The Peace Corps is a volunteer-based organization. Individuals leave their homes for a period of two years for the opportunity to serve peoples around the world. It sounds idealistic, but is it? Who truly benefits from the Peace Corps?
Before I joined the Peace Corps, I had grand visions of doing some real good in the world, making peoples lives better and happier. I envisioned myself working hard under the burning sun, hands dirty, and sweat running brown down my face. Once I became a Peace Corps volunteer, however, I was immediately told that three-fourths of the organization’s mission is “the exchange of cultures”. Translation: the vast majority of a Peace Corps volunteer’s time is spent shooting the breeze with the locals. Actual work is not a priority.
Before joining the Peace Corps, several former volunteers with whom I spoke portrayed the in-country volunteers as lazy, drunk, white people. They explained that many volunteers do minimal, if any, work during their two years of service.
Mauritania is different. I feel that most volunteers here try very hard to find work. In a country lacking alcohol, work is the next best cure for depression. I’ve noticed, in fact, that the most content volunteers in this country are those who have the most work. If nothing else, work provides a means with which to pass the time. This is not to say, however, that work is abundant here. Some volunteers try as hard as they might never find or accomplish any substantial projects during their service. And if they voice the lack of work to their superiors, they are often reminded again that three-fourths of the Peace Corps mission is “the exchange of cultures”.
While work is sometimes difficult to find, it is important to note that overall, volunteers successfully finish a handful of projects, some of which are large and substantial, during their brief stints in the Peace Corps. These projects, while supposed to be sustainable, however are usually not, and they fail as soon as the volunteers leave the country. Sustainability, by the way, is a complex beast of a thing that I will comment more on later.
So, who does benefit from the Peace Corps? Is it the volunteers who get to experience the developing world in all its glory, or is it the local population who we, as volunteers, are supposed to serve? At present, I vote that the Peace Corps is a largely selfish endeavor on the part of Americans, and especially American youths. The actuality of the Peace Corps does little to improve the livelihoods or lifestyles of the people in those countries where it serves. The young American volunteers, however, gain experience and insight – if they choose to do so – of the culture and mentality of the developing world. Some volunteers may argue that there exist exceptions to this generalization: some locals are greatly changed through their contact with the Peace Corps. I don’t argue with this. As a whole, however, an American’s two-year service with the Peace Corps has minimal impact on the lives of those who he “serves”.
Are we helping?
Mauritania is a difficult place to work. Over the past 40 years, international aid donations have helped fashion a culture that refuses to be self-sufficient: the people demand for handouts as if they are owed such contributions from the developed world. People here survive with the bare minimum, but yet they are, as far as I can tell, content with their lives. They snub at being told how to better their lives especially if it means that they have to work just a little bit harder. It’s not that they are lazy. No, they simply don’t see the point of working harder if they are already living, in their eyes, satisfactory lives. And why work if donations are so easy to come by? This attitude is partly to blame for the lack of sustainable Peace Corps projects within the country. Locals simply refuse to continue the work started by volunteers during their services. It is in this way that several past “successful” Peace Corps projects have met their ends.
Teach a Mauritanian to fish, and he will curse you under his breath. Hand him a fish, and he will appreciate you and put out his other hand.
The Mayor of Kiffa once told my former housemate, Josef the French volunteer, that he prefers the French to Americans because Americans hate to give others their money. I feel that this attitude can be found throughout the country. So I ask again, are we helping and if so, who? We are in a country where no one wants our help. Even if we do something good here, will it last?
* * * *
All is not bad with the Peace Corps. As I start to work more closely with the various UN organizations here in Kiffa, I am realizing how little the people at the top truly understand what happens at the bottom. This lack of understanding results in the implementation of ill-formed projects that waste resources and encourages corruption. The Peace Corps, on the other hand, works from the bottom up. Volunteers understand the ins and outs of daily life and have a greater appreciation for which projects will actually benefit the communities.
I feel that other international aid organizations should look to the Peace Corps as an example to follow in this regard.
* * * *
As for I, I have been thus far adequate in my work as a Peace Corps volunteer.
All right, honestly, I don’t know people. It’s hard here. I’m not complaining. It’s partly what I wanted when I joined the Peace Corps – a challenge. And I’ve found that. Each day is a challenge for one reason or other. I also wanted to grow as a person, and I feel that I’m doing that too, slowly but surely.
I have no idea what kinds of changes my Peace Corps experience will have on me, and I will most likely not recognize these changes until I return home at the end of two years.
All in all, the Peace Corps experience has been a good one thus far {i.e. I’m still alive} and I’m looking forward to the second and coming year {i.e. I expect not to die by the end of the second year}.
Till we meet again, in that place where time has little sense and life full of meaning…
4 comments:
Ritesh:
I think you are being extremely naiive about the peace corps and its role in the world. The Corps is an extended encounter session between the peoples of the US and the host country. Instead of seeing America though the eyes of state or other media, local Mauritanians get to experience Americans directly, for better and for worse.
Likewise, members of the next generation of American opinion makers (for that is who you all are) get to see the host country and its social and political complexities directly, without the distortion, oversimplification and wishful thinking typical of the American press and political establishment.
These were and are the objectives of the Peace Corps. They were expressed quite explicitly By Sargent Shriver and President Kennedy at the time the Corps was founded, and they remain so today.
Yes, many volunteers come to their host countries with the arrogant naiveté of a 19th Century missionary, only to find that the culture of the host country is pretty resilient, that the "help" any individual can provide is limited and often temporary, and sometimes resented.
Nevertheless, the aggregate of hundreds of volunteers in dozens of communities across Mauritania and other Peace Corps sites is having the effect intended. There is some gradual improvement in the living standards of the residents in the host country. People are alive in Chinguetti because of the work done by PC and other NGOs at the Chinguetti hospital. Young students across the country have been taught language, technical and business skills they would not have learned without the Corps. These are not insubstantial things.
Likewise, without the Corps there would not be hundreds of American who understand Mauritanian life at ground level. Some proportion of your fellow volunteers will go on to international business, academia, the press and the political policy establishment. More than a few will be back in Mauritania at some point in their careers. If your class of volunteers is typical, you will have at least one future ambassador, one press correspondent and a university professor or two among your colleagues. Because of their common experience, American policy towards Mauritania, the Mahgreb and the Islamic world has a chance to be more sophisticated and realistic, and that benefits both societies.
You are not at the midpoint of your experience, you are only completing the first year. If you are wise and lucky, the experience will extend over a lifetime, and you are far from that midpoint.
Good luck to you.
J Bryar
Grafton, Vermont
Dude. You're my brother and I love you, but you're better off writing a novel than writing these blogs. Yikes.
dude, so when does the next installment come? Pictures of Morocco and Lakshmy and such. :-)
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