Special to The News-Journal Danielle Lubrano of DeLand is shown with children who live in the village in Zambia, Africa, where she served. The kids would visit every day to “stare at the white lady, chat and look at Newsweek magazines.”

DELAND — Danielle Lubrano’s mud hut didn’t become a home until its roof went up in flames.

Nor did the people in her village become her family until that December day in 2004. The 27-year-old Peace Corps volunteer was only five months into her two-year stay in Zambia, when she decided to comfort herself by making an American treat — popcorn. She was acclimating herself to feeling “like an alien that just landed from Mars” and needed a little reminder of home.

But the pot caught fire, and in a desperate attempt to put it out, she threw water on the fire. It shot upward and the grass roof burst into flames.

“I remember feeling devastated, confused, and really disappointed in myself, like I had let the community down,” she said.

Lubrano described the moment as life-changing because of the events that followed days after the blaze.

She was fortunate enough to still have her furniture, luggage and food because a woman she called her “ami” (mother) and a few other neighbors threw them out the door as the house caught fire.

Knowing how impossible it would be to find dry grass during the rainy season, Lubrano offered to pay for rebuilding the roof, but the chairman of her Peace Corps committee refused.

The next day, groups of men with poles began the task themselves, while the women’s group hired a vehicle with their own money and scoured the village for dried grass. They even bought a goat and cooked food for the workers. The women sang and prayed for her. One woman grabbed her hand and put in it 5,000-kwacha node, about $1.50 in U.S. currency.

“It’s not much but for these people it’s a lot. I was so overwhelmed by emotion, never in all my life had I seen such generosity and sincerity. For the first time ever I began to cry tears of joy,” Lubrano said.

“I was truly touched. From that day on I began to think of these people from a foreign culture as my friends and family.”

She believes she learned more than what she was able to give as a Peace Corps volunteer. She joined the Corps in May 2004, as part of a project called L.I.F.E — Linking Income, Food and Environment — that works hand in hand with the Zambian Wildlife Authority to educate people about environmental and wildlife conservation.

Her love of great apes pulled her to Africa but Zambia only had several species of monkeys. One such monkey was a yellow baboon named Mphaz, a pet Lubrano rehabilitated to the wild.

“It’s like suddenly you are stripped naked, and everything you know doesn’t apply here. You have to learn again . . . to live life a different way . . . there have been countless life-changing experiences,” she said.

“I would never regret a single day of my Peace Corps service. It was only then that I feel I truly began to live.”

News-Journal/ JI-EUN LEE Sonny and Judy Mathis of Ormond Beach show off their Peace Corps IDs. The top photos were taken when they both joined in 1963. The two met and fell in love while serving in North Borneo and Malaya, now Malaysia.

ORMOND BEACH — Judy Mathis chuckles as she stares at the aging black-and-white photo of her younger self.

She laughs even harder at a similar picture of her husband, Sonny.

“Look at how young we were!” she exclaimed.

The photos of the Ormond Beach couple were taken 43 years ago when they were Peace Corps volunteers. The two Floridians met and fell in love while serving thousands of miles from home in North Borneo and Malaya, now Malaysia.

“We both joined Feb. 19, 1963,” Sonny said.

“But we joined independently,” Judy added. “We were both in the same group.”

Judy was 21, graduating from the University of Miami and trying to decide her future, when a speech by journalist Jack Anderson about escorting the first group of Peace Corps volunteers into Africa inspired her.

“In those days, the only jobs for women were clerical jobs, and I decided that wasn’t for me,” Judy said.

Sonny, then 30, was also thinking about his future. He had a friend who was in the Peace Corps, so just kidding around, he picked up the six-page application.

“I thought if I ever got to fill it out, it would be a big accomplishment,” Sonny joked.

They were both sent to San Francisco, then Hawaii for training, which is where they first met. One thing that stood out for Sonny was trying to learn the Malay language.

After training, the couple parted ways. Sonny was sent into the jungle to build roads, while Judy was sent to a local town in North Borneo to teach at a Chinese primary school. Part of her job was to teach the teachers how to teach English.

“The whole idea of the Peace Corps is that you were supposed to work yourself out of a job,” Judy said. “Just to give someone a teacher for two years doesn’t do much good.”

Judy said she loved her students’ eagerness to learn.

“They could come out of what looks like a very poor area, and yet they would always come to school dressed in their immaculate black uniforms and very white shirts,” Judy said. “Education was just valued.”

After a year of courting, the couple married in April 1964, then returned for the rest of their service, which they served together in the central western part of Malaya. This time they both ended up teaching. Sonny taught at a technical school in the very language he struggled to learn — Malay.

“I always thought that was funny,” Sonny said.

The couple loved the area so much they stayed four more years after their service ended.

“I know that the United States is the only country I want to be a citizen of, but there is a whole lot you can learn from other cultures and other people,” Judy said. “People really aren’t very different. They have the same desires every place. If at 21, you can figure out those type of things, that’s pretty good.”

Special to The News-Journal At the age of 64, Martha Bush is a Peace Corps volunteer serving in Sifoe, a small community in The Gambia, West Africa

DELAND — Martha Bush was in her 20s when she heard President John F. Kennedy utter those famous words — “Ask not what your country can do for you . . . ask what you can do for your country.”

Being young and idealistic, she marched right down to the post office and told the Peace Corps recruiter: “Sign me up.”

The recruiter looked her over and asked, “What can you do?”

“Well, after only one year of junior college, what could I do?” Bush said. “Nothing! He told me I would be of greater service if I would finish my education first.”

Forty years, a marriage, seven kids and a teaching career later, at the age of 64, Bush is a Peace Corps volunteer. She is serving in Sifoe, a small community in The Gambia, West Africa.

