Weekly Interview: Jessica Sleeper (Dec. 26, 2008)
By Emma Bouthillette
Staff Writer
Jessica Sleeper is home for the holidays, and enjoying the small conveniences of modern life while she can. She only has a month to enjoy running water, electricity, cooking with a stove, catching up on television shows and using a washer and dryer before she returns to the village Rah, on Mota Lava, a remote island in the Torba Province of Vanuatu, which is a series of islands located in the South Pacific Ocean.
As a Peace Corps volunteer, Sleeper, 28, of Arundel has been living on this small island, 13 degrees south of the equator, for the past two years and plans to return Jan. 7, as she has extended her contract an additional year.
Currently, the Peace Corps has 7,876 volunteers among 76 countries working to meet three goals — sharing skills with people of interested countries, promoting a better understanding of Americans among the people served and sharing the country’s culture upon returning to the U.S. Sleeper is one of nearly 3,000 volunteers committed to promoting education.
Sleeper’s role in Rah is training the village’s teachers, running education workshops and assisting in literacy education. She said class sizes range from 30 to 50 students in grades one through eight, with very limited resources.
“It’s very challenging,” Sleeper said. “Children are entitled to education through year eight and they’re either taught in English or French, but at home they speak the local language and some speak the national language Bislama.”
She said lower grades received the least trained teachers, which made working to train them even more difficult. In the meantime, Sleeper said she worked with children and families to learn the local language.
“After two years I sort of understand what they are saying and can string phrases together,” Sleeper said. “There’s no other opportunity than the Peace Corps that a community will take you in like this.”
After graduating from Thornton Academy in Saco, Sleeper continued her education at Boston University and received a degree in elementary education in 2002. From there, she began teaching at a private school in New Jersey. It was during the fall of her fourth year teaching at the school that Sleeper said she needed a new challenge, and she looked into volunteering with the Peace Corps.
“Having taught in an affluent community, I wanted something that I could give back more. The Peace Corps is a great opportunity for a challenge. I was a little scared of the two year commitment, but once I started the process it became really exciting,” Sleeper said.
Her two-year commitment began with three months of training in Vanuatu, near the island where the CBS reality show “Survivor” was filmed during summer 2004, Sleeper said. She said she trained with 24 other Americans before being the only American placed in Rah.
“It’s complete immersion. You’re thrown into this place with no technology and limited communication. It was definitely frustrating not understanding the culture or their norms,” Sleeper said.
But on the small island, living in her own bamboo-walled hut, Sleeper began to adjust to the village’s way of life, including waking up at sunrise around 4:30 a.m. and going to bed just after sun set around 6:30 p.m.
Members of the community have to work to live, and they work by daylight.
“They’re strong people and they never complain,” Sleeper said.
She said they are subsistence farmers with a community garden eight miles away from the village. They walk to the garden, harvest what they’ve grown and walk back to the village with food for the community, she said.
As she learned how to garden and cook over open fire, Sleeper said she also had to learn their “cultural norms.”
“There are not a lot of women in leadership positions, so I had to learn what channels to go through,” Sleeper said. “There were also restrictions on dress. I was not allowed to wear pants, only full length dresses or skirts and shorts past my knees if I wanted to go swimming.”
Sleeper said nearly a year had passed before she really felt comfortable with the community and the people began to open up to her. She extended her contract because she wasn’t ready to come home, she said.
“I love the community and where I live in my village. I also felt I had a lot of projects that weren’t done yet and was having conversations with members of the community that I wouldn’t have been able to have within the first year,” she said.
Returning home at the beginning of December, Sleeper said the ice storm and the loss of electricity didn’t really phase her, as she has become accustomed to life without power. However, the lack of heat was hard to bear.
“The hottest day in Maine during the summer is probably the coldest day in Vanuatu,” Sleeper said.
On average, Sleeper said the temperature doesn’t drop below 78 degrees and her thermometer maxes out at 120 degrees, but she knows it is hotter than that during summer.
On top of the heat, there is about 95 percent humidity year round.
Aside from literacy education she has brought to Rah, the community has also taught her many life lessons.
“You go to teach, but you learn more than anyone else,” Sleeper said. “Life is hard there, but when you talk hard, they think our life is harder.”
Along with their way of providing for their families, Sleeper said villagers take joy in “the smaller things” and have a “let-go attitude.”
“I hope I can keep the Vanuatu sense of letting go and laughing so easily,” she said. “If it’s out of their control, they don’t stress about it and they know everything will work out how it should.”
