2008.06.28: June 28, 2008: Headlines: COS - Lesotho: Older Volunteers: American Profile: Maria Steele and Peter Neumann served as Peace Corps Volunteers near the town of Mohales Hoek, where they spent their days helping others and their nights reading books

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Lesotho: Peace Corps Lesotho : Peace Corps Lesotho: Newest Stories: 2008.06.28: June 28, 2008: Headlines: COS - Lesotho: Older Volunteers: American Profile: Maria Steele and Peter Neumann served as Peace Corps Volunteers near the town of Mohales Hoek, where they spent their days helping others and their nights reading books

By Admin1 (admin) (70.250.245.178) on Monday, July 14, 2008 - 12:08 am: Edit Post

Maria Steele and Peter Neumann served as Peace Corps Volunteers near the town of Mohales Hoek, where they spent their days helping others and their nights reading books

Maria Steele and Peter Neumann served as Peace Corps Volunteers near the town of Mohales Hoek, where they spent their days helping others and their nights reading books

Waiting 35 years to sign up actually worked in their favor, the couple says. “Younger people, while they’re doing their service in the Peace Corps, are also aware of the fact that they have to find some career when they return,” Neumann says. “And for us, after retirement we already had our bread and butter. Our children were grown. We knew what we were going to do when we got back. We had a good pension.” Plus, his wife adds, “We brought a lifetime of experience with us, so we could hit the ground running.”

Maria Steele and Peter Neumann served as Peace Corps Volunteers near the town of Mohales Hoek, where they spent their days helping others and their nights reading books

Peace Corps

by Nancy Henderson

[Excerpt]

Ready to serve
Maria Steele and Peter Neumann of Newton, Mass. (pop. 84,323), both 60, had considered joining the Peace Corps in their 20s, but “life” got in the way. They met, married and raised a family while working as field officers for the Social Security Administration, but by the mid-1990s their interest was “bubbling up” again. “We really like learning about other cultures,” Steele says. “We both like to travel and we wanted to help people.”

The couple had never heard of Lesotho, a small country surrounded by South Africa. But in 2004, after Peace Corps recruiters allayed their fears about Ebola and other deadly viruses, they moved into a long cinderblock building near the town of Mohales Hoek, where they spent their days helping others and their nights reading books. The simplicity was “very comforting,” says Steele, who assisted AIDS orphans, trained home care workers and used her administrative skills to coordinate HIV prevention programs. Her husband worked at a post-high-school vocational training center.

Waiting 35 years to sign up actually worked in their favor, the couple says. “Younger people, while they’re doing their service in the Peace Corps, are also aware of the fact that they have to find some career when they return,” Neumann says. “And for us, after retirement we already had our bread and butter. Our children were grown. We knew what we were going to do when we got back. We had a good pension.” Plus, his wife adds, “We brought a lifetime of experience with us, so we could hit the ground running.”

Their stay in Lesotho was filled with rewards. The first Christmas, Steele wrote a letter to a South African department store and talked the retailers into donating outfits for needy orphans whose parents had died of AIDS. A few days before Christmas, she and several other volunteers arrived at the Mohales Hoek store with 22 children in tow.

“These kids had never owned a new item of clothing before, and had certainly never been shopping,” Steele says. “They didn’t even know what to do when they got in the store.”

Like children everywhere, they quickly gravitated toward the fun stuff. “We wanted to get them the Oxford shoes, but they wanted the ballerina slippers,” Steele says, laughing. “It was just such a beautiful, beautiful day—the true meaning of Christmas.”




Links to Related Topics (Tags):

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





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Story Source: American Profile

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

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