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Judd of the Jungle
Wednesday, April 7, 1999

Ashley Judd had to travel all the way to Suriname, South America with the
Peace Corps to fall in love, but fall in love she did — with a bucket.

"[I]f it is possible to fall in love with a pail, I did," the actress
writes in the May issue of Marie Claire, which sent her to live with Corps
volunteers for a week. "It was fluted and so pretty, and came with a lid
with a sexy little handle." Alas, Judd chose not to follow her heart and
buy the bucket there in the central market, instead she opted for Pangi,
the plaid cloth used by natives for traditional clothing ("think Lilly
Pulitzer amplified"), and a root that's boiled and used to wash "the nether
regions."

Roughing it, Judd made do without the creature comforts of civilization — a
situation that came to a head when she couldn't properly thank a Mariah
Carey-loving native who braided her hair: "That, I must say, is the only
time I wished for something I did not have," she writes, "namely a cell
phone, so I could call Mariah and ask her to sing 'Always Be My Baby' to my
new friend!"

Only mosquitos — Judd writes she was chased by one that seemed to be the
size of her hand — challenged the star's natural fearlessness, and the trip
taught her respect for the hard-working Corps volunteers and their hosts.
"I could have done it when I was 22," she writes, "joined the [Peace
Corps] and flourished, but maybe by telling you about my experience I have
done even greater good. I was blessed to see that the spirit of people in
faraway places and in disparate conditions is still just the
inextinguishable spirit of life. In telling you about it, I hope you can
see it just a bit more easily in your own lives." — Michael Peck