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Ashley Judd had to travel all the way to Suriname, South America with the Peace Corps to fall in love, but fall in love she did — with a bucket
Ashley Judd had to travel all the way to Suriname, South America with the Peace Corps to fall in love, but fall in love she did — with a bucket
Judd of the Jungle
Wednesday, April 7, 1999
Ashley Judd had to travel all the way to Suriname, South America with the Peace Corps to fall in love, but fall in love she did — with a bucket.
"[I]f it is possible to fall in love with a pail, I did," the actress writes in the May issue of Marie Claire, which sent her to live with Corps volunteers for a week. "It was fluted and so pretty, and came with a lid with a sexy little handle." Alas, Judd chose not to follow her heart and buy the bucket there in the central market, instead she opted for Pangi, the plaid cloth used by natives for traditional clothing ("think Lilly Pulitzer amplified"), and a root that's boiled and used to wash "the nether regions."
Roughing it, Judd made do without the creature comforts of civilization — a situation that came to a head when she couldn't properly thank a Mariah Carey-loving native who braided her hair: "That, I must say, is the only time I wished for something I did not have," she writes, "namely a cell phone, so I could call Mariah and ask her to sing 'Always Be My Baby' to my new friend!"
Only mosquitos — Judd writes she was chased by one that seemed to be the size of her hand — challenged the star's natural fearlessness, and the trip taught her respect for the hard-working Corps volunteers and their hosts. "I could have done it when I was 22," she writes, "joined the [Peace Corps] and flourished, but maybe by telling you about my experience I have done even greater good. I was blessed to see that the spirit of people in faraway places and in disparate conditions is still just the inextinguishable spirit of life. In telling you about it, I hope you can see it just a bit more easily in your own lives." — Michael Peck