• 2010.08.04: August 4, 2010: Peace Corps Volunteer "JBrown" writes: I left Peace Corps, and that's OK.  Friday, December 17, 2010 - 9:01 am [1]

Peace Corps Volunteer "JBrown" writes: Why I Made the Decision to Leave Peace Corps



"The main two factors that led to my decision were the lack of adequate housing in my site and communication issues, both with my community and the Peace Corps. My boss placed me in a site that, I believe, did not have housing prepared for me. I was placed in a tiny house typical of the houses that could be found in my town. It was made out of wooden boards. There were two huts, the first one was essentially one large room. This first hut had a tin roof, which was rare in my community. My room was separated by the main room by 4 wooden boards that were tacked up to form a makeshift wall. My APCD, or Assistant Peace Corps Director required the family to build this wall prior to receiving a Peace Corps Volunteer. It was easy to look through the large spaces in between the boards into my room, and if there was a great desire, it was not difficult to look over the top of the boards into the room, as well."

Peace Corps Volunteer "JBrown" writes: Why I Made the Decision to Leave Peace Corps

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Why I Made the Decision to Leave Peace Corps (Part 1)

I know that many of you are interested in why I decided to leave Peace Corps Guatemala. This is my decision, the decision that was ultimately best for me. Life is too short to be unhappy, and I was not only unhappy, but miserable. In addition, I had lost my sense of humor during my time at my site, and for those of you who know me, you know how important free-spirited humor is to my life. This is not an attempt to berate Peace Corps, nor is it an attempt to convince people to stay away from the organization; Peace Corps is a wonderful organization witch much to offer. This is just one story among many Peace Corps stories. I hope you will appreciate it for what it is worth and reach your own conclusions based on the evidence. This report is obviously subjective, because it happened to me. I will do my best to describe the events leading to my decision as they unfolded. When writing something like this, it is difficult to not come across as overly negative and bitter. I write about the negative things because they are what caused me to make my decision. What I hope is that my story gives just one more perspective of the Peace Corps experience. Thanks for reading.

The main two factors that led to my decision were the lack of adequate housing in my site and communication issues, both with my community and the Peace Corps. My boss placed me in a site that, I believe, did not have housing prepared for me. I was placed in a tiny house typical of the houses that could be found in my town. It was made out of wooden boards. There were two huts, the first one was essentially one large room. This first hut had a tin roof, which was rare in my community. My room was separated by the main room by 4 wooden boards that were tacked up to form a makeshift wall. My APCD, or Assistant Peace Corps Director required the family to build this wall prior to receiving a Peace Corps Volunteer. It was easy to look through the large spaces in between the boards into my room, and if there was a great desire, it was not difficult to look over the top of the boards into the room, as well.

I remember the first night. I was terrified. My host dad showed me to my room, and I saw that there was a wooden table to my right, a wooden window above the table, and another wooden structure in the back of the room. I started to feel overwhelmed when I realized that the wooden structure would be my bed. Since I arrived at my site in the late afternoon, there was not time to buy a mattress. I also had not figured out a way to rig my mosquito net from the wooden boards, so that first night I slept on top of the wooden board wrapped in my mosquito, shuddering from fear of the tarantulas that were all over the walls.

The children would constantly look through the cracks in the walls. I constantly felt like I was being watched, and, in fact, I was. I could not go anywhere in the tiny community without everyone knowing exactly what I had been, what I was doing at that moment, and what I would be doing later. That, however, is to be expected in a town of 300 people where a Volunteer from the US sticks out like a sore thumb. On the contrary, I did not feel that I should be faced with constant scrutiny and watchful eyes in my own room. It may have been better if I had my own room separate from the family, but I technically shared one room with 7 other people. If there was a light on in the other room, it was on in my room. If there was a baby screaming or crying in the other room, which happened constantly, it was like they were screaming in my room. I barely slept at all due to the large number of infants screaming throughout the night. I would not be able to fall asleep easily, and I would wake up multiple times during the night due to incessant racket. Throughout the first couple weeks and months, I kept telling myself that Peace Corps is supposed to be difficult, and that I was a bad person for even thinking about complaining, since this is how people live in this community. At times, there were 16 people in this house. 7 would sleep in the first main room, and the rest would sleep in the kitchen. My host mother and father had a room that was still part of the second structure, but it was off to the side of the kitchen. partially blocking it from the constant fumes.

