The Peace Corps Dead

Bring out yer dead, bring out yer dead!

I'm not dead.

'Ere, he says he's not dead.

Yes he is. 

- Monty Python and the Holy Grail

It's not an easy thing making an entirely new set of friends, having that set added to and taken away from - constantly evolving and shifting people in one's life.  After nearly three years of hellos, goodbyes, and the comings and goings of really great people I'm glad my time is soon coming to an end... when I too will be "Peace Corps dead."

I don't know who first coined the term "Peace Corps dead," but it's absolutely perfect.  Here, in Peace Corps, we're all in our own world and all we really know is Peace Corps.  What you're like before Peace Corps or what you'll end up like after Peace Corps is completely irrelevant.  You're judged and accepted by what you've done here, how you acted here, and how others view those actions (sometimes with very little information to go on).  Then one day you're gone... it's like you've died.  And effectively you have, because you're no longer a part of the Peace Corps world, the Peace Corps' sphere of existence.

Ring-out ceremonies are big in the Peace Corps.  It's like a wake.  People come, talk about you and why you were a good volunteer and an even better person.  Then when it's your time you can give a last speech, like a eulogy, and off you go.  It's suddenly over - but having a last ceremony is a really nice way to officially close the whole thing out.

When it comes time to say goodbye to friends made here I've noticed the majority of people say goodbye to one another like they'll see each other again, but I think most know they won't.  In some ways it's like a summer camp mentality - "Yes, of course we'll stay in contact!  What would I do without you?"  You just keep going on, that's what you do.

It gets hard after three years of goodbyes to keep up the appearance of "Oh, yeah, we'll still be friends."  I've learned it is better to quickly say goodbye and be done with it.  Get it over quickly.  Move on to the next thing.

Stephanie and Maeve saying goodbye to their boss, Helen, at their ring-out ceremony.

I have a group of about 10 names of people I'll try to keep in contact with and I'm sure with time that number will shrink to an even smaller group.  The group that I plan on actually seeing (physically traveling to) after Peace Corps is even smaller still - to be honest... maybe five?

I'm realistic and pragmatic.  What I'm going on to next is a new chapter and that chapter is going to have entirely different characters, hopefully some reoccurring from the the chapters before, but largely they'll all be new and entirely different. 

My group (Lauren, Caleb, myself, Hannah, and Tex Loewen) with our supervisors (Sally-Rose, Henry, and Donald) after our ring-out ceremony at the Peace Corps Zambia headquarters in Lusaka.  As a parting gift we bought and planted a small grapefruit tree as a kind of reminder that we are still around... even if we're Peace Corps dead.

While I hope all of those that I've gotten to know and befriend go on to long, productive, and meaningful lives I also know that their life's trajectory is very different than that of my own.  Although they're not necessarily dead, they're moving on and they're Peace Corps dead - same as me - which really isn't a bad thing at all.  It simply means that you came, you did, and you went.  It's from one chapter and on to the next... luckily this last chapter was glorious - even if it leaves us all dead.

The Three Kinds of Hunger... and They All Suck

There are three kinds of food insecurity seen around the world: chronic, seasonal, and transitory.  Each feels the same around mealtime; yet each is caused by different conditions, different difficulties, and lasts for different amounts of time.  And, in short, they all suck.

Chronic food insecurity is defined as extended periods of poverty, asset scarcity, and inadequate access to productive or financial resources. 

Over a long duration of time if people don't have access to food, money to buy food, or assets to trade for food then they fall within the realm of chronic food insecurity.  I think of this as people living in Somalia or Ethiopia (I always remember seeing TIME magazines from the 90s with these places on the cover) or some place where people have been suffering and starving for a long time.  Although, chronic food insecurity can certainly be found in the Western world as well.

Seasonal food insecurity is defined as falling between chronic and transitory food insecurity.  It's similar to chronic food insecurity in that it is predictable and follows known sequences of events and is recurrent.  It's similar to transitory food insecurity because of its limited duration.

A local market in Mongu, Zambia, where many people will go to buy seasonal fruits and vegetables.  In times of hunger having extra spending money can make an enormous difference between going hungry and getting a good meal or two in each day.

Seasonal food insecurity is huge in Zambia.  There's an entire time of the year dedicated to it... the hunger season (clever name, eh?).  This time of the year is typically from November to February - the same time of year when the crops (maize, beans, etc.) are just being planted, but the gardens have finished producing much of their harvest for the year.  During this time 3 meals a day recedes to 2, then down to 1 and sometimes none.  It's a really hard, crappy, sucky time of year for the food insecure.

