Staging

Beneath a darkened and somewhat cloudy sky appeared the Capital building and Washington monument standing tirelessly tall in the eve as they have been for over two hundred years.

D.C. is still an exciting place for that inner historian. I wish I had time to explore all the free museums before staging or that I had slightly warmer clothes to adventure out farther than a few blocks from the hotel. But alas I’m not here to recover information about our history of the U.S. Instead, I’m here to embark on a mission set out by John F. Kennedy in 1960 on the steps at the University of Michigan in Anne Arbor around 2am to a group of college students:

How many of you who are going to be doctors, are willing to spend your days in Ghana? Technicians or engineers, how many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your lives traveling around the world? On your willingness to do that, not merely to serve one year or two years in the service, but on your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think will depend the answer whether a free society can compete. I think it can! And I think Americans are willing to contribute. But the effort must be far greater than we have ever made in the past. (http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=about.history.speech).

To date, Peace Corps has served in about 139 countries with over 200,000 volunteers. Today the Peace Corps has about 7,800 volunteers currently serving in around 76 countries. The Gambia gained independence from Britain in 1965 and has been requesting assistance from the Peace Corps since 1967. There are about twenty health and environment volunteers slated for The Gambia and forty for Senegal in our Mar 5, 2012 group. Peace Corps has been in other countries for over fifty years including Armenia and the Philippians (http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=about.history.countries & http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=learn.wherepc).

So how effective has Peace Corps been? Is it satisfying the mission set forth over fifty years ago? The three goals of the Peace Corps are as follows: Helping people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women, helping promote a better understanding of Americas on the part of the people served, and helping promote a better understanding of the peoples on the part of Americas.

How I understand those goals: to help your host country with specific goals in which they have requested help for and while doing so to provide a better understanding of America and the American people and to bring home a better understanding of the people being served to America. The latter two are the ones that promote the most peace. When I came home from India one of the first questions I got was “how weird were the people there?” I was rather insulted by the question but had to remind myself that we are all in different places and phases of life and thus different understandings about the world. I responded that weird is just something different, that we aren’t used to, and so in the context of India, I was the weird one. I’m not sure she heard me.

But I think this is a crucial part of Peace Corps, the cultural exchange. And after hearing stories from other volunteers, it sounds like this is the crux of your service when you’d think that getting things accomplished would be.

There is a lot of critique out there regarding development aid. Such questions as does it work, should we be there, is the money going where it needs to, is there corruption, etc. But as I understand it as a now official PCT (Peace Corps Trainee), Peace Corps is a different ball game where the priority really is to promote peace, and not necessarily development. Although development aid is a nice outcome of establishing peaceful relations with peoples and cultures from all over the world.

So, am I excited, am I nervous? What am I as I lie in the hotel bed on American soil for one last time for a while? Honestly, there is no way to know for sure what it is like to board a plane in D.C., and then to arrive on a continent so foreign from this one that only my wildest dreams can attempt to form some picture. It’s an exciting and uncertain journey. I share common anxieties regarding dangerous insects and reptiles, bizarre food, language barriers, extreme heat, and confusing and unfamiliar geography. It’s nothing that some time and integration won’t fix, hopefully.

Missing all from back home and sending much love! Cheers infinitely for the support! Will let you know when I touch down in Senegal when I can. Here’s to satisfying the Peace Corps mission for over fifty years, and to all the host families graciously awaiting the incoming newbies.

Peace!