Food was another story altogether. I ate my meals with the host family, giving them money to buy food. The portions they gave me were meager. I wanted to be polite, so I did my best not to complain about the food. Early on, when talking about the need for more food with my host dad and host brother, the only two in the family who could speak Spanish, I was told that food was hard to come by, and that they could not offer much. I accepted it, acknowledging that I realized food was scarce, but that I needed a little more, because my body was used to more food. I tried to always place the blame elsewhere, on my body, on Peace Corps, on anything else but myself. I wanted everyone to like me. I wanted to blend in.

There would always be plenty of tortillas, but a diet based solely on tortillas does not provide much nutrients. In addition to the tortillas, there would be one other food item, and on very rare occasions, a third item. Sometimes it would be one scrambled egg. Other times it would be a tiny bowl of beans. On occasion, all I would get was a bowl of hierbas, a leafy plant that would be boiled. It tasted what I think leaves and grass would taste like. Most of the time, there were parts of the leaf that could not be chewed, and I ended up spitting most of the food back into the bowl. Again, I did not want to complain because this is what everyone in the family ate on a daily basis. For a couple days, the family only ate mushrooms that they had found outside. They told me that they may upset my stomach and suggested that I not eat them. I was happy to heed their advice.

Almost all of the food was extremely greasy. It was cooked over an open fire in a large black cauldron. Over time, after about a month, I developed intense acid reflux. After swallowing something, an intense pain would rise in my chest, as if someone had just punched me. After laying down to sleep, I would have pain so severe that I had difficulty breathing. The same thing happened when I did anything active, such as playing soccer with the guys in the community. I kept hoping it would just go away. As my problems and concerns compounded, I remained scared to call Peace Corps for help. Past Volunteers told me that my APCD hated complainers, and being one of his favorites, I did not want to get on his bad side.

Yet, I constantly became ill from the food that I was eating. I had diarrhea every week and perpetual stomach pain. This was not happening to just me. It seemed like every week that there was someone who was very sick in my host family. It probably stemmed from unsanitary food. Women would carry ducks across the kitchen to take them outside. There would always be wild animals, such as ducks, chickens and stray dogs that would wander through the kitchen. After touching the animals, the women would not wash their hands. Children would urinate on the kitchen floor. I was terrified to eat with this family; everything that was happening was running contrary to what we were taught by the medical office staff during training. I wanted to integrate, though, and I kept my mouth shut for the time being.

Everyone in the family continued to get sick, one 2 year old girl even became deathly ill. She had a fever that had not broken for 4 days, and the family was not giving her water. I tried to convince my host dad and host brother that they needed to keep her hydrated and that it was very dangerous for an infant to have a fever for such a long period of time. They looked at me almost mockingly, wondering why this foreigner was giving advice on how to care for their family member. The girl began throwing up worms and looked like she was about to die. Her eyes rolled back, and she could not get the strength to move any part of her body. She used to be a jovial and vibrant, but everything had changed. I argued with my host brother, who was her father, that he needed to take her to the hospital very soon, even if it would cost a lot of money. I left the house after having conversations with him extremely frustrated. Tears would well up in my eyes as I thought about how this child may not live to see another day. I knew that the death of a child was commonplace for the families in my community, but I knew that it could be prevented. The next day, my host brother took his daughter to the hospital, paid 200 quetzales, or $25, and got the medicine. In a few days, she was back to normal. 200 quetzales was a LOT of money for the family, but they saved the girl's life, and they were happy that they made the decision to do it. The Peace Corps experience was really starting to have an effect on my mental and physical health.