Water shortages brought on during the driest times of the year (September and October, just before the hunger season) also can limit food production and create hunger.

Transitory food insecurity is described as being relatively unpredictable and can emerge suddenly; without warning.

Think "act of God" in regards to this one.  Transitory food insecurity is often the result of a massive shakeup from something like a natural disaster.  Boom!  Storm hits and food reserves drop off.  People are forced to flee their homes, crops, and known surroundings.  Right now, this is a huge issue in the Middle East with food insecurity being brought on by wars in Syria, Iraq, and other conflict zones.

In short, all three types of food insecurity are terrible, with chronic taking the cake.  It's awful to be hungry but to be chronically hungry leads to malnutrition and a wealth of other destabilizing issues for a community.

Little dudes like this aren't too often seen in the village.  He's good sized, maybe even a bit chubby, but incredibly healthy.

The Peace Corps and Marriage

Everyone comes to Zambia looking for something.  Some look to help their fellow man; some to make money; some - like me - to experience something new and different.  And then there are others that come looking for love.

What a romantic notion, right? Going off to a foreign land in search of a hus­band or wife. Most don’t come here with that sole intention, but it does happen and I doubt they would say they wish it hadn’t.



Every group, or “intake,” of Peace Corps Volunteers (usually about 30) has at least one of their own find love and a life of happiness with a Zambian man or woman.



Here’s proof that love and the Peace Corps go together: Tom Hanks met his wife Rita Wilson while filming the movie Volunteers, a movie about two young Peace Corps Volunteers serving in Southeast Asia. I think that sets the standard pretty high for the rest of us volunteers.



No doubt love at first sight, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson met while portraying Peace Corps Volunteers based in Southeast Asia.

Anyway, I would picture a place more like the French countryside, a beach in Tahiti or even one of those cheap mar­riage chapels in Las Vegas to be more conducive to love than a small village in rural Zambia. But then again it seems to often fit the bill.



And why shouldn’t it? As a whole, Zambians are a very attractive people, they’re incredibly friendly and although it isn’t a white sandy beach with palm trees swaying nearby, a village is as exotic a locale as any other destination.



Chris and Lauren met during her first few months in the Peace Corps and haven't looked back since.  Love and the Peace Corps, sometimes, go together perfectly.

But before I continue on with volunteers being in love, I should first talk about local love — village relationships.  Most rural marriages aren’t for love. They’re more for convenience and a working partnership (in my opinion). The woman has her gender-specific roles that she’s in charge of carrying out: bearing children, cooking food, laundry and other household duties. Comparatively, the man is in charge of things like caring for the animals, planting and maintaining the fields among other more male-specific chores.



As far as love as we know it, villagers don’t exactly go all out on Valentine’s Day for their significant others, or any day for that matter. Love and romance aren’t synonymous with marriage by any means, and in the local language of my area there isn’t even a word for love. Their word “nakutemwa” means, “I like you.”  No love, just like.

Similar to other African cultures, most tribes in Zambia use a dowry system for acquiring a wife. The price increases based on the potential bride’s viewed worth.



With assistance by my best buddy, Caleb, and a computer for sound Lauren and Chris dance at their wedding in April 2015.  The wedding was in the middle of the forest and though there were plans to have an actual sound system there, a number of things came together to prevent that from happening - namely the fact that the ceremony was in the African forest.

The happy couple, post-ceremony, posing with some of Chris' family / Lauren's new family.

For example, if she comes from a respected family, has finished high school and/or does not have children by the time of the marriage, then her family can command a higher price.



When the actual marriage does occur, it’s very different from the American version.
 In the days leading up to the ceremony the bride and groom are kept apart. The bride-to-be will attend a cere­mony called a “kitchen party” where she’ll be taught how to be a good wife, both by properly doing house chores and how to please her new husband (oh-la-la!). As well, the groom enjoys a long bachelor’s party.



Then the ceremony is held, everyone is dressed up and they’re married. My favorite oddity of the local wedding has nothing to do with the ceremony, it has to do with the couple’s photo together — they never smile. Of all the Zambian wedding photos I’ve seen there never once is a smile, just a 1,000-yard stare to the side of the camera.



Even volunteers pay a dowry when they marry a Zambian. My friend Jesse Crikelair was married to a wonderful Zambian woman by the name of Jose­phine Lwabila in 2013, and following traditional custom Jesse had to pay a dowry of about $1,000.



