Great quotes that I either read/heard/stole from other Peace Corps Volunteers from Debz Peace Corps Adventure in Ecuador
Great quotes that I either read/heard/stole from other Peace Corps Volunteers
*"Peace Corps Training is kinda like pledging a fraternity....it´s one of those things in life you only want to do once!"
*The saying goodbye part is very difficult. If given the choice, I would leave all my clothes behind and pack a few family members and close personal friends in the suitcase. Nudity is good for the soul, you know "
*Many lessons learned.. but at the top of the list:
I had an abstract notion before I left that material possessions were not key to my happiness. When I got back it was etched in concrete.
*I swear, the PC administration does its best to weed out impatient people by making the application process really, really suck.
*Let me fill you in on the three stages of your adaptation to this country. "There are flies on the rim of his glass. When you first arrive in the country, when a fly falls into your beer you'll throw the beer out. During the second stage, when a fly lands in your beer you'll fish the fly out and finish your drink. Then," he says, draining his pint and consuming an accumulation of flies drowning and buzzing on the surface, "at stage three you drink the beer with the flies in it."
*You ought to try writing "communist insurgency" in the "why did you leave your last job?" slot. Peace Corps Philippines was shut down in June 1990, and 269 PCVs were evacuated because a volunteer was taken hostage by the New People's Army. The PCV was safely returned two months later.
*Don't over anlyaze going. There is no way to be prepared for this experience. Nothing will be like you expected it would be. Everything is so much better and so much worse and totally different. Pack your stuff (it will all be wrong) go with a smile (you'll need it)and DO IT.
*When I was preparing to leave for my assignment and everyone was trying to scare me about it, a friend of mine gave me some great counsel. "What happens when you buy a new car? Everyone congratulates you, wants to see it etc. But no one ever says, 'Are you crazy? You know how many people are killed in car accidents? 'People are just afraid of the unkown."
*A Sierra Leonean explaining how the Wundu fire dancers rubbed themselves down with flaming torches yet never showed a blister, said, "You Peace Corps come over here and tell us that an American man has walked on the moon and that you have rocket ships that are exploring the stars and you ask us to believe these things. Yet, you come here, see our magic and say you do not believe these things. We just happen to have an alternative technology."
*Sign in PeaceCorps office in Dominica:
This isn't home sweet home. Adjust.
*OK, this is a gross generallity but I believe there are three types of Peace Corps volunteers, 1) those who go overseas to play and grow up (and I admit to some of that) 2) those who go overseas to build a monument to themselves and 3) those who go overseas to learn. Of the three, the last are the people who leave the greatest legacy. School buildings, roads, medical clinics, water systems, latrines, these are transient. A civil war will tear them all down. Yet, if you touch the hearts and minds of other people, if you open yourself to the flexibility of understanding a culture different from your own, if you seek to understand and to be understood, you will have made more of a difference than can be counted.
*A good motto I learned during the application process: Hurry up and wait!
*The best advice I ever got about the PC experience was the hardest to adopt and that was to go with "zero expectations". My service would have been easier and, possibly, more productive if I had. Just go with the flow. No need to prepare yourself, study up on the country, make any plans on what you might be doing, try to find out anything from others etc, etc. Just show up penniless and wide open. (yeah right...like I can do that!)
