Interview with Ava Hacker, December 13, 2021

Interview Summary

Ava Hacker served as a Peace Corps Volunteer from 2011-2013 in Belize as a literacy teacher trainer, and again from 2018-2019 in Ecuador as a TEFL teacher trainer. Although she was in her 50’s when she first applied for service, she had wanted to serve in the Peace Corps ever since her college days. When she felt her adult son was safely established in his college life, she submitted her application for service. The process was long and involved, and it took over a year for her to be placed. She hoped for a country in either Central or South America where she could use her Spanish-speaking ability in her service. She was at first disappointed to learn that Peace Corps had assigned her to the only English-speaking country in Latin America, but her service in Belize became one of her most life-changing experiences. In March 2011 Ava left the United States and joined 38 other volunteers heading for Belize. Her cohort’s staging meeting took place in Houston for one day, and then they were off to the Caribbean/Central American nation. Belize Peace Corps staff met the group at the international airport and welcomed them with a huge banner and cheers. Her group was bussed to the capital, Belmopan, where a Peace Corps office was located and where they were further trained for an additional three months. For Ava, a Californian, the unrelenting Belizean heat and humidity were nearly unbearable. During pre-service training she lived with a Belizean Creole mother and her 6-year-old son in the village of Blackman’s Eddy. There, her group of 6 educators were taught Kriol, the language spoken widely by the 300,000 inhabitants of Belize, where they also speak Garifuna, English, Spanish, 3 Mayan languages, and Chinese. The trainees were also instructed in the principles of teacher training. Her permanent placement site for two years was the coastal city and the cultural capital of Belize: Dangriga. There, she lived with another host family for seven months and learned some words in their native language of Garifuna. Then, Ava moved into a small apartment that was part of a duplex shared with her landlady. Her task in Dangriga was to train teachers to teach reading in primary schools. There were six other volunteers spread throughout the six districts of Belize, and most, like Ava, were experienced literacy educators. Ava prepared many workshops for her schools and co-taught with teachers in 4 different schools. She spent a good part of her first year of service getting to know the community, schools, and teachers, and to become familiar with the needs of the teachers. It became apparent that the teachers needed a quick measuring device to determine what challenges were holding their students back from reading. She devised a reading test and taught the teachers how to group their students according to ability levels and needs. She did not take to the local food immediately as she noted that the meals consisted of a preponderance of rice and beans, but she found the local outdoor market, with an abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables. There were no movie theaters in all of Belize, but almost every grocery store, run by Taiwanese, sold “bootleg CD’s” of recent American movies to customers. Ava noticed that one difference she would have to accustom herself to was the slower pace of life in Belize. She learned to redefine “success” in her service by how well she came to know and interact with her Belizean colleagues in literacy. Peace Corps service emphasizes relationships rather than crossing off items on a to-do list. Ava spent months helping out and co-teaching in the four schools to which she was assigned before she began to develop workshops for teacher training. During her free time or vacation periods, Ava attended many local festivals and participated in local dances and parades. She was allowed two days each month of leave time and on other longer vacations flew back to the United States and traveled to Mexico, as well. Ava concluded her service by going through a debriefing and a physical examination (she had been suffering from pancreatitis and ulcers previously). Upon her return to the United States, Ava joined Teach for America back on the east coast in northeastern Connecticut and taught for five years in a dual language school. After that time, she heard the call to Peace Corps service once again. Ava still had a yearning for another Peace Corps experience, and she applied and was accepted for service in Ecuador. She was involved in a staging event in Miami with her cohort and then flew to the Ecuadorian capital of Quito. She spent one night with her group in a hostel while acclimatizing to the altitude of the Andean capital and underwent further training to learn how to co-teach with and coach TEFL teachers in Ecuadorian schools. For the three-month pre-service training, Ava lived with a host family in the town of Tumbaco, outside of Quito, and then began teacher training work in Latacunga while staying with another host family. She worked in a high school attached to an elementary school and started her teaching almost immediately as one of the local teachers had to take a month’s leave, and Ava took over for her. The Peace Corps frowns upon PCVs substituting in classrooms, as they are to be teacher trainers rather than substitute teachers, but she was given special permission during this crucial first month. Ava spent countless hours meeting with each teacher in the school individually to coach them on quick and efficient methods for lesson planning. After six months with her second host family, Ava finally moved to a spacious house and lived on her own. After serving in Ecuador for a year and a half, Ava received word that her mother had fallen and broken her hip and was also in the throes of Alzheimer’s disease, and she had to leave her service in Ecuador. Back in the US, Ava began part-time online teaching for a community college and other private tutoring classes. She has also taken online courses to become certified as an interpreter for immigration lawyers. As she looks back on her experiences, Ava is so grateful for the opportunity she was granted to work side by side with the teachers and students of her host countries. Through both Peace Corps service opportunities, Ava learned to observe and listen to her host country counterparts, to absorb the rhythm of their day, to respect the values that they held, to waiting to be asked to help, and to learn to not impose her own culturally determined solutions. Ava, like many Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, states categorically that she learned so much more from her experiences in Belize and Ecuador than she could have ever taught to her counterparts. Peace Corps is truly a profound cultural experience.

Interview Keyword

Peace Corps (US) Countries of Service: Belize, Ecuador Dates of Service: 2011-2013 and 2018-2019 Peace Corps Volunteer Job: Education Peace Corps (US): 2010-2020 Language: Creole, Garifuna Language Training: Belize City, Dangora, Garifuna, Quito, Latacunga Cultural Training: Belize City, Belmopan, Dangora, Garifuna, Quito, Latagunga

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