Photo Courtesy of Mark Hanson Nkambe villagers pose with
UCLA alumnus Mark Hanson during his service in the
Peace Corps. The program provides assistance to 76 developing
nations.
By Robert Salonga
Daily Bruin Staff
While his classmates faced uncertain futures after graduating,
UCLA alumnus Mark Hanson was stepping off a plane into the African
heat.
“I hadn’t experienced the humidity and how green it
was looking at the dense forest of tropical West Africa,” he
said. “I was amazed.”
Hanson, who graduated with a degree in psychobiology and
business in 1989, served as a Peace Corps volunteer from 1990 to
1993 in Cameroon, situated on the continent’s northwestern
Atlantic coast.
The Peace Corps, a volunteer recruiting program established
during the John F. Kennedy administration, provides technical
assistance to 76 developing nations. Volunteers travel to various
countries to teach in fields ranging from science to business.
Julie Hanson, public affairs specialist for the L.A. office,
said the Peace Corps offers rare opportunities for new college
graduates.
“We accept all majors and backgrounds; if you have a
degree, we can find you a program in the Peace Corps,” she
said.
“It’s hard to get the same level of responsibility
and challenge in the U.S. at an entry-level position,” she
continued “When you’re done, you come back with so much
confidence.”
Any U.S. citizen over age 18 is eligible to apply. The selection
process includes interviews and nominations.
UCLA is ranked 17th in the nation in recruitment, and 42 of its
graduates are currently serving overseas.
Suan Hanson, recruitment coordinator for the Peace Corps’
Los Angeles regional office, said the common motivation for people
to volunteer is a combination of altruism and an opportunity for
adventure.
“A lot of candidates have done some travel, and they often
want to expand their horizons and be exposed to different
perspectives,” Suan said.
The Peace Corps is a valuable resource for graduates wishing to
extend their education, Hanson said.
“More and more schools are recognizing the Peace Corps
experience and giving college credit for it,” he said.
For most international careers, a master’s degree and two
years of international experience are often necessary, Hanson said,
adding that the Peace Corps is the most rewarding way of providing
that experience.
He first thought of joining the Peace Corps after reading an
advertisement in the student newspaper.
“After working very hard in my life, I thought I had
something to give and that this was an opportunity I
shouldn’t let pass by,” he said.
Setting out to be a science teacher, Hanson first applied to the
Peace Corps right after college but was told he lacked teaching
experience. To remedy this problem, he tutored for nearly a year
and was training in Cameroon by June 1990.
 Training consisted of a six-day work week upon his
arrival. Every day, volunteers attended four-hour sessions of
language training, followed by technical training in their chosen
field. Volunteers also received training in health and safety
skills.
Hanson was stationed in Nkambe, a rural part of Cameroon near
the Nigerian border. During his first year of service, he had to
deal with obstacles such as culture and language barriers and the
lack of books and other teaching materials.
“I had an agenda: my students were going to learn and they
were going to pass the national test,” he said. “My
sense of urgency was far greater than that of the people who I had
come to serve. That was when I realized I was going to learn more
than I was going to teach.”
Hanson arrived in Cameroon during a period of political
instability. In 1990, the country suffered a failed democratic
election, the first multi-party election in its history. Both
candidates claimed victory, and for three months, the entire
province was in a state of emergency.
“It was very exciting to be part of something that was so
new in an economic sense and a political sense,” he said.
“It was a bit scary at times, but I wouldn’t trade that
experience for anything.”
But the political unrest caused communication breakdowns between
Hanson and Peace Corps headquarters in Cameroon.
Already thousands of miles from the land in which he was raised,
Hanson felt secluded in Cameroon. At times, he was as far as 100
miles from the nearest westerner. He lived one day away from the
provincial capital where he could pick up his paycheck and
supplies, two days from his Peace Corps medical officer, and three
hours by taxi to a telephone.
“To work and live in these conditions, I was very
fortunate to live with neighbors that were extremely
welcoming,” he said. “To this day I still don’t
think what I did was nearly as wonderful as what they did by
welcoming me into their society.”
By his second year, Hanson became more comfortable in the
classroom but began realizing that different environments mandate
different teaching methods and analogies.
For instance, he was once required to teach the physics of a
vehicle driving on a banked paved road. But in the small town,
paved roads were rare and unbeknownst to the children.
Hanson found it difficult to accommodate the London-based
curriculum, which was established when Britain controlled the
region before Cameroon’s independence in 1961.
“There were often questions that related to ice and snow
and wintry conditions that kids living near the equator simply
would never experience or understand,” he said.
Instead, programs for the people of Cameroon, such as
agri-forestry and coffee cooperative programs, allowed members to
work with farmers to prevent soil erosion and loss of soil
fertility when planting in mountainous regions, he said.
As his second year of service came to a close, Hanson decided to
stay on as the provincial coordinator for Peace Corps programs in
Cameroon.
Returning to the U.S. in 1993, unsure of his future, Hanson
began teaching high school science classes in San Diego and later
earned master’s degrees in environmental science and public
affairs at Indiana University.
He utilized his connections with the Peace Corps to find a
graduate school that would give him credit for his overseas
experience. His connections with the Peace Corps also may have
helped him land his current job as a research analyst for the RAND
Corporation, a nonprofit organization that works to improve policy
through research and analysis.
During his interview, he discovered that his boss’ wife
served less than 100 miles from his post in Cameroon.
“I don’t know if that had anything with me getting
the job, but it’s one of those things where every now and
then the experience seems to help in some mysterious way,” he
said.
Suan said an alternative for those who do not want to commit two
years of service or leave the U.S. is Americorps, the domestic
version of the Peace Corps.
Another alternative is WorldTeach, an international teaching
abroad program that provides educational assistance in communities
throughout Asia, Latin America, Africa and Eastern Europe.
Hanson continues to place much value on his Peace Corps
experience.
“In hindsight, I probably learned more than I taught, took
more than I gave, and it was one of the more enriching experiences
of my life.”
For more information about the Peace Corps, visit www.peacecorps.gov or call a
recruiting specialist at (310) 235-7444.