By Alex Serratelli ’12, Staff Writer

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Peace Corps volunteer program. Established on March 1, 1961, the Peace Corps was the product of a challenge President Kennedy issued to the students of the University of Michigan. He asked them, “How many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world?”

From March 1961 to the present-day, more than two hundred thousand Americans have served in over one hundred thirty-five nations. The Peace Corps projects range from teaching English to students in Georgia to developing urban agriculture in Senegal. Among the ambitious American citizens who spent time in the Peace Corps are three members of the Newark Academy community: Mr. Erlandson, Mr. Bitler, and Mr. Ball. All three of these teachers answered President Kennedy’s call to service and his declaration to “ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”

Just before Mr. Erlandson joined the Newark Academy Science Department, he worked as a teacher in the Peace Corps. After graduating from college with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry, Mr. Erlandson was still unsure as to which profession to pursue. He had friends who were in the Peace Corps, and after being accepted into graduate school, he decided to forego higher education to volunteer.

Mr. Erlandson was stationed in Kenya from 1980 to 1984. He recalls teaching “everything from algebra to chemistry to physics,” and coaching soccer and softball. Although volunteers usually only serve for two years, he extended his term by a year, and then spent a fourth year as a paid employee of the Peace Corps. Mr. Erlandson recalls the intensive language-training period of his service, where he and other volunteers “learned in huts everyday from 7:00 AM to 1:00 PM.” After one month of such training, Mr. Erlandson could speak Swahili.

As an avid hiker, camper, and overall outdoorsman, Mr. Erlandson describes how it “did not take long to acclimate” to the Kenyan weather. He enjoyed the “camaraderie of others” when working with teachers in the area. On the weekends he traveled to experience the cultures of nearby countries. Mr. Erlandson stresses that in this area, there is seldom access to a doctor. To cope, volunteers carried a book entitled Where There Is No Doctor. The book describes different remedies to injuries or illnesses that may occur in less developed countries. He very much enjoyed his days in Kenya, and recommends the Peace Corps to any interested individual, though he notes that “it is not for everyone.”

Similarly, Newark Academy Physics teacher Mr. Bitler went through life-changing experiences in Africa. He volunteered in the small country of Togo from 1980 to 1982. He applied because he “wanted adventure in [his] life” and was “tired of studying.” Quite simply, he hoped “to do something useful and good for the world.” In Togo, Mr. Bitler taught physics, chemistry and math, all in French, to about two hundred high school students. He also lead a group that introduced a health education program in all of the elementary and middle schools in the region. Mr. Bitler remembers how he “was tasked with organizing the whole thing and training all the teachers.” He established programs to prevent malnutrition and to eradicate guinea worm disease in the village in which he was living. In addition to medical work, Mr. Bitler built a primary school in the village. Though he describes this experience as “hard work,” he said it was consistent with the Peace Corps tagline, “the toughest job you’ll ever love.” He did not have the luxuries that many are accustomed to in the Western world; his house was made of mud bricks, and he took bucket showers. The toughest part of the job, for him, was leaving: “[The day I left] was one of the saddest days of my life. I almost stayed.”

Lastly, Newark Academy Humanities teacher Mr. Ball spent the years 1975 to 1977 in Yala, Thailand, where he taught an English class to English majors. Even before his time in the Peace Corps, he taught in an international school in Iran. He “spent hours at the Peace Corps office in Boston researching countries” and found that “Thailand had the highest percentage of volunteers who stayed for the full two years, and requested the most extensions.” Mr. Ball met very few other foreigners while in Thailand, and reflects on how his “best friends were Thai.” In daily life Mr. Ball had to wash clothes by hand, use hole-in-the-ground toilets, and adjust to certain cultural norms. He warns that in Thai culture “you cannot [pat] children on the head.” Mr. Ball also had to bow to the Buddha and take off his shoes when indoors. He never felt homesick. In fact he “felt very much at home there. [Thai culture] is such a beautiful culture […] permeated by Thai values such as mudita.” Mudita, or “sympathetic joy,” is when one finds happiness in the happiness of others. Values such as this one are taught to Thai children from Kindergarten onwards.

Fortunately, Mr. Ball had the opportunity to return to his area of service on a Fulbright Exchange program many years later. “In 2004 there was a seminar in Bangkok for the top [Thai] high school administrators,” he tells us. “I met one of my old students there. He called me ‘teacher Joe’ [and] had become quite an educator.” Mr. Ball feels that “although [he] may have only played a tiny role in [that student’s] life, it was so wonderful to see him after all those years. […] I would go back in a heartbeat,” he says, leaning back in his chair reminiscing. “I could live there now.”

While discussing the Peace Corps with these three volunteers who have now found a place educating us at Newark Academy, I enjoyed observing the delight that such reminiscences brought to their faces. The manner in which they spoke of their respective experiences could encourage anyone to join the Peace Corps.