In China did you meet any non-PeaceCorps English teachers? (and if so, what was your impression?)
My nephew was there a few years ago teaching. It seemed strange, since he had no background in education. He had a rough time there, contracting cholera and eventually being ordered out of the country. (The company he worked for had obtained a tourist visa for him)
You type fast! 
I bet the bribery thing would be really hard to get used to. Since we’re on the subject, was bribery an issue you ever came up against? If so, what did you do?
Did you ever date somebody while deployed?
What did you say to the gay people who approached you? That’s really sad 
Do the locals generally always want you to be there? Do they appreciate your presence? Or do they dislike you?
Did you find that you got touched a lot by strangers? I don’t know what you look like compared to the locals, but I know my boss (who is a blonde white chick) got her hair and skin touched a lot by strangers in India. It sounded kinda cute, although if that was me I’d get pretty annoyed
Do volunteers ever try to take on side jobs for more money?
Do you have a boss that regularly checks up on you? Would they send you home for doing a poor job? (Not violating rules, just kind of slacking off.)
What was the actual application process like in a practical sense? I know you said that mood disorders need to be stable. Did everyone have to get a psychiatric evaluation, or did this only come into play when a person is obviously unstable? What types of testing were done? Was it primarily a review of employment history and academic transcripts, or did they give you batteries of aptitude, knowledge, and personality tests?
I met lots of non-PC English teachers, and I wasn’t too impressed. This was probably because we were in a remote area that offered poor wages to foreign English teachers (I think they got around $400 a month) and so it just attracted really botton-of-the-barrel people. Lots of drunks, sex tourists, fake degrees, on-the-run-from-the-laws, major mental health issues (even raging schizophrenia!) and other assorted scumbags. Honestly, I think on the best thing PC did in China was proving to these communities that not all American are shady, as Peace Corps volunteers are usually pretty legit and dedicated to their work.
It’s probably a lot different in more developed areas.
I’d get stopped a lot on the road and asked for bribes, which I could always talk my way out of. I’m sure I was asked to pay a lot of unofficial “fees” when filing various bits of paperwork, and if it wasn’t outrageous I just paid without asking. Civil servants have to feed their families, too. A few times I was offered bribes, which I obviously didn’t accept. There were situations I was given money in ways that I could not avoid (for example, Cameroonian schools regularly pay teachers about five or so dollars a semester for showing up…they call it “motivation,” and you can’t avoid taking it) I’d put it towards activities with the kids.
I dated casually in Cameroon and was in a few short relationships in China. I could never get past the “massive gossip” barrier when dating local people, so I stuck to Peace Corps volunteers. It wasn’t the most romantically triumphant period of my life. There is a fair among of hooking up among Peace Corps volunteers, as you’d expect out of bored and lonely people, but people kept it pretty professional and discreet.
When I talked to gay people, and this happened quite a bit, I’d tell them that in my culture it’s okay, and gay people have families and everything, and that it’s not a big deal for us and things are changing and there is hope. In the meantime, they should know they are not alone, and they should probably try to get to a big city where they will find a community. It was sad- one girl who came up to me was a 16 year old Muslim village girl who was being pressed into marriage and knew, without a doubt, she was a lesbian. I really didn’t have much useful to tell her, and the rest of the story is pretty sad. She spent a lot of time going to traditional healers trying to “get better.”
Local reception just depends. Some people are hostile, some are overjoyed. A lot of people are just plan interested in you, and you get lots of people knocking on your door just to get a peek. In China the political situation was touchy, and you could feel some coolness from that. Really it’s a mix. Learning language skills and trying to integrate into the community can go a long ways towards building that goodwill. The more you get to know people and show your respect for them, the better they will think of you.
