Lura Daussat

Letting Peace Corps Guide Her Future:

Lura Daussat’s Time in Dadease and Accra, Ghana (1998-2001)

 

When a large snake slithered onto her classroom windowsill, Lura Daussat’s students were terrified. She asked them not to kill the creature, but, out of fear of the many deadly breeds that roamed around Ghana, they chopped its head off.

While this may be a frightening story for many educators, it was a teaching moment for Lura’s science class. The snake was resting on the windowsill after digesting its lunch, a lizard. She attempted to preserve the snake’s head in a jar and dissected the body with her class. The snake was resting on the windowsill after digesting its lunch, a lizard, which was fun to find upon dissection.

Lura served in the Peace Corps for two years in Dadease as a chemistry and general science teacher after completing her undergraduate degree in Biology with a Concentration in Ecology at UNT.

Her grandparents had served in the Peace Corps as retirees, so Lura went into college knowing that she would follow in their footsteps. She was so excited to join that she applied before she even graduated.

Although her school in Ghana was short on resources, Lura made good use of what she had. She had a microscope shipped to Dadease, traveled to a nearby school for labs and painted a periodic table of elements on the wall of her classroom.

At one point, Lura earned a grant for her community from the Japanese Embassy to build dormitories. Since her time in service, those dormitories have become a large boarding school with multiple science teachers.

“I think I worked myself out of a job, which is the point of Peace Corps,” Lura said.

Although Lura taught her classes in English, she became proficient in Twi, the native language of Ghana, by practicing with her host family, with whom she became very close. She had originally requested to live alone but ended up staying on a compound with a family of five and a college student.

“I had a wonderful relationship with the people I lived with and I feel very very fortunate,” Lura said.

Her typical day consisted of waking up in the morning to the woman of the house sweeping the floors and taking a bucket bath before walking to the school. She shared a lunch of kenkey, fermented corn and fish sauce, with her colleague Mr. Ansah and dinner with her host family.

If the electricity in the town was functioning, she watched soap operas with one of her host Ghanaiain friends.

“I shared meals with people and I developed friendships,” Lura said. “They embraced me and were wonderful to me.”

She also built close relationships with other volunteers through collaborating on various projects.

“They’re still some of my favorite people,” Lura said. “Those friendships will never go away.”

Outside of teaching, Lura started a girls’ club, organized a Planned Parenthood talk and took some of her female students to the Gender and Youth Development conferences.

In her third year, Lura moved to Accra, the capital of Ghana, and worked as the Gender and Youth Development Coordinator. She helped organize the gender and youth education program that was implemented throughout Ghana. This included conferences about gender roles and partnering with the Forum for African Women Educationalists, who awarded scholarships to girl students throughout Ghana.

 In that position, she was able to travel around Ghana and support different Peace Corps volunteers as they implemented gender and youth development programs.

“I think Peace Corps gives you skills that you won’t learn anywhere else,” Lura said. “I think everybody should do some years of national service.”

When she returned to the U.S., Lura earned her Masters in Public Health from Tulane University. Now, she works in leadership for the Public Health Informatics Institute and is a candidate for a Doctor of Public Health from Georgia State University.

“I don’t think I would be in public health had I not done Peace Corps,” Lura said. “I would not be where I am today without my Peace Corps experience.”

Interested in learning more about Lura's time in Ghana? You can reach out to her here.

^{Written and Edited by Eliana Fulton, B.A. Journalism Student at UNT
Interviewed by Zach Yeager, Peace Corps Prep Coordinator}