Why I Volunteer For the Peace Corps

 Why We Volunteer for the Peace Corps: Ode to Joao

At our recent Peace Corps gathering, a fellow volunteer read a story he had written about his first three months of integration.  He relayed a scene of a tortured night, trying to sleep in excruciating temperatures in a house where the few windows allowed in only hot and heavy air.  He sought relief by placing a wet towel over his body only to awake in the morning wet and miserable.   

Trying to escape the searing heat today, lying on the cold cement floor in a most appropriate crucifix position, I think of Joao.  The only thing I can do is let the air from the fan move over me.  But at least I have a fan.  He is without electricity or options other than his wet towel.  The things we do in the name of Peace Corps.

So what is it that drives volunteers to such extremes?  My friends ask why I do this.  “Why don’t I find worthwhile community service in the US?”  “What is it that keeps me from enjoying the comforts of home?”  These questions are particularly acute at this time of my life when I should be enjoying the fruits of my labors from the past thirty-some odd years of working.

It isn’t easy to describe this internal force that navigates as my co-pilot.  And, I’m not talking about hearing voices or a choir of angels that point their harps towards these developing countries and peoples.  There is an inner desire to be a part of these places, not simply to travel through.  There is a yearning to try to understand, first hand, what it really means to live in a dusty village in Africa, or upon a forested mountainside in China, or any other place that is not what I had previously known as home.  An ache dwells deep within to experience the everyday that is the life of others.  And there are strangers awaiting to become friends. 

I share my insights, experiences and knowledge along the way.  It might be teaching a few English phrases, that while they may never be put into use, they build ties of friendship and confidence.  More often than not, my queries provoke more than a simple question and answer dialogue. Contemplation and consideration ensue.  Maybe somewhere down the line, behavior is changed, the proverbial seed now planted.  And the questions are posed to me also, allowing the opportunity to present our country in three dimensions, dispelling their mythical images based only from television and films.

And, I have opportunity to pause also, viewing life from this other vantage point.  Like piecing together a puzzle; the picture slowly revealed, the image brought into focus, sharpened after some adjustments,  this is my experience with the Peace Corps.  The thing is, the puzzle pieces are many, maybe countless, so while the image is outlined, there are always more bits or layers to discover, explore and work on joining together.

A Kaleidoscope of Kids

A Kaleidoscope of Kids

Joel always looks scared.  He thinks he looks tough but to me he looks scared.  He flinches whenever anyone comes near.  He is the first child in the group to strike out with a punch or a kick to the others.  I’ve caught him off guard a few times, surprised him with kindness.  His face is long and hollow.  His arms and legs are bony.  His clothes are tattered and dirty. I’ve only seen him wearing cut-off sweat pants that are ripped down the right side of his right leg.  There is a big hole in the crotch.  When the kids laugh at this, he sheepishly closes his legs, unaware that he had been exposing himself to the group.  Embarrassment shows on his face, soon turned into anger that will fuel his fights with the others.  Initially I pegged this kid as a trouble- maker but quickly saw through his thin veneer.  Everyone else blames Joel for everything.  Unfortunately, labels come easily here and they stick. 

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Amalee is a bundle of energy.  Five or six years old, no one seems to know, he is a mighty might.  He starts his day as early as 4:30 AM, on high speed, and deems the day over only when he stumbles, literally falling asleep while moving.  He plays throughout the day with one hand only, using the other to hold up his trousers that are without an elastic band.  I thought myself ingenious by fashioning a belt made of garbage bags but I soon noticed the bags hanging on fence posts, now serving as flags for his warring army in his on-going game with his small friends.  No doubt his mother purposely dresses him in breeches that fall down.  There is no telling what this little guy could do if he had use of his two hands all day!   Missing his two front teeth, Amalee is all smiles, all day long and I can’t resist smiling back.

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Mia is a beautiful girl with a wide smile, probably around six years old. Her small and perfect white teeth are accented by the many colorful beads that hang from her head.  Her mother and older sister go off to the market each day to sell vegetables from their garden.  Mia is solo for at least eight hours most days.  I have no idea who serves her lunch or what the arrangement is should she need help.  She simply wanders around the compound and is my biggest tormenter, staring into my windows, climbing on my metal screen door and endlessly calling out my name, or what she thinks is my name, Mama Hobin.

