During our Close of Service conference in March, we were told not to be surprised that, if upon returning State-side, some people view our Peace Corps service as one long vacation. The unofficial agency tag-line of “the toughest job you’ll ever love” rings very true with me as I look back on our 28 months of service. Admittedly, at the end of it I did take a truly well-deserved vacation in the Black Sea beach village of Vama Veche, which we’ll get to shortly in my next post. But here is my response to the perspective of ‘Peace Corps Service — The Vacation’.
We’ve all taken jobs in the U.S. at one point or another in our lives that we weren’t entirely ready for. Positions where maybe we were capable but we simply hadn’t done that type of work before. So we invest time in training and learning all we can about how to do our very best or at least survive. But, it’s tough; it’s not easy taking on something that we’ve never done before. There are sleepless nights, times of doubt, frustration and moments where we simply want to give up. Granted despite the challenges, we usually persevere and over time get comfortable with the new environment and the work itself becomes second nature.
Now, imagine a similar scenario where you have agreed to take on a new job that you’ve never done before but add a little more complexity to it. Not only are you taking on something new and challenging but you are doing it in a new country, in a new language and in a totally new culture. Your friends and family, your entire support structure is a couple thousand miles away. You have no Internet, no mobile phone and no car. There is no calling your best friend to grab a beer and vent, no hug from your significant other when you’re feeling frustrated, and no regular pep talks from your parents. It’s hot, a new kind of hot that you’ve never felt before and there’s no air-conditioning in your new office. Although some of your time is freed up because someone else is preparing your food, you have little to no control over the new diet. You know what that can lead to …. so, that newly freed time you acquired has just been violently and unexpectedly cancelled out. To top it off, you’re still figuring out how to use a squat toilet, which alone is enough to break many Americans.
At the end of the day you are understandably exhausted, so it’s time for a good night’s sleep. Sorry, not gonna happen because your new bedroom, which is really someone’s living room also doubles as a lair for a scourge of mosquitos; no rest for the weary here. And that is only during the on-the-job training, which by the way lasts three months. Once you actually get to your new permanent “office” most of the previously mentioned challenges follow. At your new home, at any given time and in no particular order you’ll have infestations of mice, spiders, mosquitos, ants, beetles, gnats, flies, bees, earthworms and the occasional frog. Creatures of unknown origin and species will take up residence first in your attic and then in the crawl space under your house. Birds will get trapped and die in your only heating system. And at work you’ve agreed to manage 240 belligerent, puberty stricken high school students who have more respect for the newly placed chewing gum under their desks and the penis carving on top, than they do for the new British teacher. Yes, that’s right, British. Despite many strategically placed American flags strewn across the classroom, students still ask if you’re going back to England for the winter break. Meanwhile, you’re still figuring out the language as you explain how much you like extra mice (meant cinnamon) in your hot wine and how you had a pet set of tits (meant turtles) as a child.
Finally, there are the cultural differences. You think office politics is a headache in the U.S.: Things get even more complicated when you throw in a little defeatism from a harsh communist past and more than a dash of well-placed anti-capitalism angst from a less than smooth post-communist past. All this while removing the American comfort space bubble we so love, both in terms of physical and topical space, where face to face conversations often lead straight to why you’re not married, how pathetic your paycheck is and how long you’ve been a spy for the U.S. government. Any of these things individually are easy to overcome and wouldn’t be worth mentioning if they didn’t all pile up against you and I’m not just talking about a simple 40 hour work week; this is your LIFE for more than two years. Everywhere you go these challenges follow you; as long as you are in-country, you are at work.
So now you ask: “Would you do it again, knowing what you know now?”
My answer: “Hell, yes! Because that is what makes Returned Peace Corps Volunteers the passionate, dynamic, dedicated and diverse hard workers that we are. We sacrifice a lot to help improve the global reputation of the country we love. You can’t change the world while sitting on your couch watching Honey Boo Boo.”
“Judge not lest ye be judged.” Join the Peace Corps, sacrifice, make your mark, make a difference and then we’ll go take a real “vacation” together.
Leave a Reply