Peace Corps offers life-changing opportunities

By: Lauren Lucas

Posted: 8/6/07

Texas A&M French professor Nathan Bracher said his main anxiety about leaving the United States for Tunisia was whether or not he could perform successfully. He also said this was the "challenge that made the Peace Corps so attractive."

Bracher, along with two other Texas A&M professors, joined the Peace Corps before beginnning his teaching career.

The Peace Corps was established by an act of Congress in 1961 to promote world peace by helping foreign countries meet their need for trained workers in areas including education, health, technology and the environment. Peace Corps volunteers serve two years, starting with a 10-week language, cross cultural and technology training.

"Training is also a time when you make really close friends with the host family you are living with," said Lee Fitzgerald, a professor of wildlife science at A&M. "These are really important relationships that usually last for a long time. A lot of people start calling them mother, father, brother, sister."

Fitzgerald said applicants give the Peace Corps a broad field of study they want to pursue. "You tell them which jobs you would like to have, but that's no guarantee," he said. "They say this is the job we have for you, you can take it or keep waiting."

"El Salvador wasn't my first choice," Fitzgerald said about the first country he served in as a Peace Corps volunteer. "I was

mostly concerned that I wasn't going to like the country - the physical and cultural aspect of it."

Fitzgerald spent one year in El Salvador, from February 1979 to 1980. In 1980 he had to evacuate because of the Salvadorian Civil War.

"I was real sad about that, I didn't want to go, I had a lot of friends there," he said. "But it probably was a good decision to evacuate."

Fitzgerald said his job consisted of working with park rangers and studying iguanas.

"There were a lot of surprises in El Salvador," he said. "I learned what is really important in life, living in an area that was extremely poor. I really realized what most of the world is living like but how strong their families are."

Robert McCleery, a doctoral student in wildlife and fisheries sciences, said he served as a volunteer in Swaziland from 1994 to 1997.

"I had taken a study abroad in Kenya my junior year in high school," he said. "One night I was eating with my host family and I was going on and on about how beautiful their country is. They said, that's great, now what do you have to offer us?"

"It was then I realized my skills were needed somewhere else," McCleery said.

His job in Swaziland was to be an ecologist in a nature reserve, "by far some of the coolest things I've ever done," McCleery said.

He lived in a mud and stick hut and had $20 to spend each month. When back in the United States, McCleary said, he had trouble adjusting to constant advertising.

"I was not used to being flooded with people wanting you to buy things," he said. "I remember thinking, 'How can people possibly think the President's Day sale is that important?'"

Bracher said when you get to know people from a Third World country, you realize how sophisticated, intelligent and sensitive they are. "You discover everything they have to offer," he said.

"We have a lot to learn," Bracher said. "We tend to assume we are superior."

McCleery, Bracher and Fitzgerald all said their experience in the Peace Corps helped influence their future.

"Tasks don't look as formidable," McCleery said. "Everything looks petty. My experience is something you can bring in the classroom."

Bracher said it taught him the study of language reveals all sorts of things about ideals, politics and the way you greet people in a culture.

"For me, it gave me a passion for language and culture. It made me more critical of my own culture but also more appreciative," he said.

Fitzgerald was transferred from El Salvador to Paraguay, where he finished his service in the Peace Corps. "I learned so much interacting with the scientists," he said. "It's really something that changed my life, I'm still working in Paraguay."

His work in the Peace Corps opens many doors, Fitzgerald said.

"I wouldn't be a professor doing what I'm doing at Texas A&M without the Peace Corps," he said.

All three men said their experiences were life changing.

"When you return, it is virtually impossible to communicate your experience," McCleery said. "A common question is, 'How does it feel to be back in the real world?' Yet your experience is just as real, if not more."