While serving in the Peace Corps thousands of miles away from their Gainesville home, Nate Stewart and Ilana Echevarria-Stewart are grateful to have each other.
The couple eats lunch together every day. They work across the street from each other, so close that she can see his office from her window.
“It’s nice to be able to have somebody that gets it,” Stewart said.
The couple, both University of Florida alumni, sold and stored their belongings, left their jobs and headed to Guyana last year for a two-year stint with the Peace Corps.
Stewart worked as a mentor teacher with Alachua County Public Schools while Echevarria-Stewart worked at Planned Parenthood of North Florida before they left for Guyana.
Training began right after they landed in the country, which is on the north coast of South America, bordered by Venezuela, Brazil and Suriname.
“You’re not traveling,” Stewart said. “You’re moving to a new country. It was really intense.”
But soon after they arrived in Guyana, Echevarria-Stewart fell ill. Sharp pains in her abdomen worried her husband.
“Ilana has a pretty high pain tolerance,” he said. “I knew this was something different than a stomach ache.”
A medical evacuation team struggled to get her to a hospital. The pair were in a remote area where many of the trails were washed out.
After canoeing, walking and driving out of the bush, Echevarria-Stewart had an emergency appendectomy in Guyana. Normally, she said, the Peace Corps would fly a member back to the United States for surgery. In her case, there wasn’t enough time.
“It really prepared us for the challenges that come along the way,” she said. “It’s made life a lot easier and put a lot of things in perspective … but it really sucked.”
Stewart works with the Guyanese education system to help develop teachers. While there, he’s also implemented an adult literacy program.
“Some of the folks are in their late 60s and they’re learning how to write their name,” he said. “They’re not going to learn how to go to college from the program; it’s just nice to have something that made a little bit of a difference.”
Echevarria-Stewart works in hospital management and outreach coordination for a regional hospital. She helps teach the Guyanese proper dental and personal hygiene as well as family planning and preventing common illnesses.
“It’s just the very little things that make it worthwhile,” she said. “You make an impact in a life and sometimes it’s not something you taught them, it’s just talking to them.”
The couple has worked to forge bonds with their neighbors. Echevarria-Stewart said the pair served as judges for a village carnival.
“We felt very honored, but we didn’t feel like the token white people,” she said. “They really valued our opinion and wanted us to be there.”
Homesickness bouts come fairly often, Stewart said. Sometimes the couple compares notes on what food they’ll eat first when they get back to Gainesville. Topping the list are Publix deli subs, Satchel’s pizza and sushi from Dragonfly.
But one thing they haven’t missed is Gator football.
“You’ll see a thatched-roof hut with a satellite dish,” Stewart said.
The pair watched Gator games with Echevarria-Stewart’s supervisor and hosted their own tailgate party.
“We’re introducing Gator football to Guyana,” Stewart said.
(Source http://www.gainesville.com/article/20120221/ARTICLES/120229908?p=2&tc=pg)
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