Her life will be completely different than what she’s known for her 22 years, but it’s something she’s wanted to do for a long time.
Jodie Bargeron will board a plane for Mali, West Africa as a volunteer for the Peace Corps on Aug. 12.
“I’ve always dreamed of doing this since high school,” the 1999 Clarkston High School graduate said.
It wasn’t until her junior year at Grand Valley State University that she began to take steps toward making a decision.
At that time, she logged on to the Peace Corps website and found they were holding an informational meeting at Michigan State University. She and her then roommate attended the meeting, which is where Bargeron picked up an application packet and met with a recruiter.
A year later, last August to be exact, she sent in the application.
Specifically, it was while studying a semester abroad in South Africa, Bargeron made her decision to join the Peace Corps.
“When I went to South Africa, I thought if I like this, I’ll go. It was an easy decision.”
There she studied at the University of Natal and worked in an HIV clinic doing pre-and post-test counseling and working with a support group.
“Working with the women at the clinic was awesome. I loved it. And the people were so welcoming,” Bargeron said, surprised by the latter because of assumptions typically made of Americans by others.
It’s the ability to do long term community work in a foreign land that has drawn her to the Peace Corps.
Bargeron, who graduated in April with a degree in social work, was willing to go wherever the Peace Corps sent her.
“There’s nowhere I wouldn’t want to go,” Bargeron said, who writes poetry, is into music, likes travelling, obviously, and is active in politics, particularly the Green Party.
She’s lived in Clarkston since fourth grade and, before South Africa, had only travelled out of the country for a college trip to Mexico.
Now it’s off to Mali, West Africa. There she’ll work in health education, focusing on nutrition and HIV, during her two year term which includes an additional three months of initial training.
On Aug. 11 she flies to Philadelphia to meet with others going and take some language lessons, then she’ll fly to Paris for a layover before heading to Mali.
“I have a little bit of nervousness, but I’m mostly excited,” Bargeron said, who also volunteered in a battered women’s clinic in Grand Rapids during college.
The hardest thing is leaving friends and family behind.
“It’s hard to take that I won’t hear their voices for two years.” There will be no telephone, no E-mail and postal mail takes a month to get to the United States and vice versa.
“It’s gonna be hard not being able to pick up the phone and hear her voice on the other end,” mom Jan Bargeron said.
Jodie, Jan and dad Dale are going to purchase mini tape recorders and try sending the recordings back and forth. If they can be mailed without receiving any damage, this will be an option for the family to hear each other’s voices.
The distance between loved ones isn’t the only challenge for Bargeron. Adjusting to a very different culture is another.
“Growing up in the states women are accustomed to living a certain way.”
In Mali, Bargeron will have to wear more conservative clothing, live in a mud thatch hut, and be accompanied by a man everywhere she goes for protection, among other differences.
“It’s very communal, like there’s only one water pump.”
And then there’s Yellow Fever and Malaria and “so many illnesses we don’t have here” to worry about.
She is concerned as well about the language barrier, particularly the native language. “There are also six to seven regional languages.”
The national language, French, she isn’t worried about learning, though Bargeron tackled six years of Spanish in school.
“I’m thinking French would have been more useful,” she laughed.
Bargeron will receive a living stipend for food and rent. She’ll live with a family there. She’ll also get money to buy a bike and larger necessary supplies.
After her service, she earns a readjustment fee, “to help me get my feet back on the ground when I get back to the States.”
As a Peace Corps volunteer she is eligible for a tuition reduction, and Bargeron plans to take the offer up for graduate school to get her master’s in social work and have a “more normal career.”
But, Bargeron said, “I can see myself doing this after retirement. They take people in their 60s and 70s.”
“We’re very proud of her and support her 100 percent,” Jan said. “But it’s not without worry, though we try to focus on all the positive aspects. It’s what she wants to do. I give her credit for her bravery. I don’t think I could do that. This will be a good experience for her. ”
In the end, Bargeron hopes to “get experience for my first social work job, make friends, learn about their wonderful culture I don’t know much about, and experience everything else you would normally when you’re travelling.”
In other words, “It’s gonna be an awesome adventure.”