Ask the returned Peace Corps Volunteer

In My Humble Opinion
1

It’s been a while since we’ve done this, and I’m having a slow week. Bear in mind that everything I say is my personal opinion, and does not in any way reflect the opinions of the Peace Corps or the US government.

My story is that I served in Cameroon for two years teaching in a rural high school. I enjoyed my experience, and transfered to China where I taught in a small university in an industrial city outside of Chengdu. I served for four years overall, and really kind of got the range of Peace Corps experiences out of what are two very different assignments. Also, other RPCVs- feel free to chime in.

Here are some basic facts: Peace Corps is a US government agency that uses volunteers to fill the need for skilled personell in developing countries as well as to promote cultural exchange and understanding. Volunteers serve in two-year tours, which incude around 3 months of training. After training, you are sent out to a site, often without any other volunteers in the same city or village as yourself. Once there, you work with a partner organization (school, agricultural extension, micro finance provider, etc,) providing technical assistance. You are also usually expected to do side projects, which may be of your choosing. It’s common, for example, to organize youth groups, women’s group, business classes, etc. There is very little direct supervision, and volunteers are expected to pro-actively assess a community’s needs and develop projects to fill them.

During your service you receive a living allowance that is usually on par with what a host country national (local) in your position would make- in Cameroon, I made exactly what a Cameroonian high school teacher makes. It’s enough to live comfortably but modestly. You also receive something like $200 per month of service when you finish, which is intended to ease your readjustment back to life in the States. Peace Corps pays official travel and medical expenses, but you are on your own for personal travel. You get 2 days off per month, and can travel and receive guests. But it is considered a 24/7 job and you are expected to be in your site when you are not on official leave. There are assorted other small benefits that come with service.

The application process is relatively competitive, and fairly involved. It can take up to a year to go through the process. You must be a US citizen to serve. In almost all cases, you must have a college degree and some semblance of specialized skills. You cannot have dependents, but married couples can serve together as long as each partner is accepted independently as a Peace Corps volunteer. You cannot have things like massive debt, legal complications, etc. that would make it look like you are using Peace Corps to run away from things.

If you have health problems, need special accommodation (like, say, if you are a super strict vegan), or otherwise have special needs, you may be restricted about where you can serve. Some health problems can be accommodated, some can’t. A diabetic who needs insulin, for example, probably won’t be placed in a remote African village without electricity. Mood disorders generally need to be resolved and stable. That said, a lot can be accommodated- for example, I worked with a volunteer who was blind (and she did great.) The idea is that they just don’t want you having a major health crisis somewhere where there are poor health facilities.

After submitting your application and being interviewed, you will be nominated to a region. This can change, but usually doesn’t. When an appropriate position is open, you will be sent an official invitation. You can accept or decline it, but if you decline it you may not be sent another. In practical terms, you don’t get to choose where you go and it doesn’t serve you to be picky. You will be placed where your skills are most useful. Usually you can rule out a region or two (i.e. “I really don’t want to go to Eastern Europe”) but you cannot say “I’d like to be placed on a tropical island.” When you get in the country, it’s the same story. You do not get to choose what city or village you are placed in, although you can express some preferences. Throughout it all, you are expected to be patient and flexible and trust that you are going where you are needed most.

What else? You can leave at any time, without any real penalties, although this is obviously discouraged. Living conditions vary by country, but they take pains to make sure nobody is in a situation that is inherently unsafe. Peace Corps does not work in dangerous, war-torn or unstable countries. Countries need to apply for a Peace Corps program, and so Peace Corps is generally a welcomed presence. Peace Corps does not force itself on a country, and doesn’t operate where they are not wanted (India, for example, declines to work with Peace Corps.) Peace Corps volunteers are strictly prohibited from getting involved in any intelligence activities- they are even discouraged from casually interacting with embassy officials (a bummer for them, because embassies can be the best source of American food.) There is, I think, a 5 year moratorium before you can even think about applying to a job in intelligence.

Ok, I think that cover the basics. Feel free to ask anything about my service or the program in general!

