as hearing people in achieving their dreams, and to not let anything hold them back.
 

 See more from Charles' service

This story was first published in WorldView magazine’s Summer 2020 issue. Read the entire magazine for free now in the WorldView app. Here’s how:

STEP 1 - Create an account: Click here and create a login name and password. Use the code DIGITAL2020 to get it free.

STEP 2 - Get the app: For viewing the magazine on a phone or tablet, go to the App Store/Google Play and search for “WorldView magazine” and download the app. Or view the magazine on a laptop/desktop here.

Thanks for reading. And here’s how you can support the work we’re doing to help evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers.

Ghana | Meg Holladay

Home: Amherst, Massachusets

I was serving as a Peace Corps Health Extension Volunteer in southern Ghana, in a farming community of about 1,200 people. When we were evacuated, I had been in my community for a year and had one more year to go. I was the first Peace Corps Volunteer there. I felt like I was just starting to hit my stride, to identify the projects that would be truly helpful and the people who were the most committed to working together for the long term. I was working with community members on a health education class, household latrines, and a school library. We were starting to plan a snail farming project and a rainwater harvesting initiative.

What did I leave behind? 

I left behind giant papayas and a little fruit called “alakye,” with bright red flesh that tasted like a sour plum and a peel that oozed rubbery latex sap. I left behind silvery dried fish, red palm nuts, and sweaty heat. I left behind a garden I’d just planted — cucumber, watermelons, basil, peanuts — and the concrete bedroom I’d finally painted green. I left behind delightful TV commercials with identically dressed dancers, and an ongoing “Coke famine” in which the only kind of Coca-Cola available anywhere was Coke Zero. But mostly, I left behind people — hundreds of people I saw almost every day. Friends I planted rice with and chatted with in the hot afternoons, friends I washed clothes with and laughed with, friends who asked me uncomfortable questions about America. Old people, babies, taxi drivers, traditional midwives, rice vendors, church pastors. My twelve-year-old neighbor who passed by my house every morning on her way to school, her books stacked neatly on her head.

I had to leave a lot of things unfinished. 

Every Sunday evening, I led a community health education class. The class was open to anyone who wanted to come, and every week, the people decided together what they wanted to learn about the following week. I would research the topic and plan a lesson with help from Ghanaian friends, and one of them would interpret for me during the meeting. People were so curious about health and the human body, but information wasn’t always available; even for those who could read English (the language of education in Ghana), my community didn’t have access to phone data, much less health books or a library.

We studied malaria, breastfeeding, hernias, the female and male reproductive systems. One person asked “Why do women sometimes die during childbirth?” That led us into a whole series of classes about pregnancy, labor, and birth. People asked good questions. “When is the fertile time in a woman’s menstrual cycle?” “Is it dangerous if a pregnant woman works too hard on the farm?” “I once saw a baby boy who was born without testicles in his scrotum. What causes that?” Every week, I was impressed with how much people remembered from the week before.

People were so curious about health and the human body, but information wasn’t always available; even for those who could read English (the language of education in Ghana), my community didn’t have access to phone data, much less health books or a library.

We played games, did skits, invented little cheers. I made giant drawings and blew up balloons to represent internal organs. The class even developed their own greeting: Every week, when people arrived, they would call out “Apɔmuden” (“Health”), and those who were already there would respond “ɛhu hia paa!” (“It’s very important!”). The last class I led, on March 15, was about natural family planning, and the topic the people requested for the following week was sexually transmitted infections. I had expected that I’d have many more months to brainstorm with my counterparts on how the community could continue learning about health after my service was over, but unfortunately we didn’t have time to do that before the evacuation.

We were also working on lots of other projects that I wasn’t prepared to leave behind. I had helped coordinate my community’s involvement in a household pit latrine project, and we’d finally finished 87 latrines a few days before I left. But because of high groundwater, about 50 households hadn’t qualified to build them. I had been doing research on different latrine designs, hoping to help those people find an alternative type of latrine that would work where they lived.

I was working with a teacher in a neighboring community who was interested in starting a school library, which would have been the first in the area. Together we identified possible sources for books in English and Twi (the local language), and ways to raise money in the community, but that was as far as we’d gotten when I was evacuated. The teacher plans to continue on his own once school reopens after the pandemic.

Neighbors: Meg Holladay with Efia and son Odoom. Photos courtesy Meg Holladay

I was also planning to work with one of my neighbors on snail farming. Giant snails are eaten as a delicacy in southern Ghana, and a Peace Corps friend had taught me a simple way to make a snail enclosure out of used tires. My neighbor, already a beekeeper, was excited to try this out and teach it to others, giving households a nutritious protein source, and extra income from selling the snails. We were going to start in May, once the rainy season arrived.

