By Emily Aniakou
I received a press release in my email Tuesday from the National Peace Corps Association (NPCA), advertising opportunities to interview NPCA president Kevin Quigley about how President Obama is recommending a government increase in Peace Corps funding to eventually double the size of the program.
Two years ago, I quit the Peace Corps halfway through my service in Benin, West Africa. My official reason was a nasty accident in my rural village, where a 12-year-old boy playing with the family’s motorcycle on the main road smashed into me from behind while I was riding my bicycle to the market. My unofficial reason is that it wasn’t a great program and I thought my time and energy could be better spent elsewhere.
I lived abroad in Bangladesh for a year before joining the Peace Corps. It was the most incredible experience of my life. I went alone to the sprawling city of Dhaka and stayed with a non-profit that maintained an orphanage. I was thrown into the culture headfirst and delved right in with zeal.
The Peace Corps tried to prepare everyone for the third world experience, so much so that for me, it ruined it. Involving the government and its policies and procedures in something as organic and unplannable as third world international travel was sadly amusing. For the sake of the volunteers, safety was touted, lectured about and then pounded into our heads. Lecture after lecture on topics like “how to deal with religious differences” and “what it means to be a woman in Africa” went on and on for weeks. Second year volunteers tainted the fresh-off-the-plane newbies with their jaded view of the culture and taught us how to get around the more annoying, unrealistic rules.
The hardest part of the experience for me was seeing the expectations of the locals soar upon our arrival and inevitably fall as soon as they heard us butcher their language. Peace Corps takes pride in their training, and although it is remarkable that I learned semi-fluent West African French in nine weeks, basic language skills does not a local make. The idea that the recent college grads the Peace Corps attracts have the experience, wisdom or street smarts to teach people twice their age with a lifetime of experience much of anything is a long shot.
Most volunteers I knew enjoyed their stay but felt a sense of disappointment at what they really accomplished during their two-plus years in-country.
Peace Corps is sensing this too, I believe, and that’s why I think they’re trying hard to attract older, more experienced retires and professionals. In my group of about 70 who headed to Benin, there was one woman over 50, and she lasted exactly two weeks before calling it quits and heading home. She told me that the program didn’t utilize her professional experience as a nurse and I could sense she didn’t fit in with the 21-year-olds.
In my opinion, Peace Corps is not a service organization, but a travel abroad, good will ambassador program for recent college grads not ready to settle into 9-5 jobs. Send young people abroad, it’s wonderful to see the world and let the world see them. But lets call a spade a spade and drop the pretense that the volunteers are giving up two years to save those sad, impoverished people. More often than not, volunteers will come back saying they were the ones who learned the most.
Question: Do you support the expansion of government programs like the Peace Corps?
Emily outside her house in Bassila, West Africa with some of the neighbor kids.