2

Do you still keep in touch with anyone of the locals you met during your years of service?

3

Wow, you were in the Peace Corps?

I am surprised you haven’t mentioned this before!!!

4

Are you expected to be proficient/fluent in the local language? I expect it is different for each location, but for your particular situation(s), how was internet access? What did you teach, specifically? How well did your students respond to the subject matter?

5

Do you feel that your experiences in the Peace Corps are so unique that you are unable to relate to someone who has not had those experiences?

6

What did you teach in China? English?

7

Was Peace Corps volunteer actually an effective cover for intelligence gathering operations?:smiley:

But seriously, were you ever suspected of covert ops?

8

What is the saddest memory you have of the experience?

Also curious as to whether you need to speak the local language. It would make sense that at least one Corps volunteer would need to act as a translator, at least.

Are there Peace Corps assignments in any English-speaking countries?

9

What sort of language training do you get? What else does the training process entail?

10

If you really just want to snark, there are whole amazing boards for doing just that! Go there! Some people might be interested in knowing something specific about Peace Corps, and you’re little personal issue with me isn’t helping the fight against ignorance.

Yes. In Cameroon it’s harder, because internet access is unreliable in my village. Cell phone internet is starting to pick up, however, and I’m getting a lot of Facebook requests from Cameroonians, although not a lot of people I know quite yet.

The sad part, that I didn’t expect, is people I know keep dying. It seems like most of the news I get out of Cameroon is people I cared about dying of often very preventable causes. service can be tough because you do see people you care about suffering, but I didn’t comprehend that that particular challenge would continue to be one after I left as well.

I keep in touch with a few of my Chinese students on a weekly/monthly basis. It’s a lot of fun, because they are seniors in college and just setting out on their lives. It’s been a real joy to see where they are going. They are such a smart group of kids at such an exciting life, and it’s just been a privilege to be a part of that.

You really opened up the thread just to snark? I think I started an “Ask the Peace Corps volunteer” thread about five years ago. I figured there might be some new people with some questions.

It depends. Outside of Latin American (which you generally need to go in fluent to get- simply because so many American are fluent) you don’t need to go in knowing the language (although a background- even “I took it for a year in high school” can help). The 10 or so weeks of training include some intensive, and IMHO very good language training- usually at least four hours a day in groups of three with a trainer. The focus is on practical communication skills. At the end, there is a test and you are expected to hit a minimal score. The idea is that if you can’t communicate, that starts to become a safety issue. If you don’t pass but made a genuine effort, they’ll work out an individual plan with you. If you don’t pass because you were hung over every day or something, they’ll probably suggest you leave. How strict this is varies by country- nobody expected us to become fluent in Chinese in a few months. In general, most people hit their language goals without too many problems. When you arrive in your site, the first few months are pretty shaky, but usually by three months in you are quite comfortable. Peace Corps also offers funding, which varies by country (in China it was a lot) for individual tutoring if you choose to do so.

Let’s see. In Cameroon about half of my service we had an internet cafe at my site. It was slow and very expensive, but it was sufficient for sending emails once a week. For the other half I’d have to travel to a regional office that was 2-4 hours away depending on the state of the roads. Any serious internet work, like applying for schools, would probably have to be done from the capital (at least two days away from me.)

In China, I had decent internet in my apartment. It was behind the great firewall, but otherwise perfectly adequate. I used a pay-service to neatly bypass the firewall.

In Cameroon, I taught basic computers, which was challenging. My students had never seen a computer, and it was a lot of “here is how you click a mouse.” We didn’t have nearly enough computers for them to work with, and overall it was just hard to teach. By the end, though, I had most of them fairly comfortable in Word and making simple spreadsheets. Because my primary job was so difficult in Cameroon, I spent a lot of time on secondary projects, mostly working with a local youth center.

In China I mostly taught spoken English, which was sort of a freeform conversational class where the goal was to build fluency by provoking discussion. It was a lot of fun, and I had a lot of freedom to develop really cool, thought provoking lesson plans that really stretched the students. Some students were disappointed that I didn’t just play games, which is what most foreign teachers do. But I think the vast majority really enjoyed it and they certainly improved a lot during their time with me. I got really close to my students, and was a mentor and confident to a lot of them.

