spotlight on young alum
By Tiara Darnell ‘06 - World Traveler and Peace Corps Volunteer
shows her love for travel and service
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past,” Faulkner wrote. I love those words and I find
myself ruminating on them often during the endless amount of time I have to think these
days. A lot of my friends look back on their high school experience and speak about it
indifferently. They’ve moved on, and they’ve forgotten that time in their lives for the most
part. Me, I could never forget my high school experience because I firmly believe the people
I met, and the things I learned and experience there set me on a unique and amazing
course early on in life. And six years later as my one-year mark as a Peace Corps volunteer
approaches, I get the feeling that I’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg of what is to come
further down the road. I graduated from Bishop McNamara not only with a diploma, but
also with the guiding memories and life lessons I learned from a handful of truly dedicated
teachers, staff, and a community of friends unlike any other I have ever known.
I got my start traveling as a Junior when I went on McNamara’s first and only student trip
to East Africa to visit Lakeview Secondary School in Uganda. Since that time I’ve traveled
to fifteen countries and graduated with a degree, with honors, in Modern World History
and a minor in Spanish Language and Culture Studies. Also, for the last eleven months I’ve
been serving as a Peace Corps youth development volunteer in southern Morocco. My work
here is essentially capacity-building which I do through a variety of ways, but mainly through
teaching English, doing arts and crafts with the deaf and mute, and teaching American
and international cooking as well as nutrition to women and expectant mothers. I also
collaborate with other volunteers and local Non Government Organizations to execute bigger
projects in a variety of fields including health, education, HIV/AIDS awareness, and women’s
empowerment to name a few. After I finish Peace Corps I plan to continue my studies in
graduate school focusing on human geography and urban studies.
When I think back to what influenced my decisions to study abroad, participate in
international programs, study history and a foreign language, and finally to join the Peace Corps, I first give credit to my parents. My dad was in the
Air Force for twenty years and though the family never traveled with him he always sent us postcards from wherever he went. I’d read those postcards
over and over promising myself that one day I would go to those places too, and I’d be the one sending him postcards. My mother always told me to
find something I was good at and love to do, and to find a way to make money doing it. Considering the monthly $375 stipend I live on, I haven’t quite
figured out the money part yet, but I definitely know that traveling and learning about the geography of different cuisines and cultures is what I love
doing. I also thank the both of them for buying and letting me play “Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?” for hours on the computer growing
up. I never found her but I realize now that I found out a lot about the world and about my interests without ever leaving home, and that’s really
something special.
Secondly, there were a handful of really dedicated teachers and staff at Bishop McNamara that definitely had a positive impact on me. Even though he
was one of the last teachers I had, Mr. Chris Williams is usually the first person that comes to mind when I think about Bishop McNamara. I recently
told him that when I walked into his class on the first day of Global Studies I stared at the board and read in awe the entire list of countries he’d visited
up until that point. I remember thinking, “Man, I want to travel like him when I grow up.” Chris left to pursue his own dreams of being a Peace Corps
volunteer soon after my class graduated, and he inspired me then and continues to inspire me now more than he may know.
Another person I’ll be eternally grateful for is Mr. Michael Pozniak. I gained so much from the discussions we had in “US & the World” class, and
from the different ideologies that illuminated them. I also would not have become involved with the Women2Women program at Lesley and Harvard
Universities, and eventually traveled to Jordan without Mr. Pozniak’s help. In retrospect that experience and a few others probably played a roll in
Peace Corp’s decision to invite me to serve in Morocco, and I’m glad for it because I truly feel that Morocco is where I was meant to be for these two
defining years of my life.
Although it was a major one, making the decision to join the Peace Corps wasn’t difficult for me because I knew what I wanted. Still, there have been
times when it’s been difficult to imagine myself sticking with it for the full two years. If there is one piece of advice I can give to students who may be
considering Peace Corps or some other global opportunity it is to always keep an open heart and mind when it comes to experiencing new things,
and most importantly to surround yourself with a support system of family and friends at home and abroad that will encourage you to keep moving
forward when times get rough. It’s so easy to become cynical and inert, and to just give up when things get a little difficult. But if you focus on your
abilities, and focus on what you know you can do, as cliché as it may seem, you’ll surprise yourself and others in ways you never thought possible. Keep
that in mind always for whatever you do and the ɕ݅ɑ́