2008.08.25: August 25, 2008: Headlines: COS - Togo: Sugar: Agriculture: Daily Iberian: When Jackie Theriot left his family farm in Catahoula 46 years ago to join the Peace Corps in Togo, he had one naive hope in mind — to embark on a worldly adventure
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2008.08.25: August 25, 2008: Headlines: COS - Togo: Sugar: Agriculture: Daily Iberian: When Jackie Theriot left his family farm in Catahoula 46 years ago to join the Peace Corps in Togo, he had one naive hope in mind — to embark on a worldly adventure
When Jackie Theriot left his family farm in Catahoula 46 years ago to join the Peace Corps in Togo, he had one naive hope in mind — to embark on a worldly adventure
While in training, Theriot was told his job would be teaching English as a foreign language, but Theriot had other things in mind. “I told them, ‘You’ve got to be joking,’” he said. “My second language is English. I didn’t want to teach starving people how to speak English. I wanted to help in agriculture.” When he arrived in Africa, Theriot soon realized his living environment there, with no electricity and muddy rivers full of catfish, was not too far-fetched from the farm he had just left in Catahoula. “I didn’t even wear shoes until I was in the fifth grade,” he said. He spent his first two years with the Peace Corps in Togo, breeding and raising tilapia. He also taught people there how to make light-weight boats and fish for other breeds with gill nets, a practice he was accustomed to from home. “People there needed the protein,” said Theriot. “You take that for granted here.” When his service was near completion, a colleague told Theriot that Robert “Sarge” Shriver, the Peace Corp’s first director, wanted a word with Theriot in Washington. “I had to travel to D.C. to see him,” said Theriot. “Sarge said it was serious.” Shriver informed Theriot, then 23, that he wanted him to return to Africa as the associate Peace Corps director in Niger.
When Jackie Theriot left his family farm in Catahoula 46 years ago to join the Peace Corps in Togo, he had one naive hope in mind — to embark on a worldly adventure
What he did for country
BY HEATHER MILLER
THE DAILY IBERIAN
Published/Last Modified on Monday, August 25, 2008 2:12 PM CDT
When Jackie Theriot left his family farm in Catahoula 46 years ago to join the Peace Corps, he had one naive hope in mind — to embark on a worldly adventure.
“I went on a whim,” Theriot said. “I heard Kennedy’s famous statement: ‘Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.’ “After hearing him (Kennedy) talk about it, I was interested.”
Theriot began his Peace Corps training immediately after graduating from the University of Southwestern Louisiana (now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette) in 1962, making him one of the first 300 people to ever serve.
Former President John F. Kennedy began the organization by urging college students to help developing countries. It was officially established March 1, 1961, but Theriot said it was not authorized by the United States Congress until September 1961.
“During the training, there were always three or four shrinks interviewing me,” he said. “Until they realized I was a Cajun from South Louisiana that wasn’t a racist, they never left me alone.”
The Peace Corp’s mission includes three goals: helping the people in interested countries with trained men and women, helping to promote a better understanding of Americans through those served and helping Americans better understand “other peoples” through serving, according to its Web site.
Since its beginning, the Peace Corps has seen 190,000 volunteers serve in 139 countries worldwide.
“I think for the first three years of the Peace Corps, people learned more than they taught,” said Theriot. “They wanted to get people out there, but that generation of volunteers didn’t really know anything.”
There are currently 8,079 Peace Corps volunteers serving in 68 countries and teaching a variety of things including health and HIV/AIDS awareness, business development, environment and agriculture, according to its Web site.
Laura Lartigue, a spokesperson for the Peace Corps, said the organization has added to the number of services provided worldwide, but the mission of the Peace Corps has not changed since its beginning.
“The work that Peace Corps volunteers currently do has been adapted to the present-day needs of the countries we work in,” said Lartigue. “But the mission of promiting world peace and friendship has remained the same.”
While in training, Theriot was told his job would be teaching English as a foreign language, but Theriot had other things in mind.
“I told them, ‘You’ve got to be joking,’” he said. “My second language is English. I didn’t want to teach starving people how to speak English. I wanted to help in agriculture.”
When he arrived in Africa, Theriot soon realized his living environment there, with no electricity and muddy rivers full of catfish, was not too far-fetched from the farm he had just left in Catahoula.
“I didn’t even wear shoes until I was in the fifth grade,” he said.
He spent his first two years with the Peace Corps in Togo, breeding and raising tilapia. He also taught people there how to make light-weight boats and fish for other breeds with gill nets, a practice he was accustomed to from home.
“People there needed the protein,” said Theriot. “You take that for granted here.”
When his service was near completion, a colleague told Theriot that Robert “Sarge” Shriver, the Peace Corp’s first director, wanted a word with Theriot in Washington.
“I had to travel to D.C. to see him,” said Theriot. “Sarge said it was serious.”
Shriver informed Theriot, then 23, that he wanted him to return to Africa as the associate Peace Corps director in Niger.
Theriot accepted the position, but after six months in Niger as the associate director, Theriot’s mission was halted when he unknowingly contracted schistosomiasis, a parasitical disease that attacks the liver and colon.
Theriot was rushed back to the United States for three months of harsh treatments, signifying the end of his tour with the Peace Corps.
“Now they give you two pills, and it’s over,” he said. “Go figure.”
Theriot’s two-and-a-half years with the Peace Corps brought him face-to-face with former Presidents Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, and he also remembers Shriver’s daughter, Maria, as a young girl.
As Theriot remembers his experience 46 years later, he recognizes the Peace Corps service exposed him to much more than the initial adventure.
“It has pretty well guided my life,” said Theriot, who resides in Catahoula. “And not just my life, but my business and the way I raised my family.”
His experience also pushed him to become fearless in his political views and allowed him to lobby for issues he believes in, he said.
“After the Peace Corps, I became a person who believes that no one on this planet should go to bed starving,” Theriot said.
Theriot continues to work as a consultant with developing countries. Since the Peace Corps, he has traveled back to Africa and other places around the world, and is currently creating a program in Haiti to train youth leaders on preserving natural resources.
On a local level, Theriot is, among other things, the retired general manager of the St. Martin Sugarcane Co-Op, president of the American Sugarcane League and secretary of the Louisiana Farm Bureau.
Theriot said despite the bureaucracy that sometimes hinders the Peace Corps, he sees its progression each year.
“I think the Peace Corps has matured,” he said. “Bureaucrats understand that we want to keep Kennedy’s promise.”
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