Not-So-Great-Expectations

When I accepted my invitation to serve in the Peace Corps, I did so with caution. I never was bubbling with energy or optimism like so many others. I never harbored visions of grandeur or inflated expectations. In fact, I tricked myself into believing I had no expectations at all. But what I never expected was an experience that is falling far below the minimal expectations I thought were once nonexistent.


The harsh reality of a PCV´s (Peace Corps Volunteer) service is that only a tiny fraction of the volunteer´s community will have been responsible for his or her presence. Usually only a select few with a common interest will ask for a volunteer, and the majority of the community will be ignorant of the PCV´s purpose and react with indifference. While I never expected a welcome comittee, I was quite surprised by my first reception to my community- no one did anything. Without the promised community guide, I was forced to pasear (visit people´s houses) on my own. It was difficult enough introducing myself and small-taking with strangers as if I belonged in the community, even moreso in a foreign tongue. These residents had no idea why I was in the community, let alone on their porch. I never knew if I was wandering to the house of a drunk or creepy old man, and many people viewed my arrival with nearly equal apprehension.

I can now say fervently that those who asked for a volunteer have failed to take responsibility for me. By my third month I had to search for another host family because I was not given an appropriate option by those who promised to be responsible for my housing. I accepted an invitation from a woman who had no responsibilty for my being in the community- a Catholic woman I hoped to befriend to avoid reinforcing the communal divisions the prior volunteer followed during her service.

Meanwhile, I was trying to bridge the communal divisions of religion by befriending the Catholic women. It was the Evangelicals that had asked for a PCV; the Catholics never worked with the past volunteer. Maybe it was a naive move, but in order to be fair and just, I tried to befriend them. And so I thought I had.

I was aware of gossip about me in the community but it never affected me until it meddled with my permanent living arrangements. A man who promised me to rent me a house backed out at the last minute due to a rumor circulating that he was only doing so to involve himself, lets say, impurely, with me. Less than a month later a friend told me that the Catholic woman I thought was a friend had very publicly said some awful things about me in the bus. She and several of the Catholic women I had considered friends had been saying cruel things behind my back for quite a while. This, unfortunately, included the woman I was living with.

Initially I became sick at the sight of those women in the street (which is daily) and avoided public exposure. Now I still have stirrings of anger, but they are tempered with pity. I have since been told those women are horrible gossips and should never have been meddled with in the first place. In my attempt to be fair and give these undeserving women the chance to work with me, I have done more damage than if I had left them alone.

For the majority of this past month I endured a lead stomach and woke up with dread and apprehension. In the most recent days I have resigned myself to my situation and try to approach each day with more indifference. These women continue to talk behind my back, disguising their dislike with polite formalities in the street. Therefore, I am not going to try so hard to appease everyone, and will see how things pan out.
As hard as it is to deal with this situation, it is more difficult to accept the overwhelming failure of my community in providing for me in the first months of service. I usually feel like a burden as I am always having to ask favors and impose on people; no one has stepped up to help as promised in the begining. I don´t always feel wanted here- and I didn´t give up my life in the States for that. I refuse to feel like an abandoned dog that was adopted out of pity when I was specifically requested. I see the potential of the projects here, but am unsure if those who requested me actually deserve my help. The only thing that keeps me in my community is the feeling that my work will be worth the pain, humiliation, and distrust I have experienced this past month. I knew Peace Corps would be trying, but not to the degree that I would feel so unwanted and sorely out-of-place. I realize now that I did have at least one expectation coming into service- that my presence would not be resented. I expected caution and indifference, but not rejection.

I will pardon those women who have hurt me as I know they have not been taught better and never receieved the opportunities I´ve enjoyed. Their behavior is a way of life and it is all they know. I will also try to pardon those who failed to take responsibility for me, and consequently are responsible for my current situation. I was offered the chance to change sites, but I figure the least I can do is stick this out a bit longer. There certainly are PCVs in much more challenging situations, and I will have to try and grow from this, instead of running from it. I´m hoping that my not-so-great-expectations will be fufilled by the end of service, and that I can look back on this as an unfortunate but enlightening experience.