Peace Corps Life

For those of you who are thinking about joining the Peace Corps, are in the middle of the application process, nomination, desperately waiting for the mail while stalking the mail man, have been invited or just counting the days till you leave, I want to let you know that no matter which country/site you’ve been selected to, it is truly an experience you won’t forget. 

Peace Corps is really what you make of it. True, your country, its culture and your community have a lot to do with it but I would say that it really just comes down to YOU. How you absorb things and take things in as an individual really plays a huge part in this experience. 

I can’t talk for every PCV because everyone has their own point of view and we all have a different perspective whether we’re in the same country of service or not, but personally I really recommend Peace Corps. It’s definitely not for everyone, that’s for sure, but if you do feel like making a difference in someone’s life and see how your life can also be changed by living in a completely different culture and experiencing a different lifestyle, I would say GO FOR IT. 

Being here for the past 7 months has already strongly defined this stage of my life to being one of the most important ones. I don’t really know how to explain it, but as cliché as it sounds, this has been exactly what I’ve always dreamed of doing. Again, I can’t speak for other volunteers, because I know for a fact that not all of us have the same outlook, but in my case, I would say that Peace Corps has given me the opportunity to see the stark life realities of remote parts of the world. Not only that, but its given me an opportunity to live and experience first hand what it’s like to live in a developing world. 

In some rare form, its put things into perspective. Although, reality is hard to accept sometimes, and you find yourself asking why things are the way they are, I’ve found myself having a better cultural understanding of why things are they way they are and I’ve become much more aware of how things work in a developing country. Even though, I also grew up in Mexico and much of the Liberian ways remind me of the Mexican ways, it’s still very different. Life here itself is different, in so many ways that I couldn’t even describe to you because you wouldn’t even understand it without physically being here and living it… becoming a part of a distinctly different community than yours and being accepted as a family member, laying on your bed at nights while the only thing you hear outside are the crickets and frogs, or it may be the drums and chants of rituals performed by your neighbors, eating the local cuisine and having no other alternatives, bathing bucket style and finding new techniques on how to rinse with one hand and scrub with the other at the same time, forming true human connections and bonds with people who you had no common grounds with and who are now such an important part of your life and will always be linked in your heart and memories till years to come, laughing and joking  instead of overwhelming yourself and getting upset with the unexpected spontaneous circumstances that a PCV find themselves at times, crying with your heart and not with your eyes when you find yourself bursting into an uncontrollable admiration for life’s most simple and precious things such as a starry night or raining day and finally then breathing in the moist wet soils of the country you now have come to love and know as your home. Liberia has slowly become my country, my home and although I know I will be back in the States, I know that this country has forever changed me and it will always remain in my heart till the end of my time. 

Peace Corps life is definitely without a doubt in my own opinion something that will impact your life in so many ways that you’ll find yourself not being able to express to your blog readers how you’ve changed. 

In other words, Peace Corps gives you something much more grand than a good name and reputation, it gives you a front row seat in witnessing the realities of life itself, which then transforms into a deep cultural experience that only you can understand and cherish as your own treasure.

So for those who are still considering and want to join Peace Corps for the right reasons, which is mainly to help others, than definitely without a doubt GO FOR IT. The experience of being here and not there where you are, could be more valuable than anything you would be doing back home.