Maggie also helps out at an after-school program with some of the poorer children in the community. They’re the kind of kids you see in pictures in National Geographic, she said. “We do homework, and we play,” she says. “I remember one day they were playing with a deflated soccer ball. In America, kids would say you can’t play with that, but they loved it. One of the big ideas of Peace Corps is just hanging out with the community. Playing with kids on the street, that’s my job.” Outside of the schools, Maggie also helps out at the health clinic, doing simple things like weighing kids and taking their height. Although she loves what she does, Maggie said this wasn’t the life for everyone. “You have to be someone who’s all about volunteering and giving of yourself,” she said. “A lot of the time, it’s give, give, give, and you may not see the results. It’s a big risk, too. You have to leave your family, and you can’t be worried about money.” But, all things considered, Maggie said, to her, it’s worth it. “It’s a really awesome experience,” she said. “You really learn about the culture and become part of the community.”
Maggie and Gregg Nurrenbern served as Peace Corps Volunteers in Ecuador
Volunteer shares her Peace Corps experience
By Michael Westblade
Wednesday, February 27, 2008 4:19 AM CST
Next week is the 47th anniversary of the Peace Corps, and it’s also Peace Corps week. This holiday and celebration may seem to be one for far-distant lands, but for one former Smithville student, it hits close to home.
According to the Peace Corps’ Web site, the week was created “to support returned Peace Corps volunteers in furthering the Peace Corps’ third goal of promoting a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.”
Maggie Nurrenbern, a Smithville High School graduate, is one of those volunteers.
It all started her senior year at Truman State University, back when she was Maggie Wolcott. She went on a study-abroad trip to Costa Rica for a summer, and when she came back, she said her passion for other cultures really took off.
That year she met her soon-to-be husband, Gregg Nurrenbern, and they started talking about joining the Peace Corps.
Maggie remembers the moment she knew she was going to join. She was staring at a Peace Corps advertisement that read, “Life is calling. How far will you go?”
“I said, ‘Whoa, that’s something to think about,’” she said. “I thought that getting married and getting a job and settling down would be boring.”
Well maybe not getting married. Maggie and Gregg applied to the Peace Corps in May of 2006, and they got married five months later on Oct. 7, 2006.
Maggie said she was running home every day, waiting for a letter to come from the Peace Corps to let them know where they were headed. Then it finally came.
“We ripped it open, and I remember staring at the letter, and it said we’re going to Ecuador,” she said. “I said, ‘Where the heck is Ecuador?’ I had to pull out a map and, duh, it’s on the equator. It’s where I was going to spend the next two years of my life, and I couldn’t even find it on a map.”
In June 2007, Gregg and Maggie headed overseas for three months of training to be community health volunteers in Ecuador. During their training, they brushed up on their Spanish and learned about the hospitals there and the diseases they would have to deal with, like malaria.
On Sept. 1, they arrived in El Choco, their new home until Aug. 31, 2009. The couple’s monthly pay is $250 each, and they get $90 for rent, which goes a long way in Ecuador.
Although Gregg is a nurse, Maggie had never had any medical training before, and she said she was a little hesitant at first.
“I wasn’t too excited about the health part, but now that I’m here, it’s really simple stuff,” she said. “Wash your hands and the foods you should eat.”
Maggie teaches 10, 45-minute health classes every week at the local elementary school and high school. She has about 500 kids to deal with, and she said she was just trying to make their schools more exciting.
“Classes are overcrowded there,” she said. “They literally just copy things, and there’s no thinking for yourself, no thinking outside the box. I’m coming in with different ideas, that school is supposed to be fun, but here it’s boring, and I’m trying to help teachers get a little more interactive. Learning isn’t supposed to be boring.”
Maggie also helps out at an after-school program with some of the poorer children in the community. They’re the kind of kids you see in pictures in National Geographic, she said.
“We do homework, and we play,” she says. “I remember one day they were playing with a deflated soccer ball. In America, kids would say you can’t play with that, but they loved it. One of the big ideas of Peace Corps is just hanging out with the community. Playing with kids on the street, that’s my job.”
Outside of the schools, Maggie also helps out at the health clinic, doing simple things like weighing kids and taking their height.
Although she loves what she does, Maggie said this wasn’t the life for everyone.
“You have to be someone who’s all about volunteering and giving of yourself,” she said. “A lot of the time, it’s give, give, give, and you may not see the results. It’s a big risk, too. You have to leave your family, and you can’t be worried about money.”
But, all things considered, Maggie said, to her, it’s worth it.
“It’s a really awesome experience,” she said. “You really learn about the culture and become part of the community.”
The details:
When living in a developing country, Maggie Nurrenbern said you had to get used to:
- Not putting toilet paper in the toilet, only in the trash;
- Only washing your hands, dishes, etc., in cold water;
- Boiling a big pot of water every morning for your drinking water;
- Only using a gas stove top to cook;
- Hauling the milk pail to the dairy once a week to get milk;
- Not driving;
- Cooking everything from scratch;
- Never drinking water from the faucet;
- Never walking barefoot in the house because of rough wooden floors;
- Always sticking out.
Staff writer Michael Westblade can be reached at 532-4444 or michaelwestblade@npgco.com.
