27 Months in the Peace Corps: My True Story

TRAVEL + PEACE CORPS

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Investigations — Investigators respond to allegations of criminal or administrative wrongdoing by Peace Corps Volunteers, Peace Corps personnel, including experts and consultants, and by those who do business with the Peace Corps, including contractors. David Kotz was the Inspector General. Critics and criticisms of Peace Corps include Robert L.

Rather it concentrates on increasing productivity and encouraging self-reliance in villages that are often ignored by large-scale development agencies," and notes the "heavy emphasis on basic education" by the Corps. During the early years there were many failures in structure and programming Some critics charge that the Peace Corps is only a somewhat ineffective attempt to counter damage done to the U. Many observers and some returned volunteers charge that, in addition to public relations for the United States, Peace Corps programs serve to legitimize dictators When he began evaluating the Corps in the s, Charlie Peters found "they were training volunteers to be junior diplomats.

Giving them a course in American studies, world affairs and communism Although it seems unlikely that the Peace Corps is used in covert operations, wittingly or not it is often used in conjunction with U. In a review of the Peace Corps in March the House Select Committee on Hunger praised the agency for effective work in the areas of agriculture and conservation, while recommending that the Corps expand its African Food Systems Initiative, increase the number of volunteers in the field, recruit more women, and move to depoliticize country dictatorships.

The author suggests that "the poor should be encouraged to organize a power base to gain more leverage with the powers-that-be" by the Peace Corps and that "The Peace Corps is the epitome of Kennedy's Camelot mythology. It is a tall order to expect a small program appended to an immense superpower, to make a difference, but it is a goal worth striving for. In December , a report by the Brookings Institution praised the Peace Corps but proposed changes.

The Brookings Institution wrote that a "one-year service commitment [for the Baby Boom generation] could make the Peace Corps more attractive to older Americans, possibly combined with the option of returning to the same site or country after a three-month break" and customized placement to a specific country would increase the number of people volunteering. He writes that in the s, "The Peace Corps's world-saving pretensions were a joke on American taxpayers and Third World folks who expected real help.

The Peace Corps has been criticized for failing to properly respond to the sexual violence that many of its female volunteers face. They say the agency ignored their concerns for safety or requests for relocation, and tried to blame rape victims for their attacks. Their stories, and support from families and advocates, are drawing attention from lawmakers and promises of reform from the agency". Among 8, volunteers there are on average 22 Peace Corps women who reported being the victims of rape or attempted rape each year.

At a meeting of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in , Peace Corps volunteers shared their experiences of violence and sexual assault. At this meeting, it was found that between — there have been several cases of rape or attempted rape, and about 22 women are sexually assaulted each year.

The case of murdered Peace Corps volunteer Kate Puzey was discussed. The Peace Corps has gained attention in the media and their directors have been attacked for how they handled this situation. Kate Puzey's mother was one of those to make a comment at the meeting about how badly the situation with her daughter had been handled.

One woman claimed that her country's director had blamed her for getting raped, while other victims have also been similarly blamed. Green was eventually pushed out of her position in April for purportedly "creating a hostile work environment". Greene maintains that Peace Corps retaliated against her for pressing agency officials to fully comply with their responsibilities towards volunteers who have been victims of sexual assault. The majority of women who join the Peace Corps are in their mid-twenties.

Abortion is also an issue for female Peace Corps volunteers. Women who have been raped in foreign countries while volunteering have wanted to get abortions. The low pay of Peace Corp volunteers combined with the expense of an abortion often makes obtaining one difficult. Even in instances of life endangerment, rape and incest, volunteers are not financially covered. Volunteers do receive other forms of health care, including prescription medications, routine examinations, and emergency care, free of charge.

These services are provided in-country through a Peace Corps Medical Officer. The abortion topic is very active in the Peace Corps, because when volunteers become pregnant for any reason, they can no longer be volunteers, and a significant number of them want to remain volunteers. In popular culture, the Peace Corps has been used as a comedic plot device in such movies as Airplane! The Peace Corps has also been documented on film and examined more seriously and in more depth. One particularly powerful scene showed Indians attacking a clinic while the volunteers inside sterilized Indian women against their will.

The film is thought to be at least partially responsible for the expulsion of the Peace Corps from Bolivia in Peace Corps volunteer Fred Krieger who was serving in Bolivia at the time said, "It was an effective movie — emotionally very arousing — and it directly targeted Peace Corps volunteers. I thought I would be lynched before getting out of the theatre. To my amazement, people around me smiled courteously as we left, no one commented, it was just like any other movie.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Establishment of the Peace Corps. Kennedy 's announcement of the establishment of the Peace Corps. Countries served by Peace Corps Volunteers as of [update]. This section does not cite any sources.

Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. November Learn how and when to remove this template message. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. This section appears to contain trivial, minor, or unrelated references to popular culture. Please reorganize this content to explain the subject's impact on popular culture, using references to reliable sources , rather than simply listing appearances. Retrieved December 12, Archived from the original PDF on October 15, Retrieved October 16, Retrieved April 29, Peace Corps at Home and Abroad".

Retrieved October 26, The New York Times. Retrieved March 19, The Education of a Public Man. Retrieved December 10, Perspective on the Peace Corps. Colorado State University Special Collections. Retrieved February 22, November 20, []. Retrieved August 3, Birky, and Andrew E. The Peace Corps Final Report.

The Hardest Adjustment in Peace Corps is Coming Home

Founding Documents of the Peace Corps. Archived from the original on May 14, Retrieved May 11, Archived from the original on June 29, Archived from the original PDF on January 25, Retrieved April 25, Retrieved January 19, Geoscientists in the Peace Corps. Geotimes , August Archived from the original PDF on March 4, Rees July 14, Retrieved June 2, Double the Peace Corps — Obama promise No. Retrieved January 22, Retrieved December 13, Retrieved May 10, Retrieved June 5, Retrieved February 28, Archived from the original on December 20, Those things will come in time, but for now, less just seems like so much more to me.

My things have turned into memories which I carry now in my heart, the most cherished of all necessities. So to those who have helped make me who I am today, I hope that this small but sincere message is well received. For those of you who came all the way here to visit me, my mom, my aunt Shelly, Laurie and Sherrill, your visit was inexplicably uplifting.

It meant the world to me. To my Peace Corps friends who have become my family, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. Rarely are we given opportunities to work with such successful, like-minded people who have all come together to make the world a better place to live. I have no doubt that you will all go far in whatever life brings you next. To my Colombian friends who have shown me how to live, you were always the anchor that held me here.

Leaving now brings me a wave of sadness almost too great to overcome. And lastly, to my Colombian families, because there were so many of you who received me with open arms, I want to say thank you.

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Thank you for letting me into your homes and into your hearts, for laughing at my jokes despite how not funny they were , for making me laugh in return on the days when all I wanted was to cry, for challenging me to see my true potential, for seeing me as a leader, a friend and most graciously as part of your family. We tap drinks and laugh into our superhero cups of juice. Then he tries to coerce me into completing his homework by using his best English. He then learns new words like cape, fly, and fast. He quickly puts his soaring friend down and picks up a colored pencil again.

As grandma walks back out to the porch we both glance at each other and giggle. Little B is what I like to call him. I would call him by his full name, Bernardo, but it gets quite confusing since his dad is also named Bernardo, whom I call middle B. Once a week, Little B and I spend time learning English at the kitchen table of their house where a lazy fan circles overhead. I swat mosquitos from my ankles, listen to his adventurous six-year-old stories, and talk to him in English as much as he can possibly understand.

We enjoy putting together a puzzle of the United States that I brought back for him and we read the books that were donated to us by generous friends. He understands about half of the story but loves hearing me read in English, hoping one day he will be able to read the book all by himself. I first met Little B as he came skipping across the gym in his underwear, his plump little belly and round legs making quite the entrance as he did a little shimmy shake in front of the mirror.

I knew we would get along just fine. Their house, which doubles as a gym in the back, has been like my second home. What an incredible couple of weeks in the Peace Corps I just had! We were on June break from school here, the equivalent to winter break in the United States where students have about two to three weeks off.

Last year I took this time to travel and see more of Colombia. This year, however, I dedicated my time to several camps for youth development. These two weeks were some of the most exhausting yet rewarding experiences of my service and seeing the smiles on these precious faces made all of the hard work absolutely worth it. During the first week off from school, I invited a friend to Santa Marta to help teach a group of kids from my foundation about photography.

Sarah came from Cartagena where she serves in the Peace Corps as well, about four and a half hours from Santa Marta. The children who participated in the camp, living in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Santa Marta, often have little to do in their free time. With this is mind, the owner of the foundation one of my very good friends here and I decided to organize this camp in order to keep them busy by using their time for positive development. Although we came across some interesting challenges, the camp was a success. Losing water at my house, rearranging for Sarah to stay somewhere for four nights, finding out that there were no busses running due to a strike, and then losing electricity at the foundation were all hiccups in the process, but ones that are inevitable here.

Next, they had a partner take a picture of their body part some being simple like the arm and others being more abstract such as the heart. The children used what they learned about photography and were able to capture some pretty creative shots. I was so happy watching them explore with the camera and seeing them reflect on their own work. Working with these children makes my heart swell seeing how excited they get to learn.