I know you are just being a jerk (please, dude, go to a snarkboard for that) but I’ll answer it anyway. Readjustment is tough. Peace Corps isn’t like coming back from a vacation. You LIVE where you live. That’s your only life. Your local friends are not your exotic foreign friends- they are your real-life friends. Often you don’t have great access to media or communication home. You lose touch. Your life starts to revolve around market gossip, village intrigue, your work and your new social circles who may well be a bunch of village women who aren’t even allowed to leave the house.

And then you come back. Things are mostly the same, with some changes (flat TVs everywhere and self-checkout stands got me.) You’ve missed a lot- I missed the Obama election, the teaparty, the economic crisis, the Virginia state shooting, Glee, Who Wants to be Millionaire…and lots of random stuff. But it doesn’t really show why you aren’t entirely “getting” it. When you sit in a supermarket looking glazed over and baffled, people don’t really understand why this is so strange to you.

I’ve had some really awkward times with stuff like shopping at supermarkets or ordering at restaurants, because it’s just different. It took me most of a year to stop occasionally doing something that seems like it is really out of left field. Even now, I still have the occasional crazy thoughts, like “I can’t eat that fruit because it is wet!” or “Hey, a phone store. I can go there to buy phone credit!” or “I have to throw this TP in the trash, not the toilet- oh wait, ooop!”

And of course there is the threat of pissing everyone off by starting every story with “When I was in Peace Corps.” You learn to manage that (or, you learn to spend a lot of time with Peace Corps people…we tend to stick together a lot) but it’s an art. Basically any story I have from 2006-2010 is going to be a Peace Corps story. Any event from these years is going to be happening to me in Africa or Asia. I frankly don’t have much connection to my life pre-service, much like after college you don’t usually have a huge connection to your high school life. I’m starting to build new experiences and it’s no longer so immediate, but for a while it is a big part of you, and it’s hard to strike a balance when you are talking to others, because when you just got done with 4 years of 24/7 Peace Corps, that’s really all you’ve got to talk about.

11

How common is it for someone to serve two tours of Peace Corps duty? If this happens often does it always take place in different places?

12

Can you apply if you have held a classified security clearance in the past? I was aware of the fact that they like to keep Intelligence separated from the Peace Corps in order to preserve the image integrity of the Peace Corps, but is ever having held a clearance an automatic lifetime disqualifier, or do they just want you to wrap up the work and do something else for a few months and agree not to go back for 5 years afterward?

Are they sensitive to religious practices of volunteers in countries that do not have full religious freedom? E.g. can a Christian or Jewish volunteer avoid going to Saudi Arabia and be assured that their denomination is 100% legal to practice openly in the country that they are assigned?

13

Mostly spoken English, with some tourism and business English thrown in. Peace Corps China is a pretty rigid program, and China basically prefers us to stick to teaching and not do too much on the side. Lots of volunteers run English clubs, drama clubs, or women’s groups, but nothing too ambitious. We also do some teacher training, training high school teachers and professors on Western teaching techniques. All China volunteers teach at universities, a few of which are good, but most of which are basically equivalent to community colleges. The idea of the program is to fulfill the need for native speakers, which many poor schools cannot afford on their own.

Yes, basically all of the time. I could never quite convince people that the US government actually has pretty much zero interest in what is going on in a tiny village in remote Cameroon =). I’m sure in China i had plenty of surveillance. I don’t think my house was bugged (but it might have been) but for sure my phones were monitored and students reported back on what I was teaching. I always knew I’d succeeded when I taught an “edgy” class and got an unexpected teacher wanting to observe me the next day :p.