“Officially, I am an Ag-Fo, that is, agriculture and forestry sector volunteer,” she said. “However, old habits are hard to break and I always find myself right back at school with the little people.”

One of her attempts to help the little people was a grant proposal to the home office that would have provided the children with some basic supplies.

“They are generous with what they have. But, what they have is only meager amounts of the basics; food, clothing and shelter,” Bush said. “We cannot change this situation. It’s too big, too pervasive. What we are attempting is to target those students that do not have even the basics.”

It’s believed that 200 of the area’s 800 children don’t have the basics.

The proposal was denied, but that hasn’t hampered Bush’s effort. She has been rallying friends and family through e-mails to gather supplies.

She is also reworking the proposal to get funding for the school’s first library. Thus far, they have a new classroom with mud block walls, a thin roof — no door, power or plumbing and there is only dirt for the floor.

Bush also admits to doing a bit of learning herself. Her primary assignment is that of a beekeeper, and as she puts it, “ Now, how much do you know about beekeeping? Me too! But I’m learning.”

She has been lucky so far to write a grant proposal that got them 60,000 dalasis, which is $2,000.

“This is the time of year that all hives must be cleaned, repaired and made ready for bees,” Bush said. “Using the grant money, we will buy several colonies of bees and put them in our empty hives. The plan is to colonize 50 new hives. More bees, more honey; more honey, more money.

“The poverty is staggering, and the needs are great,” she said. “Even so, the people are warm and generous and caring.”

News-Journal/JESSICA WEBB Norman Hickey, 79, of South Daytona sits in front of a painting from Georgia that he purchased while serving there in the Peace Corps.

SOUTH DAYTONA — Born this July in Georgia — the country, not the state — was a baby girl with a very special name — Tekla Norma.

The little bundle of joy was named after South Daytona resident Norman Hickey, a tribute to the hearts and souls he won while serving in Georgia as a Peace Corps volunteer.

He did it all at the grand age of 76.

“That’s the good thing about the Peace Corps,” Hickey said. “You are never too old.”

Now 78, Hickey described his time from 2003 to 2005, as “one of the best experiences of my life.

“I advise anyone to do it,” Hickey said. “It will change you and for the better.”

Hickey is no stranger to adventure. He has gone on assignments on behalf of various U.S. agencies going back more than 30 years to faraway lands such as Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Russia and Colombia. He was city manager of Daytona Beach from 1963 to 1966, as well as a manager for local governments in Titusville, San Diego, Hillsborough County and St. Petersburg.

However, Georgia will always hold a special place in his heart. He served as the country’s director coordinating other Peace Corps volunteers who were there to teach English. The mom naming her baby after him was one of his co-workers.

“I’ve met some wonderful people,” Hickey said, “and I have many memorable moments.”

He talks about one night hearing gunshots outside his home and discovering it was a neighbor chasing away bandits. And there was the time he fell into a 16-foot construction pit while walking at night near his home in Tbilisi, the capital city of Georgia.

Several hours passed before he was found and several more hours before he could be removed from the pit, which had rocks at the bottom. He broke his right arm and hip, and suffered injuries to his right shoulder and leg.

While recovering, he got a letter from Gaddi Vasquez, then-director of the Peace Corps, complimenting him on his efforts in Georgia.

Hickey talked about the warmth of the people and how they seem to value things Americans sometimes take for granted, such as education.

Above all, he said, he made friends while serving in Georgia.

“You can’t help but become very close to the people,” Hickey said. “You become a part of their lives.”

Special to The News-Journal Peace Corps volunteer Torrey Peace, left, while serving in San Carlos Sija, Guatemala, is dressed in “Traje,” the traditional dress of Guatemala. Torrey Peace

DELAND — Torrey Peace’s friends told her not to go.

They said Guatemala was too dangerous, that it wasn’t the place to be a Peace Corps volunteer, but the 26-year-old DeLand resident didn’t listen.

And she’s glad she didn’t.

Peace described her time in San Carlos Sija, a tiny Guatemalan town of 2,000 people, as one of the most rewarding experiences of her life.

“By the end of the two years I felt like I knew the majority of the people,” Peace said. “Everyone was very friendly, and even more what struck me was their generosity.”

People she barely knew would invite her to dinner and give her food. Someone even loaned her a gas stove to use during her stay.

“How is it that a country known to have so little can give so much?” Peace said.

Her job was to help the people in her town make better use of funds from immigrants working in the United States.

“It is interesting to see the other side of the situation,” she said. “That is, the fear of failure and lack of opportunity drives people to the U.S., where they believe they will have a better life.”

Peace met many people who had not seen their mothers, fathers, sisters for more than 10 years because they couldn’t get a tourist visa, yet without the U.S. funds being sent, Sija and the economy of Guatemala would suffer.

“It was a challenge which proved too complex for me to resolve during my service,” she said.

Peace joined the Corps two years after getting a business degree at the University of Florida. She was working in an entry level position for a big company, contemplating her future.

“I wanted to go back to school, but decided it was too expensive,” Peace said. “I had always been fascinated by the idea (of the Peace Corps) and when I found out I would be going to Central America, I decided to do it.”

For two years from 2004-06, she lived in an adobe house with 12 chickens and an apple tree in her backyard. For the first year, she was the only “gringa” in the area and achieved a kind of celebrity status — something with its advantages and disadvantages.

“When you want to go to the store a block away and to get there you have to talk to three or four people for 15 minutes, what would be a five-minute trip in the states easily became an hour,” Peace joked.

Her new challenge as she returns to the U.S. is to educate her fellow Americans.

“I carry back these lessons with hope that gringos can learn that Guatemala, in many ways, is just as much a land of opportunity,” she said.