Worldview Magazine - Fall 2007 - (Page 15)

WORLDVIEW Boomers & Beyond T he notion is now proven worthy that some of the most qualified Americans to help the poor in rural Latin America, Africa and Asia are those with lots of career experience. Take the gentleman on the right in this photograph. His name is Damon Szymanski. Damon is speeding up a tributary of the Amazon River to advise some Brazilian cattlemen near Autuzes Island on the raising of dairy stock, Jerseys and Holstein and buffalo. It was a three-week assignment, one of more than 77 assignments he’s volunteered for since he quit his own Wisconsin dairy operation and turned it over to his children. “I work strictly as a volunteer,” he says. Szymanski is 76 years old. He has five children, seven grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren. His wife went with him on a trip to Poland, “but she’s not much of a traveler,” he says. He’s worked in more than 15 countries: Brazil, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Moldova, Paraguay, Poland and Russia to name just a few. Health issues haven’t slowed him. Eight years ago in Ukraine, he picked up a parasite that stayed with him for six weeks. He suffered a severe kidney stone attack and had a CAT scan while he was in the Amazon. To get the scan at a Manaus hospital, he took a boat ride. “I was in a world of pain.” But, well, everyone on the Amazon goes by boat: Kids to school, cattle to market. And his hospital care was excellent. The idea of volunteering when you are older is not new. Lillian Carter raised a president and, when she was a grandmother, WorldView 15

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Worldview Magazine - Fall 2007

Worldview - Fall 2007
Contents
Presiden'ts Note
Lafayette Park
Introduction
Interview
Commentary
Editor's Note
Letter from Rumbek, Sudan
Listings
Letter from Yekaterinburg, Russia
Letter from Codaesti, Romania
Letter from Catia La Mar, Venezuela
Letter from Gumare, Botswana
Letter from Ridder, Kazakhstan
Letter from Rincon, Cape Verde
Letter from Port Au Prince
Another Country
Community News
Giving Back
Opinion

Worldview Magazine - Fall 2007

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