Double Dipping

I was asked by a student at my old school to reflect on my Peace Corps service. Since I'm egregiously behind on updates, I figured this would do for a post :-)


1. What work are you doing right now with the Peace Corps?

I am currently a volunteer in the Federated States of Micronesia. I'm in my second year serving on a small outer island in the island state of Yap (my current island is called Federai, Ulithi. Previously I was on Falalius, Woleai). The Peace Corps project plan in the FSM focuses on TESOL and Community Development. Personally that means I am teaching the upper grades in my local elementary school as well as creating projects with the community that address certain needs. I'm working on developing a sustainable waste management system that fosters environmental stewardship, communal responsibility, and creativity.


2. What made you decide to do volunteer work with the peace corps?

Even while I was at Whitworth I knew that I wanted to do some kind of service work abroad for a long period of time. Peace Corps is a great financially viable way to do this. It's two years of service work, plus training, that I don't have to pay for out of pocket. I'm given a small stipend that allows me adequate food, shelter, and other basic needs. Moreover, I have the wonderful opportunity to live in and explore another culture and really become part of the local community. I eat fish and taro, I wear lavalavas (and no shirt!), I weave and I cook and I speak the local language. I am used to palm trees and rolling waves and rainbow fish and clear water. My service is my reality; this tiny speck of land in the great big Pacific ocean is my whole world. Peace Corps allows for time and place to seep into me as I seep into my service.

3. How has your experience at Whitworth shaped, helped or impacted your work as a volunteer?

Whitworth focuses on service. Service is at the core of the Peace Corps. The interesting twist is that I am a non-Christian who attended a Christian institution. At the center of Whitworth's service is Christ. At the center of my service is my personal philosophy discovered and honed during my four years in Whitworth's Philosophy program. It was also during these four years that I honed my appreciation for community and support, especially in light of common or core differences. During my time at Whitworth I developed deep relationships with people whose values or beliefs deeply differed from my own. And yet it was (and still is) in those relationships that the most meaning and growth happened. So it is during my time in the Peace Corps, where I find myself literally as far from my own milieu as possible. The distances I've come and the differences I've encountered only strengthen the similarities we find together, where sometimes the only important commonality is laughter or food.

4. How have your experiences so far impacted your life and worldview?

In a sense the whole point of two years of service abroad is to change one's worldview as literally and physically possible. In my case it is total immersion. I am on a tiny tiny tiny (I don't think most people can even conceive of it) island in the ocean hundreds of miles from any substantial land mass. I have no phone. No Internet. Power comes from the sun. Water comes from the sky. Food comes from the sea. In a very real way, I am out there totally on my own. And yet I'm not alone. Peace Corps for me is people. It's relationship. It's the community on my island (less than 100 people). It's my students (less than 20). It's my host family. Time becomes a very strange concept when you join the Peace Corps, join a new community and culture and language, and then are simply there. There has never been a better way to learn the lesson of being present than when you're a PCV on a tiny island in the big blue ocean! And yet time passes. The people around me change. The island changes. I change. The world's longest hour can somehow turn itself into a month passed, then two. Then I find myself more than a year in and less than a year to go, and time, which has seemingly just rushed passed me, slips on just as slowly, just as quickly as ever. That's the only way to mark change, impact, experience, with subtlety and awareness, with gratitude for the past and openness towards the future. And that is for me, in a coconut shell, what I've learned thus far.

As you can see, I'm very tangential and like to sway between topics. If you have any more questions or need clarifications (I'm sure you have no doubt that I'm a PH major after all my abstractions), please let me know. I'm always happy to hear from friends.