Looking Back Over 25 Years : Peace Corps’ Volunteers Value Their Experiences

It was 10 years ago this month that Greg Krause left his comfortable, middle-class life style for the campos of Paraguay.

Newly armed with a degree in financing and accounting, Krause forfeited not only the prospect of a traditional job in Southern California but such things as hot water in the winter and cold water in the summer. The locally harvested root mandioca became a major staple of his diet, and candlelight became the norm at night.

Krause, now 29 and living in Irvine, is one of many Orange County residents who served in the Peace Corps, which today concludes a yearlong celebration commemorating its 25th anniversary.

Margo L. Allen, 41, of Mission Viejo was 25 when she joined the Peace Corps in 1971 to start a school for deaf children. She arrived in Kingston, Jamaica, and was handed a list of 4,000 children, which she had to narrow to 15. She then set out to knock on doors and ask for donations for the school.

Readjusting to Home

Before she left, she trained others to take over the school that she had begun.

Life in Jamaica was drastically different than in California, but returning was a bigger culture shock.

“The toughest part was coming home--readjusting to affluent America,” Allen said.

A few weeks after her return, Allen and her neighbors were informed the water would be cut off for about an hour because of a problem with water pipes. Allen said she did not think much of it. But her neighbors went into a frenzy, filling bathtubs, glasses and sinks. Their reaction amused her. In Jamaica, “We had gone through a drought and had no water except for an hour each day for six weeks,” she said.

Allen said she would not hesitate to repeat her two-year stint with the Peace Corps. Neither would Krause, who taught Paraguayan cooperatives basic accounting and developed an auditing system for them.

Interaction With People

“I probably took more from them than I gave to them,” Krause said. He learned a new language and a new culture. But most important, he said, was the interaction with people “on a very personal level.”

Allen, who was a speech pathologist for 17 years until she switched careers last year, said her experience gave her “much, much greater insight into myself as a person and as to my skills and capabilities as a teacher and an educator.”

Peace Corps volunteers’ interests are as varied as their backgrounds and ages and skills. And they may have various reasons for joining, but all have at least one common motivation: “to help people,” said Rick Mead, Southern California area manager for the Peace Corps.

Reasons for joining the Peace Corps have not changed much in the past 25 years. But there have been some changes: For one, the volunteers are getting older. In 1962, the average age of volunteers was 22. Today, it is 30.

The Peace Corps today also is “a lot smarter and a lot smoother. There was a lot of experimentation 25 years ago. Nobody had ever formed this kind of program before,” Mead said.

Washington Celebration

From 750 volunteers in 1961, the Peace Corps has since sent more than 120,000 volunteers to 94 countries. Today, between 5,600 and 6,000 volunteers work around the world. Many returnees met in Washington this weekend for a celebration that included an address by Philippine President Corazon Aquino on Friday.

Irvine resident Gregory F. Mathes, now 29, left for the Philippines in 1982 to help set up bookkeeping and distribution systems for women’s weaving cooperatives. When he announced his plans, the reaction from family and friends was mixed. Some thought it was “great,” he said. Others could not understand why Mathes would spend two years in an underdeveloped nation when “you could be here settling in life and growing in your career and getting all the material goods that you want,” he said.

Krause had a similar experience, and sometimes, he said, he too wondered why he joined the Peace Corps. “There are definitely times when you are down there and you wonder what you are doing.”

The Peace Corps is not glamorous, Krause said. Oxen pulling farm equipment was a common sight. And Paraguayan buses were not comfortable for his 6-foot-2-inch frame.

But his height came in handy when he played for San Lorenzo’s community basketball team. “I was one of the taller ones in the country.”

But the experiences derived from the Peace Corps outweigh any negative aspects, the former volunteers agreed.

Asked what she would recommend to someone considering the Peace Corps, Allen responded: “I’d say go for it, kid. Absolutely. It’s the greatest experience that anyone can ever have.”