Area native finds hope in Peace Corps
By Erin Steigerwalt (?06 Social Work)
Reprinted courtesy of the Ashland Times-Gazette

I have before said that I live for the experiences that change my life, that allow my world to get bigger, and that reassure me that I am alive. What does that mean, exactly? Use your imagination and your interpretation will be as good as mine. I do know, though, that I am in the middle of one of those experiences right now.

About seven months ago, I hopped onto a plane whose destination was the next amazing adventure in this chapter in my life?I had joined the Peace Corps and was leaving for Niger, a country in West Africa, where I will be living for the next two years. I think back to high school and where I wanted to be when I was out of college. I am here, in the poorest country in the world.

A little background of my current ?home.? Niger has the highest estimated birth rate, although more than 25 percent of children die before the age of 5, often from consequences of having a limited knowledge of basic health and hygiene issues. Life expectancy is said to be between 45-50 years.

About 90 percent of the country?s population lives in rural areas and less than half of the population has access to safe water or improved drinking water source. While some people live in cement houses, many live in small mud huts. The majority of the country?s land mass is composed of desert, and the temperature reaches 95 degrees on more days than not, with a short rainy season of an average of 45 days of rain a year.

Niger also has one of the world?s lowest literacy rates, where less than 10 percent of women and one in four men are literate. Boys are needed to help their families farm while girls are needed to help around the house, thus causing millions of unschooled children. Only around one-third of all eligible girls attend school.

This is my life and I am changed because of it.

I am a community and youth education volunteer, which can be described as community development with an emphasis on working with education and schools. I have adopted, or been adopted into, a tiny bush village of around 500 people about 5 kilometers from the village where I live. I am working with the elementary school there. Although there is much to celebrate within the village and the school, there are many needs present there as well.

The school is comprised of two classes, each with 60 students. The first class is for 7 and 8 year olds, the second, for 11 and 12 year olds. The school building itself is a two-room mud brick building with a millet stalk roof. After every rainy season, the villagers have to rebuild the building, as it is always destroyed by the rains.

This past school year started two months late because the building was not finished in time for the start of the school year. Because the village is not able to afford to build more classes and there are only two rooms, children in the village ages 9 and 10 do not come to school. The rooms are empty, except for the children who cover the floor, as there are no desks. They are taught with one small chalk board, and textbooks are another thing that is missing. Currently, I am writing proposals to obtain funding to get a cement school building built and to purchase books. I also am working on health lessons to present to the students and the villages.

Although Nigeriens are among the poorest in the world, having an average income of $200 per year, and living on only 55 cents a day, I often feel that they are the richest people in the world; they have given me so much already, and I know that I will obtain so much more than I ever will be able to give them.

They have willingly allowed me to step into and join their world for awhile, thus causing mine to get bigger. They are teaching me their language. They allow me to join in on their traditions and events. They have taught me the importance of relationships and the necessity of investing in other people?s lives and opening up one?s life to others. The majority of my days consist of simple but highly vital things, such as greeting and visiting neighbors and friends.

They have showed me the importance of taking care of each other. While many people often do not have much food, everyone will always share whatever they have, although that principle is not limited only to food. They don?t have much because there is no need for much, but all they do have is always shared.

A friend has asked me if there is hope for Africa. My answer is yes, there is hope for Africa, because there is hope in Africa. From the first moment that I arrived, I knew it was here. I hear it every day in the laughter of the children; I see it in the eyes of the women; I feel it in the handshakes of the men.

Every evening as the sun is setting, I take a walk around my village, and on every walk, I see something new. I find more beauty in our world, in the nature that has been created for our enjoyment and in the people whose lives are so different, yet so similar to the rest of the world?s. I reflect on this life, often by repeating to myself that ?I am in Africa,? and am reminded how amazing our world is and what a blessing it is to be alive. And then every night, I fall asleep under the pure stars and wake each morning to either women pounding grains for the day?s meals or the animals informing us that another day has begun, and always with the shining light from the sun that will never fail to arouse the earth from its slumber. A new day is born. Here we survive day by day, but we survive.

There is hope. That is why I am here, serving my country while waving the peace sign.

Peace, love and African greetings,
Erin Steigerwalt, PCV/Niger

The Peace Corps was established in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy to promote world peace and friendship. The Peace Corps works in some of the least developed countries and in some of the most remote areas in the world.

Erin Steigerwalt is a 2002 graduate of Ashland High School and 2006 graduate of Mount Vernon Nazarene University.