Interview with Daniel Delgadillo, August 9, 2023

Interview Summary

Daniel Delgadillo served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya from 2009 to 2012 (having extended an extra year) in the areas of Information and Communication Technology. Daniel was enrolled at Arizona State University as a Psychology major when he saw a posted bulletin about a Peace Corps recruiter being on campus, and, since he had been a Boy Scout and had a yearning for adventure, he attended the meeting and came away with a positive impression. He had also been in touch with the Teach America and AmeriCorps programs during that time and felt that the Peace Corps was a better fit with his bilingual background along with some proficiency in French, so he opted for an overseas assignment. After graduation and in late June, he was told of a placement in sub-Saharan Africa in Kenya, and he signed on. After an initial staging meeting in Philadelphia, he flew from John F. Kennedy International in New York to Nairobi, Kenya. His training group was transported to the town of Oloitokitok near the border with Tanzania for two months of language and culture training. He learned the Swahili language (one of over 68 languages spoken in the country) and learned that it was a very phonetic language similar to his native Spanish. Initially assigned to the town of Kagio, Daniel was later relocated to Garissa, the capital of Kenya’s northeastern province. Daniel began to learn of local Somali customs and heard also that a previous Peace Corps contingent had been sent back to America from there in 2005 because of an outbreak of violence in the country. In Garissa, Daniel worked at a technical training institute for post-secondary students. The school paid the rent for his house which was in a seven-house compound and made of cinder block and concrete and had two bedrooms. The entire town was powered by a large diesel generator along with the water treatment plant fed by the nearby Tana River. Daniel took advantage of generous shopkeepers in town where he was able to use their refrigeration units for food storage. When home, he cooked on a propane burner and did his own cooking of breakfast and dinner as lunch was provided by his school. He had a little radio which occasionally gave programming in English, but he got most of his local and national news from television sets in restaurants. He walked five kilometers to school, and later in his tour he was joined in Garissa by another Peace Corps volunteer focusing on health. At the school, Daniel worked with four other people in the Information Technology department and oversaw large computer lab rooms holding about ten computer stations. By the time he completed his two years, the lab had grown to 40 computers with an additional computer located in the school’s library. Because of so much dust from the arid climate, he had to cover each computer after work each day to ensure that they were in the best working order for the next day. Since none of his students had computers at home to work with, Daniel helped set up after-hours computer time for his students; some used the “cyber-cafes” in town to keep up with their work. He felt that the students and his co-workers were extremely receptive to his requests. Since most of the local townspeople were Muslim, Daniel had to learn many of their customs, and he gave time for their prayer time requests during the day, and he even fasted with them during holy days. The students’ academic year was set up so that students had three months of school and then one month off throughout the school year. During any time off he received, Daniel did much in-service training, visited a nearby giraffe sanctuary, and went to a Boy Scout Jamboree in the town of Nyeri. Daniel was offered a position in Western Kenya after hearing about it from a co-worker, and, because of possible danger from Al-Shabaab militants, he went back to the United States for one month before relocating in the town of Maseno to promote more information technology training. He gave monthly reports vis email and felt he had much more freedom to train other Peace Corps volunteers and Kenyans alike under his leadership. When he completed his extended tour of duty, Daniel traveled to Mexico to visit relatives and to Peru for sight-seeing prior to returning home. He took a position back at Arizona State University in the Information Technology department doing technical support. He worked there for five years, earned a Master’s Degree in Information Management, and married. He is now working at West Chester University in Pennsylvania and leads the Help Desk as Manager while counseling student interns at the school. Daniel feels that his Peace Corps experience was instrumental in giving him the career path he always wanted; he indicated that he learned to live alone and responded well to the three goals of the Peace Corps throughout his time in Kenya. He keeps involved with a Facebook group: Friends of Kenya.

Interview Keyword

Peace Corps (US) Country of Service: Kenya Dates of Service: (2009-2012) Peace Corps Volunteer Job: Information and Communication Technology Peace Corps (US): 2000-2010, 2010-2200) Language: Swahili Language training: Oloitokitok, Garissa Cultural Training: Oloitokitok, Garissa

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