I dedicate my 600th review to the Peace Corps, their host countries and to all PC volunteers past, present and future.
If you are expecting to hear a tale from a Superstar volunteer who single handedly set a country on the road to World Peace, prosperity, justice, truth and the American Way, then stop reading.
I was probably one of the more typical volunteers who made a few positive ripples in the lives of a few and whose experiences would probably not even inspire only a Yelp review and not a movie on the Lifetime network.
Nonetheless I do agree at least 50% that Peace Corps is the "toughest job you'll ever love." (The other "toughest job" is parenting but I'll save that at least for review #700).
It has been a "few" years (ahem, won't give any exact dates) since I served. I'll try to organize this in a somewhat succinct manner.
BEGINNING:
Now I was one of those kids who played with stuffed/plush animals
and dreamed about going to Africa (Beautiful people, marvelous landscapes and wild animals roaming free). No prissy dollies or trips to civilized places for me (Paris, London, Rome, Athens....meh)
My early impressions of the Peace Corps were purely negative. It seemed like a "missionary" imperialistic organization that imposed
the values and virtues of the USA.
Flash forward to post college days.....no job prospects, looking for a BIG change in my life. I went to a Minority Job Fair and met the most charming Peace Corps recruiter. I was transformed into this idealistic
dreamer who felt ready to use my teaching skills to help high schoolers in Africa!
APPLICATION/TRAINING
After filing out mountains of paperwork and trying to find numerous references I waited to see if I was in. Yay I was I would start training in
5 months. I received a list of things to bring. Not being satisfied with this I called the PC office weekly for updates and became such a pest that the main operator recognized my voice and would say, "Oh Hi, Miz Rinky, I'll transfer you to the Africa desk." (Mind you this is the same person who was too shy to call a mail order catalog)
But my persistence paid off . I was one of the few volunteers to arrive fully prepared with the right clothing, toiletries, flashlights, etc.
My first part of my training was in Nashville. There were about 100 or so volunteers (teachers, health workers, fisheries and agriculture consultants and Special Education teachers.) We received cram courses from 9-8 . We also received every inoculation possible-our WHO cards were full. (This is the only time in my life that I ever had a full "dance card! )
The second part of or training was in Nairobi where we had cram courses in Swahili. Some people picked it up easily but some of us (ie me and a few others) had a lot of troubles. But since we were teaching in English, learning Swahili wasn't necessarily essential.
In fact, most of us were going to be located in areas where the locals spoke tribal languages.
TEACHING
I chose to teach at a school that was located at 8,000 feet. The current volunteer was freezing her butt and ended up at a school in one of the hottest towns in Kenya! My school was a "Harambee" or community school where the students paid a small tuition.
I taught Sciences, English and Health to 40+ students for six or seven sessions. The students had to share books and seats. My only equipment was a blackboard (actually just a painted green wall), chalk and erasers. I brought a typewriter which I pounded out mock exams. (The students had to take government exams that would determine their ability to advance to higher levels of education)
We had a mimeograph machine where I printed out endless exams
for the students to practice on.
There were no labs, no electricity and not much else in the concrete block buildings.
The kids would ask me about America. I always gave them honest answers. They would say they wanted to be just like America. And I would reply that they had to make Kenya a great country "their" way.
The students would tease each other in the way that all teenagers do. They would giggle in disbelief when I told them that American teenagers did the same kind of teasing.
MISCELLANEOUS STUFF
I met some of my favorite people in the world. Some of my volunteer friends have been friends for life. One of my co-teachers became an instant friend. Maybe some of you have had this experience. As a kid I always wondered about kids who lived in other countries. What were kids in Africa like? Martha, my Kenyan friend, grew up in a typical Kikuyu village. We had so much fun comparing stories from our childhoods. The family dynamics were similar. Both daddy's girls, middle children etc.
Surreal encounter: I met a Japanese volunteer who was located near a friend of mine. Even though I am Japanese-American, the only language we had in common was Spanish! So there we were two Japanese ancestry folks speaking Spanish in Kenya.
EPILOG to follow... read more