Recent experiences with Peace Corps, Vis
jimblodgett
| Posted in General Discussion on
Our youngest is headed off to college next week and I’ve been thinking about what the next 20 years might be like. One thing I keep thinking about is travelling to various parts of the world on some type of work exchange program.
Every time this subject comes up, someone mentions the Peace Corps. Does anyone have any recent experience with them? Or Vista? Or any other organization that I might look into? Not really certain what I want to do beyond travel, build, teach maybe, learn certainly. Anywhere in the world would be fine, even here in America.
thanks – Jim
Replies
Jim, my Peace Corps is *somewhat* dated (1966-1969, English teacher, Senegal), but my daughter is just starting her second year as a Peace Corps volunteer (also an English teacher) in Moldova. If you like, I can send you her email address. But I think you'd get better info for your purposes if you talked to an older volunteer who is doing community development.
Ruth Dobsevage
Taunton New Media
have you thought of Habitat for Humanity?
don't really know much about them
know some have not been happy volenteering, but also know someone here is heavily involved.
have heard of people traveling to participate even overseas.
since this wouldn't be a long term commitment (year or more) can help to get your feet wet.
bobl Volo Non Voleo
Wondering what to do with the next twenty? You could get over here and help me reside my house, and fix everything else on it that was built by chimps. That'll only leave you ten years to worry about.
cabinetmaker/college woodworking instructor. Cape Breton, N.S
Jim,
my wife and I looked into this years ago---and essentially the peace corps. told me to stick it up my rear.
In short---at that time at least, if you didn't have at least a Bachelors Degree from college----they didn't want you.
I don't know if it's any different now----but I wish you the very best of luck with it.
Thanks Steven, Ruth, bobl.
Adrian - I'll have my people talk with your people, but...um...I was hoping to go somewhere "settled". Is it okay to drink the water there? Do you have kool-aid?
Jim, a friend of mine just had a bad experience with the Peace Corps. She has her master's in education, signed on to go somewhere that her experience would be useful. They sent her to Paraguay, she did all the training/aclimating there, which took about 8 weeks I think. All the time learning how to teach the local teachers how to teach kids. They sent her way up into the mountains, which was fine with her...and when she got there they had her digging latrines and teaching dental hygene. The higher-ups claimed it was still education, just a different kind of education...
She was very dissapointed in the way she was deceived by the Peace Corps. She quit, came back here and got a job as a teacher. Too bad--she's smart, outgoing, and would have been valuable at what the told her she would be doing.
I suppose if you don't really care what job you do then it doesn't matter.
Don't mean to discourage you, sounds like a great idea to do something different--just wanted to warn you that it's not all peaches and ice cream.
Whoah! You got to be kidding. I REALLY don't like it when people jerk me around like that. Thanks for the heads up, Mike.
Dear Jim,
My wife was a PCV in the Caribbean from 91-94 where we met. After that we married and continued to live there up until this year and were often involved with PC there - knew the volunteers and the local director etc.
PC is OK, for some it is just the best thing - for others it doesn't work at all (like Mike Maines talked about). It all depends on the job you get and your own attitude i.e. what is your motivation to do this? If you expect to be put in a job that exactly fits your skills and expect to be treated like a hero and an expert who are coming there to "help these poor peolple", then you are likely to be disappointed. Patience, humility, respect, good work ethic and a positive attitude are all very important and with that you might have a great experience. I have known several volunteers who have extended 1 or 2 years some (including my wife and myself) got married in the country where she went. In every new batch on PCVs arriving every year I think 20% quits after a few months because it is not what they expected. Culture shock!
OK that was just a few words of advice - if you want to know more just write.
Henrik
Holy Moly. I miss a day of reading and blokes from down under are calling themselves third worlders! What's this world coming to?
Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. I'm not looking to be treated like anything. Just would like the opportunity to travel and learn about another culture - maybe contribute a little just to hold up my end of the deal.
Australia does sound pretty good, what with all those waltzers and stuffed jumpers and all.
wow you got my heart pumpin best 3 yrs of my life PCParaguay 83-1986 a time a century more kindred to my own no motor vehicles ox carts horses and foot traffic
barefoot, wide straw hats and time for friends & family
flying over country upon arrival knew this was Eureka for me - always wanted to live in a thatch cottage and here was my chance!