And I was working on a drinking water problem. Many people in my community drank water from a local river, because even though we had wells and pumps, the groundwater that came from them was salty — our geological bad luck. Most people felt the river water was fine to drink; they said it tasted fresh and didn’t make them sick. But just a few weeks before I left, I had an exciting conversation with one of my neighbors. My Twi was just starting to be good enough that he and I could finally communicate well, in a mixture of Twi and English. It was the height of dry season, and we were standing next to the river, which was down to a trickle. My neighbor told me he felt the river water was dangerous to drink, because of contamination from the agrochemicals that farmers used upstream. He told me he wanted change, he wanted everyone to have better water, but he didn’t know what could be done. I suggested that we could help the community set up rainwater collection and storage systems, and he loved the idea. We were just about to start planning how to do this when I had to leave.

Peace Corps work is so powerful because it’s work we do together with our communities, based on their priorities. It’s work that can become sustainable as we share knowledge and learn together.

I think Peace Corps work is so powerful because it’s work we do together with our communities, based on their priorities. It’s work that can become sustainable as we share knowledge and learn together. And it’s work that includes living our daily lives with our host country friends and neighbors. I hope that after the pandemic, I’ll be able to continue this work with my community in Ghana — or that if I can’t, a future Peace Corps Volunteer will.

Two days before I left my community, the power went out for the evening. I joined my neighbors outside their house, where the kids and I lay on a comfortable mat, looking up at the stars and enjoying the cool breeze, and their parents relaxed on a wooden bench. I asked them if they knew any folk tales. My friends and their children started telling stories one after another — funny stories, stories I couldn’t understand at all unless I made someone repeat them word by word, half in English. Soon I gave up on trying to understand and just listened to my friends laugh together. But I think if I had been able to stay another year, I might have understood enough to laugh with them.

This story was first published in WorldView magazine’s Summer 2020 issue. Read the entire magazine for free now in the WorldView app. Here’s how:

STEP 1 - Create an account: Click here and create a login name and password. Use the code DIGITAL2020 to get it free.

STEP 2 - Get the app: For viewing the magazine on a phone or tablet, go to the App Store/Google Play and search for “WorldView magazine” and download the app. Or view the magazine on a laptop/desktop here.

Thanks for reading. And here’s how you can support the work we’re doing to help evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers.

Malawi | Danny Herres

Home: Tryon, North Carolina

Danny Herres found out about the evacuation at 4:30 a.m., via group chat on WhatsApp. Malawi is a landlocked nation split by the Great Rift Valley and the massive Lake Malawi, which nearly runs the length of the entire country. Herres had been serving as a community health specialist in a village of about 1,000 people near Lilongwe since June 2019. He was the first Volunteer in the area.

“No one had ever come in as a foreigner, built relationships, been a community member,” he says, “and then found other motivated individuals and help them grow.”

He had three hours to prepare before a car arrived to take him to the capital.

“No one had ever come in as a foreigner, built relationships, been a community member,” he says, “and then found other motivated individuals and help them grow.”

He had graduated from college a decade before and had already earned a master’s, had taught in Japan and Hong Kong. He was still stunned when, attending his first funeral in Malawi, he was invited into a separate hut to sit with local chiefs — an incredible honor. Much of his work involved HIV/AIDS education and prevention.

There was the Grassroot Soccer program with dozens of youth, using soccer drills as metaphors to teach about safe sex; his counterpart, Mekelani Nkhoma, graduated 53 students from the program after Herres left. There was a project in the works with a local secondary school regarding HIV stigma and bullying. An HIV support group focused on nutrition and gardening vegetables.

Of countries grappling with HIV/AIDS on a massive scale, Malawi has made remarkable strides in reducing infections — from an estimated 30 percent of the population with HIV in the mid-1980s to under 9 percent today. “It’s one of the first countries poised to meet the 90-90-90 UNAIDS goal,” Herres says. That would mean 90 percent of the population have been tested and know their HIV status; 90 percent of people with HIV are on antiretroviral therapy; and 90 percent of those on retroviral therapy are virally suppressed. 

Herres was working on a project involving malaria prevention strategies as well. “And the day before the evacuation, I ran a training with 65 female students on how to make reusable sanitary pads,” he says. “It was just heartbreaking to leave.”

He’s now volunteering at a refugee camp on the island of Lesvos, Greece.

—Steven Boyd Saum

This story was first published in WorldView magazine’s Summer 2020 issue. Read the entire magazine for free now in the WorldView app. Here’s how:

STEP 1 - Create an account: Click here and create a login name and password. Use the code DIGITAL2020 to get it free.

STEP 2 - Get the app: For viewing the magazine on a phone or tablet, go to the App Store/Google Play and search for “WorldView magazine” and download the app. Or view the magazine on a laptop/desktop here.

Thanks for reading. And here’s how you can support the work we’re doing to help evacuated Peace Corps Volunteers.