The Peace Corps Experience

The following story was sent to us by our Country Director Kevin Carley. Mr. Carley points out that "some of us have a tendency to think that some of the challenges of achieving “a Peace Corps experience” are unique to the Eastern Caribbean.  Or are different today than they were 10 or 20 years ago.  This paper would imply that some of those challenges are more universal and more timeless." I like this story for many reasons, but one reason is that it gives good insight into that although we might be in a third world developing country with many US influences, we still have the opportunity for the "Peace Corps experience" if we have the right mindset. I cannot count the number of times I have heard from people back home that I'm "living on a beach in paradise," "It can't be that bad if you have a beach and sunshine," and "That can't be to hard to live there." Time and time again it becomes frustrating, so I hope this article gives some insight. Enjoy!

THE PEACE CORPS EXPERIENCE – By Craig Storti

“The real strength of your experience here rests on the fact that you must decide what kind of life you want to lead.”  - PCV Mali

While different people join the Peace Corps for different reasons, most Volunteers hope for what we might call the Peace Corps experience.  That is, they seek a profound encounter with a foreign culture, a series of experiences that changes forever the way they think about the world, their own country, and themselves.  They expect-and very much want-to be challenged, to have their patience and their mettle tested, to be pulled, pushed or otherwise forced into new ways of thinking and behaving.  They want, in a word, to grow.  And the Peace Corps itself wouldn’t have it any other way; this is, in fact, a large part of its mission and raison d’etre.

And yet, while most Volunteers want the Peace Corps experience, while the Peace Corps itself encourages and all but mandates this experience, and while this experience is in fact available in every Peace Corps country-some Volunteers have it and a good many do not.

To be sure, there is a handful of countries-like Nepal or Micronesia or Swaziland-where you will have the Peace Corps experience whether you want it or not, countries so different from the United States that you will have a profound encounter with another culture just by virtue of being assigned there.  And there are parts of still other countries-the more remote or more traditional parts-where you are likewise more or less guaranteed the Peace Corps experience just by showing up.  But while it may be easier to have the Peace Corps experience in such places, every Volunteer, regardless of where he or she is posted, is still going to end up in a foreign country.  If you’re not having a profound encounter with another culture, it’s not because you haven’t gone overseas.

The problem, then, is not that the Peace Corps experience isn’t available in your town or city, but that some other competing experiences may be.  In a number of countries, especially in the large cities, there is often a good-sized expatriate community, made up of people from several Western and other developed countries and, often, a number of non-Peace Corps Americans.  In many cases you work may draw you into this expatriate orbit and before long, without knowing it, you’re spending most of your time, on and off the job, in this community.  Even Volunteers who do not come in contact with expatriate on the job often live in cities where there is a large population and spend much of their time socializing with them.  Without impugning the value of such an experience, we can agree that at the very least it does not constitute a profound encounter with the local culture.

Another experience available in many countries, and particularly in those towns and cities where there is a large concentration of Volunteers, is what we might call the Peace Corps lifestyle.  In this alternative experience, you may work with host country people, but you live with other Volunteers, spend weekends with other Volunteers, and go on vacation with other Volunteers.  At the same time, you become more and more absorbed in the personalities and politics of the Peace Corps itself until, suddenly and unaccountably, a new Peace Corps policy or a change in Peace Corps staff reverberates through your circle with more impact than any comparable development in the host culture ever further into the background.

The point here is not that Volunteers who befriend expatriates or spend a lot of time with other PCVs cannot be effective or achieve the goals of the Peace Corps, or even that spending time with Westerners and other Volunteers isn’t often quite therapeutic and necessary.  It is, rather, a question of degree.  If you are spending most of your time with English-speakers and other Westerners, then quite simply you can’t also be spending it with the natives improving your Swahili and learning about the culture.  A balance, as we’ve said, is natural and necessary, but the appeal of these alternate lifestyles is almost irresistible.  Like attracts like; we instinctively tend toward people who understand us and whom we understand, around whom we can relax and not worry about being culturally insensitive, whose words we can understand without straining and to whom we can speak without heroic feats of concentration.  In no time, casual contact becomes a habit.

The danger of these alternative cultures, then, is not that there is anything wrong with them in moderation, but that it is so easy to be immoderate about them.  Without realizing it-without intending to or wanting to-we can be drawn deeper and deeper into them until there is no easy escape.  By the time the average Volunteer realizes he has drifted into the wrong experience, if in fact he ever does, it’s too late.

The solution, then, is to be alert, to watch how you spend your time and with whom you spend it.  Is the money you’re saving by living with another PCV worth the price you’re paying?  And at what cost do you purchase the blessed relief of hearing and speaking English every afternoon at the expatriate compound? Regularly, as marked on your calendar, look at the life you’re leading and make sure it’s the one you signed up for.  And while you ‘re at it, keep your distance from those time-worn rationales which hold that this isn’t a Peace Corps country or mine isn’t a Peace Corps job.  There is no country, Peace Corps or otherwise, that doesn’t have an indigenous culture, nor is there any Peace Corps job that precludes interaction with host country nationals.  Wherever you serve, the Peace Corps experience is there for the asking.  You only have to put the question.