Mrs. Brown-Waite doesn't have an exact reason for joining the Peace Corps. "It just sounded like a really cool thing to do and I like the name, Peace Corps. What can be better than the Peace Corps? I guess the Love Corps," she joked. "It seemed like a really great thing to do."
'First Comes Love' chronicles Eve Brown-Waite's Peace Corps journey and how she fell in love along the way
Former Staten Island resident pens memoir
by Andrea Boyarsky/Staten Island AWE
Sunday June 28, 2009, 1:00 PM
'First Comes Love' chronicles author's Peace Corps journey and how she fell in love along the way
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Most people say they're willing to go anywhere on Earth for their loved one. But not all of them would actually do it.
Eve Brown-Waite did. After meeting her Peace Corps recruiter -- and later marrying him -- the former Staten Islander traveled to Ecuador, Uganda and Uzbekistan to be with the one she loved.
In her new memoir, "First Comes Love, Then Comes Malaria: How A Peace Corps Poster Boy Won My Heart and A Third-World Adventure Changed My Life" (Broadway Books, $23.95), Mrs. Brown-Waite chronicles her first encounter with John through the end of her stay in Uganda, on her way to Uzbekistan.
"I felt like I had to get this story out," the author said from her home in Deerfield, Mass. "I wanted people to vicariously share the experience of what it was like where I lived."
Mrs. Brown-Waite doesn't have an exact reason for joining the Peace Corps. "It just sounded like a really cool thing to do and I like the name, Peace Corps. What can be better than the Peace Corps? I guess the Love Corps," she joked. "It seemed like a really great thing to do."
But she does know why she fell for John. He embodied the values of the Peace Corps: Altruistic, giving, caring and generous. Plus, she added, "I just sort of had this premonition that I would end up with a guy who was Irish and tall and had a scruffy red beard -- he didn't at the interview, but then [later on] he did."
MEMORABLE MOMENTS
After their interview, she and John dated before she went off to Ecuador to start her Peace Corps experience -- reluctantly -- without him. She spent a year in Santo Domingo, where she helped lost boys find their way back home, a Peter Pan of sorts.
Mrs. Brown-Waite returned home following a traumatic event involving a friend. She and John married and later decided it was time to go abroad again. This time, they headed to Uganda, where John had a job with the humanitarian agency CARE.
Some of her most memorable experiences from their stay included being held hostage at gunpoint in their own home and being pregnant while having malaria and dysentery at the same time.
That's not to say that all her experiences were unpleasant. Although she had to learn to live without iced decaf cappuccinos and talking on the phone, she led a simple life with plenty of time for family and friends. She also learned much from the people she met along the way.
"You can be happy and sad no matter what you have," Mrs. Brown-Waite said. "You can live in the richest country in the world and have everything in the world and be miserable. Or you can be very poor and very happy. It's much more about state of mind than state of what you have or don't have."
'WORLD IS TOO SERIOUS'
Mrs. Brown-Waite, now 46, had been working on her book for about 15 years before it was released in April. While abroad she began piecing together stories, thinking that one day they might be read by others. She hopes readers get a good laugh from her book.
"The world is too serious. We need to have laughter and joy or else we won't have the energy to fix anything," she said, noting, "I was able to find a lot of laughter between malaria and dysentery."
Mrs. Brown-Waite was born in Brooklyn and grew up on Staten Island, living first at the Todt Hill Houses in Castleton Corners. She also lived in several other Island communities, including New Springville and Great Kills, before heading to SUNY Oneonta. She began her writing career as editor of the school newspaper at PS 26, Travis, followed by poetry workshops at the St. George Library. She was also a reporter briefly for the "Crow's Nest" at Port Richmond High School, from which she graduated in 1980.
The author is currently working on a follow-up book about her time in Uzbekistan. And another trip to a third-world country may take place when Mrs. Brown-Waite's children, Sierra, 15, and Jeremiah, 12, are a bit older.
Ten percent of book royalties are being donated to CARE to fight malaria in Africa. For more information on the book and to read the first chapter, visit www.evebrownwaite.com.