I did get touched pretty often, sometimes groped, and nearly constantly yelled at (“OMG Foreigner! Look at the freaky foreigner!”) The yelling, especially, gets really obnoxious and every year a few people leave because they just can’t get used to being a freak everywhere they go. It’s hard to explain the effect of people yelling at you everywhere you go. Everyone in my Cameroonian village thought I was Chinese, so they’d yell “Ehhhh Chinois! Hee-Haw!,” which drove me absolutely mad. It really confused them when I spent two years trying to convince them I’m not Chinese (I’m blond, for the love of god) and then promptly went to China. The yelling in China is just as bad.
We are not allowed to take extra jobs, under the theory that if we have extra energy, we are supposed to be helping poor people rather than those who can pay for our services. That said, it was common, especially in China where a lot of people had money and our living allowances weren’t really enough. Mostly people tutored English, made appearances at special events, and stuff like that. There were a few times where I was tricked in to stuff like that, and I took the money and used it to do stuff with my students.
You work with a local supervisor, who in theory could complain about you, although I don’t think that has ever happened for just lazinesses. Honestly, some slacking off is unavoidable. A lot of volunteers don’t have fixed jobs, or their plans fall through, or just strange stuff happens that makes work impossible and you may find yourself with periods of relative idleness. For example, I had a friend in a village so poor that they just weren’t capable of getting it together enough to do development work- people were starving, and not really interested in her little projects. So she spent a lot of time hanging out with villagers chatting. Some volunteers figure out that their situation is such that they really don’t have anything to do. It happens. Typically, they say your first year is mostly just getting to know the village and the culture and their needs anyway.
But I’ve never known a volunteer to just slack out of laziness. For one, it’s boring. You have no idea the level of boredom Peace Corps volunteers endure. Village life is probably the most boring thing on the entire planet, and it’s especially boring when you can’t understand much and aren’t a part of a family. So you do a lot of projects and stuff just to keep yourself from gouging your eyes out with the boredom. Really, you are excited when there is work. You love work. You’d dig ditches (and people do) just to be doing something other than withering in the heat.
And PCVs are generally pretty ambitious people. They are generally coming from good schools and on their way to higher degrees. These people are future leaders, and they aren’t going to waste such a good opportunity to run projects with credibility and resources they will not have again for a long time.
What does happen is there are people who get too into travelling and spend too much time away from their site. And they will eventually get called on it and kicked out. You are supposed to be in your village, not partying with expats in the capital.
You do an initial application with work history, recommendations, some essays, transcripts, stuff like that. It’s much like a college application. There is also a basic medical history. Then there is an interview. After the interview, you are “nominated” into a region.
Then comes the hard part- you have to have a background check and you go through a medical process involving a whole ton of tests and forms. It took me something like five visits to get through it all. You also need to be in good shape with vision and dental care.
If you indicate something like a psychiatric condition, they will want documentation from your doctor that you have been stable for X amount of time. Basically all medical conditions are going to need extra documentation.
There are also a few other things that may need to be documented. If you are vegetarian, they give you a form asking about your reasons, your flexibility, what you’d do in a situation where someone served you meat, etc. If you are in a long-term-relationship, they give you a form asking questions about how you are going to cope with that. If you have religious concerns, will be put in an area with modesty norms, or have some other random circumstance, there are forms for those as well.
Welcome back. My daughter completed two years in Namibia in 2009.
I’ve mentioned that I was with the Dept. of State for six years and spent two tours in Africa. I was friends with a PC admin officer, and talked to a number of volunteers who came in and out of Bamako. A lot of them seemed disillusioned with the work they were doing: not because it wasn’t a worthwhile effort, but because of the resistance of villagers to accept modern methods or to try new things. One guy said he spent a lot of time planting saplings (much of Mali has been subject to desertification), only to find that they had all been pulled up and used for firewood while he was gone for a couple of weeks.
Did you find that you ran into similar problems in Cameroon? I sympathize with the yelling. I got so tired of hearing “MAZUNGU!!” (white person in Uganda) and “TUBOB!!!” (again, foreigner or white person in Mali). In Uganda I started shouting back “AFRICAN!!”, which got me some odd looks.
did you volunteer for Cameroon or were forcibly assigned? Can the not-overly-adventurous volunteers assign themselves only to China/Brazil/Eastern Europe type of civilized areas?