Staff Writer
Jessica Sleeper is home for the holidays, and enjoying the small conveniences of modern life while she can. She only has a month to enjoy running water, electricity, cooking with a stove, catching up on television shows and using a washer and dryer before she returns to the village Rah, on Mota Lava, a remote island in the Torba Province of Vanuatu, which is a series of islands located in the South Pacific Ocean.
As a Peace Corps volunteer, Sleeper, 28, of Arundel has been living on this small island, 13 degrees south of the equator, for the past two years and plans to return Jan. 7, as she has extended her contract an additional year.
Currently, the Peace Corps has 7,876 volunteers among 76 countries working to meet three goals — sharing skills with people of interested countries, promoting a better understanding of Americans among the people served and sharing the country’s culture upon returning to the U.S. Sleeper is one of nearly 3,000 volunteers committed to promoting education.
Sleeper’s role in Rah is training the village’s teachers, running education workshops and assisting in literacy education. She said class sizes range from 30 to 50 students in grades one through eight, with very limited resources.
“It’s very challenging,” Sleeper said. “Children are entitled to education through year eight and they’re either taught in English or French, but at home they speak the local language and some speak the national language Bislama.”
She said lower grades received the least trained teachers, which made working to train them even more difficult. In the meantime, Sleeper said she worked with children and families to learn the local language.
“After two years I sort of understand what they are saying and can string phrases together,” Sleeper said. “There’s no other opportunity than the Peace Corps that a community will take you in like this.”
After graduating from Thornton Academy in Saco, Sleeper continued her education at Boston University and received a degree in elementary education in 2002. From there, she began teaching at a private school in New Jersey. It was during the fall of her fourth year teaching at the school that Sleeper said she needed a new challenge, and she looked into volunteering with the Peace Corps.
“Having taught in an affluent community, I wanted something that I could give back more. The Peace Corps is a great opportunity for a challenge. I was a little scared of the two year commitment, but once I started the process it became really exciting,” Sleeper said.
Her two-year commitment began with three months of training in Vanuatu, near the island where the CBS reality show “Survivor” was filmed during summer 2004, Sleeper said. She said she trained with 24 other Americans before being the only American placed in Rah.
“It’s complete immersion. You’re thrown into this place with no technology and limited communication. It was definitely frustrating not understanding the culture or their norms,” Sleeper said.
But on the small island, living in her own bamboo-walled hut, Sleeper began to adjust to the village’s way of life, including waking up at sunrise around 4:30 a.m. and going to bed just after sun set around 6:30 p.m.
Members of the community have to work to live, and they work by daylight.
“They’re strong people and they never complain,” Sleeper said.
She said they are subsistence farmers with a community garden eight miles away from the village. They walk to the garden, harvest what they’ve grown and walk back to the village with food for the community, she said.
As she learned how to garden and cook over open fire, Sleeper said she also had to learn their “cultural norms.”
“There are not a lot of women in leadership positions, so I had to learn what channels to go through,” Sleeper said. “There were also restrictions on dress. I was not allowed to wear pants, only full length dresses or skirts and shorts past my knees if I wanted to go swimming.”
Sleeper said nearly a year had passed before she really felt comfortable with the community and the people began to open up to her. She extended her contract because she wasn’t ready to come home, she said.
“I love the community and where I live in my village. I also felt I had a lot of projects that weren’t done yet and was having conversations with members of the community that I wouldn’t have been able to have within the first year,” she said.
Returning home at the beginning of December, Sleeper said the ice storm and the loss of electricity didn’t really phase her, as she has become accustomed to life without power. However, the lack of heat was hard to bear.
“The hottest day in Maine during the summer is probably the coldest day in Vanuatu,” Sleeper said.
On average, Sleeper said the temperature doesn’t drop below 78 degrees and her thermometer maxes out at 120 degrees, but she knows it is hotter than that during summer.
On top of the heat, there is about 95 percent humidity year round.
Aside from literacy education she has brought to Rah, the community has also taught her many life lessons.
“You go to teach, but you learn more than anyone else,” Sleeper said. “Life is hard there, but when you talk hard, they think our life is harder.”
Along with their way of providing for their families, Sleeper said villagers take joy in “the smaller things” and have a “let-go attitude.”
“I hope I can keep the Vanuatu sense of letting go and laughing so easily,” she said. “If it’s out of their control, they don’t stress about it and they know everything will work out how it should.”
Comments