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Peace Corps Response Volunteers with Country Director next to me and US Ambassador to Liberia to her left.
Church
Giving Money Makes Them Dance
By Joel Robbins
I have attended churches in such diverse places as Breckenridge, Colorado; Christchurch, New Zealand; Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia; Latiboliere, Haiti; Alice Springs, Australia; three churches in Liberia--one in Kakata and two in Gbarnga-- and temples or mosques in Istanbul, Turkey; Lhasa, Tibet; Bangkok, Thailand; Sheki, Azerbaijan; and Beijing, China.. The three churches in Liberia were attended during my one-month stay in country as a Peace Corps Response Volunteer.
When I travel I like to visit churches. It’s something that keeps me attached to my spiritual life at home while learning about another culture. I chose the church in Kakata because Garret, a Peace Corps Trainee, was living with a host family whose father was a minister. They lived next to the Pentecostal Church of Kakata. Ken, another trainee, joined us for the two-hour service.
The ladies choir started the service by singing and dancing their way from the back of the church to their seats near the altar. It was a high energy African song that gave me chills despite the ninety degree heat. The drum beats seemed to enter my chest and force my heart to beat in rhythm with them. The entire congregation danced or swayed in place.
I Receive Applause and an Amen
Since the pastor was out of town, visitors were welcomed by the lay pastor, who was a teacher at Booker Washington Institute, which was where both the Peace Corps Response and PC Trainees were housed during orientation. Of course, Garret, Ken and I were asked to speak. We each took our turn complimenting Kakata for being good hosts and welcoming us into their community. I gave my thanks and segued into a recitation of my favorite verse from Philippians: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything,” at this point the lay pastor and congregations joined in, “by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving; let your requests be known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Then they clapped and, in unison, proclaimed “amen.”
The hymnals were old ones donated by churches in the States. From them we sang some traditional hymns, “Old rugged Cross,” and “Holy, Holy, Holy.” The youth choir sang another African spiritual, and I couldn’t stand still, but didn’t let myself actually break into dance.
Garret Pokes Me during the Offering
One unusual practice in African Christian churches is having multiple offerings. The exchange rate was seventy Liberian Dollars for every one USD. There are no coins and the lowest bill is five dollars, about seven cents American. It’s easy to have a big wad of bills but little money. I think I put in a 20 dollar bill at the first offering. People left their pews, walked or danced to the front of the church and dropped the money into a basket.
Then there was a song and another offering. Garret was poking me and whispering that he hadn’t brought any money. So I slipped him a ten and he got to dance to the basket too. Another song and some announcements were followed by a third offering, only this time the parade went by rows. Garret was poking me again and I was digging into my pocket money, then I passed him a five dollar bill. We shuffled by the basket in step with the music and made our donations.
Following the sermon, another offering was taken, but this time I just slipped Garret a ten and avoided being poked. All together we probably only contributed one USD each even after two more offerings.
‘Praise the Lord’ and/or ‘Halleluiah’ or ‘God Is Good’
Besides the Pentecostal church, when I got to my assigned site in Gbarnga, I went to a Baptist church and then to a Methodist church. My workplace, a learning resource center, was next to a Methodist compound, which hosted summer camps, a school and a small theological seminary. So one day I walked through the gates to see if I could find the school’s principal. I was led by the security guard to the home of Dr. Yatta Young, the dean of the seminary, and then the principal showed up too. I asked them to encourage their students to use the library and Internet at the learning resource center.
When I was leaving I walked by the church. A gentleman was walking toward me who turned out to be the pastor. I told him I would attend his church the following Sunday, which I did. The service was much like the Pentecostal and Baptist services. A congregation leader periodically calls out, “Praise the Lord,” with the congregation answering, “God is good,” and the leader responds. “God is good,” followed by everyone saying, “Praise the Lord.” Sometimes halleluiah is substituted for one or other of the phrases, so I was often saying “God is good” when everyone else was saying “halleluiah.” I’m a slow learner.
Faux Pas Number Two
The second thing that embarrassed me at the Methodist church was my faux pas during the offering. At my house I prepared the Liberian dollars in my pocket for the multiple offerings so that I could divvy out a ten at a time and end up giving a US dollar. My PC walking around money was only three US dollars a day, so seventy Liberian dollars (one USD) was generous. I noticed I had a US quarter on my shelf, so I decided to donate it as a curiosity. Well, I didn’t know they counted the offering during the service and then announce the results of contributions to different funds.
