Courtesy photo
Adam Sherman is currently helping the people of Niono in Africa. Mariel Hanna is training local teachers and setting up a resource center in the city of Ghobabis.

February is Peace Corps Month.

Woodinville can be proud of a community that has produced three young people concerned enough about world service to leave the comforts and affluence of home to serve in the Peace Corps in Africa.

Sarah Brown is a 2000 graduate of Woodinville High School and a 2005 graduate of Western Washington University.

Her love of travel and adventure began as a junior in high school when she traveled to France and Spain with her French class and teacher, Mr. Zahajko.

She returned to France, Spain and England a year later after graduation, and also spent her junior year in college studying abroad in Newcastle, Australia.

Sarah’s college degree in biology/ pre-physical therapy with a minor in French has prepared her for her position as a health extension agent in Niono. Mali, in northwest Africa where French is a second language to the native tongue of Bambara.

She counsels mothers on hygienic baby care, teaches school children basic hygiene, has assisted in several births and does AIDS prevention counseling.

Adam Sherman, a 1999 graduate of Woodinville High School, and 2004 graduate of Western Washington University was sworn in as a Peace Corps volunteer on November 23, 2005, in Africa.

He is currently serving in Niono, using his degree in international business to support his work as a micro-finance officer.

He is working with international finance agencies whose aim it is to give high-risk loans to the disadvantaged. He is also working on a sanitation project in conjunction with the international organization, Alphalog, trying to help the people of Niono find workable solutions to the intense pollution and waste management problems faced by the fourth poorest nation in the world.

Adam has traveled widely, visiting Thailand at the age of eight, living in Germany for a student exchange during the last half of his junior year of high school, and returning several times to Europe to travel in Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, and Austria.

A third Peace Corps Volunteer with ties to Woodinville is Mariel Hanna.

A 2000 graduate of Seattle’s Garfield High School, a 2005 graduate of Western Washington University, and a substitute teacher with the Northshore School District.

Mariel took her oath of office in Windhoek, Namibia, in southern Africa on December 24, 2005, and is working as a teacher resource officer in the city of Ghobabis training local teachers and beginning to set up an educators’ library/resource center.

Adam and Mariel met at Western, where they realized they shared a passion for travel and the desire to make a difference in their world.

They made the decision to join the Peace Corps as Mariel was getting set to graduate from Western last June.

Mariel writes, “There is nothing like driving through the African countryside and listening to U2 (with a woman and her whole boiled goat sitting beside me!).”

Life in Africa is not easy. The Peace Corps volunteers live with few comforts.

Sarah is living in a small hut with no electricity, water, or indoor toilet. Adam has sporadic electricity and no indoor plumbing. Mariel, too, has sporadic electricity and an outdoor toilet.

The food consists mostly of rice and sauce and is not always clean. Most of the Peace Corps Volunteers have suffered from dysentery and various viral and bacterial infections.

Transportation is usually a bicycle. Despite the hardships, these young people are determined to make a difference. Their families and friends are very proud of them.

All will complete their service in December 2007 and plan to return home to apply their African experiences in health, finance, and education.