A lot of sad stuff. I knew kids that died of eminently treatable ailments. I saw people who just couldn’t make it. I had a lot of homosexual people confide in me in a culture where that just isn’t acceptable. Child marriages, secluded women, HIV/AIDS, suicide…a lot of sad memories. They say a large percentage of Peace Corps volunteers end up with some level of PSTD, and I wouldn’t doubt that for a second. People just…die…on you. One minute they are there, and the next they aren’t. A lot of people have problems you can’t even begin to fix. It’s rough.

Different programs teach languages differently, but we learned the national language (French in Cameroon). I quickly discovered I’d need to know the local language as well, and worked on finding a tutor. Some programs that send people to remote areas skip the national language entirely and focus on local languages.

There are plenty of English speaking assignments- Ghana, some parts of Cameroon, Kenya…no doubt plenty of others as well. But really, they do a good job of teaching you, there is no reason to freak out about the language part.

10 weeks of 4-6 hours a day of small group (3-4 people, sometimes even 1 on 1) conversational class. Other than language, we do cultural training (everything from “how to date appropriately” to "this is the institutional organization of the public shcool system in this country), technical training (like, how to plan lessons or how to teach grammar), health training (how not to get malaria, how to treat different problems you might have,) safety and security training…a whole lot of training. In Cameroon it was 6.5 days a week from 8:00 AM to at least 5:00 at night for ten weeks. You live with a local host family, and are expected to take part in family activities, which is stressful but good for the language. During training, teachers often conduct a short summer school course that acts as practical teaching practice.

They say training is the hardest part. When I extended, nobody questioned doing another two years, but everyone asked “OMG, does that mean you’ll have to do training again?!?! Are you sure about this?!?!” It’s emotionally stressful, it’s a lot of work, you are busy all the time and you are in this strange hothouse atmosphere with little privacy or freedom, seeing the same people all day every day, and with a lot of unanswered questions about what comes next.

It’s not very common. Because the Chinese government prefers more experienced volunteers, they end up with a lot of transfers. But for most programs it’s very rare and very difficult to arrange. There are usually limited opportunities to stay on for a third year in the country they are in, and a lot of people do that. Third year volunteers can often get leadership positions or work on special projects.

I don’t know about your first question. I know if you’ve ever applied for the CIA, there is a five year wait to apply for Peace Corps. I don’t really know the rest, though.

During the application process, they will ask you if you have any special religious factors that need accommodation. Flexibility is always important, so if you are super serious about keeping kosher or something, you may not find a place that can accommodate that. I think most people who are well suited to be volunteers approach their religious preferences with some flexibility. You may not end up in your exact denomination every Sunday, but you may just get something out of the local churches. If you are a practicing Wiccan, well, you might need to keep that an at-home thing. You have to be ready to adapt to a lot of stuff that may not be your cup of tea, and be ready to learn from the culture you are in.

In Cameroon I lived in a Muslim influenced area that had a significant Catholic population. I did have to cover my knees, wear skirts, and dress fairly modesty. I didn’t have to wear a headscarf, but I usually did since it felt strange to be the only one with an uncovered head. People were deeply religious and asked me about it a lot. I told them I was a kind of Protestent that doesn’t have a church in Cameroon, and that I prayed at home on Sundays where I could talk to God in English rather than my broken French. Sometimes people asked why I wasn’t Muslim, and usually I told them I was too lazy to pray twice a day and I liked it much better when I only had to pray once a week :D. Actually, I’m not religious at all, but most volunteers found it easier just to pick a religion to keep people from freaking out.

In China it wasn’t an issue, but evangelism would obviously be a huge problem. I remember hearing of one volunteer who wouldn’t go in during casual Buddhist temples (which struck me as strange…I doubt most Chinese believe in much of it either, it’s more like throwing a coin in the wishing well) and that struck me as kind of strange. But I don’t think it was a big deal.

Peace Corps isn’t a great place for people with rigid needs. It’s a better fit for people who can be flexible, adaptable, and are willing to make some trade-offs now and then.

14

Sorry if my question appeared “snarky”. I was seriously wondering if the previous bad press the Peace Corps has received soured the relations with the local populace. I’m unaware of any prior history between us. Sorry again.

