Jessica Neff

Country of Service: Nicaragua 2000-2002
Program: Agriculture – Agricultural Extension
Current Work: Graduate Student in Community and Regional Planning

After graduating from Whitman College (Walla Walla, WA) in 2000, I left for Nicaragua, to spend the next two years and 3 months as a volunteer in agriculture. I had very little experience with agricultural practices, as I was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. But, my recruiters were open-minded and optimistic that I would do well as an agriculture volunteer. They were right.

After our three-month training in the Spanish language and farming techniques, I was sent to my site—Santa Teresa, a village of less than 1,000 people in the hills of northern Nicaragua. Thankfully, our intensive Spanish training (where we lived in a community with a couple other volunteers) was enough for me to begin to interact with my community members (I didn’t speak any Spanish before going). The closest volunteer to me (a group of people that I am extremely close with to this day) was about three hours away. But, quickly I adjusted to my new life.

I found a house to rent that actually had a cement floor in the bedroom—in my village, this was luxurious. My kitchen was a dirt floor, and I pulled my water from a well in the front yard. I took refreshing bucket baths each evening, washed my clothes on a rock or in the river alongside the other women, and had a latrine out back. I splurged and bought a small gas stove, as I wasn’t ready to learn how to use the fire stove everyone else used.

Soon, I began to build relationships with my community, mostly by walking the dirt road through the village and being invited in for coffee and a tortilla with cheese. They began to trust me and were interested in learning what I had to teach. We worked with an established agriculture organization, which helped us give talks and provide seeds and supplies for building worm boxes, making organic pesticides and fertilizers, and learning new ways to improve their crops.

Quickly, my job changed into an opportunity to provide the community with more projects and education about topics they wanted to learn about. My days ranged from working with a woman’s group making herbal medicines, to rebuilding an old bridge, to creating a scholarship program to help the children in the community go to high school (school only goes up to 6th grade in my community). I continue to work with the scholarship program today—we have 20 students who have graduated from high school!

After returning home from the Peace Corps and working for a couple of years, I began studying at the University of Oregon in the Planning, Public Policy and Management Department (PPPM). Last year I participated in the University of Oregon’s AmeriCorps program, RARE (Resource Assistance for Rural Environments), after being inspired from my Peace Corps experience. It made a lot of sense to me to try to help a community in my own country, like I did abroad. My education in RARE has helped me tremendously in my last year of graduate school.

My experience in the Peace Corps was one I am extremely grateful for. From the work I accomplished, the friends I made, and the daily exposure to a different culture, I cannot imagine my life had I not gone. It was definitely very difficult at times—missing friends and family in the U.S., missing a hot shower….but, I knew this experience was one most people don’t have, and one that will help me grow and lead me down the path I am on today.

If you'd like to contact this Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, you can contact her at jneff@uoregon.edu.