Life called ...

and Nancy O'connell went ... to Suriname with the Peace Corps By Debbie Gardner PRIME Editor "I wanted to do more with my life." So said life-long volunteer and former Holyoke native Nancy (Cadigan) O'Connell about her decision to join the Peace Corps in 2002. She was 68 at the time, widowed for nearly five years and comfortably settled in her adopted home of Whispering Springs, North Carolina. "I had great friends, I lived near a golf course, and worked part time for the local newspaper," she told PRIME during a telephone interview about her experiences from her North Carolina home. "But, it's a couple's world..." she added. Why the Peace Corps? A 1952 graduate of Holyoke High School, O'Connell was no stranger to volunteering. She'd served as a member of the Junior League of Holyoke, and was active in her church during the 30 years she and her husband, Stan, lived in South Hadley raising their five children. (Her son, Tim, still lives in town). During election years, O'Connell said she'd find a candidate to support and help out with their campaign. "It was just a lot of normal things. I never looked at [my volunteer work] as exceptional," she said. But after a few years of being on her own in Whispering Pines following Stan's death, she was ready to start a new chapter in her life and the Peace Corps seemed to have just the right opportunity. "My daughter, Ann, had served [with the Peace Corps] in Tanzania in the 1980s," O'Connell said in response to PRIME's query about her choice to volunteer for the organization. "I knew about the Peace Corps, that the government takes good care of you, that they know where you are all the time and there's medical attention." She knew her age wouldn't be factor. "There's no age limit, as long as you are healthy and pass all of their exams," she said. In fact, while she was serving there was a woman of 82 who was also working for the Peace Corps. "And, I knew they wouldn't be sending me into the hinterland," she added. Joining Up "It was 10 months start to finish," O'Connell said of the time table that took her from Whispering Pines to her post working for the Stg. Mamio Namen Project in Paramaribo, the capital city of Suriname. She applied online, then was fingerprinted, underwent an FBI background check, and collected three letters of recommendation. She also "had to write some essays about why I wanted to join the Peace Corps," and made two trips to the University of North Carolina at Chappel Hill to interview in person with a Peace Corps recruiter. She was on track to join two other seniors and six younger volunteers in a training class affectionally referred to as the "Suriname 9." Indoctrination "Once we were accepted we were gathered and met in Miami [for] three days of indoctrination," O'Connell said. From there the group went to Suriname for seven weeks of training before assuming their two-year posts. "It should have been 12 weeks, but the government had budget cuts," O'Connell said. O'Connell said she took classes on language Dutch is the primary language of Suriname and spent time learning about the different cultures of the country: the Amaroons, the Ameridans and the Javanese. The training also included instruction on how to navigate day-to-day needs "how to ride the bus, order a taxi, a little about the food," history lectures by a professor from the University of Suriname, and an overview of the country's government from a member of the General Assembly. "There was also instruction on how to build latrines if you were going out into the hinterlands," she added. Living in-country After the training period, O'Connell said she was assigned to live for a month with a woman named Gemmy Pawiro-Oelomo and her family to deepen her understanding of the country and its culture. She said Pawiro-Oelomo's family treated her like a visiting relative, showing her the sights of the country and including her in family picnics on Sundays. In fact, she still corresponds with the family regularly via e-mail. "It was a wonderful experience," O'Connell recalled. "You learned most especially about the food, and how they went about getting it." She said that the women of Suriname would get up at 5 a.m. to start their daily cooking. "It's terribly hot [in Suriname] and that food would last all day ... they never cooked again. The food was very basic," she said. On assignment When it came to her in-country assignment, O'Connell said she and the two other seniors in her group, Gay Pfister and George Gragg, were part of an experiment. "They were trying something new in Suriname; they had never assigned people to the capitol city [before]," O'Connell said. She was assigned to work in the offices of mthe Stg. Mamio Namen Project. Pfister went to work for a women's health clinic. Gragg, a retired engineer, put his career talents to work for the University. "They did all the educational work for AIDS in schools and in clinics [in the capitol city]', O'Connell said of her work with Stg. Mamio. "Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we went out and did the educational work. Tuesdays and Thursdays we did home visits." A career pharmacist, O'Connell said she didn't participate in the agency's counseling work because "I didn't speak the language that well." "I could make my way get on the bus and things but I couldn't initiate a conversation," she said. "Most everyone in Suriname speaks English, but I was at a disadvantage. I found Dutch very difficult to learn." The challenges The language barrier was frustrating. But O'Connell said that wasn't the most difficult thing she encountered during her two-year tour with the Peace Corps. "The hardest part was living with HIV (AIDS) every day, " O'Connell told PRIME. "The people in my agency were HIV positive not full-blown, and they took very good care of themselves." "In the two years that I was there, two of the people I worked with died of AIDS," she said frankly. And though much of her agency work involved positive things taking press releases about upcoming events to the local papers, writing grants to help her agency get a new computer and laser pointer for presentations, and even helping the agency obtain funding for a car to expand the reach of