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"As graduation was getting near, everyone was more excited for me than I was for myself," McCray said. "I just felt like I needed a change of scenery. I needed to do something different, something unexpected."
McCray leaves next week for Mozambique, Africa, when she begins a commitment of over two years to the Peace Corps.
She’ll be sent to a small village there where her primary job will be to teach High School level English. For a secondary project, she’ll also teach lessons in the prevention of HIV and AIDS.
As the date of her departure nears, McCray said her anticipation level keeps growing and she has no second thoughts.
"I am so restless," she said. "Everyday, my family and friends are like, ‘Are you sure you want to go through with this?’ I’ve done everything I can do. I’m just ready to go now."
McCray’s parents in particular have voiced their concerns about their daughter setting out on such an adventure -- worried, McCray said that she may be sent into harms way and that there may be little opportunity to communicate.
But she said she’s not worried.
"I feel safe," she said. "I feel comfortable."
And if McCray wanted to look for advice before leaving for her Peace Corps trip, she wouldn’t have to look far. She could turn to Hamilton resident Kathy Coulibaly, who began a stint with the organization nearly 10 years ago.
Coulibaly said she had much the same beginning to her Peace Corps adventure, though her interest in the organization began much earlier -- when she was 11-years-old.
She said she had lived a largely sheltered life growing up in Port Republic, Atlantic County.
She went on to American University in Washington D.C., and joined the Peace Corps after graduation.
She was sent to Burkina Faso, Africa in 1997, where she too was charged with teaching English to villagers.
And like McCray, Coulibaly said her family was skeptical.
"My family was supportive, but not thrilled," Coulibaly said. "Nobody had ever really done anything like that before."
Once she was sent to the village where she would teach, Coulibaly said she was the only Westerner around, but she said she instantly felt the generosity of her new neighbors.
"The people were wonderful," she said. "The people were really friendly -- they were welcoming."
She said getting used to the food was one of the biggest adjustments, but said village women would cook for her and bring her the food.
On a whole, Coulibaly said her experience in the Peace Corps was a positive one, and she felt she reached the people she lived and worked with.
"I remember one person saying to me, "You know, you don’t have to do anything. Just the fact that you’re here -- just the fact that America sent one of its young people here to this little village, in this little country in the middle of Africa, tells us that America hasn’t forgotten about us,’" she said.
She said one of the organizations’ goals, aside from helping the host country, is to build cultural bridges -- a goal she took to the extreme, when she fell in love and married an African man she worked with at the school.
Her husband Benimapi, was the accountant at the her school in Burkina Faso. They now live together in Hamilton with their three-year-old son William, and "Ben," as he goes by in America, recently graduated from Thomas Edison State College.
"And if you like that, you should really like this," she said, as she capped-off her real-life international fairy tale. "Ben’s from a village called Bonboukuy, and his father is the King of the village. So Ben is a Prince, and I am a Princess, but only of Bonboukuy"
It remains to be seen if McCray will return as royalty, but even if helping people is her only reward, she said she can’t wait to go.
"I’m excited," McCray said. "This is a once in a lifetime opportunity."
