Bio Barbara Tansey Bush
From Rpcvdraft
Autobiography by Barbara Tansey Bush (XI) 64-66
After I graduated from college in June 1964, I trained to be a math teacher in the Northern Region with Nigeria XI and went to Sapele in the Midwest Region to teach English and French in a girls’ secondary grammar school. I went back to Nigeria shortly after I left the Peace Corps. Soon after, in August 1967, the Midwest was taken over by the Biafrans so I and many other expatriates left for Lagos on freighters that had been docked at Sapele. Several months later, I returned to Sapele. Once the schools started up again, I taught in another girls’ school briefly and then returned home for good.
I settled in Boston, MA in 1969. After leaving teaching, I got a job as a mainframe computer programmer at an insurance company. I spent the next 30 years working at various jobs in data processing on IBM mainframes as a programmer, a systems analyst, a systems programmer, and finally, a database administrator at several Boston companies. Over the years, I found that my Peace Corps experiences were very useful in my work as each department was like a different culture with its own language and orientation. In 2002, my mainframe job was moved to another state so I retired.
In my last several years at my final job, Nigeria came back into my life. A young Nigerian woman was hired for a new project and we worked together. Efua was born the year I left Nigeria; her father is Itsekiri (from the Sapele/Warri area) and her mother is Ibo. It was such a pleasure to work with Efua and share our experiences - mine in her country and hers in mine. Somehow it brought my work life full circle working with this bright, articulate woman on a technical project after having been a PCV in her country. Also, at that job, I met Dave Crandall who had been in Nigeria V and taught in the West Region. Every so often, we got together to reminisce about Nigeria.
Several years after coming to Boston, I married but later divorced. Then I married a man with three grown sons. Now I am ‘Nana’ to six stepgrandchildren. Luckily they live nearby so I can take them on ‘adventures’ often.
Retirement has been a pleasure. I have spent time tutoring at a local family services center and volunteering in a local middle school. Recently, I mentored a Somali Bantu refugee family of nine for almost a year. Since only two members knew any English, it was quite a challenge to help them get adjusted to life here. Also, I spend time on various crafts, take singing lessons and show my photographs at several local places.
FALL 2006 15
