Speech by Bill Leech with contributions from the 2014 Peace Corps The Gambia Education Cohort
Read in Jola, Mandinka, Pular and Wolof (Video: Jessica Fryman reading the official thank yous in Jola)

Good morning everyone. Welcome friends and thank you for being here sharing this moment with us as we swear in as the 2014 Peace Corps The Gambia Education cohort.

There are many people that we need to thank and we try our best to include everyone. We are sincerely indebted to the U.S. charge de affair, the Gambian Minister of Basic and Secondary Education, The Gambian government, our host families and villages, the Peace Corps country director and all the staff, including the drivers, medical unit, programming staff and LCFs who have been devoted to our successful transition from trainees to volunteers.

Without their dedication, their vigilance and sense of humor, we would not have been able to make it this far in our training and we would not be as confident to take this next step in our service as we step out on our own.

Our class represents the wide diversity that is inherent in the United States. We are 19 wildly different people. We collectively call 15 different states home. We come from 7 different professional backgrounds. Four of us have post-graduate degrees. But we come from one country and we have come to the Gambia to do one job. And that job, is to drink atttaya.

On June 24, we met in Philadelphia as strangers, left America as friends and arrived in Banjul as partners. In the best tradition of Americans before us, we came in the spirit of generosity, compassion and the willingness to serve. When we got off the plane, the first thing we felt was the heat. The second thing we felt was anxiety. But the third thing, the third thing we felt, was the excitement to take on the new challenges laid out before us.

Now what can be said about Gambians? Gambians might be the most welcoming and aggressively friendly people in the world. Our host families have made sure we are not just tourists but are members of your community. We eat the same food and we sleep in the same houses as you. We dance with you, we sweat alongside you in the fields. And we are awakened each morning by the same donkeys and roosters as you are. We have played with dogs, we have adopted dogs, we have been bit by dogs and we have been kept awake all night by the very same dogs.

Becoming a volunteer is no easy task. It is not a smooth ride on the green bus down the paved highway, but it’s more like a bumpy ride on a donkey cart through the bush. When you’re learning a new language and adapting to the new culture, we don’t always see the obvious signs. Sometimes we miss the turn and ride our bikes all the way to the ferry crossing. Sometimes we find rice in unusual places. Sometimes we get lost in airports and markets. Sometimes we break every chair that we sit on and sometimes we break one chair one after the other. And sometimes we wake up covered head to toe in strange rashes and bed bug bites.

And yet, still we carry on with smiles on our faces understanding that this is part of the deal we signed up for and filled with the pride that comes with being a member of the Peace Corps community. As trainees, we also have the responsibility to help our support network back home adjust to our absence over the next two years of our service. We have told our friends and families back home, sometimes reminding them time and time again, that we have joined the U.S. Peace Corps not the Marine Corps. And we have to constantly reassure them that we will not die of Ebola or any other tropical disease while we are here.

Although our primary job here is the improvement of education through collaboration with Gambian schools, we are just as focused on cultural exchange. Though we have had formal education during our pre-service training our true education will come through working in our communities. We are here to help, but we cannot do it alone. We want to ask each of you here, will you be our partners in this endeavor?

We are now the latest contingent of Peace Corps teacher trainers in the Gambia. We know that the challenges before us are immense. It has been written that it’s hard to measure the impact of a teacher anywhere and Peace Corps teachers are no exception.

Ultimately, what matters most is not what our teachers learn but that they learn to love it and have faith in their own abilities.

We are one group here, for two years, in five regions across 13 levels of education in 19 villages in your country. We hope that we can not only meet your expectations, but exceed them.

Always do what you are afraid to do.

Thank you.