How To Be A Peace Corps Volunteer (Part 1)

I've been thinking about this blog post for a while. I think it is kind of funny because most of the post is about how I came into this business standing on a soapbox and well, this is a soapbox post. Eh. What can you do?

Anyway, this is gonna be a multiple parter - so hang with me as I try to hit all the major pieces.

So, let us start with the obvious stuff. As an American, I got the American-colored glasses on. No matter what country I am in, I unconsciously (and consciously) compare it to America. I can't help it. Nobody can 100% separate themselves from [enter age here] years of socialization. I grew up in America. I am American. I know we got problems like everybody else, but when push comes to shove, I really like my home country.

When I first stepped foot in Azerbaijan I had my opinions. No matter how hard I tried to bury those opinions or pretend that I was completely open to a new culture, some things just rubbed me the wrong way. I couldn't help it. No matter how much I tried, there were times when I just couldn't help but put my foot in my mouth when talking with a Host Country National. This happens to everybody. I still do it. Three years later and I still do it.

Anyway, my first few months as a PCV were rocky. It's hard when you come in as a PCV with the goal of helping and teaching and developing. The assumption there is that the community you have been placed in has deficiencies and you want to be their savior. Anyone who signs up for Peace Corps has that hope in mind - to help. Of course, if the tables were turned, I would be damn skeptical of some random Azerbaijani showing up in my home town telling me they could teach me anything besides the Azerbaijani language.

As a first year PCV, I wanted people to see me as more than just an English teacher. I got skillz beyond my native English speaking abilities. I talked about civic engagement, I explained how I could teach people to market their businesses, I hosted Earth Day events...I spent a year pointing out the holes in Zaqatala and how I (along with local minions) could fill those holes.

I never stopped to really ask people about their own civic engagement, marketing, and environmental awareness. I just assumed they didn't have these things.

Yeah. Again, if the tables were turned, I would be pissed. Assumptions make an @#$ out of...well, just me.

Late in my second year (and through the miracle of Skype), I learned about asset-based development.

Nobody wants some big-headed foreigner to show up and point out what they see as problems. Defenses get raised, excuses are made...people stop listening. If my goal as a community development specialist is to get people talking and listening, this isn't the way to do it. It definitely is not the way to be a catalyst - it's being a pessimist.

In my third year, I really struggled with asset-based development. The whole idea is to build on what the community has, to acknowledge them as catalysts and leaders in their own right. I have worked hard to not make those inadvertent judgement statements or ask the leading questions (Isn't Star Trek the best sci-fi t.v. show out there???). It is almost impossible to not to look at things with a critical American eye and get up on my soapbox.

Yeah, it is hard. I still have my opinions. I occasionally slip up, but I know that my role in Zaqatala is to build upon the successes of this community - to continue their own development enterprises, not lead them down the path I want them to go. I see the easy path of, "use this American model to create this project and BAM! everything is solved". Of course, there is little sustainability in such a Löki-initiated and led projects and the community is less likely to back me up with their support.

Getting to the point where the community trusts you and uses you as a resource takes an exorbitant amount of time (about 1 & 1/2 years). My community does not need me to "solve" anything. They have the power within themselves to direct their own future - a future that meets their needs and fits within their cultural context. I am just here to support them and offer assistance where I can.

Anyway, I still have the American colored lenses on. I have accepted this, but that is a whole other post...get ready for Part 2!

For more on asset-based development and how community development specialists can actually do more harm than good, check out:
Asset Building and Community Development [link]
When Helping Hurts [link]

Wedding It Up

Over the last three weeks, I have been to not 1, not 2, but 3 weddings! All the young women getting married have been my or other PCV's counterparts.

Now, I have talked about weddings [link] several times [link], but as I found out last night, not every tradition I have learned is expressed in exactly the same way. For example, I just learned that it depends on how far back the family holds the tradition, but at the girl's wedding, sometimes it is just the girl (all decked out) that shows up!

That definitely threw me for a loop. Never heard of that!

So, it goes to show that no matter how long I am a PCV, I have barely scratched the surface of Azerbaijani culture. Ugh. So much to learn, such little time left...

Yeah...that is right. I straightened my hair for this wedding...

Confession: I read junk novels.

Maybe it's because I am getting older, but I have come to a few realizations these last few years (the last 3 to be exact).

1. It is okay to write a contraction from time to time; and,
2. I really do not care what people think about my reading preferences.

Second realization was kind of weird, huh?

Anyway, one of my first poignant memories of Peace Corps involves book reviews. Seems like an odd topic, but you get 60+ absolute strangers waiting in an airport terminal and what's currently stashed in your hand-carry is gonna come up - you've got nothing else to talk about because breaking the ice is scary.

The point being, PCVs are a lot like the rest of the American population - snobby when it comes to books. We all cart around our current non-fiction bestsellers, autobiographies, and travel accounts like we can't be seen with a Tom Clancy novel lest our credibility as a [insert job/community title here] be challenged. I do it. The amount of classic and non-fiction literature I got covering my [highly visible] shelves is ridiculous.

I stash my mind-candy in the cupboard below.

Yup. I admit it. With all my Jane Eyre audiobooks and Guns, Germs, and Steel historical accounts, I like to indulge in frivolity (daily). If you left me to it, I would go through entire junk novel caches in a matter of weeks, I am that into happy endings.

Actually, this all goes with my theory and a little unknown fact about myself.

1. Every American indulges in junk novels; and,
2. I would rather read than watch television.

The Peace Corps lounge is chalk full of junk novels - too many to point the finger at just me. Everybody reads them, so why not just admit it more? From now on, when somebody asks me what I got in my bag, I am going to say Lara Adrian.