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June 30, 2005

Virgil Wright

When a former Peace Corps volunteer planned a return trip to the African village where she had spent two years planting mango, acacia and cashew trees, she chose to bring a gift to cultivate pride rather than plants.

Within moments of stepping off a bus after a bumpy 12-hour ride from the capital of Guinea, Meaghan Dunn pulled 13 soccer uniforms from an overstuffed bag and distributed the gear to the Kamaby village team, who cheered and chanted her name as they eagerly pulled on the new Reebok kit.

The barefoot athletes, rich in skill but limited in resources, received the uniforms just in time for the Koundara province’s annual tournament. For the first time, they competed in matching gear — sunflower yellow jerseys, black shorts, and red socks — as they advanced through the tournament rounds.

“When I knew I was going back, I wanted to bring a gift for the entire village,” said Dunn, a South End resident. “Everyone in Kamaby would come out for the Sunday soccer games and cheer on the team. Because that was the one time there were such large crowds gathered in one place, we would use the break at halftime to educate people about health and environmental issues.”

Dunn underestimated just how much the soccer congregation would appreciate the uniforms, which were received like manna from Massachusetts. “They were ecstatic. I showed up on a Friday in May and they were preparing to start the big tournament on Monday and they were stressing out, once again, because they had to compete in whatever mismatched shirts and shorts they could find.”

Dunn, 28, purchased the uniforms with donations from individuals and companies, including Citizens Energy Corporation of Boston, where she worked last winter helping to run the company’s oil heat program for needy Bay State families.

“I never expected to return as a hero,” said Dunn, laughing as she recalled having her name chanted before the matches.

Guinea, a former French colony on the west coast of Africa, is largely rural, a land of coastal jungle and inland savannah, especially in the north close to the Senegalese border where Dunn served out her Peace Corps stint.

Like many agricultural villages, Kamaby has a high rate of unemployment, with the men working furiously during the growing season and then remaining mostly idle, with little economic activity. Many young men leave the village for Conakry on the coast or Dakar, the capital of Senegal, where work is more plentiful.

Trained in French, Dunn spoke mostly Fulani during her two-year stay. She had no choice but to learn it — no one spoke English and the colonial language rarely penetrated the veil of agrarian life.

Dunn lived alone in a beehive-shaped mud-and-thatched hut in a family compound in the village. Her adopted father, Omar Diallo, presided over the sprawling residence, which was occupied by his three wives and 20 children and grandchildren.

Raised in Manchester, N.H., Dunn studied anthropology at the University of California at Santa Cruz and worked several summers on a Granite State farm.

Peace Corps work “was something I’d been thinking about since high school,” she said. “I spent my junior year in college at Dehli University in India, where I learned Hindi and caught a permanent travel bug. The Peace Corps made sense for me because I wanted to live in a different culture rather than just travel as a tourist — and be productive and help people at the same time.”

Starting this fall, Dunn will study for a master’s in international development at the University of Amsterdam. She plans to return to Kamaby for the research phase of her graduate studies in Holland. And, she hopes, to play a little soccer.

“I played in high school and started a girls team in Kamaby. They were really surprised to see I could play,” said Dunn.

“I’m looking forward to going back,” she said. “Kamaby will always be a second home.”

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