As her junior year of college came to a close, Charlotte Ference decided that after school, she wanted to do something to help give back to those in need, prompting her to join the Peace Corps.
She explained that she first heard about the Peace Corps when she was 12 years old through a family friend, who described his time in the Peace Corps as when his life begun.
“He was always really on board with when you are done with school, and when you need to know what you’re going to do next, you should join the Peace Corps,” Ference told the Review.
After she graduated in May 2015 from Iona College, where she majored in English and psychology and minored in religious studies, she decided to commit two years of her life to volunteering for the Peace Corps as an English teacher.
Ference said that she had told herself, “I’m going to join the Peace Corps, [then] I’m going to go back, get a job, and have a career.”
At the age of just 22, she left for Fandani, a village in South Africa.
Ference said that by living in Fandani, she felt like she learned how to become an adult.
“Iona gave me all the skills, but it’s such a sheltered community, you rarely need to do something alone,” she said. “Fandani taught me how to be confident in my independence.”
During her time in Fandani, Ference lived in a rondeval, a round hut made of mud with a thatched roof that didn’t have access to running water, or reliable electricity and cell phone service.
“Sometimes [my house] made me feel like ‘Oh, how exciting and exotic,’ and on a bad day I was like ‘My house is made of [mud], of course this is going to go wrong,’” she said.
During the first few months of her stay, Ference said, “My goal [was] to just meet people and hang out with these children that I have to teach.”
Ference lived next to her host family, which included her two host sisters and host grandmother. Ference spoke fondly of her host grandmother, who helped show her the ropes and worked with her to understand the Tshivenda, the language of Venda, the providence of South Africa that Fandani is located in.
“[My host grandmother] dealt with so much of my nonsense,” she said.
Ference explained her technique for learning the language consisted of following around her host grandmother with a dictionary to help her translate.
The knowledge of the local language helped Ference when the school year began in January 2016, where she taught English to elementary and middle school students.
She explained that typically, schools with 100 children are only given three teachers. On top of this, schools located in more rural villages lacked enough textbooks and writing utensils, making it difficult for students to learn.
“The teachers know how to teach, they know what to do, [and] they want to teach, and the resources aren’t there,” she said. “If you’re in a super rural area, your kids are going to fail no matter how much the teachers love teaching.”
Eventually, the struggles Ference was facing with the school became too much, and she requested to leave her volunteer assignment just 22 months in.
Although she was met with these obstacles, other volunteers she worked with agree that she made an impact during her time in Fandani.
Michelle Dolinar, a Peace Corps volunteer in Masisi, a village in South Africa, said that her friendship with Ference was one of the best things that came out of her time volunteering.
“Volunteers and Peace Corps staff could turn to [Ference] for advice and support, and know that her response was genuine,” said Dolinar, who also worked as an English teacher.
Although Ference was more than 7,000 miles from her home in Smallwood, New York, she was able to keep up with family, friends and professors.
Dr. Kim Paffenroth, a professor of religious studies at Iona College, said it was important for him to keep up with Ference.
“In her faraway land, it seemed right to go to some extra effort to buy cards and warm socks and send them along,” Paffenroth said.
Just as she kept up with her loved ones in the U.S., Ference said the distance from her friends and host family back in Fandani hasn’t got in the way of continuing on with those relationships.
“I talk to someone from Fandani at least every other day,” she said.
Ference, now 24, said that reintegrating into American culture has been difficult and that she’s still trying to figure out who she is. “Every part of me fell in love with that village,” she said.
Despite this, she already has plans to begin studying for her master’s in social work at Hunter College in August, and her master’s in health advocacy at Sarah Lawrence College in January.
As for Fandani, Ference said she already has plans to visit again in 2019.
