United States Peace Corps
When you read those words, if you are an American, and grew
up in a middle to upper income home, chances are you think of some things, or
have a certain feeling come over you. I have found that, for the most part,
these mental stirrings fall into one of two categories. The first is that Peace
Corps is an organization that sucks down American tax payer money, and that it
is filled with dirty hippies thinking they can do something to change the
world, but who are, in fact, just bringing the big scary western machine to the
innocent, unsoiled corners of the earth. This actually encompasses two negative
views, the first being the more conservative negative view point and the second
being the more liberal negative view point. If you were under the impression
that there aren’t liberals who hate Peace Corps, I hate to break it to you but
you are wrong.
The second and vastly more popular view of Peace Corps is a
wildly romantic and idealized view. It involves a bunch of determined Americans
covered in mud, building a bridge, talking in the local language and generally
being the type of people that make the world a better place. If you are
thinking of men, they have beards and if you are thinking of women, they aren’t
wearing bras and probably have incredibly long hair. They are all eating weird
exotic food, and if they are wearing shoes, they are probably made of hemp or
banana leafs. They are undoubtedly pooping in a hole (Unofficial Peace Corps Anthem) Let us explore this issue shall we?
Firstly, we started in an insanely beautiful and Cinderella
like story that involved JFK giving a speech on the steps of the University of
Michigan Union in 1961, in the rain, at 2am in the morning, to a group of
students that asked only that their country give them a chance to serve. And
then we went out into the world, and probably like you may have thought, we
built bridges and schools and we did what is known as “gap” filling. This was a
wonderous testament to what the youth of America could do if they put their
minds to it, and it made a super pretty picture, but ultimately it wasn’t
helping people and it was only completing a short term vision. Because, you
see, if you build a bridge but teach no one to maintain it than it will go to
ruin, and if you don’t teach anyone to fix it, then it will fall down, and then
you don’t have a bridge any more.
So we moved to the capacity building model, which means I
don’t get to do diddily squat unless I find a person in my village who wants to
do it with me. I think this village needs a support group for teen mothers, but
no one is on board because the last support group they tried to start went
dead? Tough cookies! If I want to set up an income generating cooperative for single mother’s
but there is no one who wants to help me with it, nothing happens. This model
works better, it insures that the projects we start today don’t fail when we
leave, it helps check that the things we are doing are actually needed and
wanted within the community, and it creates a natural form of investment.
But that isn’t really what we are talking about with this,
what we are talking about here is the interesting social spot in the American
psyche that Peace Corps has. Since I started the application process I have
gotten comments like “well my life isn’t as adventurous as yours” and “you must
have it so much worse than I do.” This type of thinking is most detrimental to
those who are looking into Peace Corps, a.) because you tend to think you are
going to work a lot harder than you actually are, which may prevent you from
applying in the first place, and b.)because if you actually apply, and come out
to whatever country you were invited to, you are going to be carrying more
baggage than what is in your suitcase. I was truly under the impression, prior
to talking to RPCVs, that volunteers work 24/7 in very back breaking, physical
labor; that was until a recruiter set me straight: “Peace Corps will be two of
the most laid back years of your life.”
So let’s take on some of these misconceptions one at a time.
First: “My life must be cooler than yours because I live in
Africa”
This statement must be divided into two portions, firstly
that “Africa” is a heavy baggage word in the US, and two that you may not be at
a super happy place in your life, so you assume mine is better. The novelty of
living in the Botswana (or anywhere else in Africa) might get you through PST and a month at your new site. At some
point though the fact that you are traveling in an overcrowded combi, and you
have a chicken shitting on your lap (I meant ‘sitting’ but both could be
happening) just becomes frustrating. The lack of water can be fun and campy but
you hit day 3 or 4 and all you want is a shower. The rice and beans/ lentils
joke is cute, but you haven’t eaten anything else for a month and you are
pretty sure your system is starting to lose its ability to digest anything
else. The Africa baggage is because a lot of Americans seem to think that
Africa is a single country, and that is it full of animals and adventure; where men are
men, and women are women, and all the little black babies with distended bellies are just begging for help. This is
not how it is here, and if it was I don't know why you would think it would be cool to work here, it would be depressing, and void of humanity.
