On the first day of his diving trip to the Republic of Palau,
Tai Sunnanon found himself face to face with a clam more than a
meter in length.
“It was the one time I screamed like a girl,” said
Sunnanon, who graduated from UCLA in 2001 and spent two years as a
Peace Corps volunteer in the Republic of Palau, an island of 17,000
located in the Pacific.
Earlier that day, Sunnanon had downed four bowls of stew, which
he later found out was made of turtle intestines. As he ate,
villagers crowded around him, cheering at the foreigner who was so
open to a new culture, he said. Sunnanon described the experience
as a rite of passage.
With this sudden initiation, Sunnanon entered the village
community of 300 where he would spend the next 24 months as an
educational volunteer, working on projects including bringing new
textbooks to the local school and advocating for national education
reform.
The Peace Corps, though an option relatively few graduates
elect, is a post-graduation path some students from universities
across the country choose to pursue.
Peace Corps volunteers spend three months in training in the
region they have been assigned. Volunteers then spend two years in
a developing country doing work such as improving health
conditions, strengthening agricultural techniques and aiding in the
growth of small businesses.
David Briery, a public affairs specialist for the Peace Corps,
said about a third of those who apply actually end up volunteering;
some drop out of the application pool because they realize the
Peace Corps is not right for them while others are found ineligible
based on outstanding criminal charges, unpaid debts or lack of
experience.
Currently, 49 UCLA alumni are serving in the Peace Corps, and
1,626 have volunteered in the Peace Corps since the program started
in 1961.
Sunnanon is one of those UCLA students who chose to join the
Peace Corps ““ but though he said he gained invaluable
experiences, he was quick to add the work is not for everyone.
Sunnanon said he chose to volunteer in the Peace Corps out of a
“genuine desire to help a developing country” and
requested to serve in a small, rural village because it would be
the most “grassroots” approach. In his village, there
was no hot running water, few phones and electricity that went out
on a regular basis.
For many Peace Corps volunteers, especially those who go to
rural villages, the life they live while serving abroad is vastly
different from the life they’re used to living in the United
States.
Tani Lee, who graduated in 2001 and volunteered in the West
African country of Mali, lived in a mud hut with a straw roof and
had no access to electricity or running water. She got water from a
pump near her hut, and said she soon learned to carry a bucket on
her head the way other women in the village did.
As an agricultural volunteer, Lee worked bringing effective
farming tools, methods and policies to her Malian city. That meant
brainstorming with local residents about how to make the best use
of resources or arranging for people to come to the village to
demonstrate a new technique, as well as working in fields alongside
other villagers.
For Lee, the way of life was exciting. She said she viewed it
more as a chance to integrate into another culture than an
inconvenience. “It’s their way of life. … I am
privileged.”
But the change in lifestyle, the often slow progress made on
projects and the distance from home can be difficult for some
volunteers.
“There’s an element of frustration. (In the U.S.),
you’re used to seeing the fruits of your labor,”
Sunnanon said. “In the Peace Corps, … you see the fruits of
your labor years after you leave.”
Sunnanon said there were two times when he was ready to pack his
bags and return home. He said he spoke to friends pursuing careers
and attending graduate school in the U.S. and questioned whether
the Peace Corps was the best use of his time.
But both times, Sunnanon ended up staying ““ quitting was
not the route he would take.
Sunnanon was not alone in his inclination to return home as
about 30 percent of volunteers who are sent abroad return before
completing their two years, Briery said.
“A huge element is homesickness. Everyone will (be
homesick) at some point,” Sunnanon said.
Though Lee said she did not have much difficulty with
homesickness, especially as she built relationships with people in
her village, the isolation of the area could be hard for
others.
She had no access to phones or e-mail in her village. She said
she communicated primarily by snail mail, which she picked up at a
nearby village. She accessed e-mail about once a month and hardly
ever spoke on the phone.
But those who make it through the application process and stay
for the full two years come home with experiences they would likely
not otherwise have had, and say they return to the U.S. with a
changed view of the world.
“We have this idea view here in the States … that you
need to do this or that,” Lee said. “But then you see
something else … and things aren’t (as) black and white as
they used to be.”