Aspiration statement

A: The professional atributes that you plan to use, and what aspirations you hope to fulfill during your PC service

   I am very honored to be accepted to serve in Morocco, a country I've visited before and already love.  While I expect some of the challenges to be less difficult since this is my second time as a Peace Corps volunteer, I am certain other things will be more so.  When I was  volunteer in Bolivia, I had the satisfaction of going there and on the first day I had a high level of fluency in Spanish to help me.  Though I speak advanced French, I will be in the position of my friends who went to Bolivia without knowing any words to aid them .  Yet I've watched those same individuals grow under the influence of their language professors and soon catch up to the level I had when I arrived. So in this sense, the demands placed on me will be different, though I am happy to have a realistic understanding of what will be asked of me, and how much personal growth is possible there.

  I feel that the best thing I have to offer is my creativity, and the cross-cultural communication skills and experience I gained during 2008, when I was a PCV in Bolivia before our evacuation from there.  Several times while there, I had my illusions shattered and I had to reevaluate the things I had witnessed each time that I was hit by culture shock and the feeling of destabilization from that.  Yet I persevered until the time came when I felt comfortable there, and with a small amount of control.  The process of Peace Corps became less of a concern, and so I was able to focus on the people in front of me, and better understand and attend to their needs.  For that reason, I understand more what the idea of Peace Corps service entails, and that is the service of others.  When I leave in September and arrive in Morocco, I must use that new-found perseverance as well as the necessary patience and faith in order to make my two years the most productive possible.  When asked in Bolivia about whether I had the commitment to the people that was needed to capitalize on my brief time among them--even when I was sick and weary of the constant and unusual demands asked of me--I replied that commitment was something that I had less of then, but that would grow with each new day that I spent there.  After one month of living in my town and being unhappy, I had far less commitment to the villagers around me than I did after eight months.  In fact, I later discovered that I would have been more happy if we had left after seven months in site, during our first security consolidation, than after the extra month more before our second consolidation and evacuation.   But it was that extra month that showed me the good things that awaited me if I stayed resolute and patient with the process. Sadly, once I crossed that magical moment, we had to leave and it was much harder and more painful.  Just four weeks more in-site, yet I was one hundred times more committed to the people that had shown themselves to be so resilient and helpful, even while having nothing to share with me except their concern and time. 

It will be impossible not to frequently compare my first time as a Peace Corps volunteer with this new experience awaiting me five months from now.  But I feel that Morocco is sufficiently different from Bolivia so that I will remain engaged and not homesick for the last host country that I called my home.  In 2005, I was involved as a competitor in the Marathon Des Sables, running 250 kilometers in a week in the Sahara desert. The experience was torturous, but enlivening. Yet while I had little contact with the Berber and Bedouin people that I was able to see along the periphery, it was a defining moment in my life that later led me to go abroad and serve.  Running through the sand dunes of the Sahara, I bought a head scarf from a child who sat and waited in the sand as we came by.  From that moment, I hoped to understand more fully the lives of these people that seemed so at ease in that harsh environment compared to the life-and-death struggle I was having that entire week.  

