Josh Cornehlsen applied to the Peace Corps and was sent to Burkina Faso - a landlocked country in Western Africa that is one of the poorest countries in the entire world. His job there was to teach public health, specifically the prevention of aids, malaria and guinea worm.
Distinguished GFA grad has learned value of friendship
By:Meg Learson Grosso , Staff Writer 05/06/2004
It hardly seems that the honor of being a "distinguished alumni" would go to a twenty-nine-year-young guy with a long blond pony-tail, who's broke. But that's who's been chosen to receive the Greens Farms Academy Distinguished Alumni Award this June.
Josh Cornehlsen was nominated because his former classmates and friends, some of whom have prestigious law degrees, or have made gobs of money as entrepreneurs, or ditto on Wall Street, have decided that he deserves it.
So what has this 6'4" soft-spoken guy done?
He hasn't saved the world yet, but he's making the effort, one step at a time.
Did going to Greens Farms Academy, known as GFA, influence him in this choice of career paths?
He will tell you that coming from two years of public high school, in his case, Brian McMahon, he realized almost immediately how incredibly lucky he was to be at GFA. After only the first two weeks of pre-season soccer practice, he knew that the three Andy's and Charlie and Young Tae and Ariel and at least a half-dozen others were going to be good friends of his. And indeed they still are, 10 years later. And he came to feel very lucky again to have faculty like Dave Perry and Paul Groves as mentors and friends, not to mention Ed Denes and Gary Caputi.
"It felt like a family," said Josh. "Everybody knows it's a privileged place. Almost out of moral responsibility, when you leave GFA, you look back and say, 'I owe someone something.'"
But like so many other young people, Josh, who graduated in 1996 from Kenyon College with a B.A. in history, thought "What am I going to do with my life?"
He liked the idea of travel and of community service, so he worked for a summer as a waiter to support fall and winter travel to Ireland, Eastern Europe and Australia. He did the waiter bit again the next summer in order to make enough money to support himself while he taught English as a volunteer at a community college in Ecuador with a group called World Teach.
Living in Ecuador with a host family, he "took part in the culture" as much as he could and found that he had a much richer experience than he had had when merely traveling. That combination of travel, service to community, and education "set the tone for what I knew I wanted to be doing in the future" Josh explained.
Arriving back in Washington, D.C., he got a job with an organization funded by the Agency for International Development. The group gave scholarships to approximately 400 disadvantaged young people from El Salvador and Nicaragua. This allowed them to attend community colleges in the United States. Josh coordinated the training programs in the home countries and checked up on the community colleges to make sure the programs were working correctly.
After two and a half years, he realized that he still had a hankering to do community service abroad. He applied to the Peace Corps and was sent to Burkina Faso - a landlocked country in Western Africa that is one of the poorest countries in the entire world.
But only poor, Josh would tell you, by monetary measures.
His job there was to teach public health, specifically the prevention of aids, malaria and guinea worm. He said he'll never forget the experience of showing a boring, poorly made video on health to people who had no electricity and thus no television. In the blue light from the screen, he watched hundreds of faces fascinated by the flickering images.
Asked to compare the experiences in Ecuador and Burkina, he will tell you that he and the other volunteers were more carefree in Ecuador. They felt free to leave their villages, travel and see other young volunteers, and, in fact, were encouraged to do so. In contrast, he thought the Peace Corps imbued volunteers with such seriousness of purpose that "you felt a real sense of guilt if you ever left your village."
That experience was emotionally more intense, but in the end, he valued it more. "Maybe," he said, "because I was older, everything hung a little heavier on my heart. I took my job more seriously and felt more guilty if I spent time without putting out effort to help someone."
"Living conditions were harder. It's hotter [110 degrees], poorer, there's no electricity and no water. It's a harder experience to go through and maybe that's why I value it more. I felt an amazing human connection with the young boys who were at my door every morning when I woke up and outside my door every night when I went to sleep."
When a GFA friend flew down from Europe to visit him and asked what he could bring. Josh said "pumps for the soccer balls." The younsters loved to play soccer.
Josh's mom came to visit for a month. At the end of that time, she said to him, "The guide books paint a dismal picture of this place, but I've never seen such happy people." She also noted that it was the safest place she had ever visited. Both she and Josh will tell you that there is virtually no theft and no crime.
"They are living day to day," said Josh. "They are subsistence farmers who hope to grow enough rice, millet and beans each growing season to get them through to the next year's growing season."
"They're a happy people. I learned that all they needed was rain in the rainy season, a plate of food, a good joke or some music. Most of the time just having each other's company made them happy."
"It makes you question why all these non-governmental organizations are trying to change their life. If it comes down to basic rights like health care and education, then I think it's worthwhile. Beyond that, some people question why money is poured into these groups. If the goal is to give them the wealth and materialism that we have here, then it's not necessary. It's not making us happy."
What does Josh see himself doing in the future?
He'd really like to teach. Having gone to San Francisco because a certain young woman he met in Ecuador was there, he has spent the last year as a substitute teacher and hopes to have his own classroom next year. He'll work at night for the credentials that will let him teach anyplace he'd like. His first choice would be a charter public school and he'd like to do that for a good while. And then? He has ideas about non-profit organizations that he'd like to start in the area of community development.
"It feels good to come to the point where I know what I want to be doing."
And how does it feel to get the award?
Good, because some of the people in his life have questioned his choices at some points along the way, although he will also tell you that others like his mom and step-dad have always been incredibly supportive. So, "to get that support at GFA feels really good."
He says that while his is not a traditional career path, it's "one I feel strongly about."
"The thing about all the GFA guys is that I could be doing anything - in fact, any of us could be doing anything - and we'd all support each other. After I did World Teach, after I did the Peace corps, they've always expressed their belief in what I was doing. At the end of the day, that validation and support coming from the entire GFA community, feels amazing.
"I don't have a master's degree, I'm broke; I don't even have $300 in my bank account, but I have everything else that I want and that I need."