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There are three brothers that live directly behind me, the first kids who welcomed me upon arrival.  They are Nicque, Inoque, and Betuel.  Polite and mild mannered, they always offer to help me at the well.   I explain that I enjoy this bit of physical activity and as I live alone, my chores are simple.  They apologize each time.  I think they are apologizing that I live alone as this concept is strange to people here.  Their bible is on them at all times and after dinner, I hear them singing around the fire, bible verses in Portuguese and  bits of English.  We started meeting at my house every Saturday morning to practice English and for them to assist me with Portuguese.  They are eager and well mannered.  After about an hour of practicing simple sentences, I brought out a picture book of holiday food.  In hindsight, poor form on my part to show photos of food to hungry kids.  While they have a solid family, like most of the people here, they are normally hungry and the images of Christmas turkey, pies and cookies literally had them drooling.  I told them we wouldn’t use the book next time.  Honestly, the book made me hungry and homesick too!

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Natalia, like many other fifteen-year old girls, is difficult to reach.  Her moods are hot and cold and I imagine she thinks the same of me.  The eldest girl in her family, she is in charge of all of the meals, caring for her five younger brothers and sisters and the laundry.  Her beautiful face is worn beyond her years.  She tells me she did not learn to read in school and hasn’t gone in years.  I imagine she was always tired and hungry in class, not a condition conducive to learning.  We are practicing our alphabet together and learning to read in Portuguese.   I emphasize over and over the importance of learning to read and the opportunity she has to become more independent.  Most times Natalia doesn’t want to practice her alphabet or reading at all.  She likes to look at all of my things and paints her fingernails and toes with my magic markers.  But as she does, I repeat the alphabet and simple pairings of rhyming consonant and vowels, hoping she is listening.  Now that we have started to sit together and read, it has become apparent that most of the kids, even the ones in school, do not know how to read.

Meli is my very favorite.  She is a sturdily built girl with orange tinted hair.  This is a sign of malnutrition.  She has large brown eyes and a face that expresses so much. She is energetic and happy though her life isn’t easy.  Her mother left the family for another man.  In Mozambican culture, the children stay with the father should the mother decide to leave.   I am told her father drinks and beats the children.  The eldest and only girl, ten-year old Meli is always in the front yard washing dishes and starting the fire to cook the meals.  She tells me she sees her mom a few times a year.  She is inquisitive and the fastest learner of the group and has stolen my heart.  She is kind and thoughtful and respectful.  She talks about her dreams, the only one in the group has done so.  I hope to do what I can to encourage her to continue to dream – and to work towards making some of those dreams come true.

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These kids, and about fifteen others, run around the compound night and day.  They laugh and squeal and fight and yell.  They seem more violent than kids back home, biting and hitting and kicking.  Even the very little ones, mimicking the older ones, take part.  It seems every other word or phrase contains the word batar – “to hit” and threats continually spewed from the older to the younger ones.  And, very unlike the USA, these kids all play together, ages ranging from 18 months to 16 years.  The older ones look after the younger ones and wouldn’t think to exclude them from activities.

Most of them are dressed in rags, wearing the same one or two outfits.  Yesterday one of the girls, ten- year old Tina, who is wise beyond her years, appeared in a brand new pink t-shirt and skirt.  She was unusually quiet and with a haircut as well.  I haven’t been able to ask about her new look.  I have a hunch that it is symbolic of her becoming a woman, as her mom is about to deliver the fifth child of the family.  When this happens, Tina will take on even more work than she already does now. They live in a house without a roof and often go without food.

As is true with most all families here, having more children is a matter of economics.  Mothers depend on their children to care for them in their aged years as there is no social security system of any kind.  The more children one has, the higher the odds that a higher percentage of them will grow to be productive adults and thus aid their parents.  While we would focus on having fewer children to provide them with more focus and options, that isn’t the way here.  Even if a woman had fewer children, there are no promises that there will be opportunities for these kids.  So, the more children one has, the more likely it is, by simple mathematics, that parents will have someone to aid them in their later years.