To answer the question of what professional attributes I expect to use during service, I can mention the technical skills as a youth developer, but to be successful more is required than just those.  Instead it is the perseverance, patience, inspiration, commitment and desire that will make my service a successful one, as well as an easy ability to laugh at inconvenience. In Bolivia, I was an agriculture volunteer and taught English and life skills at a local school.  Yet I compared myself with the volunteers living near me, and  I soon began to think that I would be most effective as a youth developer.   While in training, our focus was on beekeeping and Spanish class, though my site was the only one that relied totally on Quechua and school gardens, which we had only done the last week before leaving.  This took several months of independent work before I could correct my deficiencies.  Given a second chance to go through the thorough training that will be provided us, I hope to make sure that what I learn will be much more tailored to the needs of the youth who will be the focus of my work.  Hopefully I will be able to use the skills I have from Bolivia, especially the school gardens and beekeeping, and leverage those useful crafts as a stepping stone towards youth development.  The school gardens can be used to both provide greater nutrition as well as to teach basic science concepts.  Beekeeping could be used not only to bolster self-esteem, but provide an opportunity to teach basic accounting and business skills.  In the past, I went through a course to become a summer camp counselor, and in my undergraduate work I developed an interest in using positive psychology and life skills to help provide a dynamism to the lives of underprivileged youth.   Reading the assignment description and the blogs of current volunteers, I feel confident in being able to combine these different aspects of my personal narrative into a successful service.  And I'm sure there will be many guitar lessons! Music lessons, by the way, I envision as one of the rare things that not only help to achieve all three goals of Peace Corps simultaneously, but which are also one of the greatest tools to help provide what psychologist Csikszentmihalyi calls flow, where an experience provides clear, concrete goals and where the required difficulty match the level of ability in the child.

B: Your strategies for working effectively with host country partners to meet expressed needs

The worst thing that can happen as a Peace Corps volunteer is to allow my expectations and biases to interfere with my perception of what the people around me are saying.  The biggest skill needed, then, is to actively listen and think beyond the shallow meaning of the words.  Learning the context in which the communication occurs, and the cultural norms that dictate what the words really mean when placed in a different situation will be crucial.  I'm lucky that I have already been through this painful process more than once, and so I can adapt more easily, not taking the message at face value.  Yet an important consideration is also the fact that I may be the only American that the Moroccan people in my town have ever tried to work with.  So, this knowledge can alter the words and phrases that a person means to say.  They may be embarrassed and say things that they do not mean.  Or they could be very proud, and say Yes even when it is an unrealistic thing for them.  In this instance, then, it would be crucial that I continue to talk and make sure that an easy answer does not cause any undue concern or difficulty on my part or theirs.  I've been in cultures where it is very easy and cheap to lie.  Knowing that fact while trying to work with the person helps tremendously.  Part of that, again, is expectations.  It allowed me to do the same, to say what I don't mean, knowing that they would understand that I just agreed to something that we both knew will probably never happen. But that same cultural knowledge also is able to amaze the workers and families involved by providing me with the opportunity to consistently surpass their expectations.  Anytime I can do that, then, is a great success in terms of improving the image foreigners have of Americans.  "This person does what he says! Wow!" 

I've seen volunteer's projects fail that should never have been attempted.  I've also known them to be left in the cold by the director of their work area, and many other things.  I have no illusions that I am guaranteed to go to a place in Morocco and change everything in one night, or even one year.  But I've been well indoctrinated in what type of project should be pursued. Ideally, it is something that the community wants and needs, and that uses local resources in a sustainable way.  Transferring skills is most important, since they can be utilized without need of any foreign aid.  In these ways, and with nonexistent expecations, I hope to bridge the gap to the community of mine and accomplish something.  As my old Country director said:  "Half of the fight is knowing what battles are big enough to matter, but small enough to win."

C: Your strategies for adapting to a new culture with respect to your own cultural background

The same challenges from Bolivia apply to me in Morocco as a person trying to integrate into a community.  If it's not hard enough already, then it can be even more painful to try and do so as a vegetarian, nonreligious person.  Similarly, it will not be easy to witness a macho culture so different from what we have in the United States.  While I will continue to bring a sufficient level of respect and openness to the different cultural norms, I am also aware as to the importance of my safety, and how that is more important than hurt feelings.  I am happy that in this new country there will not likely be the same worry I had in South America as a teetotaler that abstains from alcohol.   Before, there was a great amount of cultural value placed on sharing corn whisky, and people believed that it is a great disrespect to not drink with them.  I was able to evade these dilemmas by exaggerating the problem.  Using strategies taught by Peace Corps, I knew that it was OK to blame the PC staff for not doing something that the others were pressuring me to do : "I can't drink, Peace Corps prohibits it and they will find out and send me home", or "My family member went insane because we are allergic to alcohol."  Also, the staff in South America taught us that it is ok to take the drink, then feed it to a plant nearby when noone is looking. This way, everyone is happy and our security and values are not compromised.  One such instance came when a friend of ours, who owned a Bolivian restaurant, brought us a salad.  Right away we knew that the lettuce had not been treated with iodine, so my quick thinking saved my stomach a great deal of trouble.  Every time the woman left the room I would put a handful of the lettuce into my pocket.  This way, I could take it home with me to treat and eat later, while making this woman happy as I complimented her on her delicious cooking. 

