The University of Wisconsin Peace Corps. brought together returned volunteers to tell stories of their experiences in distant lands and different cultures at their Fourth Annual Story Slam Wednesday.
Volunteers were tasked with telling stories under the unifying theme of “Do the Unexpected,” or times volunteers were in a new environment and did something out of the ordinary. All volunteers lived in Madison and most went to UW, which has the highest number of Peace Corps. volunteers of any university, according to an article released by UW.
The Peace Corps. have three goals. The first is the primary project of the volunteers, which can range from community economic development and education to health and agriculture.
The second goal is to impart the U.S. experience to host communities.
The Story Slam was part of fulfilling the third goal, which is “to promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans,” according to the Peace Corps.
At the event, Peace Corps. volunteers shared unique experiences from all across the world.
Laura Jessee, a graduate student and teacher’s assistant in the Agro-Ecology Masters Program at UW, told a story of attempting to burn off the “Africa 15” — the 15 pounds a person gains when subsisting off the carb-rich and low protein diet of Africa — by training for a half-marathon.
After an attempted robbery by a machete-welding man during one of her runs through the dirt roads of rural Ghana, her three host brothers began training alongside her. Other locals lined outside and cheered as she passed.
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In Togo, Africa, Kevin Gries, a graduate student in Applied Economics at UW, was lonely stationed at the foot of a picturesque mountain when he made friends with a random passing motorist.
The woman was acting in a government-produced film and called Gries one afternoon.
“We’re still looking for a villain,” she said.
Soon after, Gries said he was on a Togolese set, acting as an evil French mineral extractor.
Desperate to integrate with the Tanzanian community, Peace Corps. volunteer Christopher Langguth, traveled to the Kijueni in an attempt to integrate with his community.
Alcoholism was rampant in Tanzania, and the Kijueni, a village center in Swahili, was where the addicts congregated, Langguth said. By the end of the night, he was dancing with a 90 year old kibogoyo, or toothless person, happy to have made a friend.
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Jeffrey Golden, a teacher, medical interpreter and filmmaker, returned from Colombia a changed man. When Golden explained to a fascinated Colombian man he was Jewish but not Arab, the man replied, “You’re all Turks.”
Golden said this comment left him enamored that he was living in a country where he was exactly the same as an Arab.
In a different culture, Golden was able to see anew his Jewish heritage and brotherhood with Arabs. In Syria, Turkey and Israel, tensions grew violent between the two groups. When both Arabs and Jews from these countries emigrated to Colombia, they were seen as one by the Colombians.
“It changed the way I viewed the world forever,” he said.
