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It was on a colorless January day complete with howling wind and swirling brittle snow when a local high school grad-- back in town on a break from her stint with the Peace Corps-- talked of living in tropical Mozambique.

She would be heading back soon, to the 100 degree days and her house, a cement building with a tin roof. To get to her second "home" the Center City native flies to Amsterdam, then transfers jets to Johannesburg, South Africa, where she expected to hop a mini-van type public transit vehicle and finish her trek in the back of an open truck, bumping along a dirt road for two hours.

Twenty-somethings have always had dues to pay when embarking on a career, but this seems a bit more than one might knowingly choose.

Katie Kampa, though, has discovered that the Peace Corps is a perfect fit towards her goal of working with UNICEF full-time. It's been a little over a year that she's been in Mozambique, and while visiting the Chisago Lakes area over the Holidays Kampa was missing her villagers; especially the children. Her face brightens when she tells of playing games with the young ones who call her "Kat-ee-ah." The adults in the children's lives, she says, are so pre-occupied with barely eeking out a living that any interaction with an adult, like herself, is such a treat for the kids.

Her mission as a Peace Corps volunteer is to help curtail the rampant HIV/AIDS in the coastal African nation. She said in Mozambique, close to 20 percent of the people have AIDS.

She tells of little victories that make the effort worthwhile. There are cultural and educational hurdles, mis-information and superstitions she encounters regularly.

Kampa graduated from Chisago Lakes High School in 2004 and from the U-of-W River Falls in 2009. In her senior year in college she signed up to help build a school in Uganda, and she truly enjoyed Africa. She also credits a professor who ignited her interest in working with organizations assisting nations in crisis.

It was not that she had a lifelong dream to do this, "...who even knew there were degrees offered in disaster response," she comments.

It seems so natural now. She sees "much work to be done" and wants to be in the thick of it. Kampa finishes her Peace Corps contract next October and then hopes to pursue a Masters Degree in Human Development or a related discipline and then take a job with UNICEF.

At this time she's stationed at a health outpost funded by a non-governmental organization (NGO) that provides public health services and teaches general healthful living practices.

For instance, the medicine used to manage symptoms of HIV/AIDS is fairly readily available. But following precise instructions on taking the medicine, plus being aware of other health risks, are proving to be challenging lessons to impart.

In Mozambique there are traditional village healers, cureindeiros, who are revered. Kampa's supervisors at her health outpost understand it is better to work with these elders and not subvert their role in the village. So she meets with the cureindeiros to educate them on sanitary practices like using a razor blade just once, and other issues. She teaches them symptoms of diseases such as TB, and advises healers when to refer someone under their care to seek advanced medical help.

Kampa recalled first arriving for a three month Peace Corps training, which is followed by another three months "integration" period in the village. She arrived right before Christmas, just as the "hungry season" descended (rice, beans and onions are pretty much all that's available) and it was quite overwhelming at first, not being with her family for the holiday and all.

Peace Corps volunteers work with local "counterparts" who know the lay of the land and help build trust with the people.

Kampa minored in Spanish at college in River Falls, but also studied Portugese for this Peace Corps assignment. Plus, she had volunteered with the Minnesota HIV/AIDS Project and took courses earlier from the Red Cross. Even so, it was "traumatic" the first few weeks.

The Peace Corps assignment is for 27 months, but it takes about a full year just to get comfortable. She explains. "It's not as long as you think."

In addition to her educational programs and her work with youth on understanding HIV/AIDS, Kampa has a project going creating a "bike ambulance" service. There's so few vehicles in her territory. She is also working with village women on agricultural opportunities to both supplement income and feed their own families.

And, the villagers aren't the only ones doing the learning-- Kampa reports she killed a chicken for the first time in her life and she learned to tuck mosquito netting in tightly, all around the bed, to keep rats at bay.

Katie is on-line at www.kampain mozambique.blogspot.com.

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