their work the human toll exacted by AIDS was still everpresent. An avid amateur photographer, she also took photos of her work, both for the agency, and for herself. "Working with HIV/AIDS is sad," she admitted. "You visit people in the hospital, or go on a home visit ... the hardest thing for me [in these situations] was to see the suffering from the disease." The hardest was seeing the orphanages. "There were children whose parents had died of AIDS ... they were HIV positive, and no one would take them," she said. The joys "What helped make it capable to cope with AIDS [every day] ... I came home to a wonderful home and good friends," O'Connell said. "The stories were endless ... some of them were quite funny, and it lightened the day." She explained that, shortly after receiving their agency assignments she, Pfister and Gragg the three senior members of the "Surinamese 9" had decided to pool their $175 American/month living expense money and rent a duplex. "We lived on a very nice street a paved street in a nice neighborhood," she said. And day-to-day living was convenient. She said there was a Winkle store within a block of their home and they could "run up and get whatever we needed" there. "You could find everything you ever wanted [at Winkle] ... milk and bread and sugar ... not a variety ... but everything, even pots and pans and towels. But once again, just the very basics," she said. There was one American-style market in the city, but, with a meager $175 American/month for food and transportation expenses "it was so far out of our price range with our Peace Corps salaries." That market, she also noted, was run by Chinese people. So they found "a thousand ways to cook chicken, and noodles, and spaghetti ... things like that," and enjoyed the camaraderie of their work and their shared Peace Corps experience. And there were other unexpected pleasures that helped balance the sadness of AIDS work, such as the opportunity to collaborate with a Surinamese journalist on a documentary about a woman who was dying of AIDS. "She used some of my photos, and I got into the TV studio," O'Connell said. The journalist also took her out to dinner, a treat in a city where most small restaurants were basically take-out stands, and table service was reserved for "pricey restaurants." The second-in-command at the U.S Embassy in Suriname also extended to O'Connell and her house-mates many courtesies. "She invited us to dinner, and if she was off doing things, she would invite us in her car," O'Connell said. Then, there were the dog-sittings for Surinamese people she met at church, and through her agency. "We dog-sat for some people who had lovely homes," O'Connell said. "We'd spend a day or two in these homes that had everything ... out of our apartments that didn't have hot water." O'Connell said it didn't happen very often, but "when it did, we were tickled to go!" And there was the U. S. Ambassador's annual July 4th picnic and Thanksgiving dinner. "There were 52 Peace corps volunteers in the country, and she never missed [these holidays]. We were all invited to her home," O'Connell said. "[The Ambassador] was very appreciative of the Peace Corps and what we did. I think she was proud we were serving our country," she added. Adopting Matty Besides memories, many, many photos and some new friends, O'Connell also came back from Suriname with an addition to her family a cat named Matty. She referred to the introduction of Matty to her life as "the rat incident." Though O'Connell said she lived in a nice neighborhood, Suriname is still a third-world country, and the city had a pest problem. "On one occasion, a rat climbed up to the second floor and came into our kitchen," she said. "On the second instance, one came into our living room." "[Gay and I] screamed so loudly, I think the rat died of a heart attack," she recalled. After the second instance, the three housemates decided it was time to get a cat. "She was no bigger than a pencil [when we brought her home]," O'Connell said. "But after we got her, we had no problems with rats or cockroaches." The trio named their new defender Matty after the youngest member of their Peace Corps group, "a 21-year-old young man who turned out to be a star who was named Matt," O'Connell said. "I brought her home," O'Connell said. "She had to have an immigration card and all her shots and papers." "There was no quarantine, just an awful lot of paperwork," she observed. Observations, reflections, lessons learned One of the biggest cultural differences O'Connell said she noticed during her time in Suriname was the protective manner in which older people were treated. "If you are older [in Suriname] you are looked upon differently. If you had a problem, [people] were right there to help you," she said. "Even the taxi driver at night he would wait for us to get inside our house." As far as what she learned about herself it was a version of that old adage - wherever you go, there you are. "No matter where you move to, you bring who you are with you," O'Connell told PRIME. "I found that in Suriname,even though it was a different country and different language, it doesn't seem to change." And now that she's back in North Carolina, she's got plenty of work ahead of her. She's back to writing her golf colum for the local paper. "I took my 30 days leave from the Peace Corps [last summer] and came up to volunteer at the U. S. Women's Open at the Orchards [Golf Course in South Hadley]. My newspaper sent me my credentials and I was not only a volunteer, but also able to be in the press tent," she said. She's keeping in touch with Gregg, who stayed in Suriname to take a job in the private sector, and Pfister, who recently spent a week with her as she was on her way to visit family in Texas. She's also keeping up with her host family, Gemmy Pawiro-Oelomo and her children, via e-mail. "[Suriname] is quite advanced in that regard," she said. "Every corner of the capital city has a cyber cafe, and it was very resonable." And she's got two years of Peace Corps memories to organize. "I've taken [between] 800 and 900 digital photos ... I filled a couple of jump drives," she said. "That's my project for the winter, to get them into a better order."