July 2, 2004: Headlines: COS - Cameroon: Recruiting: San Fransisco Chronicle: Terri Nagan temporarily works at Starbucks, deciding to forgo school for the moment and spend two years in the Peace Corps, working as a community health educator in Cameroon

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Cameroon: Peace Corps Cameroon: The Peace Corps in Cameroon: July 2, 2004: Headlines: COS - Cameroon: Recruiting: San Fransisco Chronicle: Terri Nagan temporarily works at Starbucks, deciding to forgo school for the moment and spend two years in the Peace Corps, working as a community health educator in Cameroon

By Admin1 (admin) (pool-141-157-22-73.balt.east.verizon.net - 141.157.22.73) on Saturday, July 03, 2004 - 4:34 pm: Edit Post

Terri Nagan temporarily works at Starbucks, deciding to forgo school for the moment and spend two years in the Peace Corps, working as a community health educator in Cameroon

Terri Nagan temporarily works at Starbucks, deciding to forgo school for the moment and spend two years in the Peace Corps, working as a community health educator in Cameroon

Terri Nagan temporarily works at Starbucks, deciding to forgo school for the moment and spend two years in the Peace Corps, working as a community health educator in Cameroon

Her African visit leads to a cycle of giving

Dave Murphy, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, July 2, 2004
San Francisco Chronicle
Chronicle Sections

Caption: Terri Nagan and 3-year-old Ellen Appiah, in Ghana. Photo Courtesy of Terri Nagan

When Terri Nagan rides her bicycle around Millbrae and Burlingame, sometimes it's part of an 8,000-mile journey.

Nagan is hardly an endurance rider or even particularly athletic, but she is particularly dedicated -- to the hundreds of people in and around Kumawu, Ghana, who changed her life last summer.

After graduating from UC Santa Cruz in 2003, Nagan took the first international trip of her life, signing up through the Global Volunteer Network to spend three months teaching English at Otuo Acheampong International School in Kumawu. She planned on a teaching career, and thought the volunteer work would be good experience before going to Cal State Long Beach for her teaching credential.

She ended up in a place with no running water, at a school with few textbooks. As she looked around, she finally found dozens of books -- but they were in a storage shed, not a classroom.

"There were huge boxes of cockroaches and mice with some books in them," the 22-year-old Millbrae resident recalls. "Nobody ever organized them. I eventually morphed into the library teacher -- and English. I did both."

Ten months after returning to the United States, she is still helping the school's library. That explains why people on the Peninsula might see a bicycle with a big box on the back that says "Books for Ghana" in bright red, yellow and green -- the colors of the African republic's flag.

Nagan buys books for her old school from Goodwill and library sales, as well as collecting books and magazines from anyone who is willing to donate, then ships them to Kumawu. She figures she has mailed about 200 pounds of books so far.

Nagan isn't looking for cash donations. Books for Ghana isn't an official nonprofit corporation, and she doesn't want donors to be disappointed because they can't get a tax write-off. She's just trying to help her school.

Otuo Acheampong teaches students from nursery school through ninth grade. Nagan said many have become avid readers now that they have some variety.

Each book carries a sticker: "For Ghana's children with love from Sister Afia," as she was called there. Afia is a common name in Ghana for women born on a Friday.

Although English is the official language of Ghana, Nagan found that many people had limited English skills, preferring to speak Twi. So the English teacher got some language lessons of her own.

"I would corner people and make them teach me."

A theater arts major, she used her acting talents to help the children understand the nuances of words, acting out "ecstatic," "melancholy" and "frustrated" so they could describe feelings with words other than "happy" and "sad."

Nagan also drew the spotlight because of her race. "Many of them had never seen a white person before," she recalled. "There are some babies that would see me and start crying and screaming and run away."

But there were benefits. Nagan helped a neighbor who did hairstyling, so she got hers done for free. "They'd always do my hair because they'd never touched a white person's hair."

They also touched a white person's spirit. Nagan decided soon after she started attending Long Beach that she didn't want to be a teacher anymore. She wants to be a nurse -- in Africa.

"There were just so many sick people there, and there were so few doctors and nurses," she said. "I don't think America needs doctors and nurses as terribly as Africa does."

Nagan recalls having to step over a dead body one day, and noticed how many people die from malaria and malnutrition. She found out later about how one teacher, Antwi Boasiako, would give about a third of his salary to his neighbors, who were orphans. Their parents had died of AIDS.

She said that teachers like Boasiako earn about $23 a month -- "if they get paid." Yet he was giving up one-third of that.

"When I heard that, I thought, 'Oh, my gosh,' and started sending money to him." Nagan sends her former colleague about $100 a month, which he passes along to many neighbors, some of whom have AIDS or are orphans because of AIDS. She also sends $100 to another member of the Global Volunteer Network, Augustina Osei Kofi, who gives it to neighbors so they can send their children to school.

Nagan temporarily works at the Starbucks on Broadway in Burlingame, deciding to forgo school for the moment and spend two years in the Peace Corps, working as a community health educator in Cameroon. She leaves Sept. 22.

So now she's learning French, one of the official languages in Cameroon. She is getting lessons from French immigrant Fabrice Hubert, an owner of the Ecolibrium shop on Capuchino Avenue near the Starbucks, who has been impressed with Nagan's efforts to help the people in Ghana.

"Every time she talks about that, she has a huge smile on her face," he says. "She's always very positive -- very enthusiastic."

As with Twi, Nagan likes the challenge of learning another language.

"She's a good student," Hubert said. "She's learning pretty fast."

But her book drive continues, and Nagan frequently tells people about the plight of her school in Ghana. Sometimes customers notice her bicycle outside the Starbucks -- "Half the customers already know my whole life story" -- and many strangers strike up a conversation with her because they notice a long scarf of hers that says akwaaba, a traditional word for "welcome" in Ghana.

Or they'll notice her tan corduroy jacket, which is pinned with several buttons and messages , including a quotation from anthropologist Margaret Mead: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

But soon her focus will have to be Cameroon, not Ghana. The two countries are only about 700 miles apart, but Nagan said logistics will make it hard to go back to Ghana during her two years in the Peace Corps.

No matter what, though, she plans to return there when her stint is over.

"I just miss these people so much."
Books for Ghana

Books for Ghana is collecting books up to the ninth-grade level, along with magazines such as Sports Illustrated, Time, Newsweek and People. For information, see www.geocities.com/theresanagan/BFG.html.

E-mail Dave Murphy at dmurphy@sfchronicle.com




Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.

Story Source: San Fransisco Chronicle

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Cameroon; Recruiting

PCOL12140
50

.


Add a Message


This is a public posting area. Enter your username and password if you have an account. Otherwise, enter your full name as your username and leave the password blank. Your e-mail address is optional.
Username:  
Password:
E-mail: