Interview with Patricia Koelbl, December 5, 2023

Interview Summary

Patricia Koelbl served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tunisia from 1984-1986 working in Special Education and Orphanage Care. She heard about the Peace Corps while in high school during a History class presentation. She had always wanted to be a teacher and attended Glassboro State College (now Rowan University) in New Jersey majoring in Early Childhood Education and Special Education. Patty spoke with a Peace Corps recruiter and, upon graduation, went to an interview in Philadelphia where she also had to submit a follow-up writing assignment and then attend pre-acceptance sessions (CAST -Center for Assessment and Training) in Washington, D.C. and Harper’s Ferry, WV. After her acceptance into the Peace Corps, Patty learned that she would be placed in Tunisia in North Africa. After being FBI cleared and passing physical and dental exams, she met a group of other volunteers at JFK airport in NYC and departed for the country’s capital city, Tunis. From there they went on to a hotel in the coastal city of Bizerte for a week of initial training and acclimation. Her group of trainees, about 45 volunteers, was composed of those going to work in agriculture and others who were to teach in special educational settings. After a week, the special education volunteers went on to live in apartments in Bizerte while the agriculture volunteers were placed in a rural setting for their language and culture training. The Special Ed teacher volunteer training took place in a two-story special education school, and they spent about five hours a day during a six-day work week where they were taught in groups of five to seven by a Tunisian language teacher. Patty studied with a Tunisian teacher for about six weeks, after which she was offered a choice of job assignments/ living situations. She selected the town of Manuoba because the job assignment there was work in an orphanage (Institut National de Protection de l’Enfance). Once there, Patty and her roommate, Sally, started a class for preschoolers, all of whom had special needs. Patty and Sally’s house was about a mile away from the orphanage and consisted of three separate rooms around a courtyard - a kitchen, a bathroom, and a living room/ bedroom area. They had a gas stove and flush Turkish toilet. She got used to the very spicy food and had cous-cous often. Patty’s workday was from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm when the teachers and students took a break and then resumed work from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm. Many of her students were autistic and some totally non-verbal and, because they were orphans, they had first names only. Her job was to teach basic developmental skills to preschool aged children. Her supervisor was Mr. Mohammed Abid who also helped to arrange field trips and drove the small van to various locations. In her second year of service, Patty lived by herself and worked in the orphanage but in the “back” of the institute where the more needy children lived. Sally continued to work in the “front” classroom with the preschool students. Although it was challenging, Patty felt it was a great learning situation, and she rose to the occasion. She also assisted teenaged orphans in life skills and work training and helped develop a checklist to give to their apprentice supervisors about her students’ abilities. She set up a store in the back of the orphanage, so that the older students could buy things with the money (dinars) they earned if they did well in their apprentice jobs. Their good work was also reported to the orphanage director by Mr. Abid. During school breaks Patty traveled. She flew once to Italy for a week and also went to Spain. In her second year, Patty had some illness from parasites in her system and suffered diarrhea. She had to be medivacked to Washington, D.C. to get the studies and medicines she needed and, while she was there, she also had a root canal taken care of. Upon returning to Tunisia, at the end of her tour of duty, Patty expanded her work to include the supervision of new in-country volunteers until she left her service. On her way back to the United States, Patty traveled to England and to Germany before she embarked on a 6-month safari trip throughout sub-Saharan Africa. She returned to New Jersey and began work for VisionQuest in Pennsylvania teaching juvenile delinquents in a wilderness camp setting. Throughout her career, she was employed as a Special Education teacher at several different schools in NJ including Asbury Park High School and Academy Charter High School. Patty feels that the Peace Corps experience was one she will never forget and stated how she reacted positively to the Three Goals of the Peace Corps.

Interview Keyword

Peace Corps (US) Country of Service: Tunisia Dates of Service: 1984-1986 Peace Corps Volunteer Job: Special Education and Orphanage Instruction Peace Corps (US): 1980-1990 Languages: Arabic Language/Cultural Training: Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Harper’s Ferry, WV, Bizerte, Manouba Cultural Training: Bizerte, Manouba Peace Corps-related Medical Issues: dysentery, parasites.

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