Opinions of Peace Corps?

I've been thinking about volunteering for the Peace Corps. I want to see other cultures and get my hands dirty undoing some of the damage Bush & Co have done. Does anyone have any recent experience with the Peace Corps? Since it is a US Gov organization, I was worried about any backlash or watering-down of the PC's mission.

So I guess I can't really speak to your concern about "recent" events. However, in my experience, once you get assigned to a site, you're pretty autonomous. So it's hard for them to exert a lot of control over you. FWIW.... :shrug:

Or, as we called it, "Club Fed." Certainly waaaaay nicer than most other PC postings. But, hey, I think I did OK on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd goals, so no harm no foul, eh?

country. The Arabs were driving the Volunteers insane, we had some 24/7 suicide watches on Medical evacuations.

The Buddhist countries will be the most mellow places to go and work with.. it takes a long time from sign up to show up..

They will offer you appointments and fly you to the seminars for free.. you are not obligated to accept any they invite you to.. so take your time they are just fishing. ask the Peace Corp people at the seminars about assignments to Buddhist countries.. they might have inside information... the seminars are fun..get to meet great people

I also did 2 two year tours in VISTA here in the states.

I am not familiar with VISTA.

A kid I grew up with, Walter Porier, served in the Peace Corps in Bolivia, and disappeared without a trace, several years ago.

And the fault was largely that of the Peace Corps staff on the ground. Walter's supervisor, who was supposed to be keeping tabs on him while he travelled alone between rural Bolivian communiites, failed to notice when Walter went missing, but then lied to investigators for six months about the last place he had hard knowledge of him having been. Those lies destroyed any chance of finding out what happened to Walter. To this day we don't know what happened.

Walter's not the only one who's died or had something bad happen to him while in the Peace Corps. The fundamental idea of having green-behind-the-ears Americans go to remote places in countries wracked by violence, natural disasters and with poor infrastructure, and then have them travelling ALONE, defies any kind of common sense.

And for what. Peace Corps projects are frankly notorious for failing to produce lasting results (though some good work does come of it).

Just, please, please, make sure you know exactly what you're getting yourself into before you head off to the back of nowhere for 2 years.