Helping hands

Mountain Brook High School graduate Ford Boozer, now 28 years old, first heard about the Peace Corp in middle school when his best friend’s brother was serving in Peru.

“I remember it kind of being a fringe thing to do, especially at the time,” Boozer said. “I talked to him after he got back a number of years later, and he said it really changed his life. It stuck with me.”

That first exposure, he said, always inspired him. He said joining the Peace Corps was a goal for several years.

As of February 2018, Boozer is a fourth of the way through his own Peace Corps commitment, forming his own experiences to share.

The Peace Corps, according to its website, strives to make a hands-on difference in communities across the world through sending volunteers to work to improve community aspects in areas including agriculture, environment, health, education, youth and community economic development. Since it was first founded on March 1, 1961, the Peace Corps has sent people to more than 140 countries for two-year commitments.

Boozer lives in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, a small Caribbean country, where he teaches reading and writing comprehension to children in third through fifth grades. 

“The one thing I would definitely say is it is harder than you think it will be, with the level of difficulty in dealing with things that are so totally new,” he said. “We have a lot of people from our group that have just dropped out and left. I think it can happen when your intentions aren’t really aligned with giving yourself over for two years.”

After graduating from MBHS, Boozer took time off and traveled, later graduated from Texas Tech and then moved to Montana. By that point, he said he was ready to take a big step in life. 

“When I was in college, I was sort of looking for purpose in my own life, so I set up a bucket list of things that I insisted on doing, and one of those things were join the Peace Corps,” he said.

By the time he was in his mid-20s, Boozer said knew he had to take advantage of the window of opportunity to join the Peace Corps before more responsibilities piled up in his life. So, he applied.

“I have always been interested in giving time; it makes me feel good,” Boozer said. 

When he lived in Mountain Brook, he volunteered with Studio By The Tracks, a specialized studio and gallery in Irondale that hosts art classes for people with Autism Spectrum Disorder and emotionally conflicted children.

Though that volunteering experience was different from his experience so far in the Peace Corps, Boozer said it was a starting point for his interest in making a positive impact in others.

Plus, Boozer said, he had a cast of family and friends support his decision to head across the globe.

“My parents were excited and also sort of parental and nervous about the whole thing. [We knew in] the Peace Corp, people go into some pretty tough environments, rough around the edges,” he said.

HOW HE GOT THERE

The Peace Corps application requires potential candidates to choose three countries in which they would prefer to serve. Boozer chose Ghana, which he had visited before, as well as the Philippians and the Eastern Caribbean, which he said he chose based on the idea that there would be beaches. 

“I think the word ‘Caribbean’ was the big draw there,” he laughed. “While that’s certainly a part of it here, it has not really been a big part of my experience.”

Boozer was assigned the Eastern Caribbean and boarded a plan to St. Lucia on May 28, 2017. At his destination, he would undergo three months of intensive education program training in St. Lucia. Unfortunately, Boozer fractured his leg during the training, and had to go back to the U.S. for four months to be treated. 

“When I flew back down to [the Eastern Caribbean], I jumped right in,” Boozer said. “I did have a little bit of time to settle into my community, which is one of the most important parts of Peace Corps — I mean, it’s probably as important as your role.”

In the village where he was serving, he said he sees a lot of suffering, poverty and disrepair, unlike anything he has experienced. Integrating into the community can be time-consuming and sometimes difficult, he said, especially as the only American serving in the community at the time.

“So one of the most important parts is walking around the community, getting the feel, getting to know names, things about the culture, the community and where you can plug yourself in. That’s half the battle,” Boozer said.

It can also be lonely being so new to the community, he said, and it takes over half a day for him to get anywhere outside of the village where he served, which makes travel and distractions outside of work difficult. 

“It’s not really like the [United] States where when you get off work you have all of these distractions where you can go out with friends, go eat at the café, to the mall,” he said.

Over Christmas break, when he had time off from teaching, he said it was helpful to spend time learning the quirks and day-to-day rituals of the community. 

“When I walk around the community now and people say hello to me, it feels good, it feels like I’m part of something,” he said.

TEACHING THROUGH PEACE CORPS

Although he is technically a teacher and not a tutor in the community, he said after some time trying out teaching methods, he now chooses one-on-one instruction most of the time.

“I’ve got third graders that can read cat, dog and bird, but that’s it. So it’s difficult to do it any other way than in the tutoring format just because these kids are at such different levels,” he said.

Many students in the area run the risk of dropping out if they don’t catch up to their peers, Boozer said.

The biggest challenge for him is engaging the kids in learning in a fun and creative way. In his area, he said, corporal punishment is still used, and the teachers all tend to be very strict. The learning environment is culturally different in that the parents aren’t as involved with their kids’ education as he saw in Mountain Brook, he said, and sometimes they don’t have a safe environment to learn aside from school.

“I’m trying to bring a new energy to these kids in the sense that I’m trying to find creative ways to teach these kids, even for things very simple, like ‘A’ stands for ‘aaa’ and ‘B’ stands for ‘bee,’” Boozer said.

So far, he said he feels like he’s made an impact on the students and has seen them learning from his instructions.  

“I think it’s about just sharing kindness with them and showing them I’m in their corner and that I’m here to help,” he said. The key is being patient and closing the divide between them.

He said a piece of advice to navigating the challenges of the Peace Corps is to be a centered person outside of the job, which for him is practicing music and working on his fictional novel. This keeps him excited on and off the job.

“[You] need to be able to be a self starter and confident and your own person,” he said. Boozer will be in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines until the late summer of 2019.

To learn more about the Peace Corps, go to peacecorps.gov.