Community Corner

Local Resident Heads to Africa for 2 Years

Travis Wohlrab will volunteer with the U.S. Peace Corps in Africa until 2015.

This post was reported and written by Vernon Hills Editor Cristel Mohrman.

If you’ve seen Travis Wohlrab on the golf course or at Chipotle a little more often than usual, there’s a good reason for it.   

The Vernon Hills resident is trying to get his fill of his favorite things before he heads off to southern Africa for a 27-month assignment with the U.S. Peace Corps.
“It always struck me as a very worthwhile organization,” said Wohlrab, 25, who applied last August. “I’ve had it good, to be raised in a house in Vernon Hills, so I wanted to give something back.”   

“Eighty percent of the country lives on $2 a day,” he said of his destination, Lesotho. “It’s important to me that people know about the plight of other people in the world.” 

The 2006 Vernon Hills High School graduate has a history of volunteering, but his efforts have been local, including PADS and the St. Mary of Vernon Men’s Club.

“When they assigned me the county of Lesotho, I didn’t even know where it was. I looked it up on the map,” he said. “The last time I left the country was in 1996 for the Bahamas. I’m excited. This is a total change of scenery.”   

It’s also a big change of routine. Locally, he works as an IT coordinator at Maine West High School and also performs social media duties for the Vernon Hills Golf Course.   

In Africa, his primary task will be to provide HIV education, teaching his new community about the virus and how it’s transmitted.    

“Once I knew what I’d be doing …. I got very excited about that prospect. If you can impact one person, that’s all it takes,” he said.  

He’ll also have the opportunity to put his professional skills to use. “I’ll be working with teachers and students, teaching them skills on the computer,” he said.   

A golfer, he said he’s not sure whether he’ll be able to visit the course in Lesotho’s capital city, Meseru, where his travel will be restricted due to the high crime rate. That’s why he’s already thought of a backup plan.   

“If I have enough room in my bag, I might pack a few wedges so I can chip around the mountainside,” he said.   

Wohlrab will begin pre-service training on June 7, when he’ll move in with a host family. He’ll later move into his permanent housing, expected to be a shack with a straw roof. A filtration system will give him potable water.   

A lack of the comforts of home, such as television and even a couch, will be an adjustment. But, he said, it will give him opportunities to explore new horizons and catch up on his reading. He’s already loaded 500 books onto his e-reader, he said. 

Wohlrab said he expects he'll miss people more than the modern conveniences of the U.S.

“I’m going to miss family and friends, first and foremost. They say you get homesick pretty quickly,” he said.   

“I’m also going to miss the Stanley Cup playoffs," said Wohlrab, a Blackhawks fan. "I’m going crazy about that.”

And then there are the burritos.

“I’ve been eating Chipotle almost every other day. There are no burritos where I’m going,” he said.      

He’s scheduled to return to Vernon Hills in August 2015.


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