I’ve been overwhelmed by these kids with their loud play, their relentless calling at my door and window at all hours, their curiosity to go through even my bathroom trash and litter the yard with the unhygienic contents.   Mostly I am overwhelmed with their lack of respect for any privacy.  But, I think too, I am overwhelmed knowing what I can’t do for them, how I might impact their life in some small way but that each night they will still go to bed hungry and dirty.  And, now, I am getting to know them.  They are no different really then any other kids except for the sad, sad fate of being born here in Mozambique, Africa.

The Workplace-- Three Months In

Three Months In:  The Workplace

Everyone who writes or comments about their Peace Corps experience reveals unexpected personal growth.  Most volunteers confess that they gain far more than they give.  Three months into my service, and I am feeling much the same. 

Each day I sit with my Mozambican colleagues in the hospital observing their work and the daily activities.  I sit in the corner of the office, sweating in a pleather chair, a voyeur, hovering over the counseling sessions offered to patients who have just received their positive HIV test results.  Most of the people seem non-pulsed.   Different reactions attributed to cultural differences? Denial?  Maybe they are all too familiar with this epidemic? Others laugh nervously throughout the session.  

Hospital workers walk in and out of the office, dropping off files, greeting their office-mates while cell phones ring with tones of merry music or recordings of children,  all at peak volume.   The counselors answer these calls in the midst of the counseling sessions.  Loud and long conversations ensue.  I cringe internally, my American sense of propriety, confidentiality and privacy shattered.

Other times, I sort through files, desperately trying to interpret indecipherable notes, trying to track adherence, CD4 counts or other necessary and measureable variables.  I pore though stacks of cumbersome registry books, feeling like a character straight out of a Dickens novel.   A patient’s age is noted on the outside of the folder, when their file is opened, and never updated.  So much for reliable data.   Clinical workers make notations, request lab tests, but there are no dates noted, so it is impossible to determine if there has been follow through or updates.  The files and folders are dirty and tattered.  In an attempt to organize the papers, I use one of the two staplers available in the hospital.  After every fourth staple, I need to adjust the stapler.

Other days I accompany the volunteers, the Buscars, into the community as they search for patients who have abandoned treatment.  Their mission is to encourage the patient to return, seek counseling, and pick up a new supply of medicine. We speak to the village elder for assistance to locate the patients.  As we walk winding dirt paths throughout the barrios, without abandon we ask for directions and more information about the patient.  While we do not divulge the status of the person this practice is so common that everyone is aware of what it means when a Buscar visits.

More often than not we do not find the person.  Either the address is incomplete or false.  When we do find the person, we learn about their obstacles to treatment; the medicine is making them ill and they do not have the food, or the money for the food, to counteract the side effects.  Or, they do not have the transport, or the money for the transport, to get to the hospital.  We have nothing to offer them, no food, no transportation, no money, no solutions; simply encouragement and education as to why they should continue treatment.

For me, the experience is like stepping into a scene from National Geographic.  I take in this new world; the mud houses, the hordes of children playing in the yards, women sitting on straw mats, plaiting one another’s hair.  I note everything that I can, the physical and social. 

But my presence often disrupts the process.  Almost everyone asks my Mozambican colleagues if I have come to give money.  After watching countless movies and novellas about the lives of white people, and particularly Americans, they think that I am the person of their dreams, stepping into their mud homes to suddenly and magically transform their lives.

Sometimes we offer workshops about family planning or domestic violence to the women.  The men are never invited. I make the suggestion along with an explanation of the importance of including men.  I am quickly rebuffed.

Back at the office I make simple recommendations.  Why not put messages on the Dry Erase White Board, our singular and coveted resource, in the hallway?  We could promote the importance of adherence to the HIV medicines, our biggest challenge in Nicoadala District Hospital.  Each day there are crowds of people waiting for service.  This could be a passive form of education, to replace the daily workshops that are no longer occurring.  It would be easy and without cost. 

The counselor, who is a government worker and supervises this office, tells me this is impossible.  Firstly, she would like to keep the board for the staff, all five of us. Odd, I think, I’ve been here for three months and I’ve never seen this board put to use, for anyone.  In her defense, there were no dry erase markers.  She had taken them home for her own use.  Secondly, she tells me this is not necessary as it is her job to make daily announcements and offer workshops on this and other health issues.  As politely as I can, I point out that, in fact, she is not making any announcements or offering workshops.   She shrugs and tells me it is for the local volunteers to do so. 

