67-year-old Martha Kell is headed to Armenia at the end of this month as a Peace Corps volunteer



Four decades ago, she worked with the USO in Vietnam.Having lived in Vietnam, she's realistic about what she can accomplish. "You can go in with idealized goals and expectations. But if you're the first person in a community, you may just be spading the ground," she said. "I'm not there to teach them how to be an American." That doesn't mean she'll forgo whimsy. She says she hopes to have a little fun with the rote memorization structure of the Armenian classroom - maybe by playing Motown. There's also some of the old mission of the Peace Corps left, too: "We're so extremely fortunate," she told me. "This is also a kind of a way of paying it forward, although I'm certainly not Mother Teresa."

67-year-old Martha Kell is headed to Armenia at the end of this month as a Peace Corps volunteer

Herhold: At 67, retired grandma joins Peace Corps

By Scott Herhold
Mercury News

Article Launched: 05/10/2007 01:33:57 AM PDT

When she retired as a training specialist with the Social Security Administration on Jan. 3, Martha Kell could have played golf and enjoyed two or three lunches a week with the girls. After all, she had a place at the Villages. She received a decent pension. Her health was good.

Instead, the 67-year-old Kell, a fit Georgia native who works out an hour a day on a treadmill and exercise machine, is headed to Armenia at the end of this month as a Peace Corps volunteer, an English teacher in a remote mountain town.

Just how all that happened is a bit of a mystery. Kell does know that she was looking for an adventure in retirement and a nomadic gene lingers in her DNA: Four decades ago, she worked with the USO in Vietnam.

She's still not certain, however, what possessed her to wake up one morning in April 2006, check the Peace Corps Web site and drive that same day to a recruiting seminar in San Francisco, where - no surprise - she was the oldest recruit.

Message to grandkids

"The No. 1 question people ask me is `Why aren't you with your grandchildren?'" says Kell, who has two of them in Phoenix. "You know, my grandchildren are too young to understand it. But in the long run, the fact their grandmother went off to teach English in Armenia is something they'll be proud of."

While she's not the oldest Peace Corps volunteer on record - the agency says 5 percent of its volunteers are older than 50 - Kell may be one of the most determined. With a marathon of medical inquiries behind her, Kell has rented out her house, sold her car and diligently interviewed returning volunteers.

She's not naive about the loss of American creature comforts. When she got a questionnaire from the Peace Corps about what she would miss most, she impulsively wrote down "Starbucks."

She knows it's more than that: In the beginning, Kell will be staying with families, a challenge until she learns Armenian. Potable water is available in rural areas for only an hour a day. As a vegetarian, she'll have to evolve a response to the carnivorous offerings of her hosts. "If push comes to shove, I would take a few bites," she explained.

Realistic approach

Having lived in Vietnam, she's realistic about what she can accomplish. "You can go in with idealized goals and expectations. But if you're the first person in a community, you may just be spading the ground," she said. "I'm not there to teach them how to be an American."

That doesn't mean she'll forgo whimsy. She says she hopes to have a little fun with the rote memorization structure of the Armenian classroom - maybe by playing Motown. There's also some of the old mission of the Peace Corps left, too: "We're so extremely fortunate," she told me. "This is also a kind of a way of paying it forward, although I'm certainly not Mother Teresa."

I had a personal reason for wanting to interview Kell: Coincidentally, my daughter is now in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, visiting distant relatives on my wife's side.

There's a big difference, aside from the fact they won't overlap. (Kell says her group will be taken by van directly to Vanatzor, a town in Armenia's north.) My daughter, who is 24, is there for a couple of weeks as a tourist. Kell will be there for 27 months, teaching most of the time.

You have to admire that sense of adventure even if 67 isn't as old as it once sounded. When her stint is done, if her health remains sound, Kell is talking about maybe re-enlisting for another assignment. The South Pacific, say.

Contact Scott Herhold at sherhold@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5877.

Links to Related Topics (Tags):

Headlines: May, 2007; Peace Corps Armenia; Directory of Armenia RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Armenia RPCVs; Older Volunteers

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