Peace Corps Program Matches Nicaragua PCV with Ghana RPCV
Caption: Loretta Dunbar (left), who served two tours in the Peace Corps in Ghana, looks at an atlas with new corps volunteer Ashlyn McKnight. Ms. McKnight will serve in Nicaragua. RON COCKERILLE/STAFF
Read and comment on this story from the Augusta Chronicle on 22-year-old Ashlyn McKnight who will leave the comfortable home that her father, a security consultant, and mother, a dental hygienist, have provided for her to deliver medical and nutritional care to residents of Nicaragua in Central America as a Peace Corps Volunteer.
To help answer some of the questions Ms. McKnight might have before her trip, the Peace Corps matched her with another Aiken resident, Loretta Dunbar. In 1971, the then-40-year-old Ms. Dunbar gave up the pampered lifestyle her first husband, a doctor, had provided her to teach office skills for the corps in Ghana, West Africa.
This program of matching PCVs to RPCVs sounds like a good way for prospective PCVs to learn more about the Peace Corps before they go on assignment. Read the story at:
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Woman swaps luxury for the Peace Corps
Web posted Sunday, December 8, 2002 10:14 p.m. EST
By Eric Williamson
South Carolina Bureau
AIKEN - Next month, 22-year-old Ashlyn McKnight will leave the comfortable home that her father, a security consultant, and mother, a dental hygienist, have provided for her.
The Peace Corps volunteer will deliver medical and nutritional care to residents of Nicaragua in Central America.
She doesn't know whether she'll be placed in an urban shantytown or a more rural setting. She also can't yet say whether the two-year stay will be the toughest job she will ever love, as the Peace Corps' slogan says, but she suspects it will be.
"We live with a family while we train for three months," Ms. McKnight said. "You don't know what type of family you'll get."
She said she hopes to acclimate herself to the culture and refine her Spanish during that time.
To help answer some of the questions Ms. McKnight might have before her trip, the Peace Corps matched her with another Aiken resident, Loretta Dunbar. In 1971, the then-40-year-old Ms. Dunbar gave up the pampered lifestyle her first husband, a doctor, had provided her to teach office skills for the corps in Ghana, West Africa.
"I was never so happy to have so little," Ms. Dunbar said.
Since then, she has traveled the world extensively, living in numerous locales before settling in Aiken's Kalmia Landing. Her travels included a second Peace Corps tour in Antigua, West Indies, in 1984 and 1985.
Ms. McKnight is well traveled for her age, but she has never experienced an environment where infectious diseases, the devastation of natural disasters and a shortage of clean drinking water and other basic public services prevail.
Peace Corps regional spokeswoman Carla Murphy said that there have been no recent concerns of unrest in Nicaragua.
Ms. McKnight said she is more anxious about the numerous shots she will have to get and packing the right items than she is about living conditions or the work ahead.
The greatest challenge may come two years from now, when Ms. McKnight returns to the United States, her mentor said. Ms. Dunbar said reverse culture shock, the sense of feeling out of place in your home country, is very real.
She said she returned to find herself disgusted by the misplaced priorities and waste of many Americans.
Now 71 and in good health, Ms. Dunbar has applied for a third stint in the corps.
She's in good company. Presidential mother Lillian Carter was 68 when she became a Peace Corps nurse in India. The oldest Peace Corps volunteer, Arthur Goodfriend of Honolulu, was 86 when he completed his service.
ASHLYN McKNIGHT
AGE: 22
MS. DUNBAR
AGE: 71
FAMILY: Widowed from her second marriage; one daughter
Reach Eric Williamson at (803) 279-6895 or eric.williamson@augustachronicle.com.
--From the Monday, December 9, 2002 printed edition of the Augusta Chronicle
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