In the primitive village of Mano, secluded by miles of the Gola Forest and dotted with grass-roofed mud huts, Cornell Menking, a 24-year-old Peace Corps volunteer, lives among the Kissi, a peaceful tribe of farmers.

The village sits in the northeast corner of the Kailahun District in Sierra Leone. It takes Menking 30 minutes by motorcycle to get to the nearest market town, where only the chief has electricity, and six hours to get to a regional center of any size.

Now the head of Western’s Office of Internationalization, Menking learned more than just the native tongue, West African Krio, during his time in Africa in 1988.

The simple lifestyle in idyllic Mano challenged Menking’s world-view. He began to question whether the ideas of family, career and happiness he had grown up with were the best.

“Any time you go abroad, you’re voluntarily putting yourself into a situation where there’s going to be a lot of dissonance about your beliefs and understanding,” he said. “That dissonance is where you start to grow.”

Menking became frustrated with what he saw as the Corps’ patronizing attempts to force new agriculture methods on a people who’d been farming for centuries.

He thought he could do more good by teaching the villagers to use what food they had more nutritionally.

The family of Amara Kamara had taken him in as their own. They shared their dinner of native red rice and sauce with him each night.

He grew close to them and to another child, Wata’, who was with the family often.

One day he noticed Kamara’s son was malnourished.

“I told him, ‘Dawda is too skinny– you need to start feeding him more protein.’”

Kamara listened, and Menking watched the child grow healthier as months passed.

But just after Dawda’s health improved, Wata’s mother came to Menking worried. Her daughter had severe diarrhea.

Menking prescribed a simple re-hydration treatment: boiled water with salt and sugar.

“I taught her how to mix it; I said, ‘You do this; it costs pennies for the sugar; you’ll be all right,’” he recalled.

He left for a regional center to restock supplies, and when he returned a week later, the fat-cheeked girl was dead.

Kamara told him Wata’s mother preferred to buy tobacco instead of sugar for the treatment.

“I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding; this child was not that sick. I told you what to do,’” Menking paused.

“I just think about how forgotten she is.”

But she isn’t forgotten: 20 years after her death, he thinks of her often. He keeps a picture of her on his computer, with plans to print it and hang it on the wall.

To him, the story of Dawda and Wata’ represents the ability of education to save lives, and the consequences of an education ignored.

After the Peace Corps, Menking decided to pursue a career in international education. He travelled between cultures and continents, eager to teach and to learn.

He knew economic and agricultural development projects could fail and that their benefits could fade over time.

The development of people and communities through education, however, have the potential to make a lasting change on the communities, and on him.

Reach Eileen Ryan at diversions@chherald.com.