But most of the volunteer Peer Educators have stopped their activities, dismayed and discouraged that their small stipends have not been paid in months.  Last week I had written up a proposal, in the SMART format, to meet with the remaining volunteers to reignite the program.  This was to be the focus of my volunteer role and the area of my greatest excitement and interest.   I was told the situation is too delicate and that we must leave it.

So, what is it exactly that I am offering my organization, ICAP, or the people in the office?  Surely, I am gaining knowledge as to the workings of the hospital, the medical aspects of HIV, forming relationships with colleagues, and taking field trips that fuel personal short stories and essays.  I am practicing patience beyond what I thought imaginable; sitting for days at a time, witnessing and accepting very different standards of care, assuming a loosely defined role that is neither worker, intern, consultant or advisor.  I am learning about Excel and monitoring and evaluation by doing work that my colleagues should be doing, work that is most likely not to be sustained when I leave.   My language skills are improving slowly but surely. 

This is the Peace Corps approach; building relationships and slowly becoming a part of the community to then be able to facilitate change.  And facilitating that change isn’t about what I will do, but how I will help those I work with to identify what those changes should be and how to make them. 

Each day I review my day with the following questions: 

Was I helpful?

Was my work useful?

What was the impact?

Is it sustainable?

Normally, I can only answer yes to two or three of the questions.  I take that as a small success and put the day into perspective.

Yes, I am certainly gaining more than I am giving.  But for my host organization, what is in it for them?  Am I meeting Peace Corps objectives and goals?  Is this experience enough to keep me here for two years?  It all continues to unfold. Three months into service and my questions abound.

Overwhelm October 26th

It’s 6:30 AM and I am at my desk and on the computer.  I’ve certainly been up and productive by this time of day.  Actually, I am normally leaving for work by this time.  But today, Sunday morning, I’ve been driven here after nine straight hours of music blaring from my neighbor’s large speaker, pointed directly at my house.   My computer is the recipient of my release, the only place I can pour out my feelings.  The neighborhood children are gathered around my porch, calling out to me, banging on the metal grate.  I wonder, are their parents enjoying their morning at home without them?  There is nowhere to go, no way to escape the overwhelming sound, the people, the constant interaction.

Will this be my Peace Corps experience for the next two years? I am trying as hard as I can to find some peace of mind.

Yesterday, my teenage neighbor came to my door asking for shampoo.  She has never come to my door, or spoken to me, without asking for something.  I vow that today I will speak to her to explain my volunteer status, that I am not a commissary, that I cannot supply her, or the neighborhood, with toiletries, medicines and money.  It would be interesting to learn more about her life, to make a friend.  But now, it seems we are in an on-going tug of war, she asking, me denying.

Yesterday afternoon I had the smallest children in my living room to watch a movie.  Later, the older kids and teenagers asked to see the  same movie.  Although I had just sat down to write, I agreed to it.  One teenage girl, thinking I didn’t understand her, asked her friend why they weren’t getting cookies like the little ones.  I resented her sense of entitlement.  I resented giving up my time to write when I was so full of ideas and focus.  I resented them being in my house, invading my only shard of privacy.

Have my neighbors ever invited me to their homes?  Do they invite me to watch movies or join them in the evenings when they are out in their yard, around the fire, singing, dancing and laughing?  Have they ever offered to share a meal?  Yet, it is expected of me to do so.  I know that I am the foreigner, seen as the person with the wealth.  And, my predecessor was famous for making loans, giving money and baking for the neighborhood.  I, on the other hand, am the strange American that lives alone and keeps mostly to myself.  I do not give out money or make loans.  I do not bake cookies and cakes for the neighbors.   Preparing and cooking for myself is a challenge, and most days I go to bed hungry.  Yet, I am judged by what they think a white lady, a “Branca “should be and by the one or two they have known.

I try to stop my mind from rehearsing the next two years, scenes like this one continuing to play out.  I take deep breaths, trying to focus on today, this morning, right now.  And, for some reason, the music has suddenly stopped. I am left in blessed, blessed peace - for the moment.