So much of the perception of older people incorporates the idea of slowing down, taking it easy with body and mind. To that, I say, “Au contraire (to the contrary).” I entered the Peace Corps at 58 years old. The Peace Corps prides itself on giving people a chance to be and do — it challenges with the slogan, “The hardest job you’ll ever love.”

Peace Corps, the international voluntary service program of the United States government, accommodates without prejudice about age (well, the other areas, too, but this article is on aging). The challenge to all volunteers is to downplay what you think you know and feel and jump into a new experience — culture, family relationship, climate, language, on and on. Then as you learn, you find ways you can interact and help.

So, on March 15, 2001, I said good-bye to family, friends, and my American life and boarded a plane with 44 other “plebe” Peace Corps volunteers for Senegal, West Africa. I had had to look that up on the map. What makes a woman with a good, but frustrating job, grown children with little ones themselves, and a super cultural life want to “jump off the edge of the Earth” so to speak?

Well, I wanted to feel needed, useful and face new challenges. I sure got that. Peace Corps required that I learn the local language, Wolof; this was a challenge as my brain realized how old I was and it wanted to say “Oh, skip it, why do I need this hassle?” But I love to talk and to communicate. Before I left for the village, Peace Corps trainers told me to just push myself until I just wanted to scream and cry from not understanding what was being said, then retreat to my hut, listen to my music, read my books, other-wise place my mind in America — then the next day get out there again. I did this. I actually would pour over old Elle and People magazines I borrowed from young volunteers; now I was yearning for “America.”

One day after about three months in Country, I visited the next village, and they asked me to stay for lunch and just talk. “Oh, no,” I thought, “they will realize how dumb I am!” I held maybe a 5-minute conversation, then the mother said that I should just lay back on the bed while her girls prepared lunch.  I was so exhausted, I fell asleep — six or more people crowded around me in a hot, dirt-floored hut on a mattress made of straw.

As my two years evolved, I grew more capable of conversing, more comfortable with heat, eating rice out of a communal bowl on the ground, sharing my hut with toads (a little boy shamed me by pointing out all God’s creatures need a home).  I no longer needed to constantly retreat to my hut to get a fix of American life. I wanted to stay up to talk and dance with the family!

Yes, I did my part as an American Peace Corps volunteer — I helped start a school and a number of market gardens. But what the people seemed to appreciate the most from me was my willingness to join in their lives. And what I appreciated the most was the wonderful opportunity to be enveloped by “emotional security” as I entered retirement.

Lettie Heer of Louisville, Ky., spoke about her Peace Corps experience at the 2012 Mid-America Institute on Aging, co-sponsored by University of Southern Indiana and SWIRCA & More. More information is at http://health.usi.edu/chaw/default.asp