My name is Charlye. I am named after my grandfather Charles Ramsey, a man who wore Liberty overalls nearly everyday. Most people I meet comment on my smile and my southern accent (not particularity in that order). There is no hiding the fact that I was born in Houston, Texas and raised in a small rural town (pop. 14,000) in middle Tennessee.
It would be interesting to share stories about my childhood with Augusten Burroughs. Suddenly John Mellencamp’s lyrics “I’m just a small town girl living in a lonely world” are coming to mind. I graduated high school (secondary) among a class of 54, where tractors were driven to class and it was okay to miss school to work the tobacco fields. My European friends thought that prom queens and head cheerleaders dating the football captains where just in the movies. Although I idolized Molly Ringwald during my youth, green has always been by favorite color rather than pink.
Education changed my life. I began to question the things around me, the things which I had blindly accepted as status quo. My world soon opened leaps and bounds . I read loads of books, asked countless questions, spoke to everyone I met, challenged authority (maybe too much at times… looking back, I should not have cursed that cop outside of the bar at 2am) , accepted change, and opened my eyes to other perspectives. The more I learned, the more questions I asked. Being a psychology major was fascinating..there were always graduate students seeking participants for their experimental studies. Immensely intrigued by psychology, human behaviors, learning theories, philosophy, sociology, and religion, I plunged deeper and deeper into various cultures’ values of right and wrong, moral and immoral. I was transformed, I was enlightened.
Poverty changed my life. I took off for the beach, not knowing that I would land in the middle of the projects. Working as a school psychologist in the inner city schools of Charleston, South Carolina opened my eyes to the effects of poverty. I began to see the relationships between poverty and disability, poverty and lack of opportunities in education, health services and employment. Soon, I was searching to do more, share more, experience more. I had had a taste and my hunger was insatiable.
Peace Corps Zambia changed my life. I faced challenges that pushed me beyond my limits (eating rats, shitting myself on numerous occasions). This was my first time to travel out of North America, to speak another language, to live another culture. I lived under the same conditions as the rural Zambians I worked with. Mud hut, pit latrine, no running water or electricity. I had never been happier or healthier in my life! I walked away a stronger, more determined person.
Once my eyes were opened, I knew there was no way I could ever return to the States and bury my head in the sand (although I thought this was a good idea spring break Panama 1999). I wanted more than a calm existence. Exploring, learning, sharing. Now I know….by letting the world change me, I can change the world.
March 19, 2010 at 1:46 am
Hi Charle, I thought my story wold interest you as well. I was named ‘Rosemund’ after a missionary’s daughter back in the colonial days. Rose was a disabled child with a heart of gold and therefore lived a normal life as no-one treated her any different. I learnt this from my father whose father worked in for the mission and shared a lot of time with these English Mission Family. I think they came from the Wesley Mission in the UK. I had the privilege of meeting my namesake very briefly when I was about 10 years old. My father told us bedtime stories about his family life in the mission. True, it wasn’t easy as the the cane in those days. No human rights at that time. They just cracked the whip. Most of their customs, beliefs and traditions came from Fiji and Samoa as the missioneries moved around in the Pacific ring of islands. There are relics still around to remind us of those days. I thought they had a wonderful life of sharing and community. Churhc and worship was very important. Here the communty learnt to respect one another, discipline in those days would be done in public so people could determine wrong from right behaviours and attitudes. Now you pay to learn this. Anyway, that’s my contribution to your stories.
All the best