After completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Jaelah served in the U.S. Peace Corps from 2007-2010 as a Community Health Education Volunteer in Burkina Faso, West Africa. To become an impactful artist of depth she needed real world experience and perspective, to live outside the comfortable privileges and confines of America. After 2 months of training in local health education, language (both French + Bissa) and cross-cultural training in the small city of Ouahigouya, she lived and served in a small village named Youngou situated near the equator. Peace Corps provided adventure, exposure to other cultures balanced by the humility of being the odd white foreigner who seemed generally lost or confused. It was the best choice she could have made, the lessons still reverberate to this day.

There was no electricity or running water in that entire region of the country. The stars they slept under were ecstatic. Jaelah was given the local name of Gambo Yienfo and lived in a two room mud hut with tin roof and simple courtyard, situated across the red gravel road from the clinic where she often worked. She walked or rode a bike to get around, showered with a bucket and pumped her own water from a nearby well. It was like going back in time, to a way of life when people were still living off the land by hand in large community family farms. Burkinabe villagers didn't have smart phones yet and many people had never been exposed to the outside world. Many friends were made. Jaelah's work addressed issues of nutrition, family planning, maternal + child health, HIV/AIDS + malaria prevention through collaborative efforts with the clinic nurses, primary school teachers, and community theatre troupe. Photos also include travels to Ghana, Mali, and Niger.