Peace corpss and living?

Question

so i really want to join the peace corps when i am out of college and i read up on it and stuff but one of the things it said was you live and work by yourself?

so i was wondering if anyone who has been in the pc could tell me if thats true? do you see other people and work with other pc volunteers as well?

Thanks!

Answer 1

There are no Peace Corps Volunteers in those fire lookout towers they used to have in the west, living all by themselves 200 feet above the ground, going crazy and talking to the squirrels.

Volunteers work with people. They may not speak English, they will probably be more conservative morally than you are, and their table manners will be different, but they will be real live people.

My daughter is a PCV at this moment, in Peru. All of the volunteers in Peru live with host families. My daughter lives with a couple she calls "Mama Cruz" and "Papa Felipe", a 50-ish couple who have a small adobe house with a tin roof and running water from 6 am to 1 pm. It isn't heated, so if you take a shower in the morning it is brief and you get jump-started.

There is another volunteer in the town, which has a population of 12,000; she sees him every couple of days. Every few weekends she goes into the provincial capital (500,000) and sees some other volunteers.

In other countries you may live by yourself. When I was a PCV in Sarawak, I lived at a government boarding school, 4 miles by foot or 7 by bus from the town. Our school had 25 teachers and 500 students, plus some cooks, a janitor and the guy from PWD who took care of our water plant and generator.

The first year I overlapped two other PCVs, one who lived in the town, one at the school. I lived in a three-bedroom house with two other single teachers, who taught me everything I know about Chinese cooking, while the other PCV lived in the "Peace Corps Hut", the smallest teacher's house at the school. The second year I was by myself in the Peace Corps Hut. My nearest fellow volunteer was an hour and a half away.

You can read an anecdote on the subject at

http://www.tedpack.org/stories/snippets....

The blurb to click on is

White People: I get food poisoning and a missionary asks me a question that seems silly at the time.

Answer 2

Yep, it's true. I don't know if it's the case in ALL postings but my friend did the Peace Corps and was placed in a tiny town in Russia with no other English speakers and no other volunteers. He luckily had started taking some Russian classes before leaving home, but he only had a very basic level of Russian so he felt really culture shocked and home sick at first.

But, he took lessons there and slowly but surely became more comfortable in the language.

If you're worried about this, I would look into VSO. Check out www.vsocan.org - it's a Canadian organization (our equivalent to Peace Corps) but it does take American applicants. You're generally placed near other volunteers.

Good luck! These programs are all quite competitive so start volunteering in your community if you don't already to get an edge up.

Answer 3

I actually am interested in doing the same thing. I did research as well and read about the same situation. I guess you are put in a village, and usually there are other peace core individuals set around the same area, and usually there is a common city center amongst the villages where you can meet up with fellow members.

the only other way i know you are with someone else is if you are married and you bring your spouse.

Answer 4

Indeed, most PCs work by themselves. You are put in contact with other PCs in the area, and PCs do get together on their days off to explore places together.

Here is a web site that can help you learn more about the skills and experience desired by long-term placement organizations, or organizations that don't charge volunteers but require volunteers to be highly-skilled, and how you can start to gain such experience locally, wherever you are now.  If you have never managed a project yourself, you should start looking for local volunteering opportunities now.

http://www.coyotecommunications.com/volu...

And remember -- you don't get to decide to join the PC -- you apply, and hope you are one of the people chosen (most people are not):