I loved the part about the witch doctor! When I read that, it made me think of the kid next to me on the bus on our way to school in Oklahoma, telling me how Jesus and Satan BOTH had appeared to him the night before, fighting for his soul, so his mom came him and sprinkled soothing herbs around his bed to keep the evil spirits away. Or the next door neighbor who saw little green men zipping around his yard, so he had the local Baptist minister come and cast out the demons, and one of the parishioners who accompanied the minister had a vision in which he saw an evil coin embedded in the living room wall that was the source of the green men’s appearance. The claim was that they tore the living room wall down, and sure enough, a coin. I’m a natural skeptic, so as a teenage kid I usually just cocked my head and thought to myself, “Seriously????!!”

Thanks Erik/Elliot for the post!

I’d be interested to hear someone from one of these organizations discuss how they work. I might try to work on that.

1 – Make a difference in the area that volunteers were deployed (this one is a given)

2 – Improve the image of the United States abroad (unless I am mistaken this is the stated primary goal of the Peace Corps)

3 – To provide a positive experience for volunteers so they consider a career in foreign assistance/reconstruction/making a difference/what have you.

I think there is no doubt the Peace Corps moderately well does all three of these. The first could be more effective with more resources. What I find disturbing about this story in particular is that Erik wasn’t assigned enough work to keep him busy. We have all done that BS internship where you sat and did nothing, now imagine that in Africa, that’s a woozy. I think this points to a bureaucratic organizational problem one as well as a resource one. Im simply not convinced that Peace Corps is doing everything it can with the resources it has.

I beleive that the second and third aspects are more important then the first, and require less funding, but require a focused bureaucratic organizational structure.

Im sure the peace corps would be a life changing experience, and I hope I don’t come across as criticizing the institution, I simply beleive that it is the struggle to improve that makes something great. The moment we stop trying improve we worsen.

Congrats Erik, truly admirable. Truly fascinating stuff.

Than again, I have heard many accounts of people involved in these programs making a serious difference. Although you could say that Erik may not have been completely successful in his participation, he certainly made a positive difference.

I think these programs try their best but lack the backing to be effective and completely safe.

What do you think?

great experience but could have been so much better

Interesting read, thanks for sharing this Erik/Elliot…