November 28, 2005: Headlines: COS - Guyana: Early Termination: Personal Web Site: Peace Corps Volunteer Brian Reeves writes: For those of you who haven’t checked my blog recently, I got sent home from the Peace Corps. I was given the option to Early Terminate instead of being Administratively Separated.
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November 28, 2005: Headlines: COS - Guyana: Early Termination: Personal Web Site: Peace Corps Volunteer Brian Reeves writes: For those of you who haven’t checked my blog recently, I got sent home from the Peace Corps. I was given the option to Early Terminate instead of being Administratively Separated.
Peace Corps Volunteer Brian Reeves writes: For those of you who haven’t checked my blog recently, I got sent home from the Peace Corps. I was given the option to Early Terminate instead of being Administratively Separated.
This wasn’t a punitive measure, thankfully, but according to them it was for security reasons. They got wind of the fact that I was friends with a married woman, and one who was married to an international prize-fighting boxer, and the Peace Corps was scared he was going to kill me for the (perceived) relationship between us.
Peace Corps Volunteer Brian Reeves writes: For those of you who haven’t checked my blog recently, I got sent home from the Peace Corps. I was given the option to Early Terminate instead of being Administratively Separated.
December 2, 2005
Brian gets sent home
Filed under: Peace Corps, Guyana — Scott @ 2:32 pm
It looks like Brian R. has been sent home.
Hey everyone,
For those of you who haven’t checked my blog recently, I got sent home from the Peace Corps. I was given the option to Early Terminate instead of being Administratively Separated. This wasn’t a punitive measure, thankfully, but according to them it was for security reasons. They got wind of the fact that I was friends with a married woman, and one who was married to an international prize-fighting boxer, and the Peace Corps was scared he was going to kill me for the (perceived) relationship between us. There was no relationship, by the way — but in Guyana friendships between male and female are always assumed to be more. So to her husband, if for some reason you ever read this, we were merely friends, nothing more. I never touched her.
Truth is, he probably would have been pissed enough at me to at least confront me, if not kill me. And believe me, if he put his mind to it, he could easily have kicked my ass. I’m a bit pissed because this is an old situation that I’ve managed successfully for three months now, and besides, it’s sorta blown over in the meantime. I’m no longer friends with his wife. But the damage has been done I guess.
Anyway, whether I was in any real danger or not, the Peace Corps was convinced I was, and there was no arguing with them. All efforts to dissaude them from this only convinced them even more, because they used that to prove to themselves that I wasn’t aware of the seriousness of the situation. YES, I was fully aware, just confident in my ability to handle my damn life.
There’s more, a lot more, to this story but I just wanted to let everyone know. It’s all going to go up on my blog over the next few weeks as I will now have the chance to do a bunch of writing. There are experiences I didn’t get to write about for sensitivity (and now I can be more honest), information for the coming volunteers, and just a whole bunch of observations and lists that I want to make sure get written before I start forgetting things. But in the meantime, I’m back in the States and not happy about it. Not that there weren’t many times when I fantasized about coming home, but if I was eventually to leave early, I would like it to have been my idea. I’m staying with my mother in her west Texas ranch and will be trying to figure out how to move to Hawai`i as soon as humanly possible (Miami, if I can’t manage that). I have to pool what resources I have, apply for a job and possibly grad school, and generally make sure I don’t have to spend the entire winter here. That would be a recipe for major depression for me.
Thanks everyone for supporting me and reading. At least I got to see what it’s like to live as a PCV, instead of just trainee.
Love, Bri
When this story was posted in November 2005, this was on the front page of PCOL:
Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
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Gaddi H. Vasquez has established the Kennedy Service Awards to honor the hard work and service of two current Peace Corps Volunteers, two returned Peace Corps Volunteers, and two Peace Corps staff members. The award to currently serving volunteers will be based on a demonstration of impact, sustainability, creativity, and catalytic effect. Submit your nominations by December 9. |
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When the National Call to Service legislation was amended to include Peace Corps in December of 2002, this country had not yet invaded Iraq and was not in prolonged military engagement in the Middle East, as it is now. Read the story of how one volunteer spent three years in captivity from 1976 to 1980 as the hostage of a insurrection group in Colombia in Joanne Marie Roll's op-ed on why this legislation may put soldier/PCVs in the same kind of danger. Latest: Read the ongoing dialog on the subject. |
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Congratulations to the Peace Corps for the highest number of volunteers in 30 years with 7,810 volunteers serving in 71 posts across the globe. Of course, the President's proposal to double the Peace Corps to 15,000 volunteers made in his State of the Union Address in 2002 is now a long forgotten dream. With deficits in federal spending stretching far off into the future, any substantive increase in the number of volunteers will have to wait for new approaches to funding and for a new administration. Choose your candidate and start working for him or her now. |
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The District Commissioner for the Kasama District in Zambia issued a statement banning Peace Corps activities for ‘grave’ social misconduct and unruly behavior for an incident that occurred on September 24 involving 13 PCVs. Peace Corps said that some of the information put out about the incident was "inflammatory and false." On October 12, Country Director Davy Morris met with community leaders and apologized for the incident. All PCVs involved have been reprimanded, three are returning home, and a ban in the district has since been lifted. |
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Peace Corps Online is proud to announce that the Peace Corps Library is now available online. With over 30,000 index entries in 500 categories, this is the largest collection of Peace Corps related stories in the world. From Acting to Zucchini, you can find hundreds of stories about what RPCVs with your same interests or from your Country of Service are doing today. If you have a web site, support the "Peace Corps Library" and link to it today. |
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Story Source: Personal Web Site
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Guyana; Early Termination
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