Teach a Man to Fish…

2022, 37 years since returning from Peace Corp Papua New Guinea, I received a nice reminder of the power of the Peace Corps, and the people that exemplify it.

I met Alfredo at one of the weekly breakfasts with my good friend Servando. Servando will invite certain people to our culinary ritual for reasons that are not immediately apparent, but always make sense later. I have learned to trust what he brings to the table.

“Alfredo’s Cleaning Business” is what the entry in my “Contacts” says, but it hides the rich story of the power of friendship and redemption. Alfredo is extremely polite; think about the best Customer Service Rep you have ever encountered. He progressed from College, to teaching schoolchildren to running his own business. He is an American success story. But it was not lined up to be so.

Raised on the mean streets of LA, Alfredo was a 7th grader on the verge of being initiated into one of the infamous street gangs. School was a chore. Real life was bangin’ and hangin’ with the boys. One day, their science teacher, Mr Clark, proposed a camping trip for 5 of the students. Now Alfredo had never been camping, let alone traveling beyond the borders of LA County. But Mr. Clark was persistent in an appealing way and Alfredo decided to join. They had a weekend of exploring the desert east of LA, which opened up a whole new world for Alfredo. This began a years long friendship with Mr Clark where trust was formed, dreams were nurtured, and worlds were opened. Alfredo life path was changed.

Alfredo still communicates with Mr. Clark, now 78 years old, and reveres him like a mentor/father figure. Mr. Clark is a RPCV, serving in Columbia from 1963- 1965. One can see the unbroken line of service from 1963 to date.

Alfredo read about my own Peace Corps story on my business website, made the connection with his mentor, and was excited to tell me about Mr. Clark at our next meeting.

Is the Peace Corps Still Valid?

A US general was touring a corner of Afghanistan recently cleared of the Taliban. He was accompanied by a contingent of flak-jacketed troops with weapons at the ready. Coming upon a remote village, he was surprised to find the smiling and waving inhabitants lining the dusty road. After some trouble finding the leader of the village, he curiously inquired about the unexpected reception. The village headman just said “Where is Rick?” The general was taken aback at the request and asked “Who is Rick?”

The headman said “When we heard the Americans were coming, we knew Rick had finally come back. You see, thirty years ago, an American named Rick came to our village and helped us build an irrigation system that is still in use today. He was an American Peace Corps volunteer.”

True story (paraphrased) told to Peace Corps director Carrie Hessler-Radelet by that US General.

Make a difference

If I Were King…

It is comforting to know that 500 year old wisdom is guiding organizations like the Peace Corps.

in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king  – Erasmus (1500)

wiki translated as:

 Even someone without much talent or ability is considered special by those with no talent or ability at all.

Of course my 22 year old self was full of talent and ability and knowledge on how to save primitive peoples from starvation, malaria, and communism in two years. Fast forward 34 years and I now realize my only real contribution to Papua New Guinea was being American, and therefore able to finagle funds for a fishing boat. Most Peace Corps change is modest, but in what other ways can the college bred (“yes, all we did was sit around and loaf….”)  affect positive grassroots change in the world?

As the Peace Corps enters its “senior” years (55 in 2016), let’s brainstorm how to make the whole Peace Corps Community better/relevant/appropriate.

We will stick to these definitions of “brainstorm”

1.  a violent transient fit of insanity

2.  a sudden bright idea  

3.  a harebrained idea

with full disclaimer that roughly two out of the three may seem totally insane and harebrained to you. No (immediate) judgements allowed. We will also limit ideas to 140 characters. Join in!

1. Now that there are three or four generations of PCVs, let’s not disparage another generation’s service (ie, cell phones, travel, poshness) Thanks Alan

2. Let’s actively welcome the young whippersnappers into the RPCV community.

3. Tell every older RPCV you meet that you appreciate his service and zeal that launched and sustained the Peace Corps.

3. Let’s “Equal Opportunity” the other way and get at least 50% men in PC service (currently less than 35%)

4. Let’s get Middle America, its work ethic, its sense of humor, its generosity, back into Peace Corps.

5. Lets recruit Newer Americans, their family values, their cross-cultural chops, their empathy, into the Peace Corps.

5. Let’s put aside divisive talk about guns, war, faith, and Monsanto when making appeals to folk outside the Peace Corps Community.

6. Along with free membership for a year into RPCV groups, let’s sponsor all newly-returned for the annual Peace Corps Connect.

7. Lets reach out to the RPCVs on the margins. I would guess that a good percentage of RPCVs had conflicted or negative experiences. Since the “winners” write history, the whole story is not being told.

What do you think would improve the Peace Corps?

Going on 55!

How to Ruin Your Kid’s Peace Corps Experience

There is really no manual, but these ideas may ruin your kid’s Peace Corps experience. 1. Serve in the Peace Corps and have a life-transforming time. 2. Have kid(s). 3. Raise your kid with the newly-forged principles wrought in the crucible of the Peace Corps years 4. Raise your kid in a rural town where the majority speak another language and operate by different cultural rules. 5. Remove helicopter. far. away. from. premises. 6. Orchestrate your life so that your college-graduate kid joins the Peace Corps as a Pavlovian response. 7. Try not to act surprised when he comes home and says he had no culture shock, Going, or coming. 8. Congratulations.

What have you got to lose?

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

This quote popped into my pre-conscious mind one early Sunday Morning, a time where the essential has not yet been drowned out by the noise of the day. Knowing that this was, unfortunately, not an original thought, I did some digging and found it was written by a young Oregonian who, in 1956, died at 29 at the hands of the primitive Equadorian tribe he was working with. (Before that, a similar quote was attributed to a 17th century non-conformist preacher.)

