"People in other places live just fine without copier machines, running water and pens," she added. "I'm excited about that possibility. I can't wait to live how they live and challenge myself that way. I don't want to be that person that doesn't think outside of my comfort zone."
Katelin Reagan has taken a one-year leave of absence to go to Nicaragua with the Peace Corps to work as an environmental education promoter
Trading in the good life
By Terrence Synnott
Newport Daily News
Newport, R.I.
July 7, 2005
When school resumes in a couple of months, teacher Katelin Reagan will not return to her seventh-grade social studies classroom at Portsmouth Middle School.
Instead she will head to Washington, D.C., with other Peace Corps volunteers to prepare for an eventual departure to Nicaragua.
Reagan, a 26-year-old Newport resident, has taken a one-year leave of absence to go to Nicaragua with the Peace Corps to work as an environmental education promoter - a position in which she will work with community members on local environmental initiatives and train Nicaraguan teachers to include environmental lessons in their classrooms.
She expects it to be a life-changing mission.
"It's going to push me to be a different person," Reagan said. "It's going to help me to realize what's important in life. It's not about whether my car looks good or whether I have the latest sandals that my friends have. These are things I know in my head, but I need to know in my heart."
Reagan grew up in Merrimack, N.H., and said she has dreamed of joining the Peace Corps since before she started high school.
"I've really enjoyed my time and I've learned so much (at Portsmouth Middle School)," she said. "But I just feel like it's the perfect time in my life to do this. I also think it will make me a better teacher.
"People in other places live just fine without copier machines, running water and pens," she added. "I'm excited about that possibility. I can't wait to live how they live and challenge myself that way. I don't want to be that person that doesn't think outside of my comfort zone."
Before she leaves on Aug. 29, she plans to sell her car, give up her Newport apartment and work two jobs to pay off some bills.
She said she expects her time teaching in Nicaragua to be rewarding. But at this point, she knows little about what to expect during her time there. She has yet to learn with whom she'll be living, what village she'll be based in, or what her living conditions will be like.
"There's a chance I won't have running water," she said. "There's a chance I might not have a toilet. It's going to be a big change."
Reagan expects to fly into the capital city of Managua on a Saturday and to meet her host family that evening.
"They'll just pick me up and I'll be with my new family," she said.
Her Peace Corps literature says she eventually will be assigned to three schools, one in her host community and the other two located no farther than 10 kilometers - a little more than six miles - away.
She will be expected to commute to the schools by bicycle.
Her lessons will focus on initiatives to overcome the deforestation and soil erosion that have occurred in the past 25 years.
But an equally important component of her work will focus on establishing bonds with local family and community members. She'll need to brush up on her Spanish, something that her initial Peace Corps training will emphasize.
Reagan said the time spent with locals will be the most rewarding part of her work. She said she looks forward to the customary evening visits with neighbors.
"From 6 to 9 every night, they get together and hang out on their porch and just talk to neighbors," she said. "I just feel that that experience is representative of how it's going to be different."
"I think I'm really looking for those teachable moments," she added. "We're all so busy all the time. We just get caught up in the little things and we forget what's really important."
With phone service limited and Internet access even more difficult to find, she's not sure how often she'll be able to contact family and friends. She said that will be the most difficult part of the experience.
"The bucket baths I can totally deal with," she said. "I'm a camping chick. I can hack it, but not being able to call my friends and family when I'm lonely, that's going to be tough."
Volunteers may bring up to 80 pounds of belongings, and organizers have advised her to pack things that are comforting. Reagan said she plans to bring photos of friends and family. She also plans to stock her iPod before she goes.
Her parents, she said, are understandably concerned.
"That's exactly how my mother feels, excited for me but very nervous," Reagan said.
A trip to Mexico is the farthest south she has ever ventured. But Reagan has some experience being on her own in unfamiliar areas. After attending the University of New Hampshire for two years and switching majors several times, she took a year off, worked as a substitute teacher and backpacked alone through Europe.
When she returned, she enrolled at the University of Rhode Island, graduated in 2003 and landed a job at the Portsmouth Middle School.
Assistant Principal Joseph Amaral credits Reagan with helping her students to better understand the problems of hunger and homelessness through her coordination of the school's Empty Bowls program, which aims to raise money for food banks, soup kitchens and organizations that fight hunger.
The bowls, which are decorated by students and sold at a family spaghetti dinner, are intended to serve as reminders of hunger around the world.
"The work on that really broadened their awareness," Amaral said.
He described Reagan as enthusiastic about her work and committed to providing students with a global understanding of the issues they study in class.
"She's a very compassionate person and will try to teach them in social studies class about the global perspective," he said. "Her energy carries over to the students."
Amaral said he's sorry to see Reagan leave, but knows she will do well in the Peace Corps.
"We are going to miss her," he said. "She has an excellent rapport with her students and the other faculty members. I'm sure that will carry over to her (Peace Corps) work."
Reagan said she looks forward to returning to Portsmouth Middle School with a broader perspective of the world.
"I hope to come back a better teacher," she said. "I think I'm just excited to have a greater appreciation for everything and to know about a place in the world that has a different way of life."