The first count came out something like 305 dollars (Liberian). The second was 1,325 dollars and twenty-five cents. That prompted some giggling and discussion among the congregation because they didn’t say US cents. I don’t know if any fractional coinage still exists in Liberia. If it did it is nearly worthless, but my quarter was worth 18 Liberian dollars. Remember the smallest denomination in Liberian money is five dollars. I hung my head a little as they gave a couple more totals. Then came a grand total: 8,425 dollars AND 25 cents. Followed by more and louder giggling and discussion. I’m too big to crawl under a pew but I tried anyway.
meal
''I'D WALK A MILE FOR A MEAL
By Joel Robbins
For decades RJ Reynolds and Company used “I’d walk mile for a Camel” as their cigarette advertising slogan. Well, while I was in Liberia as a Peace Corps Response Volunteer, I’d say to myself, “I’d walk a mile for a meal.” The truth was I had to walk a mile for a good meal.
During orientation I only had to walk a quarter mile to the restaurant where both Peace Corps Trainees and Response volunteers ate. When I was sworn in and dropped off at my assigned site in Gbarnga, I had to walk a couple of miles to work and a couple of miles another direction to get to a restaurant.
What does a person typically eat in a poor African nation? Well, in Liberia it was pepuh sup and rees, or pepper soup and rice. Most meals start with Maggi(bullion), palm nut oil, garlic and small red and green peppers. Water and mixed meat complete the recipe. Mixed meat means whole chopped up fish, beef, pork, chicken and/or bush meat.
Fish Heads and Beef Gristle
The soup arrives at the table in a bowl and the rice on a plate. Diners dip the meat and soup onto the rice in any proportion they desire. Some of the meat is there more for flavor than eating, because it often was mixed meat, which contained fish heads, bones and tails and gristly beef with bones.
One restaurant, Paulma’s, served excellent beef chunks most days in its pepper soup. Another restaurant, The Ebony, never had any other dish besides pepper soup. Ironically, the waiter/manager was named Paul and we had many good conversations. One day I was craving fried eggs, so I asked Paul if the cook could fry me four eggs for lunch. He said she couldn’t. “What dishes do you have today,” I asked. He replied, “Pepuh sup and rees.”
Ground Beef or Groundhog
Paul then apologized and said the meat wasn’t very good that day. I asked why and he replied it was bush meat. Bush meat means wild game, which could be small deer or groundhog. That day’s meat in the pepper soup was groundhog, so that’s what I ate. It was strong, chewy and almost impossible to swallow.
Since often the pepper soup was so spicy hot it numbed my lips and tongue, I learned to spoon it passed my lips and to the back of my tongue where I swallowed it without chewing. Then I would use warm Club beer to wash it down. Sometimes I drank sugary sodas. To find a diet soda in a third-world country is difficult.
Cassava is also a staple food in Liberia. Although we know cassava because that’s where we get tapioca, Liberians use it to make fufu and cassava sauce for rice. Fufu is made by pulverizing boiled cassava root with a giant wooden mortar and wooden pestle, letting it ferment, then rolling in into pure white balls. A soup is made, then large balls are pinched off the fufu, dipped into the soup and swallowed whole. I chewed mine and found them slightly sour. My son Mason, who served in PC in Haiti, said he ate fufu there, but it was called tometome and made from breadfruit. Western Africans also make fufu from plantain and yams. The cassava leaves are picked and cooked with palm nut oil, Maggi, garlic, onions and peppers to make a vegetable sauce to put on top of rice.
Since the restaurants were so far from my house, I often just settle for street foods. These are simple edibles prepared in the open market places on along the dusty roads. There were pieces of meat on wood skewers, ground nuts(boiled peanuts), roasted corn, fried plantain, small bananas, bitter balls (a fruit), fufu, and pastries. I often would pick up a roasted corn, which was tough field corn. The boiled ground nuts were tasty, but not what I was used to from Planters.
I’d Walk a Mile for Fan Milk
Besides the ubiquitous tiny and inexpensive bananas, in my front yard was a forty-foot pink grapefruit tree. Benedict, a neighbor boy who often came over to play Frisbee, Liberian checkers and cards with me, would heave a rock or pull one of the nine-foot bamboo poles from my fence and knock down a couple for me. They were delicious.
One of the Response Volunteers’ favorite foods was Fan Milk. Two volunteers, Ruthia and Andrea, had served in other African nations, Togo and Zambia, respectively, and introduced us to Fan Milk treats. In a crowded market a man would be pushing an ice cream cart. With all the handmade, home grown and charcoal-cooked foods, a shiny white cart stood out. For forty Liberian Dollars (sixty cents) we could buy a pouch of ice milk that seemed extra cold because Liberia is so hot.