At the end of the photography camp, I said goodbye to my friend Sarah and had the weekend to rest and collect my thoughts. I gathered my bug spray, tennis shoes, soap and toothbrush and packed my bag for a 5 day camp to the Sierra Nevada mountains. Three volunteers worked vigorously for nearly 10 months to plan an incredible experience for these girls and 10 counselors including myself were lucky enough to get invited to participate.

Just an hour away from Santa Marta, we headed up the hillside with the bags strapped over the roof and a bit of nervousness for what we were getting ourselves into with 35 teenage girls.

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We arrived to the local school where we would be staying for the week which graciously provided rooms lined with bunk beds, a kitchen with cooking staff and the most amazing views of luscious mountains. I immediately felt at ease. We arranged our bags and then teams were announced for the groups that we would be working with. The seven girls in my group were timid at first but showed kind smiles to one another as they introduced themselves. For these ten whole minutes, this would be the quietest moment of the entire week. They immediately found common interests and shared jokes with their newest friends who would support them throughout the week in ways that they had no idea.

It was beautiful to watch complete strangers quickly become very close friends over the course of the week. They shared moments that brought them to tears and they laughed perhaps harder than they had in a while over the silliest things. We gave talks on leadership, community service, gender, self-esteem, nutritional health and sexual health; all topics critical to the stage at which these teenage girls are living.

Growing up in a world that encourages men to become leaders but is passive in doing the same for women, our biggest goal was to show them that they too can take on this world. Saying goodbye to them, especially to my group of seven girls, at the end of the five days was much more difficult than I had imagined.

I may have cried once or twice but my heart was truly happy to see them go back home as an educated young leader ready to make a difference. As my good friend and fellow Peace Corps volunteer Shanna told the girls at the closing ceremony,. And the future is bright, bold, brave and absolutely beautiful. The water went out again at my house for the second time this week, however not something new to me.

For months last year it would go out for a whole week at a time, and yet I survived, as do millions of others around the world with no running water. So why was I panicking? Is it true in this case that ignorance is indeed bliss? Perhaps understanding the unique challenges of living without running water to cook, clean, wash clothes, or to shower are now clear to me. In my 23 years before the Peace Corps, never have I faced such consistent uncertainty. Products are marked with a stamped guarantee or your money back, public transportation arrives at designated stops at marked times, stores post their hours and assure they will be open, quiet hours are abided by if not reinforced to guarantee a good nights sleep at your hotel, dentists rarely make you wait longer than your exact scheduled time, and as long as you pay the bill, the water is guaranteed to be running.

But more so I despised my reaction and feelings toward the situation. Instead of being grateful for the 23 years of running water in the comfort of my home, I was pissed to be deprived of it for one whole day. In that moment I recognized how much certainty I was used to having.

And the feeling of being stripped of it? At first it felt like fear, then frustration, which eventually turned into a shameful anger knowing that I was not the first nor would I be the last to go without water. But none of them felt like the precise word as to what my mind was searching for. Then, after a few days of pondering, I found it. Vulnerability is exactly what I was going through, and the precise emotion that I have felt for the last 19 months of my service; yet, I was unable to recognize it through all of the dust, tucked away in the basement of my emotions. To truly live in this state and come out on the other end is to reap the benefits of self growth and learning, to become a little more brave, to accept and incorporate feedback, and to feel absolute joy.

It can be tough and painful during service, but it's also immensely satisfying when you do persevere and succeed. Life in America is more routine, more predictable. There aren't those thrilling frissons of bewilderment and strangeness. You are no longer a pseudo-celebrity. As I have started to adjust back to life out of Peace Corps it is a bit weird to not have every child yell to me and most people excited to see me walk by them. The novelty of volunteering disappears quickly.

Erica says this is pretty common, "As much as volunteers complain about living their lives under a microscope, we can miss the fact that we're no longer special, that people don't really care about our every move. Truth be told, it can be kind of fun and ego boosting to be somewhat famous.

Going back to the material world. A lot of Peace Corps Volunteers leave developing countries with water, electricity and basic need shortages and enter America's first world problems like not getting all of the apps on the I-pad to work. Erica talked about this as well, "The superficiality, rush and materialness of much of American life can be hard to come to terms with.

Overseas many of us learn to greet everyone, to take in and value each person we meet. We may sit for hours under a tree cracking peanuts with our host mother, just being. Often we become enmeshed in close-knit communities for the very first time. That's different than the hurried, "yeah, let's get together," that never happens. Also striking is the waste. We waste so much stuff. Water, heat, electricity, paper, plastic containers. Stuff that would be prized overseas is casually tossed here. It can be really disturbing.

RPCVs cope with all of these unique difficulties in different ways. Obviously not all of the adjustment is bad.

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