2011.02.28: February 28, 2011: Ryan Ruggiero is a Peace Corps volunteer in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, with the Community HIV/AIDS Project
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2011.02.28: February 28, 2011: Ryan Ruggiero is a Peace Corps volunteer in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, with the Community HIV/AIDS Project
Ryan Ruggiero is a Peace Corps volunteer in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, with the Community HIV/AIDS Project
There's no doubt that being a Peace Corps volunteer 50 years ago was different from today. There are Peace Corps volunteers today who have electricity on a regular basis and access to the Internet in their rural villages, who have Blackberrys and use Blackberry Messenger to instantly keep in touch with loved ones back home. But while these modern technologies can make things like applying for a grant for your organization and keeping up to date on current events a reality at the touch of a button, life as a Peace Corps volunteer is still different from life back home. Most of us live without running water (although many have taps in the yard), bathe in a bucket daily and have a toilet outside lovingly referred to as the pit-toilet. Oh, and I live in a traditional Zulu hut.
Ryan Ruggiero is a Peace Corps volunteer in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, with the Community HIV/AIDS Project
Peace Corps may have changed, but much is the same
Monday, February 28, 2011
Ryan Ruggiero, a lifetime resident of Washington Township, Bishop Eustace graduate and a graduate of Lehigh University, is a Peace Corps volunteer in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa, with the Community HIV/AIDS Project. She also volunteers for a non-profit organization in her village, where she has a girls club, works with out-of-school youth to educate the community about HIV and tutors children in English.
By Ryan Ruggiero
For the Gloucester County Times
When President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps 50 years ago on March 1, 1961, he began a legacy that even he could not have imagined. Since then, more than 200,000 Peace Corps volunteers have been trained and served in 139 countries. Today, there are 8,655 volunteers serving in 77 countries.
There's no doubt that being a Peace Corps volunteer 50 years ago was different from today. There are Peace Corps volunteers today who have electricity on a regular basis and access to the Internet in their rural villages, who have Blackberrys and use Blackberry Messenger to instantly keep in touch with loved ones back home. But while these modern technologies can make things like applying for a grant for your organization and keeping up to date on current events a reality at the touch of a button, life as a Peace Corps volunteer is still different from life back home. Most of us live without running water (although many have taps in the yard), bathe in a bucket daily and have a toilet outside lovingly referred to as the pit-toilet. Oh, and I live in a traditional Zulu hut.
Some Americans are surprised that Peace Corps volunteers are even needed in South Africa, the most developed country in Africa. But after living in KwaZulu Natal for more than a year in a village located in a municipality with a shocking HIV rate of 36 percent, I can attest that even more Peace Corps volunteers are needed here to address this epidemic.
Although life as a Peace Corps volunteer may be different today than it was back then, there are some very important things that have remained the same. Volunteers still work with their counterparts to transfer skills to host country nationals. Most of us are the only American working in the community where we are placed, and it may take a couple of hours by taxi to get to the closest fellow volunteer in some cases. We still live with host families and live life like the people we are serving. There is still a big focus on learning the local language and participating in cultural ceremonies.
We are still thousands of miles away from the life we have grown very comfortable with and from our support system and loved ones. And we live off a stipend often smaller than what the people we are working with earn, which forces us to really live like the people here as much as possible.
The lessons you learn as a Peace Corps volunteer probably have not changed much either. I have learned patience is a virtue and will get you through the hardest times. Laughter really is the best medicine. "Now" really never means "now" no matter how much I want to believe it. Things in Africa just take longer. Life does not care about your plans, so be flexible and hope for the best. Get yourself up and dust yourself off every time you fall, because you will fall.
Death happens so frequently here that it teaches you to live your life fully in the present. Sometimes nothing cures a bad day like a cold soda and a chocolate bar. You may not change the world overnight or in two years, but that does not mean you should not try. Relationships and the people-to-people connections will leave a much deeper footprint than anything else you may accomplish in two years.
And perhaps the greatest lesson I have learned so far is that people really are the same, regardless of race, religion, language, culture or economic status. The first Peace Corps director, R. Sargent Shriver Jr., who sadly passed away just six weeks ago, said it best: "Peace Corps requires the simple but powerful recognition that what we have in common as human beings is more important and crucial than what divides us."
I joined the Peace Corps because I wanted to serve my country for two years abroad in a program I believed in. I wanted to travel the world and learn about another culture, see life from a different perspective and to use my skills to help others. I really believe that people are all connected, and if the world started to see each other as brothers and sisters, peace would flourish. The Zulu word "ubuntu," which means a person is a person through another person, sums up this belief beautifully.
I came to South Africa prepared to read by candlelight every night and excited to fetch my water from a bore hole. I didn't plan on having constant access to my world back home or electricity regularly. And although my Peace Corps experience is indeed different from what those who first served in 1961 experienced, the important threads of serving as an American abroad for two years in development work remain, and for that I am thankful.
Links to Related Topics (Tags):
Headlines: February, 2011; Peace Corps South Africa; Directory of South Africa RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for South Africa RPCVs; HIV; AIDS
When this story was posted in June 2011, this was on the front page of PCOL:
Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
| Peace Corps: The Next Fifty Years As we move into the Peace Corps' second fifty years, what single improvement would most benefit the mission of the Peace Corps? Read our op-ed about the creation of a private charitable non-profit corporation, independent of the US government, whose focus would be to provide support and funding for third goal activities. Returned Volunteers need President Obama to support the enabling legislation, already written and vetted, to create the Peace Corps Foundation. RPCVs will do the rest. |
| How Volunteers Remember Sarge As the Peace Corps' Founding Director Sargent Shriver laid the foundations for the most lasting accomplishment of the Kennedy presidency. Shriver spoke to returned volunteers at the Peace Vigil at Lincoln Memorial in September, 2001 for the Peace Corps 40th. "The challenge I believe is simple - simple to express but difficult to fulfill. That challenge is expressed in these words: PCV's - stay as you are. Be servants of peace. Work at home as you have worked abroad. Humbly, persistently, intelligently. Weep with those who are sorrowful, Care for those who are sick. Serve your wives, serve your husbands, serve your families, serve your neighbors, serve your cities, serve the poor, join others who also serve," said Shriver. "Serve, Serve, Serve. That's the answer, that's the objective, that's the challenge." |
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Story Source: New Jersey.com
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - South Africa; HIV; AIDS
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