Wheaton Peace Corps volunteers inspire friends

Some went without credit cards, others endured limited access to showers and the Internet.

Michelle Kloempken survived a week without a microwave, refrigerator, television or air conditioner.

“I'm not really one of our friends that likes to rough it,” she said.

But Kloempken sacrificed these amenities without leaving home. Meanwhile, her inspiration — friends from Wheaton serving in the Peace Corps — are foregoing creature comforts while volunteering in villages overseas.

Kloempken and 10 friends are concluding the weeklong Live Like a Peace Corps Volunteer Challenge, a program created by Peace Corps volunteers, or PCVs, to give family and friends an idea of what Peace Corps service is like. They began emulating a Third World lifestyle Monday, Aug. 1.

“It's a taste of Peace Corps life,” Kloempken said. “We're doing it for one week and kind of immersing ourselves.”

Generally, one person participates in honor of one PCV, but in this case, 11 friends of Kloempken's boyfriend, Pete Stephan, and longtime friend Stephanie Kovanda came together to brave the challenge.

Stephan left in May for Nicaragua, where has trained as a business volunteer and will help teach entrepreneurship in local high schools. Kovanda arrived in Mongolia in early June to begin her three-month Peace Corps training. Both are 2006 Wheaton North graduates.

Kloempken and her roommate turned their apartment into a reduced living space, consisting of their living room, kitchen and bathroom. The confined space is meant to mirror the accommodations of a PCV.

“I think it's nice for everyone to know that, at the end of the week, they get to go back to their real lives,” Kloempken said.

Stephan and Kovanda both live in areas with no access to indoor plumbing and regular visitors like tarantulas and bats.

Fellow Wheaton North graduate Sarah Pliske says the challenge for those at home is minimal compared to the experience Stephan and Kovanda are facing.

“I see it as we're giving up a couple easy things for a week, where they're giving up two and a quarter years of their life to help people in another country,” Pliske said.

Pliske said that life without a refrigerator has been most challenging and feels like she's on the “Top Chef challenge where you can only use food from the gas station.”

Kloempken agrees that “eating basically fruit snacks and peanut butter sandwiches” has been hard.

Though, for volunteers like Kovanda, the most difficult part of initial training can be the language barrier. Kloempken relays that her friend is as proficient in Mongolian as a 3-year-old.

The 11 participants, eight of whom are from the Chicago area, didn't have to deal with communication difficulties or latrines, but a week without air conditioning in the August heat can be brutal.

“The surprise for me has been the reduced living space,” Kloempken said. “It's been kind of a struggle to get a good night sleep and navigate in a tiny space.”

Though, in the name of friendship, the sacrifices are all worthwhile.

“It sounds corny,” Kloempken said, “but they both wanted to change the world and make it a better place.”