I’ve considered applying numerous times, but every time I decide I’m gonna do it something comes up - new job, new love, new apartment lease, promotion, getting a cat - and I put it off for “someday.”
But I’ve been taking a few months off, and Africa, Asia, the world is calling me again. I don’t really have clearly defined career goals at this time, nothing is keeping me in any one place (my roommate and my cat have developed a mutual fan club that quite excludes me). I’ve always been an international studies and travel fiend, worked for 4-5 years in the international development field without gaining the kind of hands-on field experience I wanted. I left it because I was sick of administering U.S. government contracts, not because of development work itself.
I think it might be time.
Well, enough about me. I’d like to know:
When and where you served and what your job was.
Would you do it again?
How do you think it affected your subsequent career? Was your experience met with respect when you rejoined the workforce? Did the experience change what you wanted to do with your life? I don’t want to end a stint in Peace Corps and go back to the same bullshit paper-pushing job I had in D.C.
Do you think your service actually helped anyone?
How long did it take you to get comfortable in the local language?
Any stories about guinea worm, poop emergencies, and weird food you would care to tell.
I didn’t, but dated a guy who did (and since no one else has yet to leap up, thought I’d give you what little I could in the meantime.
He served in Jamaica in 1972, he’d been in college to be a shop teacher, he ended up doing a wide variety of tasks there, including labor (helping build things) and teaching how to do those things.
2 I don’t know the answer to that one.
I believe that people respected his service. As an employer, I frankly would look upon it positively (as in, some one cared enough about humanity to take a break from their real life and do something like that, exposure to different cultures, IMHO is always a benefit etc.) It ended up changing his career, he became a minister instead of a shop teacher.
As he told me at the time, yes, he did feel that he accomplished things and helped people.
that didn’t apply really, many of them spoke English.
Thanks, wring. I know you are a fellow “save the worlder.” I know a bunch of people who have done it, but I’m far away from them right now, so input from Dopers would be both helpful and fascinating.
I wasn’t a volunteer, but I have many friends from college (I think about 6) who did volunteer. To a person they consider the experience among the most formative of their lives. My friends served in Zaire, Ecuador, Madagascar, Dominican Republic and Nepal and from what I have learned, did quite diverse things, from forest management to teaching English to helping establish a (reasonably) fair electoral process.
The person I knew the best in the PC, though, was my father, who was Assistant Director in Afghanistan from 1966 to 1968. Although he did little of the actual work that volunteers focused on during those years, he did administer the program to erradicate smallpox in one of its last strongholds in the world. They were successful. I see that a significant accomplishment.
Certainly the experience changed the lives of both my father and mother. After going into the PC, Dad quit governmental work for academia, becoming an expert on Central Asian art, which he became passionate about while living in Afghanistan. My mother recognized she had talents other than raising children and became a very talented and highly paid governmenal administrator. I am certain that the time she spent in Afghanistan was critical to her personal development.
I was 6 months old when my parents took me to Afghanistan with my older brother. Although I have no recollection, my parents did describe me as a particularly filthy child. At one point I became infected with a parasite and for two weeks, my parents were pulling sections of tapeworm up to 18 inches in length from my behind. Additionally, Mom got knocked up while overseas. My brothers, unexpected twins, were born in the two-room infirmary of the US Embassy in Kabul. Shortly after Sean was born, the physician had to put Dad to work as midwife since the only nurse already had her hands full. Dad helped deliver Casey in an age before Lamaze and Sony had become mandatory participants in the birthing process. Despite the unexpected nature of twins, Dad’s stock did rise among the rug dealers of the bazaar when they realized that Dad was stud to not two, but four healthy sons.
These are only a small number of stories that I have heard about the Peace Corps. Although I haven’t volunteered yet, I suspect that at some point I will. I cannot imagine that it wouldn’t change my life.
I know a bunch of people who have done it, but I’m far away from them right now, so input from Dopers would be both helpful and fascinating.