A Calling from Age 10
I first knew to my core that I would one day be a Peace Corps volunteer when I was 10 years old in September 1976. I was about to begin 6th grade, watching t.v., and was captivated by a Peace Corps commercial about the ‘toughest job you’ll ever love’. The images were relatable to me as I had just returned from a summer in Peru, where my eyes were opened, and my heart grew with compassion for those in need in ‘faraway’ lands. Certainly, we know that opportunities to serve those in need are in abundance right here in our nation, but I encourage parents, teachers, and others in position to plant seeds in young people’s minds to have them consider a beautiful and amazing goal to be a Peace Corps volunteer one day.
15 Years Later
In September 1991, my own seed planted in that Summer 1976 came to fruition when I did, in fact, begin a 3-month training program. I was then sworn in as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria, West Africa, committing to service in the Guinea Worm Disease Eradication Program.
My role involved two strategies to work towards the eradication of the Guinea Worm Disease:
Health Education about filtering water before consumption and preventing people with a worm exiting their body to enter the community’s pond, and
Using Abate Treatment to remedy the communities’ ponds.
(One community close to where I lived in Awe, Nigeria, had practitioners able to surgically remove the guinea worm, but only if the worm happened to be close to the skin surface. However, this was not a widespread way to manage the disease.)
Eradicating the Guinea Worm disease
In 1988 former President Jimmy Carter signed an agreement with the Nigerian government to assistance in eradicating the Guinea Worm disease. I was amongst the first group of Peace Corps volunteers, in 1991 to 1993, to assist towards that goal.
Guinea Worm was completely eradicated from Nigeria by 2013.
I was even able to go back and visit 30 years later!
Working to Eradicate the Guinea Worm
Here, in Spring 1992, I shared about the health education points relating to the program.
In Fall 1992, my Nigerian ‘dad’, aka primary colleague in the program, and I shared about then actually did the process of abate treatment to a pond.
In Spring 1993, the practitioners in the village of Mahanga demonstrated surgical removal of Guinea Worm.