PC line is hardest job you'll ever love very thoughtful thread and some profound cross cultural insight from Pippin
indulge me in alittle anecdote my wife & I were in a little health post in the town about 7 miles from our village and I run in to a friendly govt. agriculture consultant who had been one of the dignitaries at our intro to the community ceremony - he's tuning up some overhead cam high falutin inoculation apparatus and I ask him what is it for? He's going to be giving shots to all the pigs in the town and I ask him if it is Alfonso Loma's turn too? He hadn't thought about that but with this enthusiastic gringo offering his services it's a win win situation couple days later he arrives and for the next two days we trapse (word?) through every yard, ranchito and barbed wire fence within 2 miles covered in mud and whathaveyou and filled w/ unbound thanks and good cheer could not have had a better start in the community
next day starting a vaccination program with my nurse wife at the local elementary school knew many of the people already and made sharing info on children easy he shot my pig she shoot my brood works anyway we have our first regional visit w/ the ministry and we make a little presentation of what we have done my wife speaks of vaccine programs & interface w/ town's centro de health etc also noting my help then I speak of vaccine program for pigs and before I have a chance to finish speaking of my other activities in my stumbling spanish I'm being roundly castigated by some interior minister about how my position had nothing to do with agriculture, My supervisor Pedro a Paraguayan national and most likely the same supervisor the master in ed. would have had pushed down his glasses, smiled and winked w/ a nod. We'll be back for more when our two children are well on their way
my apologies not pippen PIFFIN and traipse is a word
I don't know exactly what happened with you friend with the master's
but
Let's keep in mind here that the primary goal of the Peace Corps is to help folks around the world with the help that they need and to show them that Americans are not all high and mighty looking down their noses at the rest of the world. Looks like your friend failed in that endeavor as much as the organization did in placing her.
I tried to join up once too and got tyhe same thing about the degree - they only wanted highly educated people to send out.
One of our neighbors here has a father who has re-upped with them since he retired at about 52. He was in business management and they have him helping farmers out in the middle of africa sub0-hahara someplace. his position is supposedly helping them find and develope markets for their products but because of drought, he spends 95% of his time helping them farm and keep the oxen from dying of thirst and motivating them to go out to do what they need to do to have a crop to sell. He's not managing as much as he's beinga dirt farmer.
Butr that's third hand information, of course, still, I'll bet he's dug a latrine or two..
Excellence is its own reward!
I dont know much about this at all, so I probably shouldnt comment but it seems counter productive to recruit only people with higher education and only use their manual labor.
Yes, I know it seems that way, but you have to see it from the other side too. You are a poor peasant only growing half enough to feed your family.
Some guy in a suit comes along and tells you how to grow more food and walks away after a week or so.
Another guy comes along and lives and works with you for a year, doing what you do but occasionally giving hints that improve production.
Which do you listen to?
Some gal with a piece of paper calling her a master of education comes along and tells your childrens teachers how to teach and gets huffy when she has to dig a latrine. You are thinking, "Gee, do they just dump on the street in America, or bury it like a decent person?!"
And then some other gal comes along and lives with your family and shows you how she stays sanitary, from tooth to toenail, regardless of conditions.
Which one you want your children learning from?
And which of the above meets the peace corps goal of showing people in other cultures that all Americans are not domineering arogant snits?
It takes both education, humility, and wisdom to manage a job like that, IMO
I base what I think on conversations with a couple of PC people, missionaries, and books like, Living Poor, and The Ugly American.
Now for the other side of the arguement - maybe it is possible that what has happened to the peace Corps is what typically happens in buerocracies after a time - they have to justify their own existence and budget, regardless of wheether they are effective or not, and they lose sight of their own goals except to do lip sevice. Could be that's what happened to this teacher gal.
Or
it could be a combination of the two..
Excellence is its own reward!
Piffen,
I think I see what you are saying----and I agree with you.
But-----
It seems to me,that Jim,or Piffen, or dare I say Stephen----would be amply qualified to work and or lead by example work efforts under remote conditions-----latrine digging,basic shelter requirements etc. Certainly as qualified as say, a newly minted education major from the university of where ever.
I am not saying I am qualified to develope any agricultural programs----but I was pretty sure I could have more than pulled my weight.
Anyone have experience with VISTA - Volunteers In Service To America?
That makes sense to me; things I've heard about the Peace Corps made it sound more like the experience she got than the experience she thought she was going to get. And I wasn't there, I don't know the exact conversations--but she feels like they told her she was going to be doing one thing, and trained her for that one thing, then had her doing something completely different.
I have another friend who had an amazingly good time with the Peace Corps; he's more of a take-it-as-it-comes kind of guy, personality-wise probably more like Jim Blodgett, from the little I know of Jim. This friend went to Africa, had to change sites once because of local wars (I forget which country), made a lot of friends, made a dugout canoe he brought back with him. He said it was the best thing he's ever done.
Jim.
The International branch of Habitat for Humanity is called "Global Villages". They are headquartered in Americus, GA.