I work with real people, people who have families and jobs and feed their kids and creating loving communities. I do NOT work in a UNICEF commercial. The “coolness” of life here doesn’t last forever, and it isn’t
something that is going to get you through a two year service. Don’t apply if
all you got going is the “cool” factor, you will ET if you don’t find more to
ride than that. Peace Corps is a two year commitment that requires you to swear
into a pseudo-government position, it is too hard if all you are doing it for
is so that you can use it to pick people up at a bar later on in life.
Second, “My life must be super hard, because I live in
Africa.”
Okay, I know we just talked about how Peace Corps is hard,
but the portions of my life that are hard, are not usually the portions of my
life that you think are hard. Firstly, I serve in Botswana, and unlike a lot of other
parts of Africa, this country has their business together. We have roads, and
hospitals, and business people, and not everyone is toting a gun and looking
for trouble.
My house has water and electricity (when it is on), and I have a
refrigerator, as well as a bath tub. My life is not as hard as you think it is
physically, and harder in a lot of ways it would be difficult to describe,
emotionally. The reason for this is because we, as humans, are incredibly
adaptable and we get used to certain norms very quickly, and adjust our lives
accordingly. This is why homo sapiens live in SO MANY different climates,
because we learn to adjust. Just check out “Human Planet” on BBC.
I miss my friends, I miss my family, and I miss the
familiarity of home, and that is not something that should be down played, but
I’m not living in squalor, I’m not starving, and I’m not infested with
parasites that are eating away at my eyelids. My life is hard, but not the kind
of hard you are talking about.
Third “I am a better person, because I have decided to do
this.”
Let me make it clear that Volunteers are a wide mixed sample
of the American people, sure we have a lot in common in how we see the world,
but we also have a lot of differences. There are lazy, active, greedy, giving,
self involved, altruistic, Volunteers from all walks of life, which
means that there are a infinite ways to spend a service; including doing very little over the course two years. I would like to reiterate that this is not the majority of volunteers, but just like any big
organization or company, you have people that work harder, and people who don’t
work quite as hard. There are also a million different reasons for joining
Peace Corps in the first place. Some people join to run away from something
(student loan payments, divorce, job loss, depression, dissatisfaction with
life), some people join because they want to travel, some people join for
purely career based reasons, and some people join because they have a fervent
want to help their fellow man. The why of people joining often crafts what sort of job they see themselves as responsible for doing.
I don’t know where I fall on this, there are days when I
work my ass off, there are also days when I just don’t feel like dealing with
it and so I sit and count pills and chill out with the staff at the clinic.
Now, at this point you could say that I am “doing something” but just being
around, because sometimes I talk about
the US, and people get to know me and just my simple self is affecting the world
for the better. This may all be true, but it is not the sole reason that the
organization exists, and usually not the reason people join up. I am no better
or worse a person than I would be if I had stayed in the US and continued to
work at my deli mail order assembly line job (which was hands down in my top
three jobs along with being a volunteer and a substitute teacher.) I have
changed a lot during the past year, but my essence has not changed, at least I
don’t feel like it has, and though there has been a lot of fine tuning, I’m
going to be recognizable when I get back.
So that is it, three of the more popular comments I receive when talking about my Peace Corps service. Now that we have all that covered I wanted to make another little happy announcement for the day:
Starting on June 3rd, the United States Peace Corps will begin taking applications for same sex couples!
I COULD NOT BE HAPPIER about this, and it makes me so proud to be a part of this organization. Peace Corps has been taking heterosexual couple applications since its inception and this move has just proven that the are not only willing to "talk the talk"of greater inclusion and more rights for gay and lesbian couples, but that they are also willing to "walk the walk."
For those of you that might have some questions but don't want to read the article, PC will still devote it's time to finding SAFE placements for these couples, and will not break any domestic laws that certain countries may have, as they do with all Volunteers (i.e. same sex couple will not be placed in any of the 80 countries that have anti-homosexuality laws that Peace Corps might be working in.) Also, staff in countries deemed safe will get special training dealing with same sex couples and special challenges they may come across.
I'm so happy about this, and I hope the Supreme Court is taking notice :)
~Claire
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