Pros and Cons of Joining the Peace Corps

Peace Corps? Is there still a Peace Corps? I thought that was something in the 60s, where hippies could run off and save the world. Though Peace Corps has long since said goodbye to its popularity hey-day, it is still going strong as more and more people are signing up for the twenty-six month stint abroad.

The romantic idea of Peace Corps is, in many ways, accurate, but there are also hundreds of nuances that come with the job. In this article, the pros and cons of Peace Corps will be broken down and laid out honestly.

I recently returned from twenty-eight months in South Africa as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Before applying, I read countless books and articles on the Peace Corps to help mentally prepare for what I was getting myself into, but few focused on the cons. It's easy to experience the cons as they hit you in your service, but often times what happens is that as soon as the volunteer returns home, and the experience is over, and he or she is removed from the situation, we, as volunteers, tend to remember lovingly all the pros.

Since pros and cons are subjective to the eye of the beholder, I will list off various aspects and analyze what makes them a pro and a con.

It's a twenty-six month commitment. There is nothing short about twenty-six months when living in conditions foreign to what you are accustomed to. Many people site this as a con to joining Peace Corps (PC). You must be willing to step out of your life for this amount of time, which may mean permanently leaving a job, selling a car or even a home and saying goodbyes to people you love. Quitting PC is an option, and quite frankly, it's an easy one logistically. However, most people find this to be an emotionally charged decision, that often left them wishing they never joined in the first place. Because Peace Corps is looked highly upon, people fear the backlash they may receive from quitting. Their colleagues in PC, may give off the vibe or even say outright, that you are being a "baby" and cannot handle it.

The time commitment can also be a huge pro. It gives you the time needed to really integrate, learn the language and get work done. You are no longer a tourist, but someone who actually lives in a village, town and country. In my case in South Africa, I did a lot of socially driven theatre work that dealt with weighty issues of race, gender and economic disparity. It took almost a year before earning the trust and respect of my community to even dabble in those areas. Had I only done a one month stint, or even six months, I may never have been able to get the amount of work done that I did.

You will most likely learn a new language. This is one of my best pros on my list. At twenty-seven years of age, I never expected to be fluent in a new language. Typically, in PC, you are completely immersed in the local language which makes learning it much easier than a classroom setting. In addition to the immersion, Peace Corps gives you two to three months of in-country training which includes intense language training in your target language (the language spoken in your permanent placement).

What could possibly be a con of learning a new language? Well, the language you learn is relatively useless. I use the word "relatively," because no language is useless, however relative to job options we seek as Americans who return from Peace Corps, most languages you'd learned are very specific to the country, region or even village you'd lived in and would only come in handy if you were to return to that exact location. I became fluent in Afrikaans, and the reality is that the language isn't spoken outside of southern Africa, and even in South Africa itself it is only spoken by a portion of the population. In addition, there is virtually no such thing as an Afrikaner over the age of nine that cannot speak fluent English, so translation jobs for a non-native speaker simply don't exist.

You will most likely be living in a culture very different from your own. While this is not the case 100% of the time, it is the case the majority of the time. We often take culture for granted. Culture is something that affects every second of everyday of our lives. Everything from how we dress to standing on line in a supermarket is dictated by culture. And when you are confronted by a new culture on a minutely basis, this can often be overwhelming. Even more of a struggle can be when the culture in which you are placed is considered "wrong" or "inappropriate" in your home culture. The time of day in which people ate meals in South Africa was slightly different from my own, and this was an easy adjustment. However, personal space is a strong value for many Americans, and the struggle with losing your sense of space can really grate on your day after day, sometimes hour after hour.

The pro to this is the experience of awareness you receive when you commit to living there for twenty-six months. It's rewarding to dabble outside your comfort zone and to develop an understanding for a people that most will never experience.

You will likely be living in third world conditions. This is not the case for everyone. During my two months of in-country training, I was living in a rural village in South Africa. However, my two year site placement was in an Afrikaner town and school, and I was living in first-world conditions. However, I think the majority are living in smaller villages in third world conditions, often without electricity, internet and running water. This can be challenging for any amount of time, let alone twenty-six months. Though the physical challenges are often easier to cope with than the emotional ones, these conditions often compound your emotions. Loneliness and isolation run rampant in PC life and being cut off from phone contact and internet can further plunge you into depression.

On the positive side, if you stick it out, you will realize very quickly that you don't need these luxuries. It's amazing how quickly you can cope to an outhouse, fetching water from a well, not texting 24/7 and reading by candle light.

You will likely make some of the best friends of your life. The friends you make will be both PC colleagues and host country locals. I'll start with your new American friends. Going through the PC experience is, in many ways, like living away at college. You are with a group of people who have made similar choices in life as you (i.e. joining PC) and you are experiencing your widest range of emotions alongside others going through the same thing. They say in PC you will experience your highest highs and your lowest lows, and no one outside of PC can understand what you are truly experiencing. In addition to your American friends, you will form relationships with locals. One of my best friends is a South African, and though I am back home in America, we still text, email, chat on the phone weekly and make efforts to remain friends. I'd even had two dear friends from South Africa come and stay with me here in America.

