What One Does as a PCV

September 8, 2008

There are lots of things that you would never do in America in front of people or at least not admit to anyone that you begin to do in Peace Corps. In honor of this I have decided to list some of them and then post it online...

1) Every night I eat dinner directly from the pot I cooked it in. This is out of laziness of not wanting to wash another dish. Usually, I am very hungry as I ration myself to one meal a day.

2) You begin to wear clothes you wouldn't be caught dead in at home. Also, you have a nightly uniform- mine includes chaco sandals with wool socks, a long skirt (must be culturally sensitive), the same fleece jacket, stringy dirty hair, and my headlamp.

3) Everything gets the sniff test- clothes, your body, food, etc.

4) A friend of mine is a big advocate of the re-wearing of undergarments inside out, there are others who just go without altogether.

5) You stop bathing. I have gone over a week. It is a pain. First you have to haul the water from some distant place, light the stove, heat the water, take off your clothes, dump the bucket on yourself and then try to get warm/dry. Overall, way too much work.

6) Africans don't believe in a use for toilet paper- some PCVs don't either.

7) You begin to eat food that you should never eat- I mean sitting unrefrigerated for days with mild rat protection. One of the most common things that new PCVs first get sick from is food poisoning that they give to themselves. To eat anything: first, smell it, then boil for 10 minutes to kill anything living. Along the same lines, your stomach starts to make noises that you didn't know it could make. It sounds like something is dying in there. (And I am a vegetarian!)

8) You begin to discuss health issues with everyone- particularly bowel movements- everyone has something different going on. It is not uncommon to have a PCV come up to you and say, "What do you think this is?" while uncovering some sort of abnormality. The correct response is, "Ewww, I don't know."

9) There is a spectrum people live on. On one end is "This is perfectly safe" on the other end is "This is definitely going to kill me." Americans tend to stay on the first end, while PCVs drift nearer to the other.

10) It is acceptable to stuff your face with any food item that is from the states.

11) When you wake up in the night because of weird noises, you actually breath a sigh of relief and say, "Whew, just rats."

12) You speak English to yourself- just to make sure you still know how to speak it.

13) A real kicking night is staying up past 8 pm and dancing by yourself to your ipod. (It is hard to stay up because of the lack of friends, electricity, tv, etc.)

14) Finally, sometimes you just stare off into space for a while- just because you can. I mean this is a job, but let's face it, what else are you going to do? Bathe?