Findlay Grad Finds Peace Corps Truly Is Toughest Job To Love - Rachelle Johnsson, 23, a 1993 graduate of Findlay High School, is currently in the middle of a two-year Peace Corps assignment in Costa Rica.
Findlay Grad Finds Peace Corps Truly Is Toughest Job To Love - Rachelle Johnsson, 23, a 1993 graduate of Findlay High School, is currently in the middle of a two-year Peace Corps assignment in Costa Rica.
The Peace Corps tells its volunteers that the work they do will be the "toughest job you'll ever love," and one local woman is finding out just how true those words can be.
Rachelle Johnsson, 23, a 1993 graduate of Findlay High School, is currently in the middle of a two-year Peace Corps assignment in Costa Rica.
Ms. Johnsson said she has always had a desire to work with "underserved populations," and, after her 1997 graduation from Ohio Wesleyan University she wasted no time landing a job in the economic development field with Save the Children, an organization which assists children in poverty.
With her triple major of Spanish, sociology and economics, she was well suited for the job, which she intended to be long term.
But she had applied for a position with the Peace Corps in March of her senior year, and in July of that year she was notified that she had been accepted to the Peace Corps and was being assigned to an urban youth development program in Costa Rica.
Ms. Johnsson, who speaks fluent Spanish, had requested an assignment in Latin America, but she was willing to go where she was needed.
Costa Rica is one of only about 10 countries in the world where the Peace Corps operates an urban youth development program, a program which is "aimed at urban schools with high poverty and dropout rates," Ms. Johnsson said.
"Costa Rica used to have a full (Peace Corps) program with about 140 volunteers," she added, but now the urban youth development program is the only active Peace Corps program left in Costa Rica.
In Juanito Mora, the Costa Rican area where Ms. Johnsson was assigned, approximately 900 children attend school in an 11-classroom building, meaning a typical class holds between 90-100 children.
Juanito Mora (which translates into "Johnny Blackberry," the name of a Costa Rican founder) was an unplanned squatter's community which sprang up over a period of about 15 years. Technically, it is not a city, but a "barrio," or neighborhood. Economically speaking, it is an especially poor area, Ms. Johnsson said, with around 25,000 people living in a two-mile by four-mile square area.
Drug trafficking, alcohol abuse and violence are a way of life. Although she is happy with the work she's doing and the people she works with, Ms. Johnsson admitted that the barrio does not offer the most desirable living environment. Crime is rampant, and with her blond hair and American looks, Ms. Johnsson knows she needs to be extra careful for her safety.
"I don't feel like my life is in danger. I lived in inner-city Los Angeles and this is a similar experience," she said.
While she is cautious and never completely at ease, she doesn't let the fear take over. "If I'm filled with fear I can't work," she said.
She needs to be free of distractions because her work is especially challenging. Parents of the children she works with do not often encourage their children to do well in school or even to attend, Ms. Johnsson said, explaining that first and sixth grades have extremely high dropout rates.
The area where she works is not typical of Costa Rica, however.
"Costa Rica has a good education system and a good literacy rate," she said.
Ms. Johnsson's job at the school mostly entails working with sixth graders in prevention programs. She works with an interdisciplinary team which includes a psychologist, social worker and guidance counselor to try to keep the children in school. The work is frustrating and not without its failures.
For example, she established a program for sixth-grade girls which taught life planning, goal setting, vocational guidance and topics dealing with relationships and other social issues.
"I started with 22 (girls) and ended with 4," she said, noting wryly that she considers the project to be a "roaring success," because, "those four have the desire to fight and will probably go on to high school. I have to be satisfied with the small things. I see a lot of my projects flop and there's a low success rate. It can be discouraging."
Ms. Johnsson described her Peace Corps duties as "a very go-with-the-flow job."
"I have worked with gender awareness education and health education for a girls' group, and taught art and swimming, theater, and worked in an orphanage. Lately I've done a lot of self-esteem training for the faculty."
The work is "very draining and taxing," Ms. Johnsson said. And the working conditions can be miserable.
While Costa Rica is a haven for tourists, "I live in an area no tourists would ever see," she said. "I live on the Pacific Coast in the tropics, where it's 95 to 100 (degrees) year-round. Plus, El Nino made this summer the hottest on record!"
Although she lives just two miles from the Pacific Ocean, it offers no relief from the heat, as the beaches are contaminated and not safe for swimming. There is also a real danger of contracting dengue fever, a malaria-like illness carried by mosquitoes which is nearly epidemic in the area.
"(But) the people I work with are all in the same situation. They're my heroes," Ms. Johnsson said, noting that her assignment is only temporary and she will eventually leave, while her co-workers will most likely be there the rest of their lives.
About once a month, Ms. Johnsson treats herself to a visit to San Jose, where she stops at "Internet cafes" and sends e-mail messages to family and friends.
She contacted her favorite grade school teacher, Kathy Copus, and established a pen-pal relationship with Mrs. Copus' fourth-grade students at Bigelow Hill Intermediate School.
Ms. Johnsson said she hopes the correspondence will be a good way for the fourth graders to find out that "life is not like it is here in the U.S. The world is so much bigger."
Ms. Johnsson's commitment with the Peace Corps extends until October of 1999.
Until then, "I'm taking it one day at a time," she said. "It's been a very hard year, probably the toughest of my life. The Peace Corps is not for a shy or meek person. It takes every ounce of motivation. You have to believe what you do is right and have belief in yourself. But I've learned to pull myself up and be very independent."
