2011.01.02: January 2, 2011: Richard Robbins writes: Peace Corps volunteers receive lessons in life

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Richard Robbins writes: Peace Corps volunteers receive lessons in life

Richard Robbins writes: Peace Corps volunteers receive lessons in life

"Without trying to be cliche," said Lydia Humenycky of North Huntingdon, who spent 2005-07 in Togo, Africa, "my dreams and aspirations all began with the Peace Corps." A former public relations executive, Humenycky earned a masters degree in public policy and management from Carnegie Mellon University after her Peace Corps tour. In 2008, she received the President's Volunteer Service Award from President George W. Bush. Humenycky is now a Rotary International fellowship student at International Christian University in Japan. "I believe the greatest benefit of the Peace Corps is the time and ability to reflect on what you would like to contribute to the world," Humenycky, 29, said in an e-mail. "I discovered that I love to work independently and that I wanted to include culture, diversity and continuous learning as part of my career."

Richard Robbins writes: Peace Corps volunteers receive lessons in life

Peace Corps workers receive lessons in life

By Richard Robbins
TRIBUNE-REVIEW

Sunday, January 2, 2011

The Peace Corps is turning 50.

Embodying President John F. Kennedy's call to service in 1961, the Peace Corps today has more than 8,600 volunteers in 77 countries doing everything from teaching in schools and counseling AIDS patients to nurturing business ventures.

The agency was designed to provide impoverished nations with trained American volunteers who would work alongside the country's natives.

But former volunteers say the Peace Corps has done much more than help people in poverty worldwide -- it helped them shape their own lives, sometimes in a decisive fashion.

Slavka Murray had been out of Pittsburgh's South High School for several years when she volunteered in the mid-1960s.

"Naive" and "ignorant" about the world before she was dispatched to newly independent Malawi in eastern Africa, Murray said her inexperience was a benefit: "I guess I wasn't frightened."

Living in a village with dirt roads and no toilets or running water, Murray said she learned what life was like for people mired in Third World poverty.

Streams and rivers were filled with human and animal waste and other toxins.

One day, she encountered a Malawian mother washing her baby in a stream.

"I said, 'You are dipping your child in dirty water.' She replied, 'My baby is going to have a very difficult life. If she is meant to die, she might as well die now.'"

Murray, 65, who has lived in Canada since 1980, said she had her "mind opened" by such encounters.

"The Malawians knew things that I couldn't even understand," she said.

"Without trying to be cliche," said Lydia Humenycky of North Huntingdon, who spent 2005-07 in Togo, Africa, "my dreams and aspirations all began with the Peace Corps."

A former public relations executive, Humenycky earned a masters degree in public policy and management from Carnegie Mellon University after her Peace Corps tour. In 2008, she received the President's Volunteer Service Award from President George W. Bush.

Humenycky is now a Rotary International fellowship student at International Christian University in Japan.

"I believe the greatest benefit of the Peace Corps is the time and ability to reflect on what you would like to contribute to the world," Humenycky, 29, said in an e-mail. "I discovered that I love to work independently and that I wanted to include culture, diversity and continuous learning as part of my career."

Kay Jennings of Highland Park was a student at the University of Michigan when then-Sen. Kennedy presented the idea for the Peace Corps there in 1960.

She presumes she was asleep when the Democratic candidate for president delivered his whistlestop speech at 2 a.m. to a crowd of mostly students, challenging young people to "contribute part of your life to this country."

Five weeks after his January 1961 inauguration, Kennedy signed an executive order creating the Peace Corps.

A year later, future U.S. senator Harris Wofford of Pennsylvania became the agency's associate director. Wofford, a noted advocate of national service and volunteerism, said Kennedy's goal of enlisting American idealism in the service of foreign policy was only partially successful.

"When I left the Peace Corps in 1966, we had 15,000 volunteers," Wofford said. Though Kennedy hoped to have 100,000 volunteers, "we've never come close to that figure," Wofford said.

Today, 8,655 Americans are serving in the Peace Corps, including 335 Pennsylvanians. The state ranks eighth among the 50 states in enlistments.

Since 1961, 7,260 Pennsylvanians have volunteered -- a fact that prompted Peace Corps regional manger Vinny Wickes to declare that "the Keystone State stands tall."

Jennings, 68, said she joined the Peace Corps in 1964 to travel and to experience other cultures.

Assigned to work with orphans in Turkey, Jennings said she initially was disappointed with the appointment. Turkey was not Africa, the typical assignment at the time.

Jennings soon learned that Turkey was "exotic" enough. With the men dressed in traditional ankle-length, loose-fitting trousers and the women carrying Muslim prayer beads, Turkey definitely was "not modern Europe," Jennings said.

The orphanage where Jennings worked housed as many as 15 newborns, most of whom had lost their mothers in childbirth. Half of the newborns would die, most from diarrhea.

Those who survived were left alone in their cribs. The babies became lethargic, Jennings said, suffering from maternal deprivation, a malady that was then being studied in the United States.

Jennings said she spent as much time as possible with the infants, and as she did, the babies became more playful and alert. That attracted the attention of the Turkish caregivers.

"After that, the children got more playtime," Jennings said.

Jennings said her service inspired her to become a child psychologist. Now retired, she said she spent the bulk of her career at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic in Pittsburgh.

Adi Karamcheti, 38, of Washington, Pa., was well into his marketing career when he signed up for the Peace Corps in 1998, because, he said, "I always wanted to work abroad."

The native of India -- his family moved to the United States in 1975 -- said that he had to overcome serious stereotypes before he was accepted by the people he worked with during his two years in Nicaragua.

Some accused him of being a CIA spy "just because I was an American," he said. The accusation, a holdover from Nicaragua's Cold War-era civil war, was resolved after Karamcheti untangled the finances of a businessman and he began to make money.

Another misconception involved his intentions toward a young Nicaraguan woman with whom he had fallen in love. Her aunt accused Karamcheti of wanting to undermine his girlfriend's Catholic faith.

With patience and lot of explaining on Karamcheti's part, the misunderstanding was settled, and the woman became his wife.

The couple have two children, ages 4 and 6. Karamcheti said that when the children are grown, he and his wife, Erenia, intend to serve in the Peace Corps together.

"I'm an immigrant. My wife's an immigrant. It's our way of giving back to the country," he said.

Mike Atherton, professor of philosophy at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, said his 1969 volunteer stint in Swaziland deepened his understanding of the world and prepared him for a life of civic engagement.

The world "became so much more real" as a result of his time in southern Africa, said Atherton, who hitchhiked around Zimbabwe during his Peace Corps years.

"You see the real lives people live," said Atherton, 63, of Greensburg. "It's really an eye-opening experience. And it's so much more personal than reading about (other lands) in the news."




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