Long Islanders return home after Peace Corps suspends volunteer activities

Jessica Williams of Port Jefferson Station and Talisa Woodroffe of Hollis, Queens, both recent Peace Corps volunteers, have been back home for several weeks, after their assignments in China were shut down months early as the coronavirus started to take its toll there.

Josh Kotler of Merrick said Monday by phone from Colombia, where he has been a Peace Corps volunteer, that he was waiting to be taken to the agency's headquarters in that South American country as the first stage of an evacuation process. Hours earlier, the Peace Corps had announced it was removing all of its volunteers from postings around the world because of the virus, also known as COVID-19.

In a statement posted to its website, the Peace Corps agency director, Jody K. Olsen, said in part: "As COVID-19 continues to spread and international travel becomes more and more challenging by the day, we are acting now to safeguard your well-being and prevent a situation where Volunteers are unable to leave their host countries."

The announcement added that the evacuations represented a "temporary suspension" of volunteer activities. 

As he waited for a ride in Colombia to Peace Corps headquarters, Kotler said: "I think it’s good government is taking preemptive action to do what's in our best interest. But on the other hand, it’s demoralizing because the community is who suffers. All my projects are now terminated that were in progress. I had a bunch of community groups, youth groups that now don’t have a leader. A lot of projects I had been working on had finally become valuable to the community."

Kotler, 24, said he was involved in a community economic development program in a rural area about two hours south of Cartagena. "Where I am, the virus is not bad," he added. "I’m a lot safer here than the U.S." But since countries are closing their borders, he said it would be better if he were back in the United States. Kotler added he expects to be headed to New York Tuesday or Wednesday. 

Kotler said he had been a volunteer in the country for 19 months. But the evacuation means, "This is termination of my service."

Williams said normally, a Peace Corps volunteer's assignment lasts 27 months. But her service, which started in June 2018 in Chongqing, China, where she taught English, formally ended in early February. She said she and other volunteers in that area had been evacuated to Thailand at the end of January. Under normal circumstances, she said her service would have ended in July of this year.

Both Williams and Woodroffe said they feel fine and have not experienced any symptoms. Williams said she and others evacuated from China and were monitored by Peace Corps staff in Thailand. Neither woman was tested for the coronavirus, they said.
"There was a lot going on in January because we had gotten news the Peace Corps was ending its program in China completely," Williams, 25, said in a phone interview from Port Jefferson Station, where she lives with her parents and siblings. She said that decision was made before the coronavirus emergency, though she was unsure why.

Williams praised the Peace Corps staff in China, who she said had been "keeping us updated very frequently," telling them to take precautions, such as wearing surgical masks and recommending against, then totally banning, any visits to Wuhan. She said she and other volunteers in the region "were not concerned about our health. We knew if something took a turn for the worse, they would evacuate us. And we were. We got evacuated to Thailand first, on Jan. 31. We were there for about seven to eight days. Our final close of service date was Feb. 6."

Woodroffe, 25, who had left China during a vacation that brought her back to New York earlier, on Jan. 18, said she didn't feel unsafe while in Chongqing. "No one was worried or super worried about it ... It’s when I flew into the airport in New York — JFK — when I was going through immigration they had asked if I’d been to Wuhan. In that moment, it made me think this is a bigger deal than I thought."

By Olivia Winslow

olivia.winslow@newsday.com@newsollie