Magical bar on a beach.
Shipwreck on Boa Vista.
The most beautiful beaches I have ever seen.
Me, with some new PCV friends/gracious hosts.
I went scuba diving...in a pool...
Me at work, drawing with the talibe.
The kids with their drawings.
Me with my fruit seller.
My sister and me kayaking on the Senegal River.
The kids at the center.September 18, 2011
It’s been too long since I have written. SORRY MOM! But you know how it goes…first I was on vacation in Cape Verde, then I had a busy couple of weeks at work, and most recently, my sister and father were visiting.
I’ve also had a rather difficult time deciding what to write about. Normally my entries just roll out in front of me. Several equally pleasing topics will wrestle each other back and forth until one, fortified by spontaneous narrations that spring up in my mind, will evolve into entire passages floating around my head. Then, all I have to do is run home and transmute the thing into paper. The past few months, however, I keep doubting the appeal of my ideas and so haven’t gotten anywhere[1].
I’ve realized, though, I need to stop waiting for things to be just right and just write. So, I took an idea and went with it. I’m sorry to say the following contains no amusing anecdotes, but rather a commentary on Peace Corps life. Specifically I want to talk about an alarming illness that befalls many volunteers during their service. Something I call, PCE.
You may already be aware how, in the bacterium/virus/fungi-rich setting of developing West Africa, volunteers frequently fall ill, develop strange medical conditions, contract exotic skin disorders…and/or sometimes…mutate. However, the wider world may not realize how frequently volunteers actually grow an additional appendage, most often sprouting from the torso.
This affliction takes form differently in every volunteer—some are less affected than others—but more often these excrescences grow to be large, cumbersome, and disruptive. The ballooning limb is extremely sensitive, leaving a volunteer in a state of constant agitation. These “arms” obstruct volunteers’ vision. Worse still, they frequently injure unsuspecting bystanders. It’s the PCE of the PCV. I’m speaking of course, of Peace Corps Ego.
Enough of the clever metaphor! Let’s be real here. Peace Corps volunteers have huge I-am-super-hardcore-and-know-way-more-about-development-slash-what-is-acutually-happening-in-the-world egos. Of course, there are exceptions, but I am not one of them. I burn with irritation when someone talks about how his two-week trip to Ghana changed his whole life or when someone makes a broad, sweeping commentary regarding Islam. Oh lord, and if a volunteer who left a couple months after installation claims to be a RPCV…my fingers sweat; my face turns red; and an onslaught of angry protests lodge in my throat in their eagerness to make themselves known. I think to myself, these idiots have no idea. It’s obnoxious. I know it, but I can hardly help myself.
In my experience the PCE manifests in two ways:
1. PCV v. non-PCV. These attacks could be spurred by anything remotely related to the PCV’s work, site, region, host country, host continent, or anything regarding the world. THE WORLD!
2. PCV v. PCV. In this case the discussion is almost certainly limited to whose site was more hardcore/who suffered more during his or her service.
I’m going to address the second item first: PCV v. PCV.
I don’t know if a non-PCV would pick up on all the subtle way volunteers size each other up in their first few minutes of acquaintance, but no matter how friendly the conversation, it happens. Where did you serve? What was your site like? What was your sector? All of these questions just to ascertain whom you’re dealing with. Did she have running water? Electricity? What was his house made out of? How isolated was this person? And of course, the kicker, how hot was it?
Peace Corps volunteers in West Africa are obsessed with proving they suffered through hotter weather than anyone else, as if our value as a volunteer could be measured out in drops of sweat. If not hotter, volunteers are constantly insisting their host country was poorer, more corrupt, less developed, but the people were friendlier and it’s still the best place you could hope to serve—everywhere else dubbed the Beach Corps or Posh Corps.
As I am writing this I worry I have been too sensitive to the idle comments of others, but I swear this war is real. Even in Niger there was a palpable tension between the bush (volunteers in the countryside) and the city volunteers. Bush volunteers were always commenting on how easy the city folk had it (with their fancy cement houses and electricity), and in return the urban volunteers would constantly extol the merits of a bush post (friendlier people, more willing to help.) And, when volunteers from different countries try to out-hardcore each other, the entire conversations pivots around subtle, but constant one-uping.
I find the PCV v. PCV thing frustrating because there is no one thing that makes one Peace Corps service harder than another. It depends on you, how you mesh with the culture, how easily you can learn a language, etc, and (most importantly) how well you can fence with your personal demons. Having electricity is definitely nice, but it won’t make you less frustrated with your neighbors.
Comparing Cape Verde to Niger makes this point nicely. By the PCV PCE standards, Niger is clearly the harder post—it’s hotter and less developed. In fact, we are comparing (according to the UN development index) the most developed country in West Africa with the least developed country in the world. Niger is clearly the harder post, right? I certainly would have agreed with that earlier in my service, but now I see it’s not that simple.
