Long distance: Julie Dunn

Here: LSU master’s graduate in elementary education

There: Peace Corps teacher trainer for grades 1-9 in the Gambia

Editor’s Note: This is a longer version of the Q&A which appeared in the print edition of June 2011.

Why did you leave?

I left Baton Rouge for New York in the summer of 2007. After teaching for a couple of years in the Bronx, I knew I was ready for a change, a new set of experiences to add to my teaching style and also to my life before I was swallowed by a classroom and education system forever.

Why are you in the Gambia?

I am here to boast the lower grades reading program, which is a bit challenging as school is taught in English rather than the students’ local, tribal languages. According to the Peace Corps’ goals I am also here to help meet my country’s needs for training men and women, for host country nationals to have a better understanding of Americans and for Americans to have a better understanding of host country nationals.

When did you arrive? When will you leave?

July 1, 2010 to be exact, I arrived in the Gambia with a group of other education volunteers. I will be here until September 2012.

Where do you live?

I live just across the street from my school in one of the fifty compounds in my village. Each compound is composed of large extended families with multiple wives and children making up the majority of the household. With that said, I live in one of the larger villages in my region.

What are some of the details of life that you’ve adjusted to?

No electricity (or no light as we say here) and with that, no internet and also no running water. The hardest thing I have had to get used to is eating out of my hand from a communal food bowl with close to a dozen women and children all squatting around it. I worked so hard at being delicate and keeping all the rice somewhat in the palm of my hand. Then I realized you just have to go for it. Everyone is making a mess with oil smeared all about their faces. What does it matter if it happens to me too? I have got bucket baths down to a science. Give me just a few cups of water and an additional bucket to stand in so that I can water my banana plant (my pride and joy might I add) and I am good to go. Even though it is taboo for Mandinkas to bathe in the dark, it is my favorite time. You are out under the stars. Here the sky seems so much closer.

What is your typical day like?

On a typical day I am at school by 8 a.m., where I open the school library to dozens of students who come to peruse the books. Or as the upper grades do, they ask me about Sally Ride and 50 Cent or a new word they found. The lower grades come to pet the hair on my arms as I sing along with them to Jolly Phonics rhymes. Throughout the day I keep based in the library with a few classes coming and going. I also observe and assist teachers with their math and phonics lessons. I usually leave school at the 2 p.m. prayer call to head home for lunch with my host family and also to hit up the pit latrine, I site I don’t dare to enter at school. After lunch, I return to school for the new round of students and afternoon shift, which lasts until 6 p.m. I continue to assist teachers and chat with students in the library or help water the school garden as students narrate the garden’s progress. After 6, I collect my gallons to wait in line at the pump for water before I can bathe or refill my water filter. After a few more prayer calls, around 9 p.m., I gather around the food bowl with the women and children of my compound for one last meal of rice, oil and fish before we move indoors to escape the mosquitoes.

How have people reacted to your presence?

Gambians are nothing but positive and welcoming as greetings are such a huge part of the culture. Get the greetings down and you have mastered about 50% of the language. “Peace be with you. How is the day? How are the home people? How is the work? Hope there is no trouble.” Of course there is the occasional small child who runs screaming from my presence, my white skin, but everyone I have met has been extremely kind and is often extending an invitation to lunch or green tea over and over again. The Peace Corps has a popular presence here as adults and elders often want to share their experiences with me about previous volunteers that have touched them in some way.

What do you like most about the Gambia?

Yes, I may be posted in a school, but I feel my biggest presence is felt in the people of my village and the surrounding villages. I love riding my bike to visit with students in their home compounds. I often frequent twin boys a few kilometers away to see their baboons and crocodile. It is on those long bike rides that I hear my Gambian name, Fatou Darboe, shouted out in excitement from all ages just begging me to stop and chat with them. I love to walk around my village in the evenings where you have no choice but to greet everyone you see, even if they are tucked away behind a fence at their pit latrine. (No worries, I have a concrete fence!) You can’t pass anyone up without a “Peace be with you.” I love standing in line at the pump listening to the women bicker about their places in line and gossip about those not present.

What don’t you like?

This country, of course, comes with its share of challenges and as voiced many times: Change is a problem. Go into the local shop and you will never receive change for the small purchase you just made: Change is a problem. Encourage the women to use less oil in their cooking: Change is a problem. Change is slow, I understand. That is why I will be here for two years, but goodness it gets frustrating sometimes.

What do you miss aside from family and friends?

The little toast at Coffee Call, the lemon ice box pie at Piccadilly, ballet classes at my old studio, sitting on the swing in our front yard and driving all the way down Highland Road from start to finish.

What have you learned from this experience so far?

I have learned an incredible amount about myself and the world. Filling out the application from the comfort of my couch, with my favorite reruns playing in the background battling the loud clanks from the radiator and Thai take-out balanced on the small trash-to-treasure table of my NYC apartment, as snow falls outside, I never would imagined I would be where I am today, nor do I think, I had any idea this type of living was possible. Wiping constant sweat from my brow, watching hand washed clothes disintegrate in the sun, tackling the dust clouds of bush roads from the seat of my bicycle, bathing under the stars, eating from my right hand–I wouldn’t have it any other way except to be a bit more nourished. It’s tough to survive on rice and oil.

Editor’s note: An abridged version of this Q&A appeared in our June 2011 issue.