I read an article recently about the “White Savoir Complex” and it reminded me about my interactions with people regarding the Peace Corps. When I told people last year that I was resigning from my career in Human Resources and joining the Peace Corps, I overwhelmingly received positive responses. Americans highly respect the Peace Corps for obvious reasons. It is a program that makes a positive impact in the world. For the most part, I didn’t explain the Peace Corps in detail. People knew the overarching goal. At the time, people were more curious as to why I joined.
However, conversations about Peace Corps dramatically look different among Americans, Georgians, and other foreigners. For a quick breakdown, here are the different buckets of conversations:
- Americans: “That is so cool!” Questions range from how long is my service, where I am stationed, what is my primary assignment, etc. They ask specifics since the overwhelming majority of Americans I’ve met understand that we serve in underdeveloped and developing countries around the world.
- Georgians: Conversations go either of two ways. If they have interacted with previous volunteers, they are excited to meet me. I think that Peace Corps is well respected in Georgia and we are valued as members of our community. If they have never met a PCV before, they are confused. How do I speak Georgian? Why do I work in Georgia? Am I seriously not paid? Then, I must be rich if I live here voluntarily! What kind of things do I actually do?
- Foreigners: Many people that I’ve met have not heard of Peace Corps, especially if they are not in the non-profit sectors. I mean, it makes sense. For one, the foreigners I tend to meet typically come from highly developed countries. Peace Corps only operates in developing countries. Also, it is an American program and only American citizens are able to serve. Therefore, unless they are a dual citizen or know someone who is American, our paths don’t typically cross.
When Justin and I were in England and Morocco a few months ago, we spent a lot of time explaining Peace Corps. When I meet people (anywhere), a common small talk question is “what do you do?” For some reason, asking someone what their profession is a way to start a conversation as an adult (and secretly judge them). Like with many atypical jobs, I found it hard explaining my job in a perfect, short-sentence.
I didn’t want people to walk away thinking that I have no vision for my life, aimlessly traveling, and volunteering to promote my self-esteem. I also didn’t want to sound like a snob like “oh, look at me, I help people and I’m so special.” I ended up saying something like this most of the time, “It is a way for us to serve our country abroad, outside of the military route. It is a US government funded program in which skilled professionals go to developing countries and aid the host country in skills in which they requested from the U.S. We partner with locals on an equal level where co-teach or co-develop programs. I work at World Vision and my husband co-teaches English.”
A lot of people respond with, “that’s cool, man.” Some are curious and start asking us about Georgia. Then, some people showed a puzzled face and were not quite convinced. Without verbally saying it, some people had the expression that Peace Corps has the White Savior Complex. Let me frank, I strongly believe that Peace Corps does not. We don’t go these countries to “save” them. In fact, I am very uncomfortable when people go the other direction and say “I love how you are saving the world.” I’ll be frank yet again, we are not doing that either. We do ride in on a white horse and save people from their plight so we feel better about ourselves. It is so important to know that. The reason why Peace Corps is so well-known in the United States and respected in the countries we serve is because we are not that. My top reasons to show we are not:
We do not take jobs away from anyone. A white savior complex volunteer position might be where you vacation for two weeks in a remote area and paint an orphanage. First, that is not really helping. Second, you just took away a possibly paid job from a local. Third, do you really think those kids are going to wake up and be like, “omg, I love America because I know have a fresh coat of paint! They made a real difference in my life with that new shade of blue!” Of course not. In Peace Corps, we partner with people. In fact, everything I implement I do with a counterpart.
For example, here is a picture of my counterpart and me co-training at our Project Design Workshop. I worked with him for several hours a week to increase his presentation skills and his project management knowledge. I did not want him to simply translate the training for the youth, I wanted him to lead. It was a lot of hard work, but it paid off. On the day of the training, he was able to answer questions and fully explain the concepts. For more details, read this blog post.
We live and breath sustainability. We invest in people and not things. We love training people in skills that they need. We don’t dump money to rebuild infrastructure. No PCV in Georgia will be working on the crumbling soviet union infrastructure. Sure, we might paint a room to spice it up- but that spiced up will be part of a larger and impactful project like a technology room in a public school. Read this section from our Small Grants Handbook regarding Sustainability.
We take integration into the community very seriously. I don’t know of another volunteer program where you train for 3 months to study the local language. Peace Corps wants to provide us with successful tools to become great volunteers. How can we do that if we don’t speak the language? When I speak Georgian in my community, I immediately impress the community members. I definitely earn that respect because I am taking the time to understand them on a deep and cultural level. Most Georgians speak Russian (some fluent, some conversational). Although Russian is more widely spoken than English in the world, we still learn Georgian- because that is the community’s language.
We serve for more than two years. Some people tell me, “I want to make a difference in the world, but two years is too long.” I hate to be that person to disagree, but two years is actually limited. Real change takes real time. Development is slow. I’ve been here for almost a year and I’m still getting things set-up. Trust and real relationships take time. Rome was not built in a day and neither is development. As an outsider, I must earn the trust of my community members first and that can take time.
However, the one thing I can agree with is that there is a little of self-benefit joining the Peace Corps. I truly joined for altruistic reasons. However, I do believe that serving others has an impact on me as well. As cheesy as it sounds, the main goals of Peace Corps is actually Peace and Friendship. In a world that is moving more towards Isolationism, Peace Corps’ goals couldn’t be more important.
It is important because we need to remember that the problems abroad are our problems at home too. I know that sounds like a bold opinion, especially in this day and age, but I really believe that world affairs truly affect everyone. Living in another country reminds me every single day to be more emphatic and look at things from another perspective. I have been learning so much about how our American foreign policy literally affects the daily lives of Georgians.
Peace Corps has a job of meaning that truly connects people from different parts of the world together. It has a certain touch of human-ness that you don’t get easily with other jobs. To work with different people in another language is wonderful.