2006.06.15: June 15, 2006: Headlines: COS - Thailand: Older Volunteers: Oxford Press: RPCV Doris Taylor says: "Thailand and Thai friends will in my heart always be"
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2006.06.15: June 15, 2006: Headlines: COS - Thailand: Older Volunteers: Oxford Press: RPCV Doris Taylor says: "Thailand and Thai friends will in my heart always be"
RPCV Doris Taylor says: "Thailand and Thai friends will in my heart always be"
“I guess I must be pretty hard-shelled. I really jumped into it with both feet,” she said. “In the village where I was plunked, I didn’t talk to my family on the phone for a long time. You kind of have to cut yourself off from everybody you think you ever knew to really absorb the culture.”
RPCV Doris Taylor says: "Thailand and Thai friends will in my heart always be"
Thailand and Thai friends will in my heart always beÂ’
Woman remembers experience in Peace Corps at age 74 as rewarding.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
By Sara Stock
Staff Writer
Traveling through Third World villages and teaching English to impoverished children are images one might think of when describing life as a Peace Corps volunteer.
But doing all this at 74 years of age is certainly not part of the picture.
Unless, of course, you’re Doris Taylor.
After the death of her husband, Taylor needed something to fill the gap in her life.
“My husband was gone and I didn’t want to get married again,” said the now-93-year-old Taylor.
“I had plenty of offers but I just didn’t want to get involved. So I thought, ‘What can I do now?’ ”
Jan Taylor said that her mother had shown interest in joining the Peace Corps ever since its creation, but family life always prevented her from joining.
“In my head, I got this idea to be a substitute teacher, since I’ve already taught school before,” Doris Taylor said. “But then I kept thinking about the Peace Corps. To me, it had always seemed like an ideal.”
She then called the Peace Corps offices to see if they would accept a 74-year-old woman as a volunteer.
“I was surprised they were so welcoming,” Taylor said. “But they were delighted to have an older woman who had taught school before.”
After almost a year-long process of filling out applications and “getting her affairs in order,” Taylor finally received an invitation in the spring of 1987 to become a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand.
“I never thought I’d see my mom again when she got on that Boeing 747 in Chicago,” Jan Taylor said. “We were all worried and nervous. We thought she might die over there and we’d never see her again.”
While her family was concerned for her safety in Thailand, Doris Taylor said she didn’t give it a second thought.
“I guess I must be pretty hard-shelled. I really jumped into it with both feet,” she said. “In the village where I was plunked, I didn’t talk to my family on the phone for a long time. You kind of have to cut yourself off from everybody you think you ever knew to really absorb the culture.”
Taylor believes that living so far from America easily allowed her to experience Thailand without worrying about matters at home. She also formed friendships with the other volunteers and natives of the village.
“I was sent to a village called Bahn Pah Heo and I taught English to eighth-graders at the school there,” she said.
The Peace Corps this year is marking the 45th anniversary of its founding by President John F. Kennedy.
Taylor also wrote a large grant to get a milking station placed in the village of her school.
“She probably wrote the biggest grant the Peace Corps ever funded,” Jan Taylor said of her mother. “The children can now get milk every day, and we think she’s part of the village folklore now.”
Learning the language was the most difficult challenge for Doris Taylor, but itwas necessary because of her constant contact with the Thai people.
“It was the biggest challenge I had in my life at the time,” she said. “I had to keep up with everybody, and I was 74, but I did the best I could. I wanted to speak their language.”
“I hate to say it was easy, but I eventually learned to speak a little Thai in Thailand.”
As her two-year volunteer service went by, Taylor adapted to life in Thailand and became very close to many of the villagers in her community.
She now keeps a memoir of her travels that she calls “Passage in Thailand: Grins and Groans in the Peace Corps.”
“When I knew I was going to Thailand, it was such a thrill,” Taylor said. “So I knew that after I left, other people might be interested to hear what I did, and that’s when I decided to write up my story.”
People back home were not only interested in reading the story, some also were inspired to join the Peace Corps because of Taylor’s accomplishment.
“My granddaughter, Jenny, volunteered in Africa and met her husband, Keith, there,” she said.
According to Taylor, the couple now owns an organic honey business, a product of their adventures in Africa.
Taylor’s two-year adventure in Thailand not only inspired relatives to join the Peace Corps, but also served to fill the large gap in her life after the death of her husband.
She arrived back in America as a healthy 76-year-old, reacquainting herself with beloved family and friends she had not seen for so long.
Yet while Taylor was happy to return home, her years in Thailand are not forgotten, as she writes in the last lines of her memoirs, “It is so, what the song I sang said — even though I got back into American life with a bit of culture shock in reverse, Thailand and Thai friends will in my heart always be.”
When this story was posted in June 2006, this was on the front page of PCOL:
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Story Source: Oxford Press
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Thailand; Older Volunteers
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