We didn’t walk a mile for a fan milk, but we did lure one Fan Milk vendor to chase us for a quarter of a mile while our packed little taxi maneuvered through the jumble of cars and stalls at the Red Light open markets in Monrovia. We bit off the corners of the bags and sucked out the sweet vanilla crystals, sometimes savoring a painfully wonderful brain-freeze.
Snoring
Try Snoring Through a Burglary
By Joel Robbins
It’s embarrassing, but I snored through a burglary while I was serving as a Peace Corps Response Volunteer in Liberia, Africa. I’m sure the burglars were happy to hear my grizzly impersonation as they stole my pants from my bedroom with me sleeping on the floor next to them.
Living on my own started about a week before the burglary. The organization I was to work with dropped off my suitcase, duffle bag, a shopping bag full of PC material, a mattress and two mosquito nets. The house was probably 1200 sq. ft. and empty. It was the nicest house in the neighborhood--cement block, cement floors, glassless windows and sheet metal roof. There was no running water or electricity, but it did have a bathroom with shower where I could take a bucket bath.
Since the house had no furniture to sit on, Diggs, a helper for the former resident, and I walked into the shopping area and I bought a couple of plastic lawn chairs, two plastic five-gallon jugs and two buckets.
Oh, What I Would Give for a Table and Two Chairs
The next day Diggs showed up at six in the morning to fill all my buckets and jugs. While he was there I ordered two wooden chairs and a table. Diggs is a twenty-something carpenter. I paid him in advance so he could buy the wood and have it planed.
Monday I got the table and Tuesday the two chairs arrived. No sand paper had touched any of the wood, but they were sturdy. On Friday I then ordered a full-sized bed and again paid him in advance. My week working at the learning resource center was productive. I helped set up computer programs, inventory databases, typing tutor software and other technical projects.
The work week ended and I made it through a long, lonely weekend, with mostly neighbor children and Diggs as company. I also visited my third church during my stay in country. Since days are short near the Equator, I went to bed to read at about eight Sunday night and turned off my flashlight at about nine. I heard a loud bang on my steel door. Then I heard another clang. My house had bars on all the windows, plus screening and hardware cloth. Metal doors with steel bolts protected my wooden front and back doors. I waited a while and decided if I didn’t get up and check the front door and porch, I wouldn’t sleep. The jug was still sitting there waiting for Diggs to fill it in the morning and no one was on the porch. So I slept soundly.
Monday morning I woke up, climbed out of the mosquito net and my bed on the floor and went to the bathroom in my shorts. Something didn’t seem right. I looked at my bathroom window and two of the bars were bent and pulled out of the wall on one end; the screen and hardware cloth were torn.
How Could I Have Misplaced my Pants!
Wow! I thought. I guess someone did try to break in last night. I walked back into my bedroom to put on my pants and shirt, which I always hung on my bedroom door. The pants and shirt were not there. I wondered where I had put them the night before, because I always just draped my pants, with wallet, ID, pocket money, etc., over the door two feet from my mattress.
I looked in the other rooms, but my pants were not to be found. Then I got my flashlight and started looking more closely. My computer was gone and so was a radio/flashlight. Of course I lost the money in my wallet and front pockets. The rest of my stuff I found in a pile in the backyard. The robbers had probably felt safe walking right up to my mattress because I am quite a snorer. They were so close to me I could have reached out and grabbed an ankle if I had been awake. PCRVs, PC office staff and my friends back home said they were glad I hadn’t awakened. I surmise I was especially a prime target because I had been spending lots of money to make my house livable.
The PC safety and security officer came to investigate and took me back to Monrovia for debriefing. I decided that I would try to buy another computer in Monrovia, because you couldn’t find much in the open markets and little shops of my town. Laptops were rip-offs, selling for one thousand US dollars, more than twice what I would pay for the same basic laptop in America. Even then the software would have been all pirated and who knows what you would really have in the way of quality. I talked to the PC staff and finally decided I would return to Syracuse after one month in Liberia instead of the six months I had signed up for.
Looking Over my Shoulder
My organization and LRC and PC personnel were very disappointed because they had lots of projects they wanted me to undertake, but I couldn’t see doing them without the proper technical tools and feeling like I would always have to be looking over my shoulder. The morning I left, lots of locals arrived to express their apologies for what a couple of their criminal countrymen had done.