Unless you speak another language fluently, I don't know if they would send you on permanent assignment to another country. But, if you can round up a group of enthusiastic, not always skilled by eager to learn gringos, and work alongside them to build a house, you could always apply to be a team leader to other countries. The trips last between 2-3 weeks. Your skills would be a plus, and you should be enthusiastic about project management. Otherwise, you would be miserable.
Fundraising to be sent on series of Global Villages trips is another option. People who contribute money to send you are credited with a tax-deductible donation. You are required to put in the time there, do not have to speak another language fluently (the family stationed there act as translators) but you could easily learn since you work alongside the families who will be living in the houses. I think you can take up to 5 days on the back end to travel around the country on your own dime before using your ticket back. The work is painfully primitive. In the mountains of Costa Rica, we started by digging the entire foundation and septic system with pick-axes and shovels, assembled re-bar by bending it with a pipe around a board with some cleverly placed nails in it, sifted dirt through a window-screen for really FINE dirt needed for plastering the walls, etc. etc. On the other hand, they feed you pretty well, in most countries you bring your own water in, the people who live there are incredibly awesome, and you learn a lot. I remember giving my 15.00 nylon Home Depot temporary tool belt to the job boss from the local town and he almost burst into tears. The guy had been building very good houses with his bare hands and a hammer for most of his 50 years...kept the hammer tied to his waist by shoving it through the top of a plastic Coke bottle anchored with a shoestring. Leather justs falls apart in the humid storm season there so nylon was more than anyone could afford.
Plus, I'll be honest, they could use some real builders on these Habitat trips. The sponsors try their hardest and so do the local hired staff, but some of these volunteers, with the best of intentions, make the biggest gaffes. (I'm probably one of them.) The more experience they have around, the better. They aim for long-term houses, and what they make is MUCH better than what they have, but they could be even better, frankly.
Makes you feel pretty darn humble about who you are and your purpose in life. Especially when you rig up a window over a kitchen "counter" (with a pump for water into a basin) for a nice mom who always has always had to wash the dishes in a dirty ditch outside.
http://www.habitat.org/intl/
I've heard of a group called YWAM: Youth With A Mission. Don't know much about them except for Christian orientation. A friend's daughter went to Australia and worked with aboriginals. He said she loved the experience, but it was a lot of labor. I think they may be HQ'd in Colorado somewhere. If you want, let me know and I'll call my friend and see what I can find out.
Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one.
Jim,
You might check out the mennonite disaster service.
The work is hard. The people are honest. And the food is delicious. (And there's a lot of it.)
They provide your food and lodging. Transportation as well, the last time I checked.
They really are great people.
The work is cleanup and rebuilding after natural disasters. I was in idaho, after the teton dam broke. Also, after the canyon flooded near loveland, co. Did some inner city work on a youth project building, in atlanta. (Ok, no natural disaster there. LOL) And in lynden, wa, I helped to set up a trailer park, build skirts, storage sheds, and a rather large covered bus stop for the kids to wait for the school bus in. For a fishing village inside the lummi indian reservation. The infant mortality rate there was two out of three. The village flooded several times every year.
You don't even have to be a mennonite.
: )
A good heart embiggins even the smallest person.
Quittin' Time
Dear Mr. Blodgett
As our dollar is worth about half of yours I think we qualify as a third world country. If you would like to brave the bears crocodiles and snakes I think I can find some real life experiences for you. ( and seeing as I've already been to your country, as we say here " a fair exchange is no robbery" )
If you wish to enquire further please apply at http://www.cadiolifamilytrust.com . I have it on good authority that you can sing Waltzing Matilda ( albeit very badly ) and have been practising " 'Owyagoinmate" ( again still nowhere near the correct tonal cadence ) .
You will have to leave off quoting your immortal line, " Oh! You did it like that Huh?" as it tends to make us Colonials feel a little deflated.
We are right into wood chopping here, so make sure you bring your wife.
Best wishes from the Antipodes
quittintime
My wife and debate about what we'd like to do, overseas-wise, when our son is old enough (at 3, the immune system isn't fully developed). There's Doctor's Without Borders for her. I'm not aware of an Engineers Without Borders.
But it seems to me that Doctor's Without Borders or any other group like that needs support staff along. And someone who can build things, fix what breaks and get things done is going to be very handy.
Less cross-cultural but maybe easier would be in a volunteer support position of an archaelogical dig. I'm a good cook, plumber, can make any water drinkable, and have several designs for backwoods hot tubs. I once catered 8 meals for 160 people in a campground with no utilities. So I wonder if I would be a helpful addition to a remote archaelogical dig in Ethopia?