Now, with that said, I am well aware that Peace Corps Morocco will maybe have vastly different policies and recommendations in terms of medical and security skills.  Since I will be going through training like everyone else, then I will adapt my strategy to their rules, not the ones I remember from last year.  

D: The skills and knowledge you hope to gain during pre-service training to best serve your future community and project

As I wrote before, I enjoyed training enough before, yet I went to my site and it was a different language than the one I learned and the technical training I received was also inappropriate to the work that we did.  So I spent twice as long later in my town trying to become ready for the planting season and to speak basic Quechua sentences.  And I was not completely successful at this, with my training director later apologizing for me falling through the cracks like that.  I am confident that in Morocco the program has run for so many years continuously that such problems have been worked out long ago.  At the same time, I'm aware that it is ultimately my responsibility to work hard and equip myself with the skills needed to fully integrate and prepare for the projects that are in line with both Peace Corps Maroc's goals, and those of the community.  My experience in Bolivia showed to me that many people go through PST, and then after several months of disappointment in their site they settle on a work project that is far removed from the projected goals of their work area. This then creates a level of personal disenfranchisement with the Peace Corps staff who are supposed to help them, and so the volunteers are left largely on their own and unable to utilize the full force of the PC network in promoting positive interventions in their community.  I hope to evade this, and pursue training with sufficient vigor and vision so that when the time comes I am more ready to maneuver the pitfalls of working in Morocco with greater adroitness than what I felt in my Bolivian town.

In many respects, I am looking forward to going through this process again so that the lessons will become more fully ingrained.  Unfortunately, it is a rushed and harried situation and I will have to be careful so that I don't burn out too quickly and kill my enthusiasm.  Before re-enrolling, I imagined the potential hurdles that I will face, and one of them is doing twice as much in Morocco to try to make up for the failed experience after the evacuation from Bolivia. I see this is not realistic, and so I will try to evade those feelings by trying to focus on the work ahead of me, and not on the unfinished things left behind in my first PC site.

E: How you think Peace Corps service will influence your personal and professional aspirations after service ends

While I feel strongly already that Peace Corps is the single greatest resource in my preparing for a career in diplomacy, having finished my first service I can see already the beneficial effects on other aspects of my life. From now until forever, I will always be an RPCV of B-#47.  Yet having been in Bolivia less than one year before evacuation, I saw only a glimpse of the potential rewards that awaited me.  A great part of why I have re-enrolled is because I owe so much to Peace Corps already, and I want to see what a normal service can be.  It's twenty-seven months for a reason, and the reason is because anything less is not as fulfilling.  Being among the same group of Americans for that amount of time, and going through the same ups-and-downs is an experience unavailable anywhere else, though I began to see most clearly the amount of genius in the development of the Peace Corps. That is found in the fact that no other service organization equips volunteers with the skills to subsist and thrive on their own, in an alien place with no other Americans for miles around.  That makes the biggest difference of all, because after enough time passes, it's not that you're there to be with other Americans, and the Moroccans or Bolivians get in the way of that.  No, instead if I want to have friends than I must make those new people friends of my own, speaking their language and trying to accomplish something for whatever community it is that they will continue to inhabit and call their own long after I cease to do so.

Thank you, and I look forward to meeting you.  If possible, I would like a response to what I wrote.  I did not got one the first time, and it would make me happy to know somebody really has read this and has constructive advice and criticism for me before I arrive.