Thanks! Thank you for being a supportive father. It’s sad how many volunteers get zero support from their families- a lot of families even cut them off or refuse contact. Knowing your family is behind you makes all the difference in the world.
Yeah, it happens.
Sometimes you end up some place where you just can’t do all that much- I mentioned my friend who was in a very poor village that simply didn’t have the capacity for much change. When that happens, you have to pull out your flexibility and adaptability. My friend, for example, ended up teaching English at a high school a few villages over. If you get to know a community well enough, you can usually find some good to do. Short of that, you start working on a personal level- share your dinners with neighbor kids, act as a mentor to a teen, try to instill enough confidence in your female friends that they are able to get out of abusive relationships, and generally just try to be a friend and a positive force.
The volunteer who did the tree project learned something valuable- his village has a firewood problem (which is HUGE. Procuring firewood is a daily trial for women) and doesn’t have a huge sense of environmentalism. There are ways to manage this involving planting productive trees (there are lots of gum arabic programs, for example, that encourage farmers to plant gum arabic trees and help them market the product), creating systems of ownership that encourage individuals to protect “their” trees, and working with things like improved cook stoves to improve fuel efficiency, It’s not the village’s “fault” they see firewood as a priority. You need to learn to work from there.
In short, it’s true that some volunteers, for reasons not under their control, are not going to be able to do a huge life-changing project. But I do think every volunteer has the capacity to do something of value. It may not be easy, and it may not fall in your lap.
It’s also normal for PCVs to go through little existential crises during their service. Everyone goes through a period of “What am I doing here? Does what I do matter at all?” During these periods, PCVs love to complain. But usually it all comes together in the end, and as you near the end of your service it really becomes apparent how much you were able to do.
You are assigned according to where you are needed, and you can’t request specific areas. You have some ability to state your preferences, but there are no guarantees and if you are too picky you probably cannot be accommodated. The most you can get aways with is nixing one or two regions.
You are encouraged not to go in with a lot of expectations, because frankly even if you get exactly what you “want,” the reality is that it’s going to end up being totally different han how you pictured it. You are strongly encouraged to be flexible and adaptable, and to trust that you will be placed where your skills are most strongly needed.
If you are really stuck on going to a particular location, Peace Corps probably isn’t for you. All Peace Corps assignments are tough. In all Peace Corps assignments, you will face the unexpected. It’s not a vacation. You are there to serve, and that means you should be willing to accept your assignment wherever it should happen to be.
The reality is that most healthy young people, especially with those with any background in French at all, are going to be sent to Africa. The health requirements of those sites are so stringent that they need all the healthy people they can get. They save the “easier” sites for people with legit health concerns.
FWIW, i found China to be a hundred times harder than Cameroon. Cameroon was a physical challenge- we got sick, we had not-great living conditions, etc. But we were warmly integrated into a community and quickly made friends. China was a mental challenge. Sure, we had internet in our apartments. But becoming a part of Chinese society and making real friends is much, much harder. It’s pretty common, for example, for people to actively avoid sitting next to you on a full bus- even when it’s a bus of other teachers at your school. Two years of rustic warmth is much harder than two years of modern isolation, IMHO. So even if I had chosen the "best’ program, it still might not have been a great program for me. It’s better to be ready to adapt to whatever you get.
This is the sort of thing I meant by “slacking off”, although I suppose it falls under the category of “breaking rules”, too.
How often is your supervisor checking on you? Are there progress reports you need to fill out, or something like that? Do the locals provide your supervisor with formal feedback?
There are quarterly progress reports. You can expect at least a few “site visits” by your supervisors- sometimes unannounced- where they meet with the people you are working with and talk about how things are going. How your local counterparts communicate with the Peace Corps office depends on location. I don’t think my Cameroon supervisor was in touch much, but my supervisor in China knew if I called in to school sick.
