2006.12.31: December 31, 2006: Headlines: COS - Lesotho: Youth: Gainesville Times: Texys Morris was a youth development volunteer with the Peace Corps in Lesotho
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2006.12.31: December 31, 2006: Headlines: COS - Lesotho: Youth: Gainesville Times: Texys Morris was a youth development volunteer with the Peace Corps in Lesotho
Texys Morris was a youth development volunteer with the Peace Corps in Lesotho
Morris was sheltered in the beginning, taking part in only training classes while learning the Sesotho language, a necessity to interact and teach there. She also spent seven weeks living in a village with her host family. "It's a good transitional period so there's not too big of a culture shock all at once," she said. Many of the two million citizens of Lesotho, a mountainous country about the size of Maryland, were accustomed to "outsiders" through previous Peace Corps volunteer groups and missionaries, Morris said. She spent her first year in a historic missionary town, but her second year sent her to a village whose residents had never interacted with an American. The village also had no electricity or water. Many of the natives didn't think a "lekhooa," white person or foreigner, could live without those. "There were a lot of stereotypes I overcame by living there," Morris said. "You adjust. We're very adaptable creatures."
Texys Morris was a youth development volunteer with the Peace Corps in Lesotho
Gainesville graduate learns in Lesotho
By MATT STEWART
The Times
Texys Morris will never forget the time she almost got married in southern Africa in exchange for 60 cows that were to be shipped to the states free of charge.
Well, actually, the marriage proposal was made in jest and she didn't really almost get married. But it makes for a good story, and was just part of her life-altering two years of service for the Peace Corps in Lesotho, a third-world country landlocked by South Africa.
Morris, 24-year-old daughter of Northeastern Judicial Circuit head public defender Brad Morris, returned to U.S. soil in early December and is spending time with family during the holidays before her next move.
But wherever she goes from here, she always will take with her experiences gained through her trip with the federal government agency.
"I've always told my kids that the day they die somebody should say they made the world at least a pebble better off," Brad Morris said.
His daughter may have already done that and more. In the second grade, Texys's teacher told her father that she would put classroom troublemakers near Texys, and within minutes those students would be getting along with the rest of the class.
"Texys and I have similar ideas," her father said. "She just gets along with people better than I do."
As a junior at Gainesville High, Texys wrote a term paper on the Peace Corps and became devoted to the idea that she would one day travel through the organization. Two weeks after she graduated from the University of Virginia in May of 2004, she was sent to Lesotho (pronounced le-SOO-tu) as a youth development volunteer.
Morris was sheltered in the beginning, taking part in only training classes while learning the Sesotho language, a necessity to interact and teach there. She also spent seven weeks living in a village with her host family.
"It's a good transitional period so there's not too big of a culture shock all at once," she said.
Many of the two million citizens of Lesotho, a mountainous country about the size of Maryland, were accustomed to "outsiders" through previous Peace Corps volunteer groups and missionaries, Morris said.
She spent her first year in a historic missionary town, but her second year sent her to a village whose residents had never interacted with an American. The village also had no electricity or water. Many of the natives didn't think a "lekhooa," white person or foreigner, could live without those.
"There were a lot of stereotypes I overcame by living there," Morris said. "You adjust. We're very adaptable creatures."
Morris was well received, and at times treated like a celebrity. Many wanted pictures taken with her.
Then there was the marriage proposal. The offer: 60 cows were to be shipped to her father in Gainesville in return for her hand in marriage.
"He turned it down, but it was a good offer," Morris joked. "They said, 'Your father will be very happy. He'll be a rich man.' Immigration probably wouldn't have let the cows in anyway."
Said her father: "I'm not sure she was ready to give herself up for a cow or two."
Morris worked with several other volunteers, including a 75-year-old woman and married couples in their 50s. She coordinated with the local chief, or mayor, through a needs assessment program focusing on the youth of Lesotho while fighting the country's scourge of the HIV/AIDS virus.
Lesotho has a 30 percent HIV/AIDS rate and the life expectancy at birth is less than 35 years.
"With such a high HIV rate, if I go back in five years I don't know who'll be there," she said.
While in Lesotho, Morris' Peace Corps group received two $5,000 grants, one of which was used to build a community youth center similar to the local Boys and Girls Clubs in America. She also worked in school libraries, preschools and taught learning techniques to local teachers.
Morris had some preparation for the community work prior to her Peace Corps service. She has received honors from Good News at Noon in Gainesville as well as community service awards at the University of Virginia.
Working with youth has become a passion of Morris' and she came to see that children worldwide carry a binding trait.
"I realized that internationally and at home, youth are the same," she said. "There are some different cultural aspects, but they're dealing with the same issues."
Although she has eaten cow innards and chicken feet and slept next to a coffin (with the dead inside), her experience in the Peace Corps and the lives she's affected will live on. She shared many of her experiences with Times' readers through occasional guest columns that appeared on the Sunday Viewpoint pages.
Morris hopes she left a positive impression of Americans, calling her visit a way of "putting faces on America."
After leaving Lesotho in August, she visited Egypt before returning home to spend time with family in Maysville. Morris is now considering her next step, possibly going to law school or pursuing a career in social work with juveniles.
The Peace Corps may not be for everybody, Morris said, but she believes most would benefit by seeing another part of the world the way she has.
"I think everyone should experience being outside of their comfort zone even if it's someone going to an inner city school in Atlanta and working there," Morris said. "We have so many different cultures in America, you can go into another culture and be involved in that.
"You don't have to go halfway around the world to experience other cultures and to help."
Contact: mstewart@gainesvilletimes.com, (770) 718-3432
Links to Related Topics (Tags):
Headlines: December, 2006; Peace Corps Lesotho; Directory of Lesotho RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Lesotho RPCVs; Youth
When this story was posted in January 2007, this was on the front page of PCOL:
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Story Source: Gainesville Times
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Lesotho; Youth
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