January 11, 2003 - Electronic Telegraph : PCV Tyler Cornell swapped New York comfort for a dirt floor in Zambia

Peace Corps Online: Peace Corps News: Headlines: Peace Corps Headlines - 2003: 01 January 2003 Peace Corps Headlines: January 11, 2003 - Electronic Telegraph : PCV Tyler Cornell swapped New York comfort for a dirt floor in Zambia

By Admin1 (admin) on Sunday, January 12, 2003 - 2:47 pm: Edit Post

PCV Tyler Cornell swapped New York comfort for a dirt floor in Zambia





Read and comment on this story from the Electronic Telegraph on PCV Tyler Cornell who swapped New York comfort for a dirt floor in Zambia. She abandoned a New York apartment, complete with chandeliers and marble-topped tables, and moved to a Zambian mud-hut with no windows, no electricity and a dirt floor.

She prefers the hut. "If I could, I would pick up my house and move it to America. I love it," says Tyler, whose life changed in April 2001, when she was posted with the US voluntary organisation Peace Corps to Kalamba, a village not far from the Congolese border. There are 250 people and a stall selling soap, salt and cooking oil. In her village, a new bicycle is news. Read the story at:


Mud, glorious mud*

* This link was active on the date it was posted. PCOL is not responsible for broken links which may have changed.



Mud, glorious mud
(Filed: 11/01/2003)

Tyler Cornell tells Aisling Irwin why she swapped New York comfort for a dirt floor in Zambia

Back home in New York, £140 bought Tyler Cornell a television cabinet. In Zambia, it was enough to renovate her entire house. Tyler, 25, has done the ultimate in downshifting. She abandoned a New York apartment, complete with chandeliers and marble-topped tables, and moved to a Zambian mud-hut with no windows, no electricity and a dirt floor.

She prefers the hut. "If I could, I would pick up my house and move it to America. I love it," says Tyler, whose life changed in April 2001, when she was posted with the US voluntary organisation Peace Corps to Kalamba, a village not far from the Congolese border. There are 250 people and a stall selling soap, salt and cooking oil. In her village, a new bicycle is news.

Peace Corps dropped her there one day at the end of the rainy season. All she had was her rucksack and the statutory kit of pillow, blanket, mosquito net, water filter and bicycle. She also had a "settling in" budget of one million Kwacha (about £140) - of which she had already spent £30 on a mattress. "I was ecstatic when I saw it," she says. "I couldn't believe that this was mine for two years, this mud-brick house with a grass roof. It felt like a mansion, though it is only five metres by seven."

Inside, there were four rooms - and that was it. No furniture, fixtures or fittings. The pit latrine was outside. By nightfall her mood had changed and she locked herself in, terrified. Next morning she pulled herself together and set about her public health work. She also began her household improvements.

"I soon realised that mud-bricks are like Lego blocks - you can add and subtract." So she dismantled one wall, introducing the concept of open-plan to Kalamba. The neighbours were appalled.

"One man said: 'It looks like a church. What do you want with all this space?' Zambians entertain outside and they have so many people living in the house that it's important to have multiple rooms. But now every Zambian that comes into the house really likes it."

With her spare bricks, she hived off a corner of the new space, made a slightly sloping floor and put a small pipe through to the outside: an interior bathroom. "I loved bathing outside behind my grass screen but I have so many visitors that I didn't feel comfortable in case I was caught naked."

These alterations are part of the balance she has struck between appeasing her First World sensibilities and leading a rural Zambian lifestyle. The dirt floor fell into the former category and had to go - anything spilt on it turned it to mud. Parquet or terrazzo might have been soothing in the heat but Tyler found that, for £55, she could have all her floors and walls cemented, and whitewashed as well.

"Cementing is high class. It went down extremely well with the villagers," she says. But perhaps they envy her most for her windows - a luxury item if you spend most of the day outside. She removed a couple of bricks at head height and decorated the space with a cement mould. "It's one of those small touches that has really worked," she says.

Tyler also found she lacked the suppleness always to sit on the floor. Word went round that the white woman needed a sofa and one day a young man in need of a dowry appeared on her doorstep. For £9 she has rented his three-piece suite. For a further £10.50, a local tailor made cushions from foam rubber and four colourful local sarongs. The carpenter made a bookshelf (£4) and coffee table (£5) and the living-room is complete, with a cosy, ethnic ambience that is enhanced at night by a profusion of candles.

Outside, the house seems like any another well-appointed Kalamba property. The huts are generously spaced, and pretty under weeping thatched roofs; their walls are painted in the muted tones of riverbed mud - black, ochre and cream. Settle down for an evening on Tyler's veranda, listen to the crackle of the crickets and chat softly to passing neighbours - and you begin to wonder what else is needed in a home.

For Tyler, the line between luxury and necessity has shifted dramatically, and she is happy with the result. The refurbishment will yield her no profit because no one buys property here: you build your own on land that the chief hands out for free. You dig your mud, shape your bricks and bake them yourself - first in the sun and then over a wood fire. You fetch rocks for the foundations, cut your own grass and poles for the roof - and, with a bit of help from your friends, the house is ready.

Tyler sits outside under a full moon, stirs her cooking pot and denies that there is anything more she needs in life. Well . . . she concedes, running water would be nice. "There are days when I run out of drinking water because I have to fetch it from the well, make a fire, boil it, cool it and then filter it," she says.

"At night, after dinner, I like being inside. I sit in my living-room and read books by candlelight. I thought I would miss television but I don't even switch on my radio. Outside, there might be the sound of drumming, or the town crier telling people what is happening next day. But generally it is quiet and I like the silence. I relish it."
Read more about Peace Corps Volunteers in Zambia



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