Editor’s note: This is the first installment in a 2-part series on the Peace Corps. Next week: Ryan LaPrairie, a 2002 Brandon High School graduate, is currently serving in Ghana, Africa.
Renee Witherup knew three things about El Salvador prior to traveling there to live as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1965: It was small; it had a volcano (Izalco) known as the Lighthouse of the Pacific; and trees known as Balsam of Peru only grew there.
By the time she left in 1967, she had learned a great deal more, including one all important lesson? people are people no matter where they live.
‘People are alike all over the world,? says Witherup, now a 66-year-old mother of eight who has been married to husband John for 35 years. ‘People have the same humor and family is important.?
Witherup, an American student at the University of Toronto in the early 60s, was majoring in sociology when she agreed to take a Peace Corps test. The organization that was officially established in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy to promote world peace and friendship had said they would only offer it at the university if 100 Americans signed up for the test.
Witherup had no plans to actually join the Peace Corps. After receiving her bachelor’s degree in 1964, she planned to attend graduate school at the University of Michigan. But when the Peace Corps called and said she passed the test, she was interested. They needed her in El Salvador. She had limited knowledge of the country, but she signed up and was sent to Tucson, Ariz. first for training, to what she describes as a rustic setting at a Boy Scout camp. Later, she went to Philadelphia for a week and had dental and medical exams and began learning Spanish.
Her experience was different than what current Peace Corps volunteers go through.
‘In the 60s, the Peace Corps was a brand new concept,? says Christine Torres, public affairs specialist for the Peace Corps, Chicago regional office. ‘There were not the kinds of guidelines and policies in place that there are now. It has evolved over the years.?
In 1965-66, about 15,000 Peace Corps volunteers served in about 44 underdeveloped countries, offering basic programs like education, health and agriculture. Today, about 8,000 Peace Corps volunteers serve in about 74 countries and programs have expanded to include HIV/AIDS education, business development, technology, and urban planning. Three months of training is done in country to acclimate volunteers to the culture and language.
Witherup had additional training in Puerto Rico before heading to La Majada, a mountain town of about 1,000 people in El Salvador. She arrived about a week after an earthquake had hit the country and recalls vendors setting up shop around a 3-foot chasm at an outdoor market.
Witherup had seen poverty in her childhood and would now see more. Most people in the area she was in had one light bulb in their homes, dirt floors and no water. Witherup rented a 1-room cement-block house with a tile floor and corrugated steel roof for $12 per month. She had a spigot for water off the back of the house and used a hot plate to heat water for laundry and dishes.
She received a stipend of $100 per month from the Peace Corps to live on. She paid a neighbor 2 cents a day to take a shower, usually in the afternoon because the water was warmer then. From the same neighbor, she paid 10 cents for a liter of milk from their cow every other day. Witherup bought a small refrigerator, her one luxury.
Witherup was the only Peace Corps volunteer in the town and although she rose at 6:30 a.m. every day, her days varied? her work as a volunteer in rural community development included teaching home economics, health and agriculture. She taught the villagers to use eggs rather than tortillas for a more filling meal, how to mix certain leaves for a harder floor.
‘The first year you have a headache because you may know Spanish, but they don’t always use the word you learned,? Witherup said. ‘They speak faster than you comprehend. This community didn’t speak the king’s Spanish.?
But Witherup found she really liked the people, most of whom worked on coffee farms. She helped them form a coffee cooperative and also helped build a junior high school, library and clinic, all in one building.
She used materials from a store in the capital city to make dresses and dolls for the girls, who she recalled did nothing but work.
Many of the schools had no books or materials. Some children would spend four to five years in first grade. Students at the junior high level ranged in age from 11 to 28-years-old.
‘They wanted someone to pay attention to them,? recalls Witherup of the students. ‘They needed someone to put in their heads that they could make a difference.?
Students wanting to attend high school had to go to another town, but some parents were reluctant to let their girls go, fearing they would get pregnant.
After Witherup returned to the U.S., she paid tuition, $30 per month, for one of her former students to attend high school.
Ten years after she left, another of her former students, a secretary at Sherman-Williams, was shot and killed by guerillas. The student’s husband, a professor, was also killed, orphaning their four children.
Witherup has not returned to El Salvador in 31 years, but has never forgotten the lessons learned, including the ability to live simply.
‘You don’t need all kinds of things,? she says. ‘Most of those people could put all their belongings in two bags and were just as happy as we are. They don’t need a lot of stuff. They could improve on health, but they were just as happy.?
She has passed the lessons on to her children.
‘I tell them, ‘It’s a big world out there, go see it.??