Peace Corps Volunteers in their own Words
I want to talk about the piece by Emily Best. She served for a year in Senegal before ETing. She says:
For me, the most frustrating part of Peace Corps was its culture. The onus of success seemed to be placed solely on the volunteer. If the volunteer struggles, it’s because she isn’t trying hard enough to adapt. It’s a culture that ignores factors like: a host family with rigid expectations, a host brother making sexual remarks (or worse), a community in flux, incompetent administrative employees or poor program management. The culture tells the volunteer to make it work, and the volunteer quickly learns how to navigate within these confines.
Gatherings of volunteers often resulted in an outpouring of frustration, negativity and unhappiness. Volunteers coped by drinking too much, lashing out at locals and acting in ways they wouldn’t dare at home.
I found this to be extremely insightful--even though Senegal is a much different post than Vanuatu--and I think Best really struck the target with her division of blame when it comes to dissatisfied, out-of-sorts volunteers. I see this at my post, too, and even participate in it, some, although I'm aware it's not always fair.
I try to be fairly honest in this blog. I'm having a very good experience with Peace Corps/Vanuatu. I don't always love everything about my site, but overall I've had exactly the life-shaping experience that I was hoping for. I was a child when I entered the Peace Corps and I'm an adult now. I no longer feel a sense of confusion or a lack of purpose in my life. I feel like for the first time in my life, my head is on straight and I'm not worried about prestige or what other people think about me. This has been good.
It's not true for everyone. Some people have a miserable time in the Peace Corps. Sometimes their communities aren't really safe, or interested, or excited about development, and sometimes the volunteer is cocky and self-righteous, or looks down on local people. Sometimes the volunteer is really a good egg and their community is good, too, but the strain of living away from home makes the volunteer stressed, angry, and sad in turns. Some volunteers deal with their unhappiness well and some don't--I've seen some people behave like how Best describes in that second paragraph, although I think Best is overstating how many people behave that badly.
And the temptation is to blame the volunteer. I see myself doing it, too. Sometimes I look at another volunteer and I think, Why isn't he/she trying harder? If only he/she did XYZ, their service would improve and they'd be happy. Why doesn't he/she try harder?
It's totally unfair. I don't know their life. It's so arrogant of us to think that we know what's up with another volunteer, why they're unhappy, and what they could do to fix it. I know it's unfair, even though we all do it.
I think it's a psychological coping mechanism. By comparing myself to a volunteer who is struggling (by struggling, read: expressing more discontent than I am at any given point in time), I come out looking great. I can forget about all the things I do badly and get all self-satisfied, thinking, if that volunteer just went to church on Sundays and talked to everybody like I do, they'd be so much better off. It's building yourself up by putting other people down, blaming the volunteer all the time when it takes two (a vol and a village) to tango. Some villages are more suited to volunteers and some volunteers are most suited to working in a particular context.
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