Not very uncommon... volunteers and locals do get hitched on occasion.  In nearly every group of incoming volunteers to Zambia there will be one or two Americans that marry a local man or woman.

Jesse and Josephine at their wedding.  Currently they're living in Philadelphia and enjoying their lives together.

While many of us will leave Zambia with scars to our legs and maybe even the odd parasite, other volunteers will leave with a husband or a wife. And if finding love in the Peace Corps was good enough for Tom Hanks, then it should be good enough for all of us.

USAID's Branding Issue

Look hard enough in a public clinic anywhere in sub-Saharan Africa and you're sure to find a flyer, maybe a piece of cloth, or a cardboard box with the acronym USAID printed on it somewhere and an emblem of two hands shaking with the tagline "From the American People" below it.  That's because USAID and it's budget in excess of a billion dollars means that USAID, and by proxy the American people, is nearly everywhere and nearly everywhere all of the time.  Whether it's in clinics, schools, immigration offices, or a multitude of other places, USAID - through it's assistance programs to varying countries - is in nearly every aspect of a person's life (at least in Zambia).

A bicycle from my time down in Zambia's Southern Province.  Purchased with USAID money and distributed by my organization to a local farmer.

But, I don't think Americans really fully comprehend how big of an organization USAID is, how broad its reach is, or what its impact really is.  I know I didn't.  I had heard of USAID, but I had no idea that most (if not all) of the drugs used by HIV/AIDS patients here in Zambia are provided through USAID funds.  Or that USAID is funding the rebuilding of war-torn Afghanistan (from roads to government ministries).  In nearly every country USAID is hard at work.

In the village I received 50 mosquito net that were purchased with USAID money and given to the local Zambian Ministry of Health clinic for distribution.  I then distributed them to my neighbors for use in their houses.

Aside from the small stickers and fliers strewn across the country announcing this building, that box, and those medicine containers as being given by the American taxpayer, there really isn't all that much in the way of branding.  Yes, the logo is seen but I don't think people really understand what it's showing... that that product is a direct investment in this country or that country from the people of the United States.

It should be a point of pride for we Americans.  We're helping in the most remote corners of the world by supplying needed goods and capital, yet we seldom hear about his good work.  To me, it seems like a serious branding issue.  It's probably my American side feeling like this could be marketed better, and maybe Zambians aren't the right target for my proposed self-induced praise, but I think Americans should at least know what they're doing, what they're funding.  It's important work and who doesn't think important work shouldn't be praised?

The Cost of Food and Food Security

In the United States, the average family spends between 7 to 10% of their household income on food.  We seldom grow our own food as a family unit (less than 2% of the American population is directly involved in agriculture - the growing of food on a farm or ranch), so we buy it.  In Europe, this percentage grows slightly to a number around 12 - 18% of a family’s income being designated for food.  

Care to guess the percentage in the “developing world?”  Think: what do people throughout South America, Asia, Africa, and other less well-to-do regions of the world pay in order to feed themselves.  And more specifically, what do the poorest of the poor spend on their food (those people on only a couple of acres of land)?

The costs lie somewhere in between 50% to 80%.  That means over half, sometimes as much as 8 out of 10 dollars, of a household’s income is spent on food in these areas – either through buying the food or through producing it themselves.  As my Peace Corps supervisor Donald Phiri says, “How can we begin to talk about saving money, when it is nearly all being spent on food?”  We can’t.  This cost has to come down, yet it doesn’t seem like it will anytime soon.

Roadside stands (just made up of small scraps of wood) serve as selling points for locally grown foods.  Here, men buy bananas and sweet potatoes from women.

World-wide there is plenty of food being grown to feed the rich and the poor alike.  The World Health Organization recommends that the average human should consume 2,100 calories per day.  World food production is something more near 2,800 calories per day – we could all be fat.  The issue is unequal and inadequate distribution: bad roads, bad policies, short shelf-life, etc.  Imagine all of the logistics, infrastructure, and time needed to ship food to the furthest, most in need corners of the world.   Somalia?  No way… they’ve got pirates and land-loving crazies to deal with.  Some tiny village in Cambodia?  I don’t think so.  Djibouti?  Probably not - where is that on a map?  Zambia?  Nope, they had a hard enough time delivering ballot boxes during this past election.  

This lack of transportation and distribution means the gaps need to be filled by local farmers.  That's not always easily done.

When the price of food is high there is hunger, and equally when the price of producing food is high there is hunger.  Poverty and its offspring called hunger are vicious and it’s tough for the poorest of the poor, the most in need to break their grip.

