2008.01.28: January 28, 2008: Headlines: COS - Namibia: Older Volunteers: Richmond Times Dispatch: Angela Brown served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Namibia

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Namibia: Peace Corps Namibia : Peace Corps Namibia: Newest Stories: 2008.01.28: January 28, 2008: Headlines: COS - Namibia: Older Volunteers: Richmond Times Dispatch: Angela Brown served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Namibia

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Angela Brown served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Namibia

Angela Brown served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Namibia

Brown's maturity and determination were tested immediately in Namibia. Her project's nongovernment organization sponsor ran off with the funding, she said. "It was really, really difficult. The people in the community thought the project would fail because there was no money. But I guess it was just meant for me to be there." Her program taught children agriculture skills, life skills, and information on HIV and AIDS. Most of the children were orphans or had lost at least one parent to AIDS. Subsistence farmers had died without passing agricultural skills on to their children. Brown secured enough funding for basics, including seeds. They grew cabbage, spinach, carrots and sweet potatoes and used profits to buy more seeds. Despite the adversity, the hardest part for Brown was leaving Namibia in December. "I wanted to come home, but I didn't want to leave the relationships I developed there. And the people." Back home, Brown would like to work with people who have HIV or AIDS. And her African sojourn left an indelible mark. "All the things that I have," she said, "I don't take them for granted."

Angela Brown served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Namibia

Peace Corps transforms 50-year-old

Monday, Jan 28, 2008 - 12:08 AM

By MICHAEL PAUL WILLIAMS
TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST

The longing began with a childhood television commercial, when Angela Brown saw a hungry little girl in a faraway land wearing black-and-white saddle shoes like her own.

Her yearning to live in such a faraway place and help in any way she could was fulfilled during Brown's recent Peace Corps stint in Namibia.

In November 2005, she arrived in a desert village in that arid, sparsely populated country on the southwestern coast of Africa. There, the South Richmond woman worked among the Ovambo tribe as a community health volunteer in a nation with one of the highest HIV/AIDS rates in the world.

That fact played out in heart-wrenching ways, such as when Brown met a girl with AIDS who had no parents or siblings.

"Her mother gave her away when she was 13, while I was there, and three days later her mother passed away with AIDS," Brown recalled Friday. "The most moving part for me was that the people in the community wanted me to take her."

Brown would have taken the girl into her government housing, which unlike most of the village had running water and electricity. But the girl spoke no English, and Brown knew little of her Oshikwanyama language.

"She was 13, but she looked like she was 5 years old," Brown recalled. The malnourished girl lacked anti-viral drugs.

"She was so sick that she would just lay on the ground. And she had sores all over her body so she would lay on her side, because if she lay on her back, it was very painful."

Afraid the girl would die, Brown called the Red Cross to help. Since her return home, "I've spoken to some of the people in my village, and they tell me she's doing very well."

Brown, the divorced mother of two grown daughters, joined the Peace Corps after 25 years in the Richmond voter registrar's office.

"It was something that I needed to do, and I needed to do it now."

Brown, who turned 50 in October, joined the Peace Corps before Director Ron Tschetter launched his "50+ Initiative" to attract that growing demographic to a still-youthful organization, whose average volunteer age is 27. Five percent of the Peace Corps' 8,079 volunteers are 50 or older.

"They come in bringing a lifetime of skills and experience, and they have a different -- and not to slight the younger people -- more mature perspective on a lot of things," said Peace Corps spokeswoman Laura Lartigue.

Brown's maturity and determination were tested immediately in Namibia.

Her project's nongovernment organization sponsor ran off with the funding, she said.

"It was really, really difficult. The people in the community thought the project would fail because there was no money. But I guess it was just meant for me to be there."

Her program taught children agriculture skills, life skills, and information on HIV and AIDS. Most of the children were orphans or had lost at least one parent to AIDS.

Subsistence farmers had died without passing agricultural skills on to their children. Brown secured enough funding for basics, including seeds. They grew cabbage, spinach, carrots and sweet potatoes and used profits to buy more seeds.

Despite the adversity, the hardest part for Brown was leaving Namibia in December.

"I wanted to come home, but I didn't want to leave the relationships I developed there. And the people."

Back home, Brown would like to work with people who have HIV or AIDS. And her African sojourn left an indelible mark.

"All the things that I have," she said, "I don't take them for granted."
Contact Michael Paul Williams at (804) 649-6815 or mwilliams@timesdispatch.com.




Links to Related Topics (Tags):

Headlines: January, 2008; Peace Corps Namibia; Directory of Namibia RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Namibia RPCVs; Older Volunteers





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Story Source: Richmond Times Dispatch

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Namibia; Older Volunteers

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