Our daugher, Elena, grew up (mostly) on a hobby farm in the rural Town of Pierce, Wisconsin. Pierce stretches along the Lake Michigan lakeshore north of the City of Kewaunee and south of the City of Algoma.
She homeschooled, took care of goats, played the Highland Bagpipes in the Clan Gathering Pipe & Drum Band from the age of 11 up through her teens. Eventually, she went off to college, first studying at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and then at UW-Madison.
In college she studied political science and history, and took lots of French classes. While in Madison pursuing her bachelors degree, Elena lived at the International Cooperative House, a home for a couple of dozen people from all over the planet; her jobs at the co-op – where everyone works – included Membership Coordinator and Cook (her favorite job). Summers during her college years she worked as a Visitor Services Assistant at Peninsula State Park, Fish Creek, Door County; she lived in staff quarters at the park to save money, and worked 2nd jobs.
Elena spent most of her junior year studying at the Université de St Louis in the West African country of Senegal. In 2006, she graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with B.A. degree in Political Science from UW-Madison – with distinction in her major – and a concentration in African Studies.
Then, in the fall of 2007, Elena began a 2-year assignment with the Peace Corps in Cameroon, a country in central-west Africa. You can learn more about the the Peace Corps here: http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=Learn.whatispc
After 8 weeks of technical and language training, she began her service as a Peace Corps volunteer in the rural village of Ngan-Ha, located in north-central Cameroon. To reach Ngan-Ha from Cameroon’s capital city of Yaounde, you take a 14-hour overnight train ride to the provincial capital of Ngaoundéré, followed a 5 – 8 hour ride by bush taxi.
Much of her work involves orchard and garden projects located within a 5-mile radius of the village. On these projects, and the granary project as well, she works closely with a local Cameroonian Counterpart named Saidoo, a community-minded farmer, taxi driver (actually motorbike or “moto” driver), and medical supply retailer. Saidoo speaks fluent French, Ndi, Mboum and Fulfulde.
The village had applied to the Peace Corps for a volunteer to teach English at the local high school. When the Peace Corps wasn’t able to provide a teacher, Elena stepped up and taught English one day a week for the 2008-09 school year. This fall she’s teaching English two days a week.
Elena in front of her Test Plot in Ngan-Ha.