All of this time I struggled to communicate in a site where the primary language was not Spanish. 90% of my town of 300 did not speak Spanish. Being in the top Spanish group during training, I guess my APCD figured that I would be able to quickly learn another language. However, I was sent to this site without any training in the Qeqchi, the Mayan spoken in the area where I was living. Not one class. I spent the first 2 months scrambling to find a good Qeqchi teacher. The problem is that most Qeqchi teachers do not know how to explain grammar. They are unable to answer seemingly simple questions, and soon both the teacher and the student become incredibly frustrated.

I will forever wonder why I was not trained at all in the Mayan language. I am sure that Volunteers in Kyrgyztan are not sent out into their communities with zero knowledge of the community's primary language. Volunteers in China do not go to their sites lacking any knowledge of Chinese. It just didn't make any sense to me.

I first found a teacher in my community. He was a pre-primary teacher, and was a nice guy, but I realized that he was unable to provide quality instruction. He would give me lists of words to memorize, words such as "crab" and "hanging." He did not have a clear lesson plan, and I decided to find another teacher. I called the Peace Corps language office and asked for help. The head of the language department said that she could schedule a week of intensive study in a town 3 hours away. I jumped on the opportunity.

The week turned out to be a disaster. The classes were given in an area that did not speak Qeqchi, but instead spoke another Mayan language, Pokomchi. The instructor was absolutely awful, and attempted to teach from a computer program that he had. Anytime that I asked him a question, he could not answer. He would refer to books, but he was never able to find anything. If I let him go, he would look through the books for 30 minutes or longer. He seemed to agree with whatever I said in order to get me to stop asking questions. I was later told by other teachers that he was not teaching me correct Qeqchi.

During the week I was staying with a host family. The host father was an intelligent man, a linguist who spoke several Mayan languages. He was available to help me during the first night. He really seemed to know what he was doing. I liked his dynamic, interactive method, and I would later decide that I wanted him to teach me. This lasted for 2 weeks, until I realized that he also did not have any lesson plan, requiring me to tell him exactly what I wanted to learn, lest I let him go off on incomprehensible tangents. Though I was extremely eager to learn Qeqchi so that I could communicate with the people in my town and have some sort of social life, I did not think that I should be the one responsible to develop lesson plans. I ultimately left my 2nd teacher and switched to yet another teacher in a city 2 hours away from my site. She proved to be the best, and I finally felt like I was making some progress. In the back of my mind, I questioned why Peace Corps did not do more to arrange classes with an effective teacher. Having no experience in the matter, I was forced to look for myself. This was only made more difficult by the array of problems that I was dealing with at my site.

During the first day of the week of intensive classes, I got really sick and had to rush to give a stool sample. For several hours I was unable to leave the bathroom for more than 2 minutes at a time,much to the annoyance of the other patients trying to give stool samples in the one bathroom that this lab had. I called the Medical Officer and was diagnosed and treated for giardia. I was violently ill the entire day, and I was getting fed up. I decided to call my training director, someone who I felt that I had developed a good relationship with during training. I also knew that I could speak in English with him in order to clearly describe all of my frustrations. Little did I know, this would be the beginning of a downward spiral and my eventual decision to leave the country.

Posted by JBrown at 11:07 AM

Labels: guatemala, Peace Corps, peace corps problems

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Links to Related Topics (Tags):

Headlines: August, 2010; Peace Corps Guatemala; Directory of Guatemala RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Guatemala RPCVs; Blogs - Guatemala; Early Termination

When this story was posted in December 2010, this was on the front page of PCOL:




Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers

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Support Independent Funding for the Third Goal The Peace Corps has always neglected the third goal, allocating less than 1% of their resources to "bringing the world back home." Senator Dodd addressed this issue in the "Peace Corps for the 21st Century" bill passed by the US Senate and Peace Corps Director Ron Tschetter proposed a "Peace Corps Foundation" at no cost to the US government. Both are good approaches but the recent "Comprehensive Assessment Report" didn't address the issue of independent funding for the third goal at all.

