The Qualifications of a Peace Corps Volunteer

To become a Peace Corps Volunteer, a candidate needs to have certain qualifications.  These qualifications, at times, seem to me to be more like prerequisites and Peace Corps can seem like a continuation of my education.  I'll explain this later though.

My qualifications at the time of my application were that I had graduated with a bachelor's of science degree in Environmental Science and a specialization in International Agriculture.

Charlie went to college for psychology.  In the Peace Corps she's a public health volunteer where she works to prevent HIV / AIDS, malaria, and many other diseases and viruses faced in this part of the world.

Also, I’d been to Africa twice before, once as an intern on a wildlife ranch in Kenya, and I had even studied an African language for a year in college. Then after college I worked for a natural resource managing agency in Arizona. I thought I had the right stuff for this job -- on paper at least.

Currently, there are around 8,100 Peace Corps Volunteers serving in 76 countries, all of them featuring different skill sets and abilities. And although I’m sure most of them are very talented, I’m sure that none are 100 percent qualified for every aspect of this job.

Sometimes I think I went to school to be an agriculture volunteer in the Peace Corps.  However, my work ranges over a lot of subjects - a 100 years of college would not prepare someone for life in the Peace Corps.

You see, the job of a Peace Corps Volunteer is vast and diverse. One day I may teach a group of women about gardening; another day I’ll assist in the writing of a grant proposal; the next day I’ll plant some trees with kids, and the day after that I’ll go to the local health clinic and talk about malaria prevention. Work diversity is a main component of this job.

I once heard a volunteer that left early from Peace Corps Zambia say that he was overqualified for his job. Maybe for one aspect of it that was true. But for all? There’s just no way.

Because the work here is so diverse and widespread, all volunteers go through three months of training as soon as we come into Zambia. The training is half linguistics, half technical training (think of it as a crash course in forestry, gardening, and agronomy). And this is what I mean by a continuation of our education.

After this, we’re sent out with our prior experiences and education, our newly acquired knowledge, an armful of manuals and a whole bunch of ambition.

Throughout the two years of service, I’ll attend more trainings and receive even more education in areas like HIV/AIDS prevention, appropriate technologies, increased agricultural production and even how to facilitate meetings more efficiently.

Ryan went graduated with a degree in business.  Now in the Peace Corps he teaches how to build, maintain, and harvest fish farms. 

Yet the one resource that is most relied upon by myself are the other volunteers. There’s a vast cache of knowledge to be found in other volunteers and the Peace Corps’ staff. So while I may be a jack of all trades, more or less, somewhere, not too far from me, is an expert that can be called upon to offer advice and assistance when needed, and that’s an enormous benefit.

This April I’ll be returning to the place where I first trained as a trainee, but this time as a trainer. I’ll be doing my best to share what I’ve learned in my first year of service and give any advice that may be sought out.

Talking to a new trainee, Ryeon, about some of my experiences in my first year of the Peace Corps.

All in all, this job and its work (both development and cultural sharing) is a lot like building a house. We come to the job site with a box of tools, we’re given more and our colleagues have even more still.

It doesn’t matter which tools we use, but in the end what we’re after is that there stands a strong house, or in my case, that I leave my Zambian community better than I found it.

Training can teach trainees like these 4 a lot about what life may or may not be like in Zambia, as well as the types of technical knowledge they'll be expected to share, but nothing can fully prepare anyone for life in a small African village.

In Praise of the Women of Zambia

I have learned this so far in my first year of Peace Corps service. Although I think I have known it for a long time (maybe forever), women do an awful lot.

I assume anywhere in the world a person goes they are sure to come across women working as hard, if not harder, than the men. And my little African village is no different. Women here work exceptionally hard.

Women walk for miles with firewood, produce from the field, and even water on their heads.  Their daily chores are incredibly tiresome, but they complete their work without hesitation.

From sunrise to sunset, with little to no rest in between, all women — young and old, single and married, pregnant or not — work hard. They do the laundry, wash the dishes, make the meals and go for water from a well that may or may not be nearby.

When they aren’t working around the house then they can be found right there beside the men working in the fields: planting, fertilizing, weeding and harvesting. And all of these tasks are done while they are taking care of children, sometimes with one strapped to their back via a sling like cloth.

Even if they have a young child the women can be found working in the fields, cooking meals, and laboring away day after day.

I never stop being amazed at how physically and emotionally strong these women are. I get my own water from the well, but after I get it I am exhausted, and I don’t even carry it on my head.

There are some days when just the thought of getting that water is enough to cause me to put it off until the next morning. I’m not being lazy; honestly, it’s dread.

But these women in my village never stop because they can’t afford to. They’re the glue that holds each family and community together.  They truly keep it functioning.

These women work together everyday to farm about four acres of maize (corn), beans, and sweet potatoes.  They have one of the best fields in the entire community.

