Would you do it again if you could?
StG
How does it work, finacially?
Do you pay for your own room and board?
I think I can answer this through second hand information. Basically you are supplied with housing in the area typical to the commoner. I believe that you have to pay for your food though. My friend in Guyana gets paid $50 every two weeks and lives fairly comfortably there. At the end of the service you are given a type of severance package but it is very small. I don’t know the exact amount because I thought it rude to ask, but I was given the impression that it was under the $10,000 mark and probably under the $5,000 mark. However, I don’t know what it is specifically at all and could be way off base on the end service “bonus.”
St G-
Well, I can do it again. So it isn’t a total hypothetical.
Now I have young children, but when they are grown I’d love to do it again.
Your housing is paid for and you get an additional stipend to pay for things like food, clothing, and incidentals. The money is supposed to be enough to let you live at the same level as the average person in the community.
Additionally, after you finish your 2 years you receive a lump-sum payment. It’s been a long time, so I don’t know what the amount is now, maybe something like $8,000.
Financially you aren’t bad off. All your expenses during the 2 years are paid for, plus you have an automatic ‘savings’ you are given at the end. Most people would have a hard time living within their means for 2 years and still having about $8000 left over at the end.
Autz,
I’m an RPCV that served in Ecuador in 92-93. There was no housing allowance outside of the monthly stipend there. Then again, my one bedroom apartment overlooking the scenic pan-american highway was only 35,000 sucres a month (about $15 at the time).
I always describe the Peace Corps as a technical placement agency. They find qualified individuals and match them up with typically governmental agencies that need the technical assistance. The focus is on knowledge not labor. I designed water systems in the Andes during my time there but did not dig a single hole the entire time. I did spend a lot of time with guys with machetes out in the middle of nowhere surveying pipelines. Surveying was accomplished by counting my steps and recording the number of steps and the altitude (from an altimeter) every 50-100 paces. God help me if my altitude readings were taken during the movement of a weather front!
As far as idiocy/naughty behavior amongst PCV’s, just imagine what your average 22 year old would be up to if set loose in a foreign country with a few sucres in their pocket. Heavy drinking and extended vacations that exceeded the three week limit were common and usually combined.
cj