My two years in the Peace Corps won’t be comprised exclusively with the uplifting scenes that fill those commercials. They’re right to call it “the toughest job you’ll ever love,” but they don’t show any tough parts. Yes, there are “Peace Corps moments”-seeing a student’s eyes light up in class, sharing a hearty laugh, and building friendships.
In the commercials though, the volunteers are always making a difference. Really, I spend most of my time living a routine: sleeping, cooking, working, and keeping myself entertained.
I came with 45 other volunteers, and almost 20 have left. I don’t know all the reasons-medical, personal, family emergencies, etc.-but it’s safe to say a factor was that the moments worthy of commercials were too few and the frustrations too many.
I find living here personally rewarding, though challenging, and professionally a struggle. I enjoy teaching math, and I like my students, but the administration, or lack thereof, can be trying. It helps to keep expectations low. I can’t seem to set mine low enough to completely avoid exasperation.
Here’s a quick list of complaints. One teacher, actually my superior in the math department, has missed six weeks of school. Some teachers sleep through afternoon classes, break rules they expect students to follow, and generally act unprofessionally. Then they refer to themselves as “educated elites.” Is this what I’m helping to create?
Money is short, but isn’t spent wisely. Our budget wasn’t made until three months of school were completed. Before that we bought a new truck for K40,000. We traded our old truck for a snazzy-looking pickup, then spent K6,000 for repairs. Then we berate the students to pay their school fees, threatening that school will need to be closed for lack of food if they don’t scrape the money together. Huh? We just sent our new truck to Wewak for the first time, in a convoy with our old truck. I’m no accountant, but when money is so short you might not be able to buy food, you shouldn’t be updating your transportation.
My main contribution to the running of the school so far is my refusing to share water with the headmaster and his family. It’s amazing how water suddenly became important when his family had to go to the river to wash. Tanks were moved into place. Gutters were fixed. The headmaster gave the provincial governor a letter saying that the number one need of the school was a water supply system, which costs K35,000. Huh??
I don’t think that will ever make a Peace Corps commercial-me standing on my porch refusing this darling little girl a bucket of water.
A conversation I had with a friend, since departed, keeps coming to mind. After touring the squatter settlements outside Port Moresby a year ago, she questioned the priorities. Kids drinking pop, but not having clean water. Houses with televisions, but running their sewage into the street. Poor priorities is how the national government can find millions to kill their own citizens on Bougainville, but the Lumi Health Centre receives K1,000 this year for fuel, maintenance, food, and supplies. (Salaries and medicines are provided elsewhere.) Patients don’t complain about the food; there is no food provided.
Papua New Guinea is a resource-rich country. It has unspoiled natural resources-minerals, timber, fish, and fertile soil-still owned by the people.
How do you help? A village near here received the materials for a water tank from a donor organization. They said they wanted a safe water supply, but a year later the tank is still in pieces. They haven’t put it together yet.
“Be sure that you give the poor the aid they really need,” wrote Thoreau, “though it be your example which leaves them far behind.”
(Michael Jacobson was a reporter for the Paynesville Press before joining the Peace Corps.)