Interview with Serena Keeney-Horsch, October 31, 2021

Interview Summary

Serena wanted to join the Peace Corps from her early elementary school years. Service to others started early as she helped raise funds for various programs and issues.Teach For America provided 2 years of “eye-opening experience” teaching in under- resourced areas of the Bronx, and she also met her equally service-minded future husband through the program. Accepted for a PC program as rural community development specialists in Suriname, they trained briefly in the coastal capital, Paramaribo, but were provided little useful information or skill development relevant to village life in a tiny remote riverside village in an equatorial rainforest; two brief visits with PCVs were much more instructive. Their mission: go to your post and do good. En route, nearly all their supplies, including building materials for their intended home, were lost in a disastrous canoe accident: the near-death experience plagued them till early termination 21 months later. Despite dengue fever, amoeba infections, PTSD/depression, methyl quinine-induced hallucinations, and the realization that these American PC volunteers had much to learn about survival, they persevered: she responded to villagers’ request to be taught literacy and health care; they secured funding for a library and books, she fostered women’s issues discussions. Her greatest pleasure aside from teaching literacy in Saramankan was being considered “one of them.”

Interview Keyword

Peace Corps (U.S.) Suriname (country of service) 1998-2000 (years of service) rural community development (program) married couple Dutch Guyana Saramakan Atjoni Djumu Bufakulay Bendekonde Asidonhopo Gama patriarchal/matriarchal gangdang Sranan Tongo gaan man Ndjukan slaves Hindustani Javanese Pakistan Dutch dual language teacher Marowijne River National Geographic Bakaa mewakiwe Bakaa Money Ando Murat literacy communal wealth malaria dengue amoeba winti bedaki-o ya yo ai polygamy banyata koto Dutch guilders Teach for America colonialism methlquinine sicka sandfly leishmaniasis incountry director Revile Sams Banja koto

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