By Rita McInerney

Julie Herold is living and working in Sierra Leone, a small country on the west coast of Africa that most people will only experience through reading National Geographic magazine or the encyclopedia.

Julie, 23, a chemical engineering graduate of Georgia Tech, is vacationing at her home in East Point, Atlanta, after finishing the first year of a two-year commitment with the Peace Corps. She is assigned to teach school in Mahali, a village of 2,000 people and 300 houses situated along one to the two good roads through the independent country, a former British colony.

The house she shares with another Peace Corps volunteer is in an area occupied by Temni tribespeople. Julie described them as “friendly open people” who tend to be a little more aggressive and arrogant than other villagers. At the same time they display a forbearance through everyday expressions such as “I for do” which translates to “there’s nothing I can do,” and “for bia” or “we can stand it.”

Personal space, Julie said, is unknown. Often as many as 30 people, related in varying degrees, live crowded together in a house, sleeping four or five to a floor mat. People are not starving, but some are malnourished. “I know people that survive on $15 a month. They do a lot of their own farming so they can eat,” she said.

Julie teaches chemistry to eighth and ninth graders at the secondary school, which was built by an order of Italian priests about eight years ago. Although government funded, Catholic religious education is part of the curriculum.

Absenteeism is a big problem, Julie said. When school began last September 16 there were 20 youngsters on hand out of enrollment of 130. By the end of the third week, Julie added, all were in class. “Officially we have 42 weeks of school. I imagine we lost 12 or 15 weeks altogether” due to poor attendance, she estimated.

Conditions are not the best for education. “It’s difficult for the youngsters to learn and the dropout rate is high,” she said. “There are no books. Everything is copied and taught by rote. They have a hard time understanding. Fifty percent or better is passing and maybe 50 percent of the kids will pass. You have to remember they’re being taught in English and they don’t know English.” Julie said most of the people in the village speak Krio, a derivative of Creole which was spoken by the ex-slaves who resettled in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone.

Discipline is harsh. Switching and caning are routine. “Children have grown up with the idea they will be caned; teachers have the philosophy that African children need to be punished,” she said.

Young people who remain in school must pass a government certified exam to graduate. Julie said this test, a holdover from the British colonial days, would be hard for American students to pass. There are few facilities for higher education; three teacher colleges, a university and agricultural college. The agricultural college, Julie said, was not open for the last school year and is not expected to reopen this year. No explanation for its being shut was given.

“Bribery,” Julie said, “is about the only way young people can get into college.”

“The kids really keep me going. They haven’t been programmed. I try to relate with body language. I had my Mom send me a clown suit. They’ll think I’m a devil. I painted their faces. They loved it, they had so much fun,” Julie recalled with a smile.

She taught some of the young girls and women in the village to ride her bike, striking a blow for women’s rights in the male dominated life of Mahali. The bike, Julie has found, is an excellent vehicle for interacting with the young people. Another pastime which gives her the human contact she needs is playing soccer.

She keeps a journal, photographs the villagers and tapes commentary to go along with the slides, records the children signing, “devours” books, and has learned “to fix anything you can name.”

“My living conditions are probably one of the best. I share a three-bedroom house that has a kitchen and indoor bathroom with another Peace Corps. volunteer.” It’s customary, she explained, to have a pit latrine out back. “The house is wired for electricity and running water.” The electricity is on when Chief Alimony Kanu, the Temni leader, can afford to run his generator. Her house is in the chief’s compound where he lives with five wives and 30 children.

The Catholic Church is one of several churches in the village. The Sunday morning liturgy “is probably one of the most enthusiastic I’ve ever been to,” Julie said. Occasionally tribal songs are part of the service but it’s mostly “old Catholic.” She has a hard time with that sometimes, “It’s so old fashioned. Before Mass they even say a prayer for indulgences,” says Father Caria, a priest from Italy, the parish priest.

Despite the several religions represented in the village, the juju man is still in demand. He’s summoned up when something is stolen at school. “It’s the African way,” Julie explained, even with the school teachers and principal, to call in the juju man who practices black magic and casts spells to track wrongdoers.

Julie, the daughter of Hubert and Rose Herold of East Point, was active in youth activities at her parish, Most Blessed Sacrament. Her mother is director of religious education for the parish and was formerly youth minister. Julie is one of her six children.

She has mixed feelings about her life in Sierra Leone, “I try not to get homesick. You know you’re coming home.” Yet she is realistic about her own situation. “I’m never going to fully comfortable in that culture.” Of the Peace Corp. aims: to bring down western culture and good will into the countries it serves; to have its volunteers bring home the best of the cultures of the countries where they serve, and for them to do the primary job assigned, Julie said; “Sixty-six percent I can do great on. I can’t place the emphasis on teaching. I place mine on cultural exchange. I am learning, growing. That’s why I’m here.”

She has been enjoying home since late July, “enjoying being here and seeing as many people as I can.” She will be returning in early September for a final year of service to the children of Mahali.