This is not a unique question. It is a
topic that has been debated amongst the volunteer blog universe as well as in scholarly articles. One of the reasons I joined Peace Corps was to
investigate the world of development work. I knew Peace Corps had its array of
critics and champions (friends of mine for instance) and I wanted to learn for
myself practical applications of several theories of development to discover what worked and what did not.
My initial experience working in development
was through a fellowship program in India. This experience taught me the
obvious: I knew very little about development work, and the learning curve
would be much steeper for me than perhaps some of my
more experienced peers. This inevitably put me into a state of shock and confusion and led to frustration and some anxiety (this last reaction may also have been attributed to the colonies of rabid dogs populating the streets). At around the midpoint of my time in
India, I started to doubt whether foreigners even had a place in the
development sector. My thoughts seemed justified, as Indians know what is
better for Indians than expats who don’t speak the language or have a clear
understanding of the culture. I worked for an Indian grassroots advocacy and
human rights organization that was striving to improve the lives of
marginalized Indians. I was confused where I fit in aiding in the advancement
of their mission. However, the second half of my experience in India granted me
new insight to how building relationships and effective communication between
different cultures can set an excellent primer for further exploration in
social justice and development work. I probably learned more from my experience
in India than what I offered to my Indian counterparts. The experience was
highly inspiring and humbling. It took me nearly a year to even begin to
understand some of the cultural nuances and rarities encompassing India’s
diverse ecosystem of inhabitants. I finished
my work energized, wanting more time to discover if a year of relative cultural
awareness ingrained in my psyche could stimulate an ability to give back to my
community and accomplish some tangible work.
Thus, began the notion of The Peace Corps,
a two-year experience working in a developing country. The first year to be
dedicated to learning about the culture and needs of my site, and the second
spent using what I had learned in the previous year to facilitate projects that
would help my community. At this
point I have spent nearly as much time working in Nicaragua as I had in India,
and I am honestly no closer to understanding development than when I stepped
off the plane 10 months ago into the thickness of Managua’s night heat. During
the training component of service we receive very little information regarding
theories in development practice. To date we have probably been exposed to one charla
regarding approaches in development (PACA tools), which is in my opinion is not
enough to sustain our efforts for two years. I realize that theory is not the
only solution to understanding an issue, but a base knowledge of development is
necessary to prepare one for hands-on experience in the field. Not once have we
ever had the opportunity to reflect as a group on our work efforts to examine
what has been successful or destructive with regards to development work. It
seems The Peace Corps has chosen to create a training model that leaves no room
to allow its volunteers to examine its effectiveness. Despite this, there are
some things, which are certain: my Spanish has greatly improved, I have a
greater understanding of Nicaraguan culture, and I have built some strong
relationships. However, I am still unsure if this is enough to aid me in
successful development efforts. A few months back I came across the article
written by a former Peace Corps volunteer and country director Robert L.
Strauss in Foreign Policy, which highlights and disputes some of
the many supposed misconceptions surrounding The Peace Corps purpose and
mission. While some of his opinions surrounding the matter may be debatable,
there was a specific claim, which resonated with my frustrations regarding The
Peace Corps role in development:
“ The reason the
Peace Corps is overlooked as a development organization has a lot to do with
the youth and inexperience of the majority of its volunteers. Equally important
is its unwillingness to decide if it is a development organization or an
organization with a mission to promote world peace and friendship, as
stipulated by Congress in the Peace Corps Act. It would like to be both, but
finds itself falling short on both objectives because it cannot decide which is
the more important.”
While I agree partly with the first portion of Strauss’s
statement, that the majority of the Peace Corps volunteers are recent college graduates with very little experience, I do not believe
this is the main contributor to perhaps the organization’s failures as a
development organization. It is Strauss’s second point that I believe
adequately explains The Peace Corps major flaw in its attempts to make a contributable
dent in the development world. As
a volunteer who tries to both integrate into my community and do meaningful
work, I can fully relate to the idea that The Peace Corps is confused as to in
which areas of its goals one should spend most of his or her time. I believe
that most people underestimate the efforts it takes to get to know one’s community
and build relationships (you can read my many blog posts on this), but it
really is a full time job. If I spend all my time integrating it will
inevitably keep me from doing North American defined productive work, which is
ultimately what will get hospitals, water systems, schools and other forms of
infrastructural necessities built.
The opposite is also true. If one
spends too much time trying to create projects, cultural exchange opportunities will be missed. I recently experienced this notion through my
efforts to apply for a grant to support the development of an arts health
education camp I hope to implement in a rural community in December. The camp
aims to educate adolescents ages 15+ about HIV/AIDS prevention and other
healthy lifestyle practices through the medium of different art forms (music,
dance, theater etc.) and will last approximately 3 days. The planning behind
this event has forced me to lock myself in my house for countless hours to
write (and re-write) an application that would fund my activity. This has left me at times feeling
extremely guilty for shutting myself out from my community. However, it also
makes me question if my failure to work on strengthening my connections with
community members matters if the intentions of my work are good and may
ultimately prevent youth from making poor life decisions?
Finding
the balance between The Peace Corps goals of cultural exchange and assisting
communities with technical work is extremely challenging. Strauss further
emphasizes this by claiming The Peace Corps is “…a schizophrenic entity, unsure if it is a development organization, a
cheerleader for international goodwill, or a government-sponsored
cross-cultural exchange program.” I am unclear whether the mixture of cultural integration and
vocational capacity building are the perfect ingredients to implement
successful development work. Perhaps, as Strauss comments, the combination of
elements does more to set the organization off balance, and thus little can be
accomplished. Or, maybe two years isn’t long enough, as both aspects of Peace
Corps objectives require a volunteer to be exclusively involved in one or the
other to obtain complete success in either area.
If
anything, this experience is another foundation to prepare me to take on the
challenges that I will continue to face as I navigate the intertwining of an
international and domestic lifestyle. Perhaps it is selfish, but I recognize
that while I am invested in immersing myself in a different culture, at the
same time I learning a lot about myself and gaining important life skills that
will guide me to future achievement. In many ways, this is what makes my Peace
Corps service extremely invigorating and valuable. This
also makes me believe that my original thoughts on development might be
correct. Perhaps the best development workers are those making efforts in their
home country. Yet, it would be highly irrelevant to compare development work in
India to Nicaragua. On a personal level, I feel that my progress towards
integration into Nicaraguan culture has been much smoother than the efforts it
took to assimilate into an Indian environment. This is largely contributed to
the fact that Nicaragua has more cultural ties to the US than India due to
geographical distance and historical influence. Perhaps the level of foreign
involvement in development work in another country depends on cultural
similarities between the host country and the outsiders who have chosen to invest their time and energy into development. A
universal thread I have discovered between both my time in India and Nicaragua
is that as a foreigner, regardless of my cultural background, I have a role to perhaps
stimulate the general process of sustainable development work. Thus, I have
high hopes that the altruistic and curious spirit I model in my site can
motivate some Nicaraguans to embody this character to work to improve their
country after my departure.