Once again, every pro has a con side. For me, the con was going into all the friendships knowing they were temporary. Two years seems like an eternity, but when I blinked my eyes, it was over. I even extended for two extra months to avoid the inevitability of saying goodbye to some of the best friends I've had. Coming home to old friends was nice, but the reality is, these old friends didn't know me for the past two years, and they cannot relate to the experiences I've had. I find a constant longing to be back in South Africa with my "real" friends. Time, of course, will allow new relationships to be formed back home, and allow the mourning of the loss of those former relationships experienced while abroad. Saying goodbye to people you love is never easy. Both when you leave for PC and when you leave to come home from PC, you must accept that some of those goodbyes are permanent. I had the luxury of serving in a country where most everyone has a cell phone and internet. This makes keeping in touch easier, but many of the countries in which volunteers serve leave you with the sole option of unreliable snail-mail.

You will not be around for significant events in your family's life, your friends' lives and that of your home country. Coming from a large, tight-knit family, missing things like Thanksgiving, the birth of my nephew and niece and several weddings was difficult. In addition to the personal things within each family, I also missed a historic US presidential election. Sure, an absentee ballot is an option, but on what knowledge can you vote with no access to news or internet? I never saw one speech in the entire 2008 election campaign trail. I got only occasional, and very biased, updates from friends and family who occasionally added a PS to an email. Emails are often reserved for all the personal details of life that are being missed, so even something as monumental as a presidential election suddenly takes a backseat to my nephew's first words, a friend's untimely layoff in a receding economy and the death of a cousin to an unexpected heart-attack.

The pro of this is that you will be around for significant moments in the life of your host country. While serving in South Africa, I had a privilege of being invited to, and attending the weddings of two close friends. In addition to the cultural experience, it was one of the moments when you really felt like you had succeeded in becoming part of a community. In addition, although I missed a historical American election, I was present for a historic election in South Africa. I was there when President Mbeki's term abruptly ended and saw an intern president take over, and then watched as the ANC party split and then watched what was called one of the country's most historic election, since the election of Nelson Mandela.

You will have easy travel access to places off the beaten path. The pros here are obvious. Living in a PC country gives you a home base to then go into countries and regions that are often overlooked on most vacations. With South Africa as a home base, I was able to see Lesotho (small landlocked country completely surrounded by South Africa), Namibia, Zambia, Victoria Falls, a brief afternoon on the riverbank of Angola and many, many more. While South Africa's Cape Town is a hot spot for travel, Lesotho is seen by few.

The con is that sometimes there is a reason why certain places aren't on people's vacation lists. Also, many PC countries are not near anything. South Pacific islands offer little opportunities (aside from their own natural wonders). Also a country like Madagascar is near many desirable African countries, but will cost you an arm and a leg to get there, and Peace Corps certainly doesn't pay an arm and a leg.

Peace Corps is a government beaurocracy. The pros are that while in-country you have basic needs taken care of. There is a 24/7 on-call security officer to deal with all of your security needs. You have un-matched access to health care. Anything from a sniffle to major surgery is at your disposal and completely covered by the Peace Corps.

The bad news is that like any government agency, things take a long time to get done and there is a lot of paperwork. Also, the agency tries to employ many local employees (which is wonderful) however, many locals have different standards of time and care than we do as Americans, and this can often be a frustration when something needs to get done. Imagine your last experience at the DMV, and imagine having to deal with this eternal waiting and paperwork every time you need something.

You will be poor. Of course PC volunteers come from various economic backgrounds, but theoretically it is strongly discouraged to tap into your home money. PC pays you at a rate that allows you to live at the same level of local people. PC pays enough to cover your basic needs. Housing is covered and the money given will feed you.

The pro is that if you budget properly (which is often a value we teach to our local villages) you can get far. I went on several huge vacations on my PC budget. The pro is that it helps debunk the stereotype of the rich American and allows us to struggle alongside our communities. The con is that you have travel opportunities at your fingertips and cannot always take advantage of them. The bottom line is learning to budget. Some volunteers didn't eat the last week of every month, while others went on extravagant vacations - all on the same salary. So before leaving for the PC, be sure to hone your budgeting skills. Remember, too, that you are accruing a monthly salary in US dollars that is available to you after you complete your service. See PC website for specifics on this.

In light of the economy, Peace Corps is a desirably alternative to unemployment. In addition PC is pushing its recruitment of the 55+ generation. Though you don't hear as much about PC, people are joining in droves, and like any endeavor, it is important to be educated before diving in head-first. Please also note that the PC is a very personal experience, and there are exceptions to everything, which is why the above is written strictly as a general template to aid someone joining. Best of luck to all current and future applicants.