Charles City’s Mattie Maloy to fulfill dream and enlist in Peace Corps

By Kelly Terpstra, kterpstra@charlescitypress.com

White sandy beaches, crystal clear ocean water and a tropical climate make Saint Lucia a popular resort destination for tourists.

The eastern Caribbean island country in the West Indies will be Mattie Maloy’s home for the next two years.

Maloy, a 2015 Charles City High School graduate, hopped on an airplane this weekend to travel to southern Florida where she will embark on a journey to try to help make lives better and fulfill a lifelong wish.

“It was like my dream to go into the Peace Corps,” said Maloy.

So that’s exactly what she did.

Maloy is currently in Miami where she said she’ll get briefed for three days in an orientation process. She will encounter plenty of paperwork and meet the group she will be training with for three months in the Caribbean Sea.

Maloy will live with a host family in Saint Lucia during that time period, where she will be immersed in the country’s culture. Once she acquires the necessary skills, she will be sworn in as a Primary English Literacy Specialist Peace Corps volunteer.

“Before I could even figure out what I was good at I decided that I could help someone,” said Maloy.

Maloy thought the Peace Corps was the perfect career choice. The program run by the United States government was started in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy and will allow Maloy the ability to have a tremendous impact on people’s lives – all the while learning new things about her surroundings and herself.

“I wanted to make a difference. This was the best way I knew how to have a real structured plan to go out and help people,” said Maloy.

The goal will be to work on literacy unit plans with local people, along with instructional strategies, that will provide sustainable, community-based development projects that will improve the lives of the eastern Caribbean people.

“After three months they determine which site needs you the most, depending on what your skills are. Then they send you off to a city or village to work with the schools,” said Maloy.

Maloy will be taught intensive language and safety training. She will also learn a specific dialect of Creole, also known as Patois (“pa-twa”). The language is spoken by the majority of Saint Lucian natives and is a mixture of English and French vernacular.

“I’m super excited to learn it,” said Maloy. “I don’t know which dialect of Creole yet because they speak three different ones depending on which area we’re going to.”

Maloy is no stranger to teaching abroad. In 2018, she traveled to Xianyang, China, to teach kindergarteners for three months. Xianyang is located in Central China in the Shaanxi province.

Living and working in a communist country was a bit of an eye-opener for Maloy, she said.

“It was a lot different. The way that workers are treated there is a lot different than what I was expecting. But the kids were amazing. They were so cute,” said Maloy. “They worked together hard and wanted to learn.”

Maloy graduated from Graceland University in Lamoni last May. She earned an elementary education endorsement with an emphasis in reading and special education.

Another dream Maloy holds dear to her heart is to become a spokesperson for special education and to help raise awareness about how individuals with special needs are treated in all parts of the globe.

“While I was in China, I learned that America is not perfect with their special education yet. But other countries – it’s a long ways to go,” she said.

Maloy’s enlistment in the Peace Corps is for two years. She is the daughter of Joe and DeDe Maloy of Charles City. Maloy joins 76 Iowa residents currently serving in the Peace Corps and almost 2,500 Iowa residents who have served in the Peace Corps since its inception.

Maloy doesn’t know a whole lot about Saint Lucia, but she is eager to find out what the country holds for her on yet another stop in her journeys across the world.

“A lot of cruise ships stop there,” laughed Maloy.