NATCHEZ — Brushing her teeth in a concrete water basin, shopping at an outside market for produce and living in a neighborhood of mud-brick homes helped Marlaine Woodfork realize how shrunken her vision of the world was before she joined the Peace Corps.

Woodfork, 24, a 2005 graduate of Natchez High School, has spent the last year and a half volunteering in Guatemala, where she teaches local women basic health skills.

She works in a program called Healthy Homes, which focuses mostly on teaching preventative health issues that most Americans take for granted, Woodfork said.

For example, Woodfork said, the No. 1 cause of death on children in Guatemala is diarrhea.

“This may be hard for an American to grasp that many children die from such a preventable disease, but for the people of Guatemala it is their harsh reality,” she said.

Woodfork said volunteering in Guatemala has brought out her creative side, since she is forced to find innovative ways to teach women with no formal education about the symptoms of the disease and how to prevent it.

Woodfork said she joined the Peace Corps in July 2009 for the exposure to different cultures and the chance to learn another language, making her marketable in the workforce.

Woodfork obtained a bachelor’s in psychology from Tougaloo College in 2009.

“But most importantly, I wanted (to join the Peace Corps) to be part of something that was bigger than me,” she said.

Woodfork said using crowded public transportation instead of driving a car, having to relearn how to brush her teeth over a basin called a “pila” instead of a sink in a restroom and coming face-to-face with the struggles of the local people has opened her to a new way of life.

“I have seen situations I never thought still existed,” Woodfork said.

Woodfork said the hospitality she grew up with in Natchez gave her an advantage over other volunteers when it comes to communicating with people different than herself.

“I can walk around my village of 2,000 people and speak to everyone I see without feeling out of place or awkward about it,” she said.

But her experiences have furthered her communications skills, and made her more outgoing, assertive and open-minded, she said.

“My grasp on world matters and people around the world have improved, and I realize how insignificant my mere existence means in this world if I only think of myself,” Woodfork said.

Woodfork said her mother and grandmother inspired her to become who she is today.

Her mother showed her the value of hard work and how not to settle when life treats you unkind, Woodfork said. And Woodfork said her grandmother inspired her to do things in her life that her grandmother was not able to do in her lifetime.

“These women taught me how to survive and in doing so, I have learned to thrive,” Woodfork said.

When Woodfork leaves the Peace Corps in 2012, she plans to attend graduate school to study international affairs.

“Every experience that I have been faced with in Guatemala will come back with me to America, if not only as a memory but a reminder that the world is so much bigger than we imagine,” Woodfork said.

Woodfork is the daughter of David and Barbara Conner.

Woodfork said those who would like to donated toward her projects in Guatemala can send a tax-deductible donation through the U.S. Government.

Checks should be made out to “Friends of Guatemala,” and the memo line should read “Marlaine L. Woodfork – Cat. II.” The address is P.O. Box 33018, Washington, D.C., 20033.