Peace Corps Application

Don’t join the Peace Corps

You heard me. Don’t do it. I’m telling you, it’s going to break your heart.

The Core Expectations for Volunteers states you are expected to “serve where the Peace Corps asks you to go, under conditions of hardship, if necessary…” What it doesn’t state however is just what hardship means.

Right now you’re thinking, “Oh. There’ll be no flush toilets or showers. I can handle that. I might have to squash a few spiders, but for the high calling of changing the world, I think I can put up with those things.”

But the truth is, hardship isn’t the quirky and fun hardship you’re expecting, where each new day brings adventure upon crazy adventure, more wonderful than the next. True hardship is much more sobering.

During your service you might have to bury a neighbor. Or watch helplessly as your host family is torn to pieces by corruption. You might show up to school to learn one of your students was killed by a classmate. Your host sister could be kidnapped and forced to marry a man she’s never met. You might witness abuse, violence and mistreatment. You may see your best student lose to a kid from another school because his bribe was the biggest. Your dog might be fed a needle, just to quiet it down, forever.

And if none of that happens, then something else will. There’s just no knowing how hard it will be or it what way. It could be dealing with other volunteers is your biggest challenge. Or that you can never live up to the expectations of your host organization. Or that the Internet is so accessible you spend your entire day trolling Facebook, jealous of all the lives continuing on back home.

And what about all the things you’ll give up? Your boyfriend might not wait two years for you. You’ll put your career on hold. Your familiar support networks probably won’t be around – there’ll be no gym, no fast food joint, no car to drive, no family to visit. The stress and diet could make you lose thirty pounds—or gain thirty—whichever you don’t want.

The Peace Corps uses phrases like, “Life is calling. How far will you go?” and in a breath you’re ready to sign your name on the line. But two years is a long, long time and in the middle you find the world you wanted to change is a confusing and complex puzzle of which you are just one, tiny piece.

So please, if you’re not ready for the heartbreak in the hardship, don’t join the Peace Corps.

Or do.

Because you might just find that all your blood, sweat and tears are worth it – worth the pain, worth the time and worth the investment in the people for whom your heart breaks. Because you might learn some of the most important lessons of your life – that a broken heart can heal stronger than it was before, that a softened heart has more compassion for the world, and that in between its cracks and fissures is the only place where true beauty and grace can grow.

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The inconvenience of flying ‘Peace Corps Class’

Obama was right when he said you cannot have both 100% security and expect 100% privacy and zero inconvenience. I just wish I didn’t have to learn this one the hard way.

Peace Corps status DOES NOT give you special privileges when traveling internationally. In fact, it’s almost guaranteed to be more difficult.

Stepping up to the Boarder Control desk, I took a deep breath, then told the truth. There was a pause at the keyboard. “Sir, you said you were where for how long doing what?” It turns out spending a year in an unpronounceable place slaughtering sheep does not put you in the fast lane through customs and security.

image“Sir, did you ever leave your bags unattended?”

It was one moment in a long string of precautions and questions. When I finally made it to my gate I was told by the airline agent that I had been flagged for additional security and I would have to return. The plane would leave without me.

You can understand how disappointed I felt, not having been home for a year, my family waiting eagerly on the other side of that portal, just out of reach. The airline agent assured me this was all for my safety. “Your security is our top priority,” she said solemnly. Really, I wondered, because stopping and preventing me from getting on the plane seemed a lot more like she was concerned with everyone else’s security. Huddling in some forsaken corner of Toronto’s airport clutching my bag and shivering off the cold certainly did not make me feel more secure.

I spent the night in Section Q with the other squatters, awaiting my turn through customs and security once again the next morning. I was tempted to do it differently this time. To lie. To just get through that card in a way that would reunite me with buffalo wings as quickly as possible. Then I got to the part where it asks, “Were you on a farm?” Considering the fact that Kyrgyzstan is basically one large sheep pasture it was too difficult to answer “no.” So I was pulled into the back room for some shoe washing.

