Dorothée Bond '96

I know what you are thinking. Is she related to Agent 007? Well, she might be…

The travels, the multiple passports, and the various missions she’s pursued around the world made us eager to get in touch with our graduate globetrotter. Finally tracked down in Edinburgh, Scotland, Bond tells us about her international life... without spilling too many secrets of course ;)

Dorothée was born in France to a South African father and French mother. Growing up in the Western world,  between France and the U.S., Bond studied at Rochambeau from 1986 to 1996 and continued her academic journey at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. There, she pursued her B.Sc in Biology until moving back to the east coast to obtain her Master’s in International Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. Equipped and ready, Bond made her way into the field of International Development. Since, Bond has made many international travels and in particular to the African continent. Her expertise, resilience, and adaptability has led her to hold various U.S state positions abroad, serving many functions in public health programs and conflict resolution operations. Her work often involving long-term monitoring and evaluation, has made her no stranger to the expat lifestyle. In her last position, she worked for the Peace Corps as Director of Management and Operations in Mali and South Africa.

Bond recalls life changing moments while in Bamako and Pretoria. Following terrorist attacks in Bamako, Bond and her team had the misfortune to permanently close the Peace Corps Mali Office in 2016, a West African cornerstone of the PC history since 1971, “evacuating volunteers, letting staff go, closing the office, and auctioning all of our equipment has been the hardest task of my professional career.” The urgency of the situation, landed Bond and her husband to flourish their lives elsewhere. And so it was just that, Dorothée gave birth to her daughter, shy of only a few kilometers of where her father grew up in South Africa. Full circle!

“It was incredible to have the opportunity to live in Pretoria, I finally now understand the cultural backdrop of [my father’s] childhood, while seeing a fascinating evolution of social norms pinned against a difficult history of segregation.”

To date, Bond has lived in the U.S, Canada, Senegal, the DRC, Mali, Japan, Turkey, South Africa, and most recently relocated to Scotland with her family. Bond is seeking for her next assignment in Edinburgh, she jokes “...so if you know a position for a bilingual applicant who has a lot of field experience... Oh wait, that describes most of the Rochambeau population!”

We are confident that Bond’s field experience in rich cultural contexts and her extensive program management will be a true fortune for her next employer’s quest! In the meantime, she is taking her name seriously and undertaking the sweetest mission of all, mommy & daughter BONDing. Check out her travel blog here: http://007inafrica.blogspot.com/2015/

A FEW WORDS FOR ROCHAMBEAU

It's undeniable that being bilingual has served me very well at work.  I've been able to obtain jobs due to the key asset of speaking French. There's also an intangible quality to a French education -- we certainly weren't coddled, and that no-nonsense upbringing made us able to deal with stressful environments. Going to Rochambeau gave us an incredible perspective on the world -- I remember my mother saying "so where does [X friend] come from? And much to my chagrin, I never remembered.  Few people outside of Rochambeau can relate to having a class full of bilingual/trilingual students who came from Vietnam, France, Spain, Mali, Belgium and Togo. What are the odds of that? Also, shout-out to Mr Eric Bernon who gave me an enduring passion for biology, and set me on this path to development work.