International Development
By Billy Knox, B24 COD
I joined the Peace Corps with visions of grandeur. Seriously. They told all of us that there would be a lot of adjustments to be made, that we would need to be flexible and patient and that we probably would not change the world with one brilliant stroke. I thought I was the exception. I was going to move into my small community and capture people’s hearts and change their minds and maybe learn a thing or two about them in the process. I couldn’t have been more ignorant or, since we are talking about international development here, further off in my concept of what it means to be a grassroots development worker.
It has been two years since I started my Peace Corps service and I have learned a thing or two. I would like to take a minute to simply list some of the more important ones (in my humble opinion):
Development is hard. It is easy to sit in a classroom and toss around theories about solving the world’s problems but it is exponentially harder to actually get dirt under your fingernails. Nobody told me that. There is no manual or flip chart (sorry Peace Corps) that makes it any easier. Every last one of us is shooting from the hip. Sometimes it works and is brilliant and sometimes it fails miserably. But you should be proud of yourself for stepping in the ring because you have already done more than the majority of humanity ever will.
Peace Corps volunteers are not development workers. We are. But we are not. We do development work. But it is a third of our overall mission. Development agencies like USAID are completely different animals and it is not right or fair to compare what we do to agencies throwing millions of dollars at problems. We live next to people. Not across from them. Not above them. Next to them. We do not have stockpiles of resources but rely on our unparalleled resourcefulness to accomplish amazing things. We are incredibly resilient. And we are connected at a very real and personal level to the issues we are trying to address. This is what sets us apart, and what, I believe, makes Peace Corps dollar for dollar one of the most effective aid agencies around. What we do is human development and it is much harder to quantify and measure but, in the long run, much, much more important.
You can build a thousand schools and a hundred hospitals and all that is good and right but if you do not change people’s minds and educate them then it is highly probable that your grand accomplishments might not be around too long. Sustainability is both extremely important and extremely difficult to achieve but it is well worth the due diligence.
Because I have your ear: Drop books, not bombs. Educate and you will sow peace and prosperity, tolerance and love. We are never going to destroy the dark ideas in the world with M16s and laser-guided bombs. We will only make them ever darker and stronger.
I came here thinking that the Peace Corps was about me changing the world. I now know that this whole experience was much more about the world changing me. We, as Peace Corps Volunteers, are far more
aware, engaged, active, compassionate, etc, etc, etc… than we were before we came here and that is going to follow us for the rest of our lives. It is both our blessing and our curse.
Life is all about the little things. It is about human relationships and conversations and the small things that fill our daily lives. I wanted to change the world (I still want to), but I have learned to be okay with the idea that just changing one person’s mind is a monumental accomplishment worthy of praise and celebration. We never know what the seeds we now plant will grow into.
I am a Peace Corps Volunteer here in Bulgaria coming up on the end of my service. I have been here two years. I do not have an illustrious list of grand accomplishments that I can rattle off to you. I have not built bridges or hospitals or schools or empires. If I am completely honest, which for proprieties sake I probably
should not be, then I must admit to you that I do not have much to show from my time here.
But there are all of these things that you, and for that matter I, cannot see.
Thoughts
Ideas
Questions Raised
Minds Changed
The human relationships that we cultivate are immeasurable in their importance. The ideas that we share are infinite in their possibilities to bring about change. The small number of people that we directly influence are, without a doubt, forever changed. Change is certainly slow and often immeasurable. The things we do now often need years to grow into full-formed ideas and philosophies supported by actions and lifestyles. And still some things do not stick. Some people do not change. Some people never will. But even if they do not we most certainly have.
So yes it has been two years. And yes I do not have anything particularly spectacular to show you. And yes I am completely satisfied.
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I am the first volunteer in my community and when I was being interviewed by one of the PC staff, Jason, on whether or not I felt ready to accept this task and become a full-fledged volunteer, he told me that being the first was going to be a challenge. He told me that there will be other volunteers doing amazing things in their communities and it may take a toll on my motivation because I won't be making the same strides. He didn't say I wouldn't makes strides of my own but that they would be less measurable. My job is to lay the foundation here. Change hearts and minds so that in the future they will be more open, willing, and able to implement some community-changing projects and ideas, with or without the help of another volunteer. This article of Billy's really hit home and I realize that I need to change my focus in the sense that I need to expand my focus. Do all I can while at the same time remaining open to any small accomplishments as well as learning from my many mistakes and so called "failures." So, let's do this!
-Age
