Tualatin to Mozambique, Peace Corps volunteer has lessons to spare
“At first, they were terrified of this big, tall, white woman,” Icenogle says of how the students took to her
Kristen Forbes / Times Newspapers
OUT OF AFRICA — Peace Corps volunteer Jacki Icenogle is back in Oregon after two years in Mozambique.
While attending the University of Oregon, Jacki Icenogle talked to a friend about the Peace Corps program and decided it seemed like a natural fit.
“As a history major, you spend all this time with your nose in a book, reading about places like Mozambique. To actually go there is pretty impressive,” the native Oregonian says.
After graduating in 2006 and going through the yearlong application process, Icenogle was sent to Mozambique, where she taught eighth-grade English.
“Their ages were very varied,” Icenogle explains. “In Mozambique, it’s normal to fail. Fifty percent of the students fail on a regular basis. So, my students were anywhere from – I had an 8-year old who was so tiny. I had an 18-year-old in my class. For the most part, they were 11 to 14.”
Icenogle, who previously lived in Scappoose, Tualatin and Eugene, called Mozambique home for two years. Seeing the reed houses with thatched floor pads felt like stepping back into time, which Icenogle says was a good thing. Miles of footpaths led to “beautiful, beautiful” scenery. She enjoyed gaining access into the lives of those who lived in a town literally located on the other side of the world. People were hospitable and let her in. She mastered Portuguese, a new language for her.
But the experience wasn’t always easy.
“Working there was more challenging than I ever expected,” Icenogle says of the experience. Teaching an advanced curriculum to underprivileged students, trying to maintain her director’s policy of passing 80 percent of students when 50 percent were accustomed to failing, disciplining students on long, hot days with no lunch breaks – there was nothing easy about the task at hand.
“At first, they were terrified of this big, tall, white woman,” Icenogle says of how the students took to her. “They had a tendency to be really shy, especially the girls. I’d ask a question and they would shut their mouths and look at the floor – that was the respectful thing, to look at the floor. I would go crazy! But after a while, they got used to it.”
Icenogle recalls sometimes feeling bored while attending “beautiful schools with science labs and art classes,” so she certainly understood how her students could get bored, too. “They don’t have books. They’re sitting on the floor with one teacher and a chalkboard,” she says.
She thought explaining her native language would be easier than it sometimes was. How do you describe a barn to someone who is unfamiliar with the word? How do you describe anything?
Icenogle lived along the National Highway, so buses were always available (there was also hitchhiking, which she explains is safer than public transportation there) to go the 30 miles north or south to find the nearest Peace Corps volunteers. Volunteers are sometimes put together, but Icenogle experienced Mozambique alone – which she preferred.
“I’ve always been independent. It was exactly what I wanted,” Icenogle says. And by no means does she liken the experience to roughing it – “Peace Corps coddles you,” she says.
Icenogle returned to Oregon in December and put visiting friends and family in Beaverton and Tualatin high on her list, before going back to Scappoose.
“It’s a small town, like my town in Africa,” she says. “You see people in the streets and you wave to them, even if you don’t know who they are.”
The next step for Icenogle is a master’s degree in education. She is currently looking at a program in rural New Mexico, which would put her on or adjacent to a Native American reservation. She has a newfound appreciation for a slower life pace, although she says she was surprised to learn one thing about herself.
“I discovered I am an American,” she says. “I left America thinking, ‘Ah, this country.’ I was fed up with everything: the politics, the lifestyle. I thought I was not meant to be born here. Then you go to another country and it’s like, ‘OK, actually I am an American.’”
Her time in Mozambique is an experience she’ll carry with her – and one that may have lasted longer, had she not been coaxed back by her home state.
“I love Oregon,” she says. “If I had been from some state like Ohio, I never would have come back – I would have just stayed there. Oregon holds a certain appeal.”