Post by Lara
23 April 2013
*Note- This is another one of those posts designed for people looking into Peace Corps or already planning to volunteer. If that's not you, it may be boring. If that is you, "EG" means "Early Generation" and is just one of the many, many acronyms you will learn and use on an annoyingly frequent basis as a PCV. (Oh there's another one!)
Before we got our invitation to serve in Sierra Leone, we
were asked whether we would be willing to join an “Early Generation” Peace
Corps post—one that is either just starting or just re-opening after a closure
(Sierra Leone being the second variety, but since the closure lasted 18 years,
our program was completely revamped from the previous one). We knew when we said yes to this opportunity
that we might be getting into a tougher than average Peace Corps experience
(although, “tougher” implies that some PC assignments are easy—they’re not, and
I don’t think anyone signs up to volunteer expecting a cake walk). Still, we were up for whatever adventure
Peace Corps had in store for us, so we said yes—with the knowledge that the
only thing we knew for sure was that we were about to have 2 unpredictable and
unforgettable years.
Certainly that rang true.
When we found out we were assigned to Sierra Leone, all I could think of
was the movie Blood Diamond and an Amnesty International campaign about
child soldiers. Kevin says his first
thought was, “I don’t know where that is,” followed by visions of coffee and
diamonds after he did a quick Google search.
We knew that Sierra Leone had gone through a civil war, that it was
deemed a “post-conflict” post, and that the Peace Corps program in the country
was pretty new. Beyond that, we did our
best to prepare ourselves by keeping open minds and letting the knowledge come
with experience.
Serving in a post-conflict country is probably different for
every conflict. In Sierra Leone, it
seems most everyone dealt with some very painful and scary experiences and
wants nothing more than to put them in the past and live in a peaceful country
from here on out. We were told right
away that it’s best not to ask people about the war—to “let them come to you,”
and try to be as supportive as possible if and when friends decide to open up
about their lives during the war. For
the most part, those moments are few and far between, or occasionally someone
might mention the war in a third-person, detached sort of way. For example, one night when the moon was
shining especially brightly, our neighbor turned to us and said, “during the
war, this was the kind of night that soldiers traveled, so they wouldn’t need
to use torches or lights.” In general,
this is the only way the war is treated—as a historical occurrence that applied
only tangentially to the people that we live and work alongside. We know that truthfully, the memories are
probably too bitter and upsetting to be relived all the time, and we try to
respect that fact.
The other side of the Early Generation coin is that the
staff and organization of the post are still figuring themselves out, which has
several implications for volunteers. It
can mean that we have less oversight and more freedom to define our position
and allocate our time. It can also mean
that staff are newer to working with Americans and don’t yet know how to
interact with us, how to view our relationship, or what is expected of them in
their professional roles. This means that
you might call the staff member you guess can answer your question, and get
passed around in a circle or up the administrative ladder in a very frustrating
game of hot potato that leaves you begging for the kind of service you had the
last time you visited the BMV in the states. Additionally, even though volunteers may have
more freedom, the post may also choose to make an example out of any one of us
who gets caught breaking rules, and since we’re among the first groups of
volunteers, we could very easily find ourselves on the chopping block, should a
scenario arise where we’re found to be violating a policy.
When it comes to services for volunteers provided by Peace Corps
(that’s mail, medical care, mental health support, feedback on your reporting,
and safety, to name a few categories), EG volunteers should expect to run into
difficulties. For instance, our mail
system is spotty at best. Packages get lost or tampered with, and we haven’t
yet isolated where this is happening (the airport, the post office, in the
Peace Corps office, and/or at drop-off locations) in order to adequately
minimize it. We’re working on it. We’ve been “working on it” since I got
here. It’s better now than it was then,
but packages still go missing.
It may sound like the disorganization that’s inevitable in
an EG post is a daunting issue for volunteers, and it is, but what are Peace
Corps volunteers if not forward-thinking, innovative, and ready to step up to a
challenge? At an EG post, you get to
play a role in training and conditioning staff members, teaching them how to
work with Americans, making suggestions that will actually be heard, and filling
in gaps as you see them. Kevin and I
have played personal roles in shaping training sessions, editing our post’s
cook book, creating resources for fellow volunteers, and working directly with
staff to solve internal problems. As much as it can make us want to pull our
hair out when dealing with these situations, helping to make the system better
for the next volunteer bolsters our own self-confidence and gives us real-world
experience that will undoubtedly serve us in our post-Peace Corps lives. Coming from a job where I was a certified trainer
of new staff members, I feel right at home working with administrative staff on
how to make our post more volunteer-friendly.
For anyone reading this who is weighing the choices now,
here are a few thoughts. If you have
expectations that your Peace Corps post will be greatly involved in your
service by checking in with you, responding quickly to issues, and treating you
with the prompt and respectful attention that we Americans expect from support
staff in any setting, know that an EG post may be working out the kinks in all
of those areas, and may expect you to play a role in the kink-working-out
process. Also, for anyone with medical
issues that require regular attention or medication that can’t be interrupted,
an EG post could be very challenging—we know one volunteer who had to be “evacuated”
back to the US in order to get medications that our medical unit knew she was
taking, but for whatever reason did not refill in time for the volunteer to
take it continually. In a non-EG post,
these kinds of problems probably came up early on, but because they happened to
someone else, you will (hopefully) be saved from being that volunteer whose
service was affected by it. One role that EG volunteers play is in helping the post develop into a place that will run more smoothly and effectively in future years, when it's no longer considered "EG".
Before I sat down to write this post, Kevin and I informally
polled our group and asked our fellow volunteers whether, if they had the
choice to make over again, they would agree to go to an Early Generation
post. Of the 25 or so volunteers I
asked, all but 3 of them said they would definitely say yes to EG. The 3 who wouldn’t all had issues with the
unstructured (or under-structured) nature of the post and the resulting
pressure that’s put on volunteers to advocate for themselves, provide their own
structure, and build up current staff members.
Though I can’t speak for all 22 of the other volunteers, I know that I
have enjoyed the freedom and autonomy afforded us here, and I’ve taken
advantage of the opportunity to be a part of deciding what our post is going to
be like, what it will focus on, and how staff members and volunteers will move
forward together. I can honestly say
that from the little I know of non-EG posts, my volunteer experience would have
been completely different had we been sent to a more entrenched program. The challenges are tough, but like I said—who
joins the Peace Corps expecting an easy 2 years?