Honestly, if you want to just sit on your butt an do nothing, there are far more comfortable ways to do so. You’d be much better off getting a job at Starbucks and slacking off in the land of creature comforts. Sitting in a mud hut getting hot, bored to death, and alone is not something anyone wants. That’s not to say some volunteers are not more dynamic than others- that happens, for sure. But I’ve never heard of a volunteer doing nothing unless they are leaving their site a lot- in which case they get caught very, very quickly and sent home.
MPB and Enderw24, I know what you’re trying to do here. Knock it off.
What was (were) your reason(s) for joining the PC? Looking back on your experiences, did your stint fulfill those reasons? (That is, if you joined for idealistic reasons, were your illusions destroyed or fulfilled? If you joined to advance your career, has that worked in your favor?)
Sorry if I’m not phrasing the question well.
The way you phrase it, it seems to think that there are “extra” forms that only come into play if they want to put you somewhere with restrictive rules. Is this the case? E.g. if one is applying and one day, one is asked the question “Are you OK with wearing ankle-length dresses everyday?” is that a sign that you are under serious consideration for a site where that would be required, or is it just part of the regular process that everyone goes through?
I know that the investigations (legal, medical, etc.) seem fairly onerous based on what I’ve read and what you’ve said. At the end of the day, what kinds of things do people actually get rejected for? E.g. “Sorry, you’re blood pressure is 5 points higher than the cutoff, no Peace Corps for you.” Are there actually hard and fast rules with lots of things that cause automatic rejection, or is there a totality of the person evaluation? “E.g. yeah, he has high blood pressure and a weak knee, and he once went to prison for armed robbery, but he’s fluent in Swahili, Arabic, Amharic, AND French, and he’s the very model of a modern Major General!”
I got a lot more out of it than I ever imagined I would. I joined basically as a chance to have an adventure. Well, I more than got that, and along the way I discovered a career, an amazing bunch of friends (who are also a solid career network), a LOT more confidence and know-how, and while I’m certainly realistic, I wouldn’t say I’m disillusioned. If you are interested in development, Peace Corps is a nearly essential career move. You can get into without PC, but it’s much harder and most of the people you meet will be returned Peace Corps volunteers.
I think there are some things that they ask everyone, and others that are related to specific regions. I couldn’t tell you which is which.
There are a few things that will cause pretty much automatic rejection- major degenerative diseases, major cancers, serious heart conditions, major psychological disorders (biopoler, schizophrenia, reoccurring depression), and things like that. There is another list of things that need to be resolved for a certain amount of time before you are eligible- for example, drinking problems need to be at least 5 years in the past. Some disorders have preconditions- for example, anemia is fine, but you need have identified a cause.
I’m sure with legal problems it’s basically the same. They are often able to make exceptions, but there are frameworks that they have to work in. And they aren’t just being arbitrary- they are responsible for all of your health care- including expensive emergency airlifts and the like, and if you fall ill during your service, whatever you got sick with is covered for life. So they really want to make sure you are at least minimally health.
Does the Peace Corps engage in a lot of (or a little) cooperation with other agencies or charitable organizations, or does the PC like to stake it out and go directly to the point of need on their own? E.g. do Peace Corps workers ever share a classroom or school with Mormon Missionaries (say) and cooperate in teaching English together?
E.g.:
“Peace Corps worker, welcome to your site. You will be teaching English here in classroom 105, alongside John and Bill, two Mormon Missionaries. Y’all should coordinate your curriculum with Mary, Beth, and Harold in room 106, who are also here teaching English. Harold is also with the Peace Corps and Mary and Beth are from UNICEF.”
So, say you’ve got a condition that they say is allowed in the program. Anemia, for the example you gave. How do you go about handling the medication (iron pills, or whatever)? Does your doctor write you a prescription for 2 years worth and you take it with you? What happens if you get robbed and your medication is stolen? It obviously isn’t feasible to just run to the wawa in a remote African village.