Surely the thought was meant to describe the tension between the temporal and the eternal. But it also works for the Peace Corps Volunteer when faced with the inevitable, unanswerable question: “So, why did you join the Peace Corps?”

The quote explains the pioneering spirit and to-hell-with-conformity DNA that draws certain Americans to shed the cocoon of domestic life and gain lasting experiences of dangerous adventure, World citizenry, and focused life direction.

For me, the quote captures the 34 years since I was in Papua New Guinea, and, in particular, the next four months anticipating my son Matt’s return from service in Zambia.

If you are considering an opportunity in the Peace Corps, do not think about what you could lose. Think about what you could gain.

Re-entry

Rural African Peace Corps Volunteers get to face a reentry into America like few Americans can. As traumatic as it can be, I see it as the cherry-on-top of an exquisite dessert that was two years in the making. It seals your service with an indelible stamp that ensures you will remember, and always care for, the souls you left behind. It is the final and necessary initiation rite that makes you a Unique American and a World citizen.

It has me taken over 30 years to try to fully grasp the phenomenon that is the American Peace Corps, and I find that there are still margins beyond.

But something I read days after returning from Zambia captured a bit of it.

Though written as a response to an innocuous question, it has tremendous insight into American wealth and contentment.

http://www.quora.com/Why-are-so-many-people-content-with-just-earning-a-salary-and-working-9-6-their-entire-adult-life

 

Jennifer Dowdy

 

I’m fabulously wealthy by any reasonable definition of the word.If I want a glass of clean, healthy water I only need to walk as far as my kitchen faucet. All the water I can drink faster than I can drink it. It’s so cheap that I never have to worry that I’m drinking too much.

If I want to eat fresh produce I just need to open my fridge. If there’s none there, there’s always, always, always more within a few miles. I don’t even have to walk very far – I have my very own car that I can get in and drive to the store.

If I look carefully I can probably find enough dropped change in the parking lot to pay for one serving of produce. Money and food are both that abundant here. But I don’t. Because I’ve never had to worry about tracking my pennies and dimes closely enough to buy an orange.

If I’m bored I’ve got this electronic box where all I have to do is push a few buttons and boom! all the cat videos I want. It’s kind of embarrassing, but I actually keep one of these boxes in my purse. Mostly it’s for information and entertainment but it also allows me to talk to people, no matter how far away they are.

There are free libraries all around town. My neighborhood has a free swimming pool and a free park! For less than one full day of minimum wage work I can go to a museum or a zoo or an aquarium or a musical or take a painting class.

If I’m hungry and don’t want to cook for myself there are places all over town ready to cook for me. My toughest choice is which continent I want my dishes to be inspired by. These meals cost me roughly two to three hours of minimum wage work (and there’s often enough food that I can take home enough for a second meal!) I sit down and it’s all brought to me. People actually come up to me regularly and ask if I’d like more water. It’s like I’m a queen or something.

In many parts of the world $2/day is a respectable income. $2 in the US is a stingy tip on one of those meals.

If I’m in a hurry and not concerned with nutrition, then I can have someone give me food while I sit in my car! For less than one hour of minimum wage work!

This is the lifestyle my 9-6 career provides. I really, really, really don’t see how having more wealth could possibly make me happier.

 

 

 

Working Yourself Out Of a Job

Violating the law of human nature is the concept of making yourself obsolete. It is a concept because, in much of the development world, it remains only a lofty ideal. In the corporate world, forget about it.

This remains the challenge to the Peace Corps, and it is doing a fair job at it. I see current PCVs steeped in the mantra of sustainability, resisting the urge to throw money at a problem. I know how hard this is, because I did throw money at problems.

Like Jean-Luc Picard and his Prime Directive, PCVs wield sobering amounts of influence; this being as much in the ommission as in the commission.

They say that the worst sin is not vice;  it is pride. What twenty-something American could consciously turn down a chance to leave a teak-engraved,  metal-roofed, monument with his name on it?

That would be the Peace Corps Volunteer.

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The Disease 2

The reason the Ebola virus broke all lethality records this time around is because of things we normally consider Civilization. Faster travel within country, better flight service between countries, and better knowledge of what not to disclose if you don’t want panic in your circles.

This reminds me of the lesson learned from two esteemed sources: Newton’s Third Law of Motion and The Gods Must Be Crazy.

Every action has a reaction.

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Sacrifice

What exactly do Peace Corps volunteers sacrifice?

The first things that come to mind are physical, like pit toilets, bad water, and disease.

But after two weeks of Matt’s Zambia that is a thirty-year bookend to my Papua New Guinea, I’d say the greatest sacrifice is mental.

This sacrifice is 2 years of constant scrutiny, swatting down misperceptions and even outright prejudice.

This sacrifice is relinquishing the cozy comforts of conformity to become the “Most Interesting Man in the World,” but without any of the perks.

This sacrifice is to never fly under the radar, because you are now the Spruce Goose .

So while the American Lifestyle evolves to acheive sweatless, painless, isolationist homogeneity, why do thousands of Americans per year still sign up for two years of the guaranteed opposite? I believe that is is because we grow through hardship and pain. And we like to grow.

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Chitenge

How do I describe the chitenge, the 2 yard wrap that comes in every color and almost every pattern.

In Zambia, it defines ubiquitous: it is seemingly present everywhere.

A few men will wear them as tailored shirts and pants, but the chitenge-wrapped women cover the landscape like flowers in a field. There seems be no taboo combination of pattern or hue, so a crowded market looks like a jar full of butterflies

Contrast this with the head-to-toe black hajib of the women in Dubai.

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