Deciding to join the Peace Corps

It’s a big decision to chuck it all and move overseas, allowing our federal government to control your every move.  Huge.  Most people have a very romantic notion about the Peace Corps – you get shipped off to a tropical island to enhance the lives of the natives through basketball and Tupperware with many like-minded attractive Americans, all the while being lovingly and gently mentored by an efficient and insightful staff.

Wrong-o.

1) The best advice I received when applying was:  It is the US Government.  Expect red tape, idiots and general poor management.

2) Very few people go to beautiful tropical islands.  I went to a land-locked country in central Europe in the former Soviet Union.  Mind you, I grew to love the place and the people, but those old Soviet-style apartment buildings are the ugliest, most depressing things I have ever seen.

3) Your “class” or fellow volunteers will all have different agendas. 

For one, I was very surprised at the percentage of people in my class who were in the Peace Corps thanks to political wrangling.  Daughters of judges, former Senate staffers, daddy was a diplomat, etc…

Yes, I naively wanted to save the world, make a contribution and embrace another culture.  Classmates openly stated to me that they were there to get enough overseas time in to get a fat contract with USAID.  Many people joined the Peace corps after ending bad romances.  Many of my class were gay (mostly males) who were looking for a way to get away from being ostracized or not accepted in their own communities at home.  And, some people were lost souls who couldn’t get into grad school or just had no idea what to do with themselves.  So, it’s not what you think.  I do think it is a big sacrifice and it is often selfless, but not everyone is doing it for altruism.

I was shocked at the number of people in their late 20s and early 30s who were also on their parent’s payroll.  One volunteer I met was 31 and her mom gave her a credit card, paid her car payments, sent her special food weekly, and deposited substantial cash in her bank account regularly.  I traveled with this person once and she was the most immature person I had ever met – completely incapable of surviving on her own or even being responsible for herself.  It’s alot easier to exist on the Peace Corps’ monthly allowance ($200 but that may have changed) when you are getting cash injections and fat care packages regularly.  Perhaps I am just jealous but I think it was weird.

My class ranged in age from 21 to 72.  I was 32 and had several classmates who were around my age.  Seems to me that a little life and work experience go a long way to handling what the PC can throw at you.

4) I learned very quickly that the Peace Corps experience was more beneficial for me than the people I was sent to ‘help.’  In my particular assignment, I was working with very smart and worldly physicians, researchers and public health professionals.  I probably got in their way more than helped.  I did my best but there is this one “rule” I should have ignored in 20/20 hindsight.  The Peace Corps tells you that you have to collaborate and not “do” for the locals.  That, instead of giving them a fish, you teach them to fish.  Well, that meant that I accomplished little because getting collaboration on anything was impossible.  I tried to help with websites, translations, grant applications, government reports, editing, teaching language classes for Public Health professionals. Honestly, I should have just done it myself because that would have benefited my closest Slovak colleagues.  Instead, I tried to collaborate and get cooperation on every little thing and so nothing got done (or at least, not nearly as much as I would have wanted and expected).

So, they already know more about basketball, Tupperware, ebay, myspace, international news and everything you can dream up than you ever will.

I know that I had a positive impact on many of the high school students I taught.  I worked full time for the Ministry of Health but I taught junior and seniors conversational English a few days per week.  I think I helped them less with English and more with their personal teenage angst.

5) The Peace Corps is a bureaucracy.  The in-country Peace Corps management (Country Director, trainers, etc…) are a study in how not to run an organization, in my experience.  It was adversarial from the first minute and a huge display of power.  Which is kind of funny because these tools are generally socially inept, poor communicators, and poor motivators/managers.  More on this later.

The first meetings in the country with the staff were very disturbing.  It wasn’t about lofty goals and cooperation.  It was all about the country director making it very clear that if you fucked with him or made one false move, he would first make your life hell and then make sure you were on the first plane home.

You were told you were on duty 24/7 incuding weekends.  A quick trip to Prague for the weekend?  Nie.  Pop to Budapest for a day? Nyet.  You had a finite amount of vacation days and every minute away from the post/assignment counted against those days.  Weekends were never your own.  I was expected to use vacation if I visited my host family (whom I loved and still visit) just a couple of hours away.  Those lucky volunteers who lived close to a border had it a little easier because they could leave and return fairly undetected.

If you managed to piss off the staff (esp the Country Director), you were given a crappy assignment, ostracized in front of other volunteers (I swear, I witnessed the Country Director basically getting in a volunteer’s face (literally) and trying to get him to swing at him by provoking him and calling him names – so weird), or otherwise abused.  Best to lay low and conduct any funny business away from staff.

But, ironically, the two volunteers who were the laziest and most disinterested (not learning the language, political appointees, trying to get in time for USAID assignments) were also good looking.  They were paraded in front of congressmen who visited and treated differently.  One incident I remember distinctly was that the Country Director loved this one useless volunteer because she was pretty and a ‘yes’ person.  She did nothing when she got to her post (we were in the same town so I witnessed it), had amazing living arrangements (an apartment with two bedrooms and laundry facilities), and left country all of the time without reporting in.  To reward her “contributions” the country director arranged for her to house-sit for a diplomat who spent about 2 days every 3 months in his flat.  So, Priscilla lived in his flat for almost 2 years with every amenity possible, including cleaners, fully stocked kitchen, tv/dvd, full kitchen, home office…hard not to be envious, or at least curious why a volunteer who couldn’t count past 10 in Slovak was rewarded so richly.

All that being said, I am blogging for people who want to join because every volunteer has a very different experience.  This is my experience.  I had hard times, great times and I remember the experience very fondly.  I also feel like it was very important for me, even with all of its blemishes, to experience another culture first hand instead of from airports and hotels.  I am happy to answer questions.  This is my guideline – it is not a guarantee that you will get into the Peace Corps or have a similar experience.  But, this is all of the stuff that was NOT in the brochure.  I intend to keep it light and funny, but truthful!