I noticed a quirk with former PC field workers who became “lifers”. They seemed to shun improvements to their lives, even though they were readily available and highly advisable. An example: the admin officer I mentioned above was living in a decent house in Bamako, leased by the embassy. They had the usual accessories, which included a water purifier, which, in my opinion and experience in Africa, is an essential and extremely advisable thing to have. Well, it broke. Rather than call for a new one, they just started drinking tap water, with the predictable result. I asked the wife (who had been out for weeks with a particularly virulent stomach bug) what the hell she was thinking, what with the health advisories, etc. She just shrugged and said it was a “Peace Corps thing”. To me it was irresponsible, since they had children in the house.
I guess the question is: is this a normal mindset for people in the field, even when they return to ‘civilization’?
What do you think about PC becoming, in your opinion, “nearly essential” for working in development? PC does appeal to a certain type of person with a certain amount of freedom and independence, and it seems that limiting development work largely to those people could greatly reduce the ability of development agencies and orgs to be flexible and independent. Also, with the shared experience of PC, there are sure to be some biases that the group has as a whole.
Separately, I know many, many PC volunteers- some with overall positive experiences and some with more neutral- “meh” experiences. Regardless of the outcome of their experience, many chose to enter PC because of a general lack of direction in their lives. They knew they wanted to do something, but were unsure of it. Almost every single person I have known that has done PC went to either a large public university or expensive private school, got a liberal arts degree and then realized that their employment options were minimal. So while there are many things about PC and the experience that I think are positive (of which you’ve spoken), should PC really provide aimless 23-26 year olds a long-term break from decision making?
Finally, I have heard stories from my RPCV friends about how a large percentage of their cohorts that left early were due to women in PC returning to the US (or other nearby country) to get abortions from consensual encounters. In your estimation, were people on birth control in PC? Did PC help women have access to birth control if they wanted it? That they would not is unimaginable to me.
It depends a lot on the situation, but it’s almost never a situation like you described. Probably the largest area of inter-agency coordination is on the part of individual Peace Corps volunteers. We regularly use funding and expertise from different organizations in our own projects. On a larger level, Peace Corps country programs may have partnerships with organizations. For example in Cameroon when I left there was a joint position where Peace Corps third year volunteers could be placed in a UN Development Program office. That said, I think peace Corps prefers to work with local NGOS and national governments when possible. The idea is to build the strengths of local institutions whenever possible, rather than having foreigners come in and do all the work. Most of what we do is in some way training, and it’s better to train local orgs. Common placements are schools, mayor’s offices, clinics, local banks, etc.
As for working with foreigners, it depends. If you are in a big Chinese city, there are probably some random foreigners doing cool stuff that you may choose to work with. My Chinese university had a few paid foreign teachers and sometimes we’d collaborate. In Cameroon, there weren’t any foreigners for miles. The situation you mentioned would be very unusual, but it might happen now and then if you get placed with a mission school or something.
Another factor is that for the most part, other organizations just don’t work like Peace Corps. They will have a staff in a capital or secondary city, and anything in remote areas is going to be a short visit. Foreign staff, especially, rarely lives or works in remote areas. In many sites, beyond the stray missionary and maybe some technical workers on a large aid project, PCVs are the only expat community around.
You bring three months worth of medication to get you through training. After training, Peace Corps will provide your medication, and if they’ve accepted you to a program then that means they have some way of procuring it. I’d imagine it comes from the States via diplomatic pouch. We never had a problem getting medication, although sometimes there would be little things like our brand of birth control being switched due to availability. Generally you’d just pick up whatever medicine you needed when you were in the Peace Corps office (I’d be there maybe once every two months.) You could also get it mailed to you.
If you have an absolutely lifesaving medication, they will probably make sure you are within easy travel of a place where it is available. I think we had a few people who were restricted to cities within an easy bus ride to the capital because of medication.