Lindsey Baron to serve as Peace Corps volunteer in Cambodia



Although her primary responsibility will be training Cambodian English teachers and/or team teaching high school English with a Cambodian teacher, she'll also participate in community development, with a focus on teaching AIDS awareness. Baron said Cambodia has the highest AIDS/HIV infection rate in Asia. She said there is a great need for English teachers, because many experienced teachers have gone to resort areas to work in tourism. "I took three and a half years of German in high school and Spanish in college," she said, noting she knew it would take total immersion for her to become fluent in Khmer.

Lindsey Baron to serve as Peace Corps volunteer in Cambodia

Cambodia opens doors to her

By DALE VINCENT
Union Leader Staff

Caption: Lindsey Baron, a Manchester Central High graduate, is about to leave on a 27-month assignment as a Peace Corps volunteer in Cambodia. (BOB LAPREE)

MANCHESTER – A Manchester Central High School graduate will be among the first Peace Corps volunteers ever to serve in Cambodia.

Lindsey Baron, 23, who graduated from Central in 2002 and from Pace University in New York City last June, leaves today for 27 months in Cambodia.

"We are excited to begin this historic new program for the Peace Corps in Cambodia," Director Ron Tschetter said in a statement on the Peace Corps Web site. "The Cambodian people have extended their warm invitation, and we look forward to working with them."

Baron will live with a host family in Cambodia for the first three months, a total immersion language and culture experience. She said she wanted to experience a different culture and help make a change in people's lives.

"I've always thought about doing it," she said.

Although her primary responsibility will be training Cambodian English teachers and/or team teaching high school English with a Cambodian teacher, she'll also participate in community development, with a focus on teaching AIDS awareness. Baron said Cambodia has the highest AIDS/HIV infection rate in Asia.

She said there is a great need for English teachers, because many experienced teachers have gone to resort areas to work in tourism.

"I took three and a half years of German in high school and Spanish in college," she said, noting she knew it would take total immersion for her to become fluent in Khmer.

Baron, daughter of Mary Baron and the late Charlie Baron, sees herself as a city girl. She started at Wagner College on Staten Island, but "that wasn't close enough to New York." She transferred to Pace, where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in communications.

She has no idea where she'll be in Cambodia, saying it could be on a remote rice farm or a more urban environment.

"It's going to take some adjusting," she said.

She has no laptop, so Internet access isn't an issue, but music is essential. "I'm taking my iPod."

She's also taking serious rain gear and had to buy skirts. Chalk the wardrobe change up to conservative views in Cambodia on women's clothing. Baron figures the skirts will be cooler than pants.

Describing herself as an all-American girl when it comes to food, she expects to miss Subway and french fries. But it's the people she will miss the most.

"I'm really going to miss seeing my family for two years," she said, although she's hoping at least some of them will come to visit during her stay.

In addition to her mother, she has two older brothers in Manchester: Christopher Baron, a teacher at McLaughlin Middle School, and Matthew, a graduate of the Savannah College of Art & Design, who's looking for work in graphic animation.

She said she has a friend serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa, so she has some idea of what's involved in terms of getting close to people and establishing or maintaining relationships with nongovernmental organizations as well as the people with whom she will be living and working.

"I am in the perfect position to go," she said. "This is a perfect time in my life. It's all upside for me."

Links to Related Topics (Tags):

Headlines: January, 2007; Peace Corps Cambodia; Directory of Cambodia RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Cambodia RPCVs

When this story was posted in January 2007, this was on the front page of PCOL:




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