Reflecting on the Peace Corps: Would I do it all over again?

Recently, Peace Corps volunteers all over the world took an extensive online survey which measured work life and personal life satisfaction, areas for improvement, and that revealing question: if you could do it all over again, would you have still made the decision to join the Peace Corps? 90% of volunteers in Burkina Faso, which is notably the poorest country that the Peace Corps serves in, said yes. Including me.

People join the Peace Corps for a lot of reasons. I won’t rehash my own reasons for joining, but if you’re interested you can read the first post of this blog. Contrary to popular belief, the majority of Peace Corps volunteers are not slackers on a free vacation. Most are highly ambitious, type-A people (you’d have to be to get through the medical section of the application alone). No one joins for solely selfless reasons; we all seek to gain something personally, professionally, or both from committing two years of our lives to a developing country. At the end of their service, most volunteers feel that they’ve gained much more than they’ve given to their host country.

I’ve been living in Burkina for 23 months now and will be coming home late this summer. Although my service is not yet over, and I’m sure a lot of reflection will necessarily take place when I return to America, I can already witness the personal growth engendered by this experience. I’ve gained patience and perspective that I believe I could not have possibly gained through continued schooling or entering the workforce or starting a family. I understand better what’s important and what’s not. Overcoming the daily challenges of living in a culture so fundamentally different from my own has also instilled in me incredible self-confidence. Just being exposed to a new way of life has made me aware of how my own culture has shaped me, in both positive and negative ways. I’ve learned to keep going even when I fail miserably, because even when I fail I wake up every day knowing that this is an incredible opportunity: to be someone’s first American friend, to help a student who is struggling at school, to advise a mother on how to best nourish her baby. What we do does make a difference, albeit on an individual level which is difficult to measure. I’ve learned to just be with people, without a work-related motive, without any purpose at all.

If this sounds rosy, I’ve witnessed horrific things, too: a woman who was beaten to death by her husband buried while her three-month-old looked on, my own best friend abused by her husband, violence against children in schools, mothers and babies dying due to inadequate healthcare, and forced marriages. But I’ve also witnessed kindness and hope beyond measure: families sharing food with those in need, teachers going out of their way to make sure students succeed, fathers encouraging their daughters to do well in school, and mothers working strenuously to build a better future for themselves and their children. Through all of this, good and bad, I’ve come to the realization that all Peace Corps volunteers come to: people everywhere across countries, cultures, and socioeconomic differences, want the same thing. It sounds simple and it is, but it takes being submerged in another culture to honestly believe it.

I don’t know where else life will take me but I know that Peace Corps was an invaluable stop along the way because it prepared me for everything else that will follow. It has made me more adaptable, mature, self-aware and confident in my abilities. And I have a greater understanding of the world at large than most can claim at 23 years old.

Professionally, the benefits of the Peace Corps might not be so clear. Of course, most employers rightly view returned PCV’s as adaptable and highly motivated. But in terms of having a professional, functioning work environment during their two years abroad many volunteers are disillusioned. Those volunteers who are allied with associations or schools may have more guidance and resources at their disposal, but some work sectors necessitate that volunteers essentially create their own job. This can be difficult when community motivation is lacking and/or community members do not understand the role of the Peace Corps and its participatory development philosophy (the Peace Corps is unlike many other development organizations in that it provides human resources and capacity building, rather than financial and material resources).

Despite these challenges, many volunteers come to enjoy the flexibility of creating their own job and learn to thrive in a cross-cultural work setting. Although they may sometimes fret that the work they are doing is not truly sustainable, they inevitably have a positive impact on at least a few of their host country colleagues. Positive influences such as these should not be discounted when analyzing the effect that volunteers have on local development efforts. These relationships also explain why many volunteers would choose to do the Peace Corps again if they could do it over.

I’ve experienced more failure in my two years here than I have in all of the other years of my life combined; accepting failure is also the best lesson I’ve ever learned. Many of my projects are unsustainable—in a village of only 1,000 people and zero adults with more than a middle school education, the majority of whom are also illiterate and/or don’t speak French, I did a lot of work on my own without the help of a counterpart. For example, my life skills club which taught boys and girls about disease prevention, gender equality, and reproductive health, will not continue when I leave. But after only two years, I’ve witnessed the positive effects that these skills and knowledge have had on the individual lives of my students. Ultimately, the decisions that they make will change their own lives and the lives of their future children, and that is no small feat.

Overall, I feel satisfied personally and professionally and I think many of the hardships are necessary in order to attain the delayed satisfaction which characterizes being a PCV. I also feel that I’ve contributed meaningfully to the development of Burkina and that I’ve served my own country in an important way—by fostering positive American sentiment.

My advice to those considering the Peace Corps: do it. But keep in mind that what you get out of this experience is directly proportional to what you put in. If you feel yourself withdrawing, make a conscious effort to get back out there. Walk around your village and just say hi to your neighbors—you’ll be quickly reminded how much your presence means to them. Two-thirds of our job as volunteers is to engage in cross cultural exchange. This is also the most rewarding aspect of the job, in my own experience. You might be the first, or only, American that someone interacts with so make a positive impression. You’re not missing out on anything at home—trust me. If you visit home this will be confirmed by seeing your friends who are working the same jobs, hanging out with the same people, and doing the same things they were when you left. True friends will keep in touch with you and you will find an incredible support system in your fellow volunteers. Have an open mind. Be aware that, at the end of the day, it will be the meaningful relationships you forge which define your service, not the number of successful projects.

Marlow