I was not a volunteer myself, nor do I play one on TV. However, in my life it has been my privilege to work with a variety of volunteers, from a variety of countries, in a variety of roles. (Along with the Peace Corps, there’s the JOCV volunteers from Japan, British volunteers, and Australian volunteers.) In particular, I have worked extensively with Peace Corps Volunteers, called PCVs. I have trained them, assisted them, designed programs for them, worked extensively as a consultant for Peace Corps Washington, employed PCVs when I ran various village-level development programs, written manuals for them, and hoisted a few beers as well. I have worked directly as a consultant for Peace Corps in Morocco, Liberia, Costa Rica, Senegal, Tonga, the Gambia, Papua New Guinea, Ecuador, Jamaica, Ponape, Fiji, Lesotho, and Togo.
In addition, my wife worked for three years as a Peace Corps Medical Officer, a job called in good government fashion the “PCMO”. PCVs these days are divided into two distinct groups. The first is the traditional just out of college folks. The other, which currently makes up a good percentage of PCVs, is retired people. The PCMO is the poor fool who is in charge of keeping gung-ho kids and out-of-their-element retired folks alive and healthy during their service. She also worked on short term (2-6 weeks) consultancies as a temporary PCMO in Tanzania, Vanuatu, Ponape, Mongolia, and the Marshall Islands. So I know literally hundreds of Peace Corps Volunteers.
All of the Volunteer programs run on the same idea. People sign up for a two or three year contract, to live somewhere and work with the people there. They are supported by the home government in various degrees, and typically get a stipend to live on. Living conditions are often (but not always) … mmm, let me call them “delightfully rustic” and let it go at that. None of the volunteers who have lasted have done it just to “feel good about themselves”. It’s hard to feel good about yourself when you are having yet another bout of illness in some leaf house a long way from nowhere, the rain is thundering down, the roof is leaking and it’s six hours walk to the nearest phone.
For me, this is the most supportive and effective and cost-effective foreign aid that we can give. It works much better when we send people to other countries than when we send wheat or loans or weapons. This is particularly true with regards to women volunteers, who have served as models of hope, strength, independence, and inspiration for generations of girls and young women around the world. Often, these girls have never met a woman making her way in the world on her own, with no father, husband, or brother to provide for her.
So to answer the OP in no uncertain terms, all of these official government supported long-term Volunteers are all admired, respected, and warmly welcomed into the lives to of the people that they live and work with. Babies are named after them, parties are thrown and people weep when they leave, often they marry locally and stay on. People know they are there to assist them, and they respect that.
Is this universal? Of course not, every organization has its share of charlatans, poseurs, and fools. They tend to be weeded out of Peace Corps pretty quickly, though, I’ve bounced more than one out myself at the training stage. Or they ET voluntarily after a few months in-country. And sometimes villages just don’t like the person, or they make some bad mistake early on, or the like. Finally, individuals may have any kind of personal disagreement with a Volunteer, and give the roll-eyes when they are mentioned. For example, a number of Latin men have the idea from movies and such that American women are incredibly sexually promiscuous. Often, they make inappropriate advances and get shut down fairly definitively, as women volunteers soon learn ways to stop that sh*t real fast. So, the guy may have meant that by his roll-eyes, who knows.
But by and large Volunteers in general, and PCVs in particular, have a very positive reputation abroad. I may become a PCV myself after I retire, the good lady and I have discussed it. I would recommend it without reservation for anyone of reasonable heath and even temperament. (I say even temperament because for someone who is used to efficiency and getting things done, the developing world can be incredibly frustrating.)
My best to all,
w.
).