The Peace Corps

There are around 120 Peace Corps volunteers in Moldova right now, and I think I met the majority of them the past two days. Really! My aunt’s friend used to work for Peace Corps Moldova, so I emailed her and she hooked me up with some of the current volunteers Friday night. Then Saturday was the big annual US Chamber of Commerce 4^th of July BBQ, so tons of volunteers came in from all over the country to celebrate, and I got to hang out with them all day. After all that fun, I want to share with you my personal top three takeaways on the Peace Corps (will I ever stop talking like a consultant, by the way?):

1. Though something like 25% of volunteers drop out of the Peace Corps before finishing their two years, everyone I met seemed really into it – most of them talked effusively their villages and homestay families and work and all. It was really inspiring to see such passion.
2. The work seems to be mostly what you make of it. While people’s enthusiasm for their “official” projects varied, most seemed pumped for extra initiatives they were taking on, from getting flush toilets installed to building sustainable greenhouses to helping edit national high school English textbooks. Apparently only about a quarter of these volunteers have lived in the developing world before, so it’s really cool that the Peace Corps can be such a springboard for people – helping them get settled in an underserved community and enabling them to build their own projects from the ground up. It sort of made me want to start something cool somewhere. :)
   
3. Everyone’s white. Well, not everyone – but it seemed like just about everyone. I just checked the Peace Corps website, which says only 16% of volunteers are people of color. Seeing as ~30% of the U.S. is non-white, I wonder what the main factors driving this low figure are? [This is a random aside, but I have such a pet peeve about organizations using the term “diverse” to mean “non-white.” It’s neither (a) technically accurate, (b) respectful of white people, who can clearly bring diversity – even ethnic/cultural diversity – to an organization, nor (c) conducive to creating a productive dialogue about what diversity means. The nonprofit I used to work for did that, and so does the Peace Corps website. Get with it, guys!]

Oh, also – I especially love my new Peace Corps friends after two of them came to my rescue last night! I went out with a bunch of them for pizza and beer and when I got back to my apartment building late at night, I pushed the button for the elevator, entered it, and then learned that none of the buttons inside were working. Not even the “door open” button – I was totally trapped! Luckily, I’d just exchanged cell numbers with people, so I called Katie and Angela, two new friends who were still in my neighborhood. They found their way to my building and pressed the button from the outside again to let me out. Man, that could have been bad….

The Snails, the local band that performed at the BBQ













Peace Corps folks getting down