Halfway through her two-year commitment to the Peace Corps, Stacy Greco is happily weathering the daily challenges of life in Tashkent, Uzbekistan
Taking time out to help others Conant grad serves as Peace Corps volunteer in Uzbekistan
Apr 13, 2005
Chicago Daily Herald
Halfway through her two-year commitment to the Peace Corps, Stacy Greco of Schaumburg is happily weathering the daily challenges of life in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
Among the difficulties she's already endured are dysentery, a lung infection, two bombing incidents, 115-degree summer days, crowded and unreliable public transportation and city streets dominated by horses, cows, sheep, donkeys, turkeys and chickens.
She does all her laundry by hand and is often without electricity and the use of the elevator to and from her ninth-floor apartment.
Still, the 30-year-old Conant High School alumna has found a permanent place in her heart for the people of Uzbekistan, whom she is there to help teach about many little known aspects of women's health.
"The biggest surprise for me is how much people love Americans and American ideals," Greco said. "I feel that Americans have been told that people, particularly Muslims, hate Americans. Before I came here, many people warned me not to go because it is a Muslim country.
"I have never heard one anti-American comment here," she continued. "People are able to separate policies and decisions made by the American government and individual people. Uzbek people want to learn everything they can about America. They think of it as the greatest place on Earth and say that they love Americans because they are so open and kind."
Most of Greco's work occurs in a women's health clinic, but she also teaches health and English to students. She's started a reading club and participates in a local English club as well.
Her interest in the Peace Corps was inspired by the positive comments of a geography teacher she had at Harper College in Palatine, as well as years of volunteerism and humanitarian work in the Chicago suburbs.
While in high school she volunteered more than three times the required 40 hours at Marklund Children's Home in Bloomingdale, working with children with severe mental retardation. After that, she volunteered at the Roselle-area Pet Rescue.
While studying at the University of Illinois in Chicago, she volunteered at Friends of the Elderly. After graduation, she went to work for the Kenneth Young Center in Elk Grove Village, first as a communications specialist and then as associate coordinator.
She worked under a grant called INTOUCH - Illinois Network to Organize the Understanding of Community Health.
When she returns home in a year, she plans to study public health and international development. Though she would like to work abroad again, possibly in Africa, she would spend a few years in the United States again first.
Though she won't necessarily do further international service through the Peace Corps, Greco said most returned volunteers always maintain some connection to the organization and to the country in which they served.
Greco's father, Larry, said he was initially nervous to hear about her commitment last year. Though her enthusiasm and optimism have helped him overcome that to some degree, the frequency of her illnesses there has made him maintain some amount of nervousness.
While he knew little about the former Soviet nation before her departure, Greco's father said he has found himself living vicariously through her experiences. The heat, mosquitoes and fact that the people believe vodka is the cure for every ailment haven't made it seem as attractive to him as it's become for his daughter, however.
"I think she's enjoying herself," he said.
Greco is hoping her parents will be able to visit her in the next year, in part to see her current environment through fresh eyes.
"I would say that people would be comfortable here as long as they are open to a different point of view and interested in learning about new people," she said. "Anyone who made friends with an Uzbek would be fine. Uzbeks have a saying, 'A guest is more important than your father.'
"Uzbeks are the warmest, most hospitable people I have every met," she added.
"They will offer you whatever they have, even if it means that they won't eat. I have felt very taken care of by Uzbek people," she said.
