Our trainers were right. They guaranteed if we finished our two years there, we'd go from rags to riches. Not in terms of the material wealth we'd earn after the Peace Corps back in America, but of the riches of the spirit we'd gain from the experience. How true it was. I know of no volunteers who have become wealthy or any who even want to be. But I know a great number of them who continue to serve their country and their fellow humans, and who still believe it is possible to be idealistic in this superficial age of materialism we live in today.
Bolivia RPCV Frank Keim writes: As a volunteer in the Peace Corps, I worked with other idealistic Americans who firmly believed in Kennedy's famous declaration, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country"
At 50, Peace Corps serves on: Alaska returnees keep supporting overseas work
by Frank Keim, Community Perspective Fairbanks Daily News Miner
Mar 05, 2011 | 728 views | 0 0 comments | 2 2 recommendations | email to a friend | print
Community Perspective
It's hard to believe 50 years have gone by so quickly. But John F. Kennedy would be proud of the organization he and his brother-in-law Sargent Shriver proposed in 1960.
The Peace Corps was officially established by executive order on March 1, 1961, and since then more than 200,000 volunteers have served in 139 host countries. Today, 8,655 volunteers work in 77 countries doing everything from public health and alternative energy to the instruction of English and basic business skills to the people of developing nations.
As a volunteer in the Peace Corps, I worked with other idealistic Americans who firmly believed in Kennedy's famous declaration, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." For us this meant a commitment to helping others in developing countries help themselves cope in an ever more complex global world.
In 1966, my own Bolivia Altiplano group was trained well. Our grueling schedule, six days per week for three months from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., included learning two foreign languages and how to live in two different cultures in a geographic setting 13,000 feet high and 13,000 miles away from home. Then we spent a month in Bolivia in almost complete immersion before we were considered ready to begin our two-year commitment. Training was similar for other Peace Corps groups being sent around the world.
The Peace Corps then was quite different from the more professional organization of today. Most rural program volunteers were generalists, and we worked in everything from sheep shearing and the introduction of new potato strains to latrine construction and vaccination programs. All for a whopping salary of $90 per month. We lived without electricity or running water, and had to function in the middle of revolutions and counter revolutions. Simply because I worked with the Indian people of the Altiplano, the Bolivian military accused me of being a communist, and I was jailed and almost shot!
But our trainers were right. They guaranteed if we finished our two years there, we'd go from rags to riches. Not in terms of the material wealth we'd earn after the Peace Corps back in America, but of the riches of the spirit we'd gain from the experience. How true it was. I know of no volunteers who have become wealthy or any who even want to be. But I know a great number of them who continue to serve their country and their fellow humans, and who still believe it is possible to be idealistic in this superficial age of materialism we live in today.
After plunging into such a kaleidoscope of families, communities, institutions and environments so different from our own, as Peace Corps volunteers we came to understand the pride and the pettiness, the dreams and the schemes, the fears and the humor and hospitality of otherwise unfamiliar peoples all over this island Earth of ours. And in seeing how different they were from us, we also better understood how similar we were to one another. We were somehow all in this big old boat together, and therefore we bore the collective responsibility of working our problems out together. We also became aware that if we didn't do this, we would eventually all pay dearly for it.
It's been 43 years since I left the Peace Corps. As for so many others, it was both a chastening and liberating experience for me. It also had a profound influence on what I did with my own life after the Peace Corps. What they told us during training, "once a volunteer, always a volunteer," has turned out to be remarkably true.
Even today, our Alaskan Returned Peace Corps Volunteer organization continues to work for the empowerment of less fortunate peoples everywhere. One way we do this is by supporting volunteers who presently serve overseas in various capacities. We have helped finance small projects from freshwater systems in Ethiopia and the Philippines to various small business and sustainable agriculture projects in Latin America. We donate annually to Project Salvador, an organization started by Tony Gasbarro focused on the empowerment of young women in El Salvador. Most recently we have donated funds to the Heifer and Kiva Projects.
So it is that 50 years later the Peace Corps continues to fulfill President Kennedy's challenge of empowering others through friendship and practical help. In spite of immense problems everywhere, we hope to continue to serve for another 50 years doing the same thing. Of course, our work will never end.
Frank Keim of Fairbanks is an activist, nature writer and retired teacher.