Small, impromptu markets like this can be found all over Zambia.  They're mostly made up of seasonal fruits and vegetables.

One report from 2009 stated that the bottom 20% of Zambian farmers - the poorest of the poor - spend nearly 30% above the market price of a bag of maize to produce that maize.  For example, if a 50 kilogram (just over 100 lbs.) bag of maize is bought at about $10 per bag, these farmers were spending nearly $13.5 per bag to produce that maize.  How is that even possible?  I’m not entirely sure.  Whether they’re going to sell it or consume it themselves the cost is ridiculously high.

Hunger is an incredibly dynamic issue with a lot of drivers causing it to cling to life, instead of languishing where everyone sincerely hopes it’ll end up. 

The cost of food security and alleviating hunger at the local level is different from community to community and family to family, but one thing is certain for all involved parties - it's expensive and it seems unlikely to become cheaper anytime soon.  

With such a high cost to the poorest of the poor to feed themselves it makes future upwards movement from one social class to another (subsistence farmer to emerging farmer and so on) nearly impossible.  A family has little to no expendable income to spend on investments, post-secondary school, or other life-improving means.  The cost of food and food security is spectacularly skewed against the poorest of the poor and the most hungry.  

How to solve this?  I don't know.  Whatever the solution is must involve bringing that 50 - 80% of income down to a more manageable and realistic rate... anything less than that just won't work.

The Kwacha, The Peace Corps, and My Rising Debt

Peace Corps is a volunteer organization and I never lose sight of that, however just because Volunteer is in my title, doesn't mean that I don't constantly consider and think about what I get paid... excuse me, what my "volunteer living allowance" is.

Currently my allowance is roughly 2,500 Zambian Kwacha per month for my serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer.  That's not a lot of money and with current exchange rates (7.3 Zambian Kwacha to one US Dollar) that is about the equivalent of $342 per month, plus or minus a few pennies - sometimes a few dollars.  Again, that's for the ENTIRE month.

This screen shot shows the Kwacha over the past few weeks.  The spike is when the Kwacha was tumbling.  It's come down a bit since, but it's still far removed from the better exchange rate that was in place when I first came to Zambia (K4.9 to $1).

When I first started as a Peace Corps Volunteer in 2012 things were very different.  We didn't get paid as much as we do now.*  At the time I was paid the regular volunteer rate of something like 1,500 Kwacha per month, except at that time the Kwacha was very different - there were multiple zeroes at the end.  We were paid 1,500,000 per month and it will surely be the only time in my lifetime that I'll make over a million per month.  That all changed on Jan. 1, 2013, when the Zambian government dropped three zeros and I went from being a millionaire to making less than two thousand per month.  

But also at this time the exchange rate from Zambian Kwacha to American Dollars was vastly different.  The going rate was something like 4.9 Kwacha for one United States Dollar - a greenback.  I was doing okay.  I was making $50 less than I do now, but with a lack of things to spend money on in the village I was putting a lot of it away.  (Although I still managed to run out of money twice, and it wasn't until I learned to live within a budget in a foreign country was I then able to actually save my money and live like an adult should, which - to me - meant saving that extra money for vacations).

Time has passed, my job has changed, the Kwacha has dropped, and I'm getting paid 1,000 extra Kwacha per month.  As a third year extension volunteer I now live in a city, and that allows Peace Corps to make my stipend a bit larger as I have "urbanized" expenses, but the Kwacha keeps dropping so I really don't get to enjoy the extra money in its entirety.

It used to be that a stack of cash like this was a good bit of money.  My, oh my, how times have changed with the dropping Kwacha.

Now, the Kwacha is trading at about 7.3 to 1, and there doesn't seem to be any real relief or good news on the horizon, so even though I make more - I don't make so much more.  Does that make sense?  I hope so.

With student loans coming due and their holding companies wanting to know where their money is I think it's a good thing that Peace Corps will be ending sooner rather than later, as I don't think I can run away from my loans any further than I already have to Zambia.  And if I stay here much longer the Kwacha may continue its free fall, which - it turns out - is not fun for all.

*I am paid more now because of my new position that has me placed in Lusaka (the capital).  Things are expensive here, so to survive I'm paid slightly more.  Additionally, Peace Corps has adjusted our pay a time or two since 2012, mainly due to shifts in the price of living and the fall of the Kwacha on international currency exchange markets.  It's all very complicated, or so I'm told, and I only understand parts of it - but that's effectively the reason for an increase in pay over my three years.