November 26, 2005: Headlines: COS - Romania: Fellows: LaSalle News Tribune: Romania RPCV Molly Davies in an internship program through the Peace Corps and Western Illinois University
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February 8, 2005: Index: PCOL Exclusive: Illinois :
November 26, 2005: Headlines: COS - Romania: Fellows: LaSalle News Tribune: Romania RPCV Molly Davies in an internship program through the Peace Corps and Western Illinois University
Romania RPCV Molly Davies in an internship program through the Peace Corps and Western Illinois University
Living in Transylsvania was not easy, according to Davies. During the winter, the town looked more like a Russian gulag with gray, drab buildings and ice-covered streets, than the Illinois towns she knew. The people wore gray coats and packs of stray dogs roamed the town. “The town was very depressing,” Davies said. “In the mile I walked to work, I would encounter no less than 17 dogs.”
Romania RPCV Molly Davies in an internship program through the Peace Corps and Western Illinois University
Peace Corps volunteer finds Mendota more pleasant than Transylvania
By Brock Cooper
mndotant@theramp.net
MENDOTA — Economic development intern Molly Davies has traveled the world helping communities thrive, but it’s the small rural cities and towns of Illinois that she likes the best.
“I’m from a small town and I like rural America,” Davies said. “I would like to stick around Illinois for a while, but I’m not done traveling and working overseas.”
Davies splits her time between Sublette and Mendota as part of a internship program through the Peace Corps and Western Illinois University. The goal of her 11-month internship is to develop the individual economic development needs of each community.
Davies’ road to North Central Illinois is a long and winding one. She grew up in the small town of Bluff near Jacksonville. In Bluff, her love of small-town life began.
“It’s a little farming community,” Davies said.
After high school, she went to the University of Missouri and received a degree in parks and recreation. While there, she studied abroad in Thailand and the Czech Republic.
She spent a summer after college with a nonprofit organization in Alaska, working primarily on fundraising, but decided to join the Peace Corps in fall 2001.
“I joined the Peace Corps for a number of reasons,” Davies said.
The Peace Corps placed her in the small Transylvanian town of Fargaras at the base of the Carpathian mountains to work on community development. Davies was anxious and eager, but upon arrival she realized how different Romania is from the United States.
“It is a totally different mindset,” Davies said. “They were just coming out of communism and they didn’t trust anyone.”
To the community, Davies was just an American girl bursting with American ideas ready to change their community. She spent the first six months of her two-year program gaining the trust of the community. She rearranged her ideas so they would be more appealing to the locals.
Living in Transylsvania was not easy, according to Davies. During the winter, the town looked more like a Russian gulag with gray, drab buildings and ice-covered streets, than the Illinois towns she knew.
The people wore gray coats and packs of stray dogs roamed the town.
“The town was very depressing,” Davies said. “In the mile I walked to work, I would encounter no less than 17 dogs.”
Communism had left its mark on Fargaras.
Davies lived in an apartment building where the residents paid the heat and electric bills as a group instead of individually.
So if someone didn’t pay their bill, the heat or electricity for the entire building was shut off.
When this story was posted in November 2005, this was on the front page of PCOL:
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Story Source: LaSalle News Tribune
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Romania; Fellows
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