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Baby Boomers urged to consider Peace Corps

Donna Tam
Staff writer
July 28, 2007

While living in Africa, Bob Hager found that his hair color brought him more respect, admiration and pregnant women who would give up bus seats for him.

“People with gray hair are highly regarded,” he said of his experience in Tanzania as a Peace Corps volunteer. Hager, who was 57 years old at the time, remembers having to convince the women to sit back down. He said he had to get used to the way people respected him as an older member of society.

“Then I had to get used to the fact that older people are not treated this way in our country,” he said about coming home.

Hager, now 67, told his story to a room of about 65 Peace Corps hopefuls, most of whom had gray hair. The meeting, held Wednesday night at the Spokane Valley Library, was a special session directed towards Baby Boomers. Hager, who lives in the South Hill, and fellow volunteer, Peggy Green, 61, discussed what they called a life-altering experience. Green, a Diamond Lake resident, was one of five women volunteers who were over 50 years old. She taught English at a school in Jordan.

“Wow,” she said to the room. “I still haven’t come down from those two years I have been there.”

Green, who was 53 at the time, also remembers the respect the locals gave her.

“We felt we had a distinct advantage over some of the young people,” she said. Since Jordan was a Muslim country, the younger American girls were considered harlots for not covering up. Frequently, they would have eggs thrown at them while trying to get into the village. But Jordanians never treated Green in the same manner.

“I think because they respected age and I didn’t threaten them,” she said, adding that she developed a deep bond with the people there.

When Sept. 11 happened, Green’s children wanted her to come home. But she refused.

“I’m safer (in Jordan)…because I was family as far as they were concerned,” Green told her children. “I wasn’t Muslim, I wasn’t Arab, but I was family.”

Both Green and Hager are still in contact with people from their volunteer sites. Green has even paid for the college education of some of the children.

They said their perceptions of the world have completely changed.

“I just had a viewpoint from National Geographic, with images of people jumping around drinking cow’s blood,” Hager said.

The Peace Corps has found that 5 percent of their volunteers are over 50, with the oldest being 84, said Catherine Swanson, a regional recruiter for the Peace Corps and a former volunteer.

Swanson said the aim of the Baby Boomer-centric meeting was to encourage more of them to join by sharing the experience of other older volunteers.

Lily Essex, 60, came to the meeting to find out what the speaker’s motivation was to become a volunteer. Although she has been to several Peace Corps meetings, they were usually filled with young people.

“They were ready to go at that drop of the hat,” she said, adding that this meeting addressed very different concerns, such as receiving health care and medication, keeping in contact with families, or leaving in case of family emergencies. She found the issues much more relevant to her age group.

Nancy and Bob Crotty, both 61, also found the issues discussed very relevant. Both retired, with their children all grown, they are ready for a change. Nancy Crotty said the meeting helped to quell many of her concerns.

The application process for volunteers can take from nine to 12 months to complete. Although the process for a couple takes a few months longer, the two are not deterred.

“We’ve sort of been fat and happy for lots of years,” said Bob Crotty. “It’s time to stop and rock the boat a bit.”

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