PC tries to place its volunteers to Liberia in pairs or with NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) that own compounds. The compounds are like small prisons but to keep criminals out. They have seven-foot cement walls with razor wire on top, steel gates, two or three guards around the clock, steel doors and bars on the windows. I chose the site where I was stationed and told PC I wouldn’t mind living alone. I guess that wasn’t a good idea in a post-conflict country such as Liberia, where unemployment is high, crime is beyond control and a foreigner spending lots of money is a prime target.
Gpa
Gpa Joel and Mr. Joel Become Uncle Joel
By Joel Robbins
“Don’t throw the Frisbee on the roof. “
“Get out of my chair “
“Don’t touch that. “
“Don’t hit your sister. “
“You can only take one book home. One. “
“Don’t go into my house. “
“Don’t bump the board.”
When I finally arrived at my Peace Corps Response Volunteer site in Gbarnga, Liberia, I felt right at home with my porch full of kids. Why? Because I have four grandchildren, and two are of African heritage. At home I am addressed by my granddaughters in cell phone text messages as Gpa. While in PC in Azerbaijan, I was known as Mr. Joel. In Africa I was Uncle Joel to the neighbor children.
Kids in Liberia don’t sit around inside watching DVD movies, plugged in to an IPod and eating chips, playing video games, or surfing the Internet. They’re all over outside and looking for something to do. Well, Uncle Joel was their entertainment in my neighborhood of Gbarnga. We played Frisbee by the hour, with four or five boys in shorts and girls in dresses pushing and shoving each other to catch my tosses. It’s a good thing I brought a dozen, because I gave one to the PC Trainees when I left them in Kakata, I gave one each to my fellow PC Response colleagues and I gave an extra one to Ruthia, who I stayed with a couple of days at her site in Zwedru before going to Gbarnga, and one ended up on top of my house, thanks to a wild-armed girl named Anna. “Don’t throw the Frisbee on the roof.”
When I got to my house I had zero furnishings. Well, I did have a single mattress to put on the floor under a mosquito net. So the first thing I did was go to the street market and buy two blue plastic lawn chairs. I would sit on the porch eating a grapefruit from the tree in my yard and, of course, the skinny butts of one or two or three kids would be wedged into my other chair. If I got up to toss the peel into the bushes, I’d turn around to find someone in MY chair. “Hey, Buddy, get out of my chair.”
Passing their hands through my short haircut or feeling the hair or skin on my arm seemed to be another fascinating pastime for the kids. I would be sitting there reading She’s Come Undone, with a grinning six-year-old running his fingers back and forth on my arm. If I laid down my Gerber multi-tool, with its razor-sharp blade open to bisect the grapefruit, an urchin immediately grabbed it and started waving it cluelessly around. “Don’t touch that.”
I had the cutest brother and sister team frequent my porch. The only problem was that Georgie was a stinker first-class, and Mara was a bossy big sister of rare form. She didn’t let him get away with any of his pranks, but he usually got back by bopping her with something. “Don’t hit your sister.”
The only so-called piece of furniture I had when I arrived was a six foot high and twelve foot wide set of shelves attached to the wall. It was the only place I had to store things in easy reach, but it also was eye candy for the kids peeking through my window and lacey door curtain. I had a stack of Frisbees, three shelves of kids’ books, my laptop, two crank radios, my First-Aid kit, water bottles, eye-dropper bottles full of Clorox, flashlights, my broken camera, a stack of underwear, a couple of T-shirts, a box of pencils to give away, a belt, candles stuffed in beer bottles, matches, flash cards, socks, playing cards and folded bandanas. Their eyes lead them to my lace-curtained open door and their feet wanted to take them beyond. “Don’t go into my house.”
When I got tired of playing Frisbee, I’d sit and read my novel. Since my miniature friends were too full of energy to leave me alone, I’d bring out a stack of story books for them to look at, and sometimes I would read to them. They’d be sprawled all over my porch thumbing through the pages, then trading books and showing each other their favorite pictures of monkeys, Sendak monsters, cuddly pets or fire trucks. When I would finally say good-night to them and start to take my chairs inside, they’d ask to take the books home. To keep the books safe for the learning resource center where I planned to donate them, I’d let them take one book at a time and bring it back before they could take another home to look at overnight. Of course, Georgie would have two clutched in his hands and two fingers raised, or he would hide a little book under a big book. “You can only take one book home. One.”