15

No, ha! It’s not you. Some people are not interested in hearing about this aspect of my life, and I encourage them to go find something they do like to do instead.

Your question is great. Yes, it is an issue. I think every village has some contingent that thinks the strange foreigner is surely a spy. On the national level, I think the governments are well aware that it isn’t an intelligence operation. I had a friend who got in trouble for even casually mentioning a piece of public news in her region to an embassy worker at a party. It’s taken pretty seriously.

I had a high school kid in my Cameroon village who was a really good artist. He took an interest in the Peace Corps volunteers in the region, and wrote a little comic book about it. In part of it, he showed villagers gossiping about us- and one of the main themes was that we were surely spies. The kid used this comic book to explain our purpose to others in the village. He did this all on his own, without any prompting from us…it was really sweet.

16

Hey, interesting. Is this a service only available to non-citizens of China, or can anybody buy it? What’s the punishment if you get caught?

What happens to your student loans while you’re peacing out?

17

Were there significant rules about off-duty conduct? E.g. dating local people, or drinking or using drugs that would be illegal back home.

18

Did you receive warnings about differences in the legal system (substantive or procedural) from that of the United States? E.g. “Don’t insult the King, you could go to jail”, “If you witness an assault, you must go immediately to a police station and report the offense, as not reporting a crime is a crime.” or “If you get pulled over for speeding, you can be taken to jail and given 5 lashes summarily.” Did anyone ever get in trouble because they assumed the law was similar to that in the US and they got themselves into an embarrassing situation?

19

The once i know are targeted towards expats, but I’m sure there are Chinese ones as well. The Great Firewall is not meant to be an impermeable barrier. It takes all of ten seconds to get around it. What it does is make it just difficult enough to discourage idle curiosity about an iffy subject. Violations are probably not going to be punished unless you are actively posting subversive content. Mostly it’s just enough to keep you from stumbling on to something unapproved.

It was always kind of fun to toy with it. If you click on something forbidden, your net stops working for a few minutes. Do it enough, and you get punished for up to an hour. I once shut down the internet for days looking at the UN Human Rights Report on China. Hahahah.

For the most part, unless you are actively planning protests or something really stupid, the worst that’s going to happen to an American is that you’ll get kicked out and put on the black list.

You can apply for a hardship deferral during your service. You can also use your readjustment allowance to pay off student loans as you serve.

Yes, there are a lot of rules. Safety is a big concern, and if you are doing something that significantly threatens your safety, you will be ask to leave in short order. Basically, if your dating or drinking is getting you in bad situations, that’s it for you. A few of the rules are hard and fast, for example in most countries you cannot ride a motorcycle and you can never ever do so without a helmet, but most are “If you are making enough trouble that we hear about it, that’s a problem.” Volunteers get kicked out for stupid decisions, disorderly conduct, or just plain rule breaking relatively often. It’s hard enough keeping people safe when they are on good behavior, much less when they are taking stupid risks.

The only solid dating rule is “18 and over, only, or it’s a federal offense,” but plenty of people get into relationships that end up making so many problems that they need to leave. Most countries have a “don’t get drunk” rule that obviously gets broken a lot, but will be used as a basis for asking you to leave if you get in trouble.

Drug use was one of the few “No, procedure, you are just instantly kicked out” offenses.

20

Absolutely. There is good institutional memory, so different Peace Corps programs know a lot about common legal issues that may crop up, and they train us accordingly. For example, in Cameroon taking a picture of even innocuous government buildings, such as the train station, will quickly get you detained. We are aptly warned. In China, we had a session on what to do if we find ourselves interrogated by the police. We are warned about all of this, and training may include things like role-playing different situations involving the police. Stuff happens. Now and then a volunteer would get in a dicey situation, but it’s always worked out as far as I know. Peace Corps usually pulls enough weight to resolve these problems, and nobody really wants a lot of negative publicity.

A much less clear situation was how we were trained to manage living in a place where bribery is a way of life. Basically we were told how the bribery system worked, reminded that the US government forbids paying bribes, and then left to make our own decisions since really there aren’t any good answers.