The circle of life
I was going to join the Peace Corps in 1974, but I didn’t take the plunge until 2011. This is what I discovered.
By Holly Copeland – co-founder, Family Copeland Foundation
A long time coming
IN THE SPRING of 1974, I found myself before a booth emblazoned with a sign. “Peace Corps,” it said. Travel the world, I muttered to myself. Volunteer? I’m an advocate for volunteering. But the Peace Corps recruiter was not impressed. “So, you’ll be receiving a degree in what again?” he asked.
“Communications,” I said. “Radio, TV, and Film.”
“We want teachers and nurses. Not… what again?” he said, perplexed.
“Communications,” I repeated.
“Well, here’s an application anyway.” He handed me a stack of papers neatly clipped, but thicker than my final term paper for art history. “You never know,” he said. “We might build a TV station somewhere. If we do, we’ll contact you.”
Peace Corps did not build any TV stations, at least not in 1974.
Here’s a big surprise: I never got that call.
Fast forward to now. Forty years later, here I sit. I’ve been married for almost that long and have two grown children.
But there’s something else: This November, my husband Bill and I celebrated one year since completing our 27-month Peace Corps service in Northern Uganda.
Yep, we joined the Peace Corps after we retired… in our sixties.
So… where’d we end up? In Kalongo, Uganda at an amazing place called St. Mary’s Midwifery Training School.
Fighting the good fight
Over two years we came to know a remarkable people—the Northern Ugandans. They are resilient and determined, but they are still recovering from a 20-year civil war.
There is an untold story in Northern Uganda. It’s a story about the hard work of training health professionals, a story about Ugandans finding ways to help Ugandans.
Sister Carmel, head administrator and principal at St. Mary’s, reviewed our résumés. She liked what she saw and she moved mountains. She requested our service at St. Mary’s through Peace Corps—it’s no small feat to navigate U.S. government bureaucracy—and we soon found ourselves deep in-country, near South Sudan.
Sister Carmel took over the school in the middle of the Ugandan Civil War…
In a town that found itself in the middle of the insurgency.
The situation was so precarious that the previous principal, an Italian nun, fled. Sister Carmel was determined that nobody—not even Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)—would close St. Mary’s.
She kept the school open and functioning despite the armed conflict, threats of student abductions and nightly raids by the LRA.
When we arrived at St. Mary’s, it was difficult to imagine that the peacefulness and beauty of the campus was once disrupted by the booming of Howitzers. Hordes of locals slept on the grounds of the school and neighboring hospital because it was too dangerous to sleep in their villages. Today, the campus bustles with activity; the joyous chatter of students learning about midwifery.
At St. Mary’s, enduring change is underway with sparse financial backing.
Young Ugandan women are receiving education and skills. They graduate as highly-trained midwives and serve in remote communities throughout Uganda—often as the only healthcare provider in their village or town.
But most important: They provide community healthcare that decidedly lowers maternal and child mortality rates.
Our jobs were to assist Sister Carmel and develop a Web presence for the school. Sometimes, we had to travel to Gulu just to upload pictures, but like everybody else at St. Mary’s… we got the job done.
We left our site with fond memories of love and appreciation, but also with our own inspiration.
We knew when we boarded a plane home our service to St. Mary’s and Uganda would continue.
And so, after gorging on our favorite foods and reuniting with dear family and friends, we began the next leg of our Peace Corps journey.
We established Family Copeland Foundation to support St. Mary’s.
Our goal is to provide full academic scholarships, facility improvements, and teaching aids. So far, we have raised enough funds to send two deserving women to St. Mary’s—their education and midwife training is completely free.
But we plan to do more, and we need your help.
Life is a circle
Last summer I turned 62.
As I grow older, I see life more as a circle than a straight line. It’s extraordinary to return to the dreams of my youth.
And more than that—it’s extraordinary to experience and live inside those dreams.
I didn’t know this back then, but I realize it now: life was telling me to be patient and to hold onto my dreams, to tuck them away for a more appropriate time. That time is right now.
Dr. Giuseppe Ambrosoli founded St. Mary’s in 1959. Ugandans called him “Saint Doctor.”
