Some Peace Corps questions - please answer if you have volunteered before?

Question

I have always wanted to do something important with my life. Always. I live a great life in the US and sometimes I feel I take it for granted. So I want to help others. I really do. I plan on being an Elementary School teacher, but after college I'd like to join the Peace Corps. I have some questions, though:

-How hard is it to get accepted? I will be fluent in French and English and will know a smattering of Arabic. I have no medical conditions.

-What was a typical day like?

-I am a very strict vegetarian, would I be able to maintain this while in the Peace Corps?

And also, are there any organizations like the Peace Corps I should check out? I really want to make a difference and feel like my life was worth something!

Answer 1

If you go, you will change the world. You won't change much of the world, nor will you change it much, but you will make a difference.

They take one applicant in four. The most common failing, from what I've seen, is a lack of a skill that a host country has asked for. If you have a teaching credential and can teach at the secondary school level, your chances will be better thann average, especialy if you teach for a year or two in the USA before you go. Most developing countries have enough primary school teachers.

A typical day would be like a typical day in a secondary school in the USA, if you get a post like I did, except for the boy in the front row whose job it was to kill poisonous snakes that wandered into the classroom. (Only one in two years, but I was darned glad Langit, the snake monitor for class 5A, had his stick handy.) (Our classrooms had roofs, but no walls or doors to speak of.)

You won't have as much AV equipment and the school may not have a Xerox machine. Your students may have to share text books. Your classroom probably won't have A/C. You will be teaching in a foreign language, like as not.

It will be hard, but not impossible, to be a vegetarian. You'll miss out on some wonderful food. How many people in your neighborhood have eaten montor lizard, for example? In some countries, it will be easy, especially if you are not vegan. If the average family has meat only every third day, for instance, everyone will know how to cook for those two days in between.

VSO is the closest to the Peace Corps that I know of:

http://www.vso.org.uk/

It is based in the UK but takes volunteers from anywhere, has a six-month "programme" for people 18 - 25. I knew VSO volunteers when I was in the Peace Corps 30 years ago. They are a solid, well-known organization.

Stuff you didn't ask about I threw in:

The official web site is graphics-heavy but comprehensive:

http://www.peacecorps.gov

If you are interested, you can read about my time as a PCV in Sarawak, on the island of Borneo many years ago. I search Y!A for the phrase "Peace Corps" every week. I have a page devoted to the questions that come up the most frequently, too:

http://www.tedpack.org/pchead.html

My page "Peace Corps Links" has a link to the Returned PCV web ring, which has 40+ other RPCV sites.