Anyone here ever worked with The Peace Corps?

I'm filling out an application and was wondering if anyone had any valuable perspectives to share.

Thanks in advance!

DU'er YOY was also in the Peace Corps, also in Thailand

What kind of perspectives would you like?

Do you want the story of me and my wife (then GF) being held by the Khmer Rouge?

...but they would obviously be skewed towards the positive. So I'm looking for real life examples of Peace Corps service that I can use to form an opinion.

Every day was different, and sometimes the craziest things happened.

Hard to sum it up in 100 words or less.

Learning the language is a big stumbling block for many. If you just don't do languages that well, request an English speaking country.

Also, experiences differ from country to country, from assignment to assignment. My wife taught English, and I did Health Education and HIV Prevention. Even though we only lived 2 hours from each other, each of us had a different experience. My wife lived in a traditional Thai house, no running water and all kinds of critters living inside (rats, scorpions, huge lizards, etc) whereas I lived in the Provincial Capital, in a townhouse that looked like something you'd find here.

Yindee ti rujack


Pom u muangthai tangtee 1978 tung 1994

Sabai dee!

Among eleven volunteers kicked out by the U.S. ambassador for anti-war work, reinstated (after a sit-in by most Panama volunteers at the national office), then the entire Peace Corps kicked out. Didn't trust that Peace Corps information was not accessible by the CIA, so filed reports that didn't even identify my site, much less what it was like. It was a blast.

We were told the CIA would have a file on each of us and that we would probably be approached by CIA people/spies and if we had concerns about ANYONE, to contact our supervisors right away.

I joined first in '76, straight out of college. Had the choice of Tehran or Nicaragua. I decided I needed a couple yrs working first.

Then I joined in '80 and was going to go to Liberia, but they fired the whole lot of us nurses while at a week long training thing. Some odd reason like we were not supposed to think for ourselves, but just be in parts of Liberia that hadn't had USAnians yet, get them used to us. For this they recruited nurses, then fired us before going out of country.

My record of where I would get assigned is rather frightening, looking back on the fact that all 3 places had uprisings within a yr of when I'd go.

was one of my grandparents' best friends for over 50 years. She worked closely with Sargent Shriver and went to Afghanistan and Pakistan in the early days, and visited us in Japan on one of those trips.

She was raised Mennonite, so the Peace Corps owes its existence in a way to the Anabaptists.


Pauline passed away last year. She had as full and rich a life (and as fulfilling) as a person could hope for. RIP.
http://www.gvnews.com/articles/2008/08/27/obituaries/obits02.txt

the UN also has a volunteer arm, I would suggest UNHCR

also I worked for this organization 20 years ago

http://www.iom.int/jahia/jsp/index.jsp


I think that you will have more interesting experiences and if you have an interest you could use that to get a job in the UN.

edited to add

http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/about-iom/recruitment/united-nations-volunteers