Carrie Dolive heads into her second year in Turkmenistan, a country bordering the Caspian Sea, and just north of Iran and Afghanistan
Valley woman helping out in far reaches of globe
23-year-old teaching health in Peace Corps
By Ruth Jones/staff
rjones@newsleader.com
STAUNTON -- Imagine taking two years off from life as you know it, traveling halfway around the world and changing your lifestyle to fit in with another culture.
Carrie Dolive is getting that experience right now as she heads into her second year in Turkmenistan, a country bordering the Caspian Sea, and just north of Iran and Afghanistan.
As she finished school at The College of William & Mary, Dolive decided to join the Peace Corps because she was inquisitive about a new culture and wanted to bring some of her knowledge to the Turkmen people.
"I'd been thinking about it for a number of years," 23-year-old Dolive said. Things fell into place after running into a Peace Corps recruiter on campus during her senior year.
After going through a six-month application process, Dolive found out last summer that she was heading for Turkmenistan as a community health educator, to teach people about things like hygiene, nutrition and dental health, Dolive said.
"I'm placed at an AIDS prevention center," Dolive said. "Their health care system is very different. They're not as open to talking about AIDS." She added that hearing someone outside of their culture talk about AIDS and sex isn't taboo, but the Turkmen people aren't comfortable with the subject.
"It is needed," she said. "We're there to teach and to help doctors and nurses better teach health. It's a teaching job. You are a teacher no matter what you're doing."
The Peace Corps is an organization established in 1961, inspired by former president John F. Kennedy, who challenged students to live and work in developing countries.
After being home on a break, Dolive is heading back to Turkmenistan today, where she lives with a family of five.
"I'm not quite a guest because I've lived there for a year ... I'm not quite family either," she said, but she gets along well with her host family.
She gets a living allowance from the Peace Corps for food and travel expenses, but nothing more.
"I'm actually on the same level. I'm not like some rich foreigner," Dolive said. She's getting used to a different life, living in the desert with heat that climbs above 100 degrees in the summer, eating and sleeping on carpet-covered floors and eating lots of rice dishes and vegetables like cucumbers, tomatoes and eggplant.
"My favorite dish is called 'manty,'" Dolive said, a pumpkin and squash dish served with yogurt and eaten with your hands.
Dolive got a little daring with food, trying fermented camel's milk. "I don't recommend it," she said.
Recreational time is spent a lot differently for her too. "We get three Russian channels," Dolive said. So she doesn't watch much television. But Dolive doesn't miss much about the food other than home-cooked food and one historic event this summer. "I did miss seeing the Olympics," she said.
For those interested in joining the Peace Corps, Dolive has a few recommendations: Talk to other Peace Corps volunteers, be creative and be ready to spend two years away from home.
