Alumna shares Uzbekistan Peace Corps experience
By Hayley Sanders
Old Gold and Black Reporter

University alumna Jessica Jackson, ‘00, recounted Nov. 27 her experiences of working as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan and readjusting back to the United States after facing an emergency evacuation following the Sept. 11 attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C.

The presentation in Pugh Auditorium was part of the Year of Unity and Hope: Pro Humanitate at Work.

Jackson spent 13 months in the former Soviet republic as a Peace Corps Volunteer until her mandatory evacuation from the country in late September for security reasons cited by the government after the Sept. 11 attacks.

While in Uzbekistan, Jackson said she experienced and learned to appreciate a radically different culture as she worked as a primary English teacher for local elementary school children.

She also initiated the founding of a library with English books and resources and organized a free summer camp, which focused on educating and empowering young girls.

“The country’s problems lie in its isolation from the rapidly advancing global community,” Jackson said. “This is where Peace Corps came in. Peace Corps’ focus in Uzbekistan has been education and health reform. I was there as a primary level English teacher. English is seen by most Uzbeks as the ‘way out,’ both individually and as a country; perhaps a better way to put it would be the ‘way in’ to the global community.”

At a young age, Jackson dreamed of working internationally to help others, and she notes service to those in need as an essential part of her life.

“Being a Peace Corps Volunteer had been my dream since I was about 10 years old,” Jackson said. “While my college career at Wake was in part defined by service to others, including co-founding the Homerun service organization and traveling to India as a City of Joy Scholar, applying to Peace Corps my senior year was a big step for me. Once I got in, I knew there was no way to turn back.”

For assignment choices she was offered Ghana, Nepal or Uzbekistan. Jackson said she chose the third and on Aug. 12, 2000 found herself boarding a plane.

After moving in with a Russian family, Jackson said she learned to adapt to a new culture.

“My host mother earned about $5 a month and hers was the only income,” she said.
“Their meals were meager, their clothes old and too small. But they were really kind people, and I grew to love them.”

“The most important thing I did during this period was to constantly remind myself that this is life. Not an adventure, not an exception to the rule,” Jackson said. “Even the crazy, bustling, corrupt, smelly bazaar is how much of the world gets its food. There are rules to Uzbek society, even if it seems like complete anarchy, and I told myself it was my job to figure them out.”

Jackson, like many Peace Corps volunteers, endured sickness and struggled with the lack of basic amenities and necessities that she said most Americans take for granted.

“On different occasions, I suffered from food poisoning, bacterial infections, amoebic dysentery, bronchitis and severe dehydration, for which I had to be flown to the capital and put in the hospital,” she said.

Jackson made her final move to her permanent location in the town of Asaka, where she worked as an English teacher.

“I moved from a very westernized Russian family to the home of a relatively well-off Uzbek family in the Ferghana Valley,” she said. “The Valley, as Volunteers call it, is considered to be the most ‘Uzbek’ part of the country. I found myself facing an entirely new culture, just after I had started to figure everything out in my previous location.”

In Asaka, Jackson encouraged them to love learning by providing a supportive educational atmosphere.

“I taught third, fourth and fifth grades,” she said. “As Peace Corps Volunteers, it was our goal to positively influence teachers at individual schools by showing them ways to make their classes fun and interesting for students.”

Jackson heard about the Sept. 11 attacks on a Russian news channel that was pirating CNN. The picture was not completely clear, but she said she could make out New York on the screen.

“My sister works 10 minutes away from the Pentagon, so it was really scary to be so far away from home, to be so out of touch with my family and friends, and not know … how it would affect the life that I had come to love in Uzbekistan,” Jackson said. “Most people were very sympathetic … They understood what it was like to feel unsafe. Terrorism exists in Uzbekistan.”

Jackson said President George W. Bush’s first address to Congress after the attacks included a reference to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which is considered to be a cell of Al-Qaeda.

Most Uzbeks, according to Jackson, both fear and resent the terrorists
“To most Uzbeks, Islam is a way of life, and a part of culture,” she said. “But it is not a war cry, and it does not involve hate.”

Within less than two weeks of the attacks, Jackson received a phone call from the Peace Corps ordering her immediate evacuation from the country.

She had two days to pack her things, say her goodbyes and make her way to the capital to catch a flight to Washington D.C.

“I was in a state of shock, trying to say goodbye to friends and family, to physical objects, smells and sounds, dusty roads and rattletrap cars, haggling over the equivalent in the bazaar, sheep walking down the main street in town,” Jackson said.

“Within a few days, all 150 of us were put on flights to Washington, D.C., where we were processed and politely thanked for our service to the United States government and the people of Uzbekistan. And it was over,” she said.

After reflecting upon her experience, Jackson expresses how precious the country remains to her, as well as her vast memories of her time spent in Uzbekistan and how it all contributed to an amazing cultural awakening about understanding life outside the United States.

“When I see a map of Uzbekistan on CNN, to me it is bursting with life,” Jackson said.
“Uzbekistan is no paradise; in fact, it’s a place that could use a lot of help. But it is real.”