Conchos says she misses junk food, movies and her family. She was surprised to find a wealth of Chinese restaurants in towns across Ghana. But she's disappointed that she can't find her favorite, Mexican food. She already knows she will miss Ghana when she returns home in summer 2007. She may go back to school for an advanced degree in business or education. She also knows her mother is waiting for grandchildren.
Olga Conchos is speaking Twi to high school students in the West African nation of Ghana
Woman relishes life teaching in Ghana
John Faherty
The Arizona Republic
Feb. 20, 2006 12:00 AM
The good upbringing led to the good high school. That led to the good college. Then she was on to a good job as an engineer. It was also where she met her husband.
In a word, life was good for Olga Conchos, who grew up in Glendale. Then she set it all aside and joined the Peace Corps.
Now, instead of working as an electrical engineer and living well in St. Louis, she is speaking Twi to high school students in the West African nation of Ghana.
The couple wanted to make a difference in the world while they still had a chance, before children and mortgages and car payments made a two-year stint in Africa impossible.
And they aren't alone.
"We frequently see people who are in the workplace for a year or two," said Nathan Arnold of the Peace Corps' national office. "Then they decide that they can do that later in life, but that this is their chance right now, to really help."
Of the 7,810 Peace Corps volunteers currently in the field, the average age is 28.
Joining the Peace Corps was a decision Conchos said she immediately regretted.
"In fact, I thought about quitting and going home," she wrote in an e-mail. "I was tired of the people staring at me. I was tired of the huge bugs. I was annoyed with the heat. And I was missing my family and friends."
But she is no quitter and she knew her decision to give up her own comforts for the benefit of others was a good one.
Fighting off the bugs
"First, I bought a large can of Raid," she said about adjusting to her surroundings.
Conchos, 26, graduated from Xavier College Preparatory high school in 1997. Then she went to Washington University in St. Louis.
She studied engineering and met Evan Haas, a computer scientist. They married after graduation and settled into the American dream.
But it wasn't enough. So she started volunteering and joining clubs. She got deep into her commitments at the St. Louis Zoo where she monitored the butterfly house and fed the non-venomous insects. She became the adoptive "mother" of a snow leopard at the zoo.
Her husband volunteered to work on the Web site of a non-profit organization that provides medical services for poor nations.
Those volunteer efforts led them to the Peace Corps.
Not surprising
The fact that Conchos turned her back on an upwardly mobile existence so she could help in Africa did not surprise her mother, Yolanda Conchos.
"I've always been so proud of her," Yolanda Conchos said. "She has never ceased to amaze me. Yes, I was a little bit scared when she said she was doing this, but more than anything I was proud."
Sister Lynn Winsor, Xavier's vice principal isn't surprised either.
"She was a good kid, and smart, and a hard worker," said Winsor of Conchos. "She was involved in lots of things when she was here. It's so nice to see when a girl you had as a student grows up to be a caring adult."
Conchos and her husband went to Ghana last June and now live in a small village.
Peace Corps volunteers have been teaching high school students there since 1961. They concentrate on science and math, both specialties of an electrical engineer like Conchos.
She shops in an outdoor market where people give her a good price because she has bothered to learn their language. They call her by her Ghanaian name, Yaa.
She has made friends and has had remarkable experiences.
Last month, Conchos had dinner with an American: Laura Bush.
The first lady was touring the region when she stopped to dine with American volunteers in Ghana.
When it was time for a photograph, Conchos was positioned next to Bush. She says being asked up to the front was one of the first tangible benefits to being short.
She already knows she will miss Ghana when she returns home in summer 2007. She may go back to school for an advanced degree in business or education. She also knows her mother is waiting for grandchildren.
Conchos says she misses junk food, movies and her family. She was surprised to find a wealth of Chinese restaurants in towns across Ghana. But she's disappointed that she can't find her favorite, Mexican food.
For now, she has settled into the routine of her life where she teaches and learns.
It's a routine that offers countless memories.
"Last Monday, Evan and I visited a primary school in our village. Evan has a friend who teaches third grade in St. Louis and her students wrote (those) students. We were walked home by hundreds of schoolchildren in their cute blue uniforms. They were all smiling and waving. The brave ones came up and held my hand. We will go back to the school a couple of times a month to help the students learn English."
Reach the reporter at john .faherty@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-4803.