After waiting half an hour for the U.S. Customs Shoe Washing Unit to arrive, they glanced over my shoes for caked on dirt, determined there wasn’t enough to shake their washing stick at and passed me through. It didn’t seem like the appropriate time to mention the turkey and horse blood stains so I followed the extended arm out to the next security step.

After sending my bag through, I was randomly pulled aside for the “raise ‘em and spread ‘em” machine. Try coming from a country ending in –stan while wearing a beard and see if you don’t get randomly selected for extra security. If you want to serve your country in an unknown corner of the world for vast stretches of time doing “development work,” you are going to have your freedom and convenience violated.

But that’s what we signed up for, right? It’s not convenient to put a relationship or career on hold. It’s not convenient to step out into the unfamiliar and unknown. It’s not convenient to give up hobbies and support networks and to say goodbye to family and friends for two years of your life. And it’s not convenient to travel through airports.

But we didn’t sign up because of that. We signed up because, despite the difficulties, despite the hardship, we know this work matters. That nothing worth doing has ever been easy. That the inconveniences are not an end in themselves, but rather show us we’re on the right path.

I made it through. I’m in America, typing this right now in the land of the free and home of TSA. I have only two weeks here and then I’ll be back at the airport, back in line, headed back to the work and people I love. Yes, it’s inconvenient. And yes, it’s so worth it.

It’s easy to criticize the guy who’s doing something

There are numerous empty carcasses caught in the interwebs about Peace Corps being little more than a way for over-privileged college grads to pad a resume or drink cheap beer on a two year adventure. People moan and complain about everything under the sun that is wrong with the system, wrong with staff, wrong with policy, wrong with vision. But in the end it comes down to just one thing: the volunteer himself. What are you, given an all-expenses-paid two year stint in a foreign country, going to do? The options for abuse and ineffectiveness are wide and easily available. But the opportunities to do something great are as tall as the stars and as deep as the hearts of the people you live among.

What I’m doing may not jibe with those in the comfy academic or political swivel chairs. And I admit that I’m not saving the world; no development or friendship program can. But at least I’m doing something. I am sharing my skills and knowledge in order to do my part to try and make my little sphere a better place.

It’s easy to criticize the guy who’s doing something, because there’s something there to criticize. The Peace Corps is that guy – is filled with those people. People who stop gaping at the problem and put their hand to the plow.

There’s a proverb in Kyrgyz that reads: Koz Korkok – Kol Batyr. It means, “The eye is a coward but the hand is a hero.” If you merely look upon all that must be done to make the world a better place, the coward emerges to stomp with his boots of judgment and despair upon what little spark of inspiration had flamed. But put your head down and get to work, and the hand will fan that flame into a vibrant energy that can effect a great change.

Floss

Government insurance is nice. Let me restate that. Government insurance is really nice.

Now, as Peace Corps Volunteers we don’t receive the same nice salaries as government employees (something about there being “volunteer” in the title), but we do enjoy the benefits of good medical care. During our hub-site medical days we received so many shots we were veritable pincushions. We would take them two at a time – one in each arm – just to save on shot taking time. At first I asked questions, like, “What’s this for?” After a couple weeks it was, “Where’s my juice box?”

During service we are well taken care of too. Multiple volunteers this past year have been flown to Bangkok or Washington, D.C. for treatment that can’t be done in country. Peace Corps will even pay for pregnancies from pre-natal care through six months after the baby is born, including those who become pregnant just before completion of service. (Married couples: start thinking about your timing.) If you’re going to get seriously ill or injured in life, Peace Corps service is the time to do it.

But reality is, we are “out in the field” for a majority of the time, and two years in a developing country does a number on your health. This is something most of us don’t realize until we’re cutting new holes in our belts or swallowing an army of pills to chase out that colony of worms that has settled in our small intestine. We make sacrifices nutritionally, bacterially, with lack of exercise and with increased stress. That’s why taking responsibility for watching our own health is so vitally important.

image A village Volunteer’s medical plan: a book titled Where There Is No Doctor

I’m seeing the dentist next week on one of my trips to the capital, and I know what he’s going to say. It’s the same thing the dentist always says to me: “You need to floss more.” The advice is free, yet I’ve now learned the value of good health care. So much so, that maybe this time, I might just listen.