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And she did, even though she was on one of the most rigorous of the more than 140 Earthwatch research projects this year. The Earthwatch Institute, based in Watertown, Mass., is a pioneer in enlisting volunteer workers to assist scientists on projects from deserts to ocean floors. This year 720 volunteer teams will go to international and U.S. sites, compared with just four when Earthwatch was launched in 1971. While more than 2,000 scientific papers have resulted from Earthwatch expeditions, volunteers for the most part are required only to have physical endurance and willing hands. Supervised by ecologist Dustin Becker, the Peacheys' team captured and recorded some 300 birds and added to the store of knowledge about Ecuador's dwindling tropical-forest habitat.
HOOKED ON HELPING
Working and raising their three daughters left Duane and Bettie Peterson little time or money for travel--until four years ago, when Duane took early retirement from his product-development job for Gillette and Bettie quit working as a nurse. "We started thinking about how we've been given a lot out of life and wanted to give something back," he says. Signing on with Global Volunteers, the couple from Hudson, Wis., have jetted off to places they had only dreamed of seeing: Costa Rica and the South Pacific. Their favorite jaunt was to China, where they spent three weeks last year teaching conversational English to college-age Chinese students in the city of X'ian. "We would ask them what they wanted to talk about, and they would listen and try to converse," explains Bettie. The first questions, she noted, were about Michael Jordan and the NBA.
Every year Global Volunteers, which is based in St. Paul, Minn., sends some 1,500 workers to 21 international projects ranging from health care, business and community improvement to teaching English. Their airfare and the cost of $2,095 each are tax deductible. "It was a wonderful way to experience a culture, vs. going as a tourist," Bettie says. On free afternoons and weekends, they went sightseeing and enjoyed trying the local cuisine. Duane, whom everyone calls Pete, developed a taste for eel with hot pepper. They were invited to cook dinner with a Chinese family in their home, and were allowed to visit the hut of a Taoist monk--a rare privilege, even for the Chinese. After waiting almost a lifetime to travel at all, the Petersons now plan to do volunteer vacations every year. Says Pete: "We're hooked."
--With reporting by Michele Donley/Chicago and Anne Moffett/Washington