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Nov 8, 2010: The 50th Begins University of Michigan commemorates 50th 16 Oct Wittenberg University also has claim on 50th 31 Oct Historical Marker Unveiled to Celebrate 50th 15 Oct Directors Discuss Impact of Service 13 Oct Mary Morgan writes: Some thoughts on the 50th 16 Oct Colombia I Holds Reunion at Rutgers 31 Oct Remembering the Early Program in Ghana 23 Oct George Packer writes: Meaning of the Mid-Terms 2 Nov Steve Driehaus Defeated for re-election 2 Nov Michelle Obama's Uncle was PCV in India 1 Nov Chic Dambach writes "Exhaust the Limits" 31 Oct Alrick Brown Directs Documentary on Rwanda 31 Oct Rajeev Goyal writes: Obama Does Nothing for Peace Corps 31 Oct Dr. Paul Frommer Created Language for 'Avatar' 20 Oct Cy Kukenbaker Directs Movie about Soccer in Malawi 15 Oct Peace Corps has no Institutional Memory 14 Oct Kristof and Stacia Nordin demonstrate permaculture in Malawi 9 Oct Volunteer Stephanie Chance dies in Niger 8 Oct Peace Corps volunteer Census hits 40-year high 4 Oct Malaysia PM wants Peace Corps to Return 25 Sep Volunteer Thomas Maresco Murdered in Lesotho 4 Sep Johnathan Miller launchs Airborne Lifeline 26 Aug

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July 20, 2010: Nita Lowey Pushes Expansion Nita Lowey pushes $46.15 million PC funding increase 1 Jul Anne Goddard helps lead ChildFund 12 Jul PCVs Safe after bombing in Uganda 12 Jul PCVs Evacuated from Northern Burkina Faso 7 Jul Ben Masters promotes bamboo bicycles 6 Jul Danny Dunbar is a fan of Brazil soccer 2 Jul Christopher Hill leaves Iraq Embassy For Academia 2 Jul NPCA holds YouTube contest 2 Jul Larry Palmer nominated as Ambassador to Venezuela 30 Jun Laurence Leamer writes: America Looks Like a Fortress 29 Jun Ed Reed writes: Troops' service in Korea not in vain 28 Jun Mary-Denise Tabar finishes tour in Iraq 24 Jun Carrie Hessler-Radelet Sworn in as PC Deputy Director 24 Jun PC Releases Comprehensive Agency Assessment Report 22 Jun Michael Burden writes: The dilemma on your dinner plate 18 Jun Safety at risk for Peace Corps volunteers? 17 Jun PCVs in Southern Kyrgyzstan evacuated safely 15 Jun Steve Harpt helps dropouts reconstruct their lives 11 Jun Biden Meets with Peace Corps/Kenya Volunteers 11 Jun 19 Americans Sworn-in as PCVs in Indonesia 4 Jun PC Celebrates Volunteers Return to Sierra Leone 3 Jun John Coté makes cross-country walk for US Troops 16 May

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Memo to Incoming Director Williams PCOL has asked five prominent RPCVs and Staff to write a memo on the most important issues facing the Peace Corps today. Issues raised include the independence of the Peace Corps, political appointments at the agency, revitalizing the five-year rule, lowering the ET rate, empowering volunteers, removing financial barriers to service, increasing the agency's budget, reducing costs, and making the Peace Corps bureaucracy more efficient and responsive. Latest: Greetings from Director Williams

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Join Us Mr. President! "We will double the size of the Peace Corps by its 50th anniversary in 2011. And we'll reach out to other nations to engage their young people in similar programs, so that we work side by side to take on the common challenges that confront all humanity," said Barack Obama during his campaign. Returned Volunteers rally and and march to the White House to support a bold new Peace Corps for a new age. Latest: Senator Dodd introduces Peace Corps Improvement and Expansion Act of 2009 .

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