Capeverdians are surprisingly apathetic to the presences of PCVs whereas Nigeriens would literally trip all over themselves to make you feel welcome. Nigeriens were ever eager to collaborate, while Capeverdians (I’m told) don’t want your help, so much as a check. Also, most sites in Niger had countless projects waiting to happen, all within the volunteer’s ability to complete. Cape Verde, in contrast is developed enough that volunteers are often left scratching the back of their necks wondering if they can help at all. And if you want to talk about physical discomfort, fresh water shortages in Cape Verde forced the volunteers I stayed with to recycle their water in ways so creative it made me cringe. (Imagine four adults sharing one toilet, which they were only able to flush once a week.)
Now that I live in Saint Louis, I often get comments from other volunteers about how “easy” I have it or how “lucky” I am. Sometimes I just nod, not mentioning how urban posts have their own unique challenges. Other times, I am less patient and show off my “Niger credentials[2].” This always changes the way volunteers interact with me. They visibly retreat, then say something like, “Oh, so you know what West Africa is really like.” First of all, I don’t like the suggestion urban centers are less a part of West Africa than the bush; and secondly, just like Cape Verde, living in a place like Saint Louis presents its own set of challenges for PCVs. (Just one example: The harassment I get from men in Saint Louis is by far the most grating and sapping thing I’ve had to deal with in any site.)
My point: it is impossible to say which post is harder, but when a volunteer tries to assert that her post was harder and therefore somehow her experience more valuable, it demeans the experiences of fellow volunteers. Peace Corps is hard. Everyone struggles. After having seen and lived in so many different Peace Corps sites, I have concluded the only thing that really makes a volunteer’s site easier is the quality of her work partner—how motivated the partner is/if there is work to do. A good work situation is the best a volunteer can hope for, and that is almost completely independent of UN development index.
With non-PCVs, the PCE outbursts more often take the form of telling the ignorant masses about what the world is really like. I wasn’t surprised to learn recently RPCVs have a reputation in the development world for being irritating know-it-alls. I don’t excuse myself from this at all. When I was visiting the States last October, I had to consciously stop myself from starting every sentence with, “Did you know in Niger…”
I also spend a great deal of time hinting to others how difficult my Peace Corps service was, without ever saying the words. Just last week I spent a good five minutes reveling in the way the Italian intern at my office’s jaw dropped when I told him I lived without electricity or running water for 18 months. I shrugged casually at his disbelief, then reassured him it was the most amazing time in my life. This is the basic message we PCVs always want to convey: it was unbelievably difficult, but I still loved it.
The veracity of that last sentence makes this whole critique more complicated. After all, “it was unbelievably hard, but I still loved it” is probably the most accurate way one could describe Peace Corps—the hardest job you’ll ever love. Living for two years in a developing country, speaking their language, eating their food is really hard. Honestly, it is something to pat yourself on the back for completing, but I find it very interesting how often our self-congratulations slide into elitist bragging. I especially notice this sense of superiority when volunteers compare themselves to missionaries, tourists, and volunteers who left early. (And once again, I am just as guilty as any for adopting this attitude.) I see volunteers make painstaking effort to distinguish us from them, and I think this condescension is all too apparent in our interactions with these groups.
Missionaries honestly still make me uncomfortable, but I can’t deny they do some valuable work. As for the tourists/PCVs who leave early, here is what I tell myself now: These people could have gone on vacation to the south of France, an all-inclusive resort in Hawaii, or just stayed home, but instead they chose to explore West Africa—even if it is just for a short time, that is better than a great many others who never make it off their couches.
The most ironic thing about all of this PCE business is volunteers begin their service from a place of absolute humility. When trainees first arrive in country, they repeat again and again how little they know and how eager they are to learn. As a new volunteer, you are constantly butting up against your own ignorance, inflexibility and shortcomings. In this new, strange land you must learn to talk, eat, poop, and interact in a whole new way. You are lost in this unfamiliar landscape. You become completely dependent on your host family and village. You get sick in ways you didn’t know you could. Basically, you become an infant again—naïve and vulnerable.
If we begin our service in such humility, how is it we end up hauling around elephant-sized egos? Why can’t we cultivate the same thoughtfulness we demonstrate in our work, in our interactions with others? When did our service become about bolstering our own self-image?
[1] I’ve discovered a cultural quirk that I LOVE but can’t quite turn into a whole story: at nightclubs, Senegalese people dance almost exclusively with their reflections on the mirror-lined walls, rather than with each other. As a result, when you enter a club, almost everyone on the dance floor is lined-up behind each other, facing the same direction, checking themselves out.
[2] Credit to Nick Potter for this phrasing.
