Read how Julie and Guillaume met and how they worked together to make Bio-Benin a reality.
Testimonials
Review of Africa Opened My Heart written by a Peace Corps volunteer, Karan Chaiffrix, who met the author in Senegal, while they were both serving in Africa
In Africa Opened My Heart Julie Wang takes the reader on a journey into deepest Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer. But unlike most of us who engage in this two-year mission, she fell in love with a native and put down roots on the continent. She built a family and a house and a thriving foundation that continues to change lives. She is in her 70’s, white, monied, and brave.
Wang’s story is woven with insights and confessions. She tells us why she went and why she stays, all the while illuminating the malevolency of the world’s black/white divide with its inherent contradictions and evils. She illustrates the discernable difference between coldness of life in The States, where the self rules, with the warmth of the poor of other countries for whom sharing is living. Americans in general seem to have little tolerance for anyone who needs anything. We go about our lives blissfully unaware of the waves of injustices born upon the poorer world at large, (not to mention those struggling among us). At best we feel inadequate and incapable of doing anything about what seem to be insurmountable problems. I think most Peace Corps volunteers live out their days with a heavy heart – supremely aware but unable ultimately, to rectify this imbalance.
I met Julie Wang in Dakar, Senegal in 2012 where I was serving, at 56, as an agroforestry volunteer. She was some ten years older and serving in enterprise development in Benin, over 1000 miles away. We intersected at Dakar’s Peace Corps headquarters, where we had both been sent to their well-appointed infirmary. One evening that week, we found our way to a good sushi restaurant thanks to a nice young Senegalese man who had us follow him like ducks behind their mother, and whom we had to rather awkwardly stave off at the door. Every day of service Peace Corps volunteers endure the agony of just how much to share. We have so much. They have so little.
Within a few years after my return to The States, periodic newsletters began to arrive chronicling the progress of BioBenin, a foundation Julie set up to help a local business grow and thrive. Wow. Who knew. This lady wasn’t your normal Peace Corps volunteer. Most drop down into their mission, spend two intense years feeling disoriented and uncomfortable, and then fly back to the States to start chosen professions and in time a family. Older volunteers don’t follow that script.
Africa Opened My Heart is an outstanding read on many levels. Well-written and flowing, it is a plea to the wider world to rethink the way we treat each other. Her insights remind us to be grateful, to share, to step back from our privileged first-world lives of plenty and re-evaluate what is important. She is observant, introspective and self-analyzing, as one tends to be living abroad. With refreshing honesty, she admits she is capable of selfishness for comfort and convenience. She agonizes over how much to lend, pay for and purchase for her friends in Benin.
Of course, much of what she has done in Benin has been for love. Specifically, for love of one strong, handsome, capable, intelligent (and much younger, it must be said), Beninese man. Guillaume ran a small restaurant that attracted regional NGO’s and Peace Corps volunteers. She was smitten at first bite. Guillaume had finessed chefdom from internships with foreigners in his country, some French, some Moroccan. He was intelligent and capable and resourceful. She could help. And more than a decade later, she is still helping.
In love, the author found a way to bridge life in two very different worlds. The book weaves the story of how she does this, and why.
Africa Opened My Heart is indeed all about heart. Hers. And those of the many with whom her travels intertwined. It is a valentine to Benin.
In Africa Opened My Heart Julie Wang takes the reader on a journey into deepest Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer. But unlike most of us who engage in this two-year mission, she fell in love with a native and put down roots on the continent. She built a family and a house and a thriving foundation that continues to change lives. She is in her 70’s, white, monied, and brave.
Wang’s story is woven with insights and confessions. She tells us why she went and why she stays, all the while illuminating the malevolency of the world’s black/white divide with its inherent contradictions and evils. She illustrates the discernable difference between coldness of life in The States, where the self rules, with the warmth of the poor of other countries for whom sharing is living. Americans in general seem to have little tolerance for anyone who needs anything. We go about our lives blissfully unaware of the waves of injustices born upon the poorer world at large, (not to mention those struggling among us). At best we feel inadequate and incapable of doing anything about what seem to be insurmountable problems. I think most Peace Corps volunteers live out their days with a heavy heart – supremely aware but unable ultimately, to rectify this imbalance.
I met Julie Wang in Dakar, Senegal in 2012 where I was serving, at 56, as an agroforestry volunteer. She was some ten years older and serving in enterprise development in Benin, over 1000 miles away. We intersected at Dakar’s Peace Corps headquarters, where we had both been sent to their well-appointed infirmary. One evening that week, we found our way to a good sushi restaurant thanks to a nice young Senegalese man who had us follow him like ducks behind their mother, and whom we had to rather awkwardly stave off at the door. Every day of service Peace Corps volunteers endure the agony of just how much to share. We have so much. They have so little.
Within a few years after my return to The States, periodic newsletters began to arrive chronicling the progress of BioBenin, a foundation Julie set up to help a local business grow and thrive. Wow. Who knew. This lady wasn’t your normal Peace Corps volunteer. Most drop down into their mission, spend two intense years feeling disoriented and uncomfortable, and then fly back to the States to start chosen professions and in time a family. Older volunteers don’t follow that script.
Africa Opened My Heart is an outstanding read on many levels. Well-written and flowing, it is a plea to the wider world to rethink the way we treat each other. Her insights remind us to be grateful, to share, to step back from our privileged first-world lives of plenty and re-evaluate what is important. She is observant, introspective and self-analyzing, as one tends to be living abroad. With refreshing honesty, she admits she is capable of selfishness for comfort and convenience. She agonizes over how much to lend, pay for and purchase for her friends in Benin.
Of course, much of what she has done in Benin has been for love. Specifically, for love of one strong, handsome, capable, intelligent (and much younger, it must be said), Beninese man. Guillaume ran a small restaurant that attracted regional NGO’s and Peace Corps volunteers. She was smitten at first bite. Guillaume had finessed chefdom from internships with foreigners in his country, some French, some Moroccan. He was intelligent and capable and resourceful. She could help. And more than a decade later, she is still helping.
In love, the author found a way to bridge life in two very different worlds. The book weaves the story of how she does this, and why.
Africa Opened My Heart is indeed all about heart. Hers. And those of the many with whom her travels intertwined. It is a valentine to Benin.
