Two years ago, Char cashed in everything, sold her house (in Minnesota) and quit her job of 20 years as an assistant administrator for a medical clinic to join the Peace Corps in Niger
Her sister has become an African treasure as Peace Corps volunteer
COMMENTARY
By BILL MOOR
Caption: Mary Norman, right, poses with her sister, Char Novak, who is a 50-year-old Peace Corps volunteer in Niger. Photo provided
Mary Norman administers an oral poiio vaccine to a little girl in Niger.
Photo provided
Mary Norman of South Bend traveled to Africa earlier this winter to see one sister and to remember another one.
She hopes she may have saved some little sisters -- and brothers, too -- from the ravages of polio while in the country of Niger for two weeks in December.
Mary, a real estate agent for Coldwell Banker, was there as part of a Rotary International immunization program to administer an oral polio vaccine to children.That was one of the reasons, anyway.
The other was to visit her older sister, Char Novak, a 50-year-old Peace Corps volunteer in Niger.
"Two years ago, Char cashed in everything, sold her house (in Minnesota) and quit her job of 20 years as an assistant administrator for a medical clinic to join the Peace Corps," Mary says. "She had been divorced for several years and her children already were grown, and so she was asking herself, 'What is my quality of life?' "
What could she do for others?
Africa appealed to her.
Mary's and Char's older sister, Bobbie Baraga, had been to Africa three times with her husband, and she loved it. She died four years ago but made her sisters promise that they would someday visit the Dark Continent.
Both now have. Char calls it home.
"One of the people in her village told me that I was an American woman but my sister is now an African woman," Mary says.
Others told Mary how her sister will take off her shoes and give them to someone who needed them ... and how she buys tires for the bikes of the polio victims who have no other transportation ... and how she saves some of her own meal to give to the children in the nearby orphanage.
Char also went with her sister when Mary would administer the polio vaccine. "I know that I was one of the people picked to go on this mission because of my sister and what a great resource she would be," Mary says.
Niger needs passionate people.
"It may be the poorest country in the world, with half the population under the age of 15 and the average life span of 42 years," Mary says.
Mary Norman, right, poses with her sister, Char Novak, who is a 50-year-old Peace Corps volunteer in Niger.
Photo provided
The country, in the north-central part of Africa, suffers from drought, desertification, lack of medical facilities and illiteracy. Char helps with the irrigation problems and anywhere else she can.
Also serving as a surrogate mother for many of the younger Peace Corps people, Char lives in the capital city of Niamey. She serves the little outlying village of Bani Banguo, where she also has a hut.
While visiting the village of Hamdulay, where Char did her Peace Corps training, Mary watched as the chief presented her sister with a live chicken -- a gift of almost immeasurable value.
"These people have almost nothing, and yet they seem so happy and are some of the most beautiful people in the world," Mary says. "And they are so humble, even in their begging."
When they would eat at a restaurant, Mary's sister always saved her bread. "Then when we would take a taxi home, Char had the driver stop for one of the little children along the road," Mary says. "She would give the child a coin and the bread and say a few soft words."
Those words were, "Go home and go to bed."
They could only pray that a bed and a home waited.
"After our long days of visiting villages and administering the polio vaccine, we would have a beer and laugh about some of the things that happened," Mary admits. "And then we usually had a hard cry together."
She tears up a little just thinking of her sister, Char.
"I am so proud of her," she says.
Mary went over there for two weeks to do good. He sister has been there for two years, eating the millet cakes with the natives ... walking miles for fresh water ... and going without so many of the other comforts of her former life.
"Everyone has a story," Mary says. "But I think we all wonder if there is going to be one for us."
She knows her sister's story is incredible.
"When we were growing up, we used to think our responsibility was to change the world," Mary adds. "Then as you grow older, it might be if you can change just one person.
"But my sister has shown me that you must change yourself before you can change anything."
Bill Moor's column appears on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Contact him at bmoor@sbtinfo.com or write him at the South Bend Tribune, 225 W. Colfax Ave., South Bend, IN 46626; (574) 235-6555.