Benedict, an eleven-year-old neighbor, came over whenever he wasn’t selling bitterball fruit and ground nuts in the market. Then we would play Liberian checkers, cards or Frisbee. I’d loan him books, and he would bring me ground nuts, bitterballs, or toss a rock twenty feet into the tree in my yard to get me pink grapefruit. I’d come home from work at the learning center and there’d be two grapefruit on my windowsill. We put a checker board between our knees and he would beat the tar out of me with the Liberian-rules checkers, then I’d beat him at Crazy Eights. The only problem was that the playing board was like a magnet to the little kids, who elbowed in so close to watch that they were always disturbing the game. “Don’t bump the board, Georgie.”
I couldn’t help but love these kids, although they were typical little’uns full of unbridled energy. I felt right at home with them, and, now that I’m back in America, I miss seeing them scattered all over my porch completely engrossed in my big-picture story books.
Road
A Ribbon of Red Runs Through the Jungle
By Joel Robbins
I’ve been on bad roads while driving to hiker trailheads in Colorado, but six hours trying to keep my head from pock-marking the roof of the Pathfinder I was riding in topped them all. The road I’m talking about is in Liberia, Africa, where I served for one month as a Peace Corps Response Volunteer (PCRV).
My first stop in country was the capital, Monrovia, then all PCRVs and PC Trainees traveled to Kakata for orientation and training, two weeks for PCRVs and two months for PCTs. After orientation and swearing in of our six PCRVs by the US Ambassador to Liberia, Ruthia, a fellow PCRV, and I attended a workshop on Education Development Centers in Zwedru. The road from Kakata to Ganta was paved (co tah roa in Liberian English, cold tar road in Standard English), but from Ganta to Zwedru it was a ribbon of rusty clay sliding, winding and bounding through the sylvan green jungle.
Since Liberia is currently in the rainy season, the road had deep ruts. The view was interesting for the first few miles, then all the mud huts with thatched roofs and the hundreds of eight-foot termite mounds started to look the same. Multicolored goats sleeping in the road near villages provided some periodic entertaining moments as we dusted between them at whiplash speed.
‘Hey, White Man’
After a full day in Zwedru, which is near Cote D’Ivoire, I had to come back on the “ribbon of red” to Ganta, about a mile from the Guinea border, then on to Gbarnga, where I lived and worked in a learning resource center (LRC). I arrived there on Liberian Independence Day weekend, so lots of people were in town. I only saw one other white person, though, and he was driving. Since the local kids didn’t know my name, they yelled, “Hey, why mahn.” Then they gave me a smile, thumbs up, hand shake or hug.
This white man’s job in Gbanga was to help promote the library (one small room of books) at the LRC, support the lab of 8 computers (five work) and foster stronger organizational skills of staff members, local teachers and students. Liberian educators are well aware of the tremendous task ahead of them to rebuild their educational system from scratch after it was neglected during the civil war. I was hoping to impact teacher subject knowledge and teaching strategies to assist their efforts.
'You trying to eat my eyeball?'
During orientation for the six PC Response Volunteers, we had to take Liberian English lessons, though most Liberians understand Standard English. The language problem in Liberia is that there are 16 tribes, each with a different language. Liberian English facilitates cross-cultural communications. Only five percent of the population represents Blacks with American colonial heritage, so the rest are from Liberian tribes or the countries of Guinea, Sierra Leone, Cote D’Ivoire, and other African nations.
One fieldtrip took us to the open mahkay (market), where we picked up a few spare items. Our instructor, Luther, told us to ask the price. If we thought it was too much, we should say, “Fren, can you hep me?” If the seller persists with a high price, you can say, “You try’n ea my eyebaugh?” In other words, you’re accusing the vender of overcharging. That became a catch phrase and an inside joke among PCRVs and our Liberian teachers.
If you don’t want your neighbors to see what you have bought, you ask for an opaque plastic bag—which costs extra—and is called a mine yo mou bag, or mind-your-mouth bag. It keeps people from knowing your personal business and gossiping. If you want fast food, you ask for co bo, which is a cold bowl. Liberians drop word-ending sounds the way the French do. A road can also be a dusty roa (dirt road) or mota cah roa (motor car road). Many roads are barely more than dirt paths that cars still drive on, but walking paths meander all through towns and villages of the beautiful countryside.