Aside from carrying water from the well, the village ladies do other things that make me feel like a little, powerless, inept man.

When I go to start my brazier for cooking dinner, I always go to my nearest neighbor for some hot coals. Instead of using tongs to pick up this glowing ember, she just reaches into the fire, pulls one out and places it into the brazier. Notice I said places it, not tosses it.

To get these coals, the women carry huge loads of firewood for miles from the forest to the village — all on their heads or in their arms.

Anytime that I can pass on knowledge to locals is a great opportunity for me to help make someone's life better.  Here, I'm showing a women's group how to prepare better garden beds for vegetable production.

These are all impressive feats, but the one activity that awes me the most is when I work side by side with them in a field or garden. Holding a five to seven-pound hoe, these women will cultivate the soil for hours on end. And long after I call it quits from exhaustion and blistered, bleeding hands, they keep toiling away.

Recently I heard on the radio that Hillary Clinton was giving a speech in Afghanistan and asked how Afghanistan was ever going to develop if only half of the population was empowered to do so. I couldn’t agree more, but in my case it’s Zambia and not Afghanistan.

A much larger emphasis is placed here on educating boys than girls, so in general the boys grow into more educated men, while the women fall behind in their education. And that leads to a lesser social status.

This is never clearer than at public meetings when women defer to men, even in regard to women-focused topics like prenatal health.

Things are better now for women than they were 10, 15 or 20 years ago, but there is still room for improvement and equality.

One of the more difficult tasks that women take on is separating kernels of maize from the cob.  This is done by beating  the cobs with poles, which causes the separation.

And while living here in this tiny village I look around and those doing some of the most laborious, backbreaking work (the work that must be done) are women — some as young as 9 or 10 and some well into their 80s.

Although it is frustrating to see the unfair treatment of women in many areas, its also very reassuring to realize that to make the greatest change, the most dramatic change, it all starts with women.

I don’t have to look very far to find a group that can have an impact and lasting effect on the surrounding community — by working with them I’m reaching far more people, generations and bringing about positive societal change. Simply put, women are the soul, the backbone and the caretakers of this community.

Note: This article was originally printed in the Battle Creek Enquirer on February 17, 2013.  I wanted to show more pictures of women that I work with, so I decided to upload the article and additional photos onto the blog. 

Integration Into A Community

Integrating into a community isn't all that easy to do.  Especially as an American into an African village.   As you can imagine, a lot is different: the language, cultural norms, gender roles, community structure and so on.  It's not done overnight or even in one month.

Peace Corps has myself and other volunteers fill out quarterly reports about the work that we're doing, stories of successful and failed projects, and how we're doing at our site in general.  There's always one question on there about how integrated we feel.  Usually I enter that I feel "integrated."  Not "fully integrated" or "somewhat integrated" or even "not integrated."  Just "integrated."

Community integration is difficult to obtain, but getting it makes a world of difference.

However my answer has now changed.  That happened in January when after a very successful nutrition program in my village the headman's wife, Mrs. Fubisha (she's also my favorite women in the village), told all those in attendance that to her I was her first born.  Meaning that she considered me to be not only her child, but also her eldest child - an honor in Zambian culture. 

I've always shied away from saying anyone here was a family member of mine, not because I don't like them, but out of respect to my incredible family in the United States.  But, her comment meant the world to me, and if anyone here, in this country, would be considered a mother to me it would no doubt be her.  

The amazing Mrs. Fubisha.  If it isn't obvious, she's the one sitting down, looking unimpressed, with a child strapped to her back.  She's an amazing, amazing woman.

At the end of March when I fill out my next quarterly report and mark "fully integrated," it will be because I'm not an outsider in this community anymore.  I'm the first born of an amazing Zambian woman.  

Kasongo and the Broken Shoe

One year ago I bought some shoes for my impending departure to Zambia.  I bought Merrell sandals that looked like shoes.  They had the Vibram soles and everything.  I thought they would last a long time. 

Maybe it's the miles I've walked, poor construction, a year of use, or the African terrain, but they weren't going to make it much longer. 

That was until Kasongo Fubisha, my neighbor, saw them in need of repair and told me that he could fix them.  I gave him the shoe, not expecting much, and he proceeded to start putting them back together.  I gave him the shoe not expecting much, but when he returned it less than thirty minutes later it was good as new.  All he used was about 25 minutes, some pieces of string, a piece of metal to push the string, and another with a hooked end to pull it out the other side. 

I am not joking when I say that the craftsmanship was good too.  Two and a half weeks later and the mends are still strong, still binding my sole to the shoe, and I don't have to get new shoes now.  

The two things I learned from this were that no shoes can last in Africa, and a villager with minimal supplies and / or tools can right all the wrongs of a broken shoe in under thirty minutes.