Learning the Liberian Handshake
After a month I was still learning the Liberian handshake, which is made up of a regular hand shake, rotated into a thumb shake, collapsed into an all-finger grip, which is slid into a one-finger snap. My snap was more of a “snup,” so I got lots of laughs and lessons from people I met. The Liberians are friendly and understanding of our lack of knowledge of local customs.
Public transportation is mostly by motorcycle in Gbanga, but there are some taxis that do long-hauls to Kakata and Monrovia and probably Zwedru. Peace Corps Liberia forbids volunteers to drive any vehicle or ride on a motorcycle taxi, so I walked everywhere in town. Besides, I saw one of the motorcycle taxi drivers wipe out right in front of me on one of Gbranga’s dusty roads. He got up fairly quickly, but he was doing a high-stepping dance and shrugging vigorously to reduce the pain of assorted sore muscles and road rash. I understand another thing. Taking a Pathfinder to Zwedru and back was double torture, so taking one of the little, shockless local taxis over the ribbon of red clay to Zwedru would be like taking a dozen trips over Niagara Falls in a 55-gallon steel barrel. I didn’t need any headaches or chipped teeth, so I was glad I didn’t have any more meetings in Zwedru.
Note: I was supposed to serve six months in Liberia, but a burglar broke into my house and stole some of my money, my computer and other items while I slept. Since the computer was my main tool for both fulfilling my LRC technical assignment and providing me with the means to write articles and create PowerPoints to combat loneliness and homesickness, I returned to America.
Waiting
When Are You Going to Siberia?
By Joel Robbins
Libya, Siberia, Liberia? The questions I am getting lately are: When are you going to Libya? When are you going to Siberia?
My answer to both is: I’m going to Liberia. A friend asked, "Have you been to Iberia before?" I guess my problem is that I sign up to go places that people seldom hear about.
In May 2009 I returned from two years serving in Azerbaijan in the Peace Corps. July 8 I am scheduled to return to service, but this time for 6 months as a Peace Corps Response Volunteer (PCRV) in Liberia.
PCR used to be called Crisis Corps, but even with a new name its mission is still the same, send returned Peace Corp Volunteers to world countries or places in the USA that are attempting to recover from a catastrophe.
Medicine, Agriculture and Education
More than 4,000 Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) have served in Liberia since 1962, but two major civil wars crippled the country and made Washington evacuate volunteers. After the civil war and for the past couple of years, PCRVs have worked on medical, educational and agricultural infrastructure rebuilding.
Including me, 7 PCRVs will serve six months in country. Entering the country at the same time will be 14 PCV candidates to begin their three-month training. These 14volunteers will mark the return of regular PCVs to Liberia and probably the end of PCRVs there.
An American Colony Breaks Free
Liberia was founded by American Blacks in 1822 and became a republic in 1847. Its most recent civil war ended in 2003. Currently, thousands of UN peacekeepers are present to maintain order.
The nation sits at latitude 6 north between the Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone on the Atlantic. Guinea is to the east.
The Liberian flags looks familiar to American’s, because it has six red horizontal stripes and 5 while, with one white star in a field of blue in the upper left-hand corner. The eleven stripes represent the eleven signers of the Liberian Declaration of Independence and the one star stands for unity.
How Can I not Go!
Other questions I am asked are: Again? And, how can you leave your wife, family, friends and comforts of home to live in an impoverished nation? If I were making $100,000 doing it, they probably would not ask the question. Anyway, I am a volunteer, so my answer is: How can I not go as long as I am able and there is a need!
Not everyone likes to travel, can put up with extreme hardships, is free to live abroad thanks to a wife who will hold down the fort while he is gone, or has the experience Peace Corps needs to address a specific problem at a specific place and time. These people of other countries are my brothers and sisters. How can I ignore their pleas for assistance when I am middle class in America but extremely rich by their standards!
We Have so Much, They Have so Little
Yes, I could help here in America, but even most of the poor I see in America still have electricity, clean drinking water, food, televisions and a roof over their heads. The PCRVs and PCVs in Liberia, I understand, will have to live like the locals, carrying water from a community pump to their residences, only having generator-produced electricity a couple of hours a day and traveling on bumpy dirt roads between towns.
My work will be in the educational field, as I did in Azerbaijan. The position may involve curriculum writing and librarian work. A friend ask me if I was joking about being a librarian for Liberians.
Most schools were destroyed or did not conduct classes for years during the civil wars; so many students are five or six grades behind in the basics. Liberia needs Peace Corps’ help badly.
I hope PC doesn't get as confused as some of my friends about where I'm going and order me tickets to Libya, Iberia or, worse, Siberia.
