Our Peace Corps Story

This blog post will be longer than most (and with fewer pictures) but I promise there will be plenty of juicy details.

So, like many people in their early to mid-twenties, my now-husband and I decided that we were ready for an adventure and actually had a few skills/experiences that might be of value to someone. So we applied for the Peace Corps in June 2008, had our interview in September, and were nominated to go to Jordan by October or so. We received our medical forms in the mail, went to our appointments, and sent everything back.

We were expecting a wait since our placement wasn’t until October 2009 and you have to be married for at least six months before getting sent anywhere. But then the letters started coming. I, like just about every woman at some point in her life, had had an abnormal pap smear. I hadn’t been concerned since my doctor, my friends, and the Internet had all made it quite clear that this was very common, wasn’t a big deal, and just required occasional monitoring. Unfortunately, this was a show-stopper with Peace Corps and it became clear that their de facto policy was that you couldn’t receive medical clearance until you had a normal pap smear. I wish I could have taken pictures of the expressions on all of my medical providers’ faces when I told them that. The general response was something along the lines of “Based on what medical reason exactly??!!” My doctor even wrote two very strongly worded letters pleading my case and arguing with the validity of their policy.

This was frustrating but I was being a good sport. My husband and I extended our time in South Africa by a month, got our Teaching English as a Foreign Language certifications when we returned to the States, and ended up moving back to the east coast for seven months to work on short-term projects. (Ashoka’s Changemakers for me, the US Census and the New York Philharmonic for Dan.)

But at a certain point in March 2010, I snapped. I had been in active contact with the medical office and kept hearing the same story. Finally, I decided to reach out to our recruiter to see if she had any suggestions or a new perspective. After over a week of no response, I started getting really worked up. I was sick of being stonewalled and was ready to get a little reckless. My friend suggested I just send an email to the Director of the Peace Corps since he was a former volunteer and might be sympathetic to our situation. So I did that. And I found the email addresses for recruiters in the many cities in which I’ve been based. And I emailed them. And I emailed the Office of the Inspector General, the Office of Medical Services, and the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity to initiate an investigation into whether or not this aspect of Peace Corps’ screening process was discriminatory against women. And then I emailed my senators in all the states I paid taxes in last year. I even mulled going to the press but thought it best to wait until we had exhausted our other channels. What can I say? We were still optimistic (or at least curious) after all of the nonsense.

In the meantime, I did more research and found discrepancies in what Peace Corps claimed their policies were versus the pdf of their screening procedures that I found online. I took a lot of pleasure in pointing these out to someone in the Office of Medical Services one morning after a poor night’s sleep. Let’s just say, I was definitely not having it.

Also, I wouldn’t shut up about it. I was telling everyone I met about Peace Corps’ ridiculous policy. And then one night, I met someone with a direct connection to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s office. Let me say quickly that I heard back from Senator Schumer’s office, Senator Feinstein’s office, and Senator Boxer’s office but Senator Gillibrand’s office was on the ball. I have no doubt that her office’s involvement contributed to a very satisfying conclusion by the end of April.

Before I get to the conclusion, I should tell you that the night of my first email blast, I felt sick to my stomach. I wondered if I was actually so crazy and so stubborn as to email several dozen strangers about my medical situation and expect anything good to come of it. But I really am that crazy and that stubborn so I just went for it and interacted with a number of very thoughtful people along the way. Many couldn’t do much but offer me moral support but compared to the non-attention I’d received before, this felt pretty great.

On April 17, 2010, the Office of the Director of the Peace Corps got back to me. They had changed their stupid policy. Now women with certain abnormal results can serve provided they get a note from their doctor. In addition to being ecstatic, partly for the benefit to myself and to other women and partly for winning after a protracted battle, I couldn’t help but feel that democracy might actually work provided you’re annoying enough to get shit done but not so annoying that people think you’re crazy.

~

Ironically, after all that hard work, my husband and I have decided that Peace Corps service is not in our future. We’ve got other exciting things going on – working and volunteering in Malaysia, a Kiva Fellowship in January, and plenty of other potential plans ranging from intensive Spanish and surfing lessons in Costa Rica, hanging out with my brother on a wine farm in Slovenia, boat-building apprenticeships in Greece, and maybe even getting traditional jobs at some point (or maybe not). But, like many things that have happened this past year, Peace Corps has given us a whole helluva lot to talk about so thanks for that, Peace Corps! I also hope that my efforts have opened up service to more women, who, quite frankly, are the key to connecting with families in the developing world. Why Peace Corps doesn’t make every possible accommodation of female volunteers is a mystery to me. Fortunately, I don’t have to worry about it any more.

To end things, two pics from our “home” in Malaysia. New definition of “home” – anywhere you can actually unpack your bags.

Day

Evening

Shameless Self-Promotion

Sorry for this screenshot. It's boring but I don't know what else to put here.

Just wanted to share my latest adventure in blogging: a post for the The Changemakers Social Media Blog about World Up, one of the Revelation to Action entrants. It’s been a crazy week at work with the official competition deadline on Wednesday (and now an extension until Monday), plus interesting developments with Kiva and Peace Corps. Oh, and I managed to get sick. But this video from World Up about their work with young refugees (also posted on the Changemakers blog) really lifts the spirits. (Cough syrup is helping, too.)

Victory

Irony alert: Using an image from Statue Park (aka cemetery for Hungary's Communist-era statues) to illustrate a point about the US Peace Corps

Well, I don’t want to go into too much detail since I’m afraid I might jinx something but after an elaborate campaign that involved contacting 30+ people at the Peace Corps (including the Director and the Office of the Inspector General), exploring a discrimination complaint with the American Diversity Program, and contacting several senators (thanks for stepping up, Senator Gillibrand), Peace Corps has changed the medical policy that was resulting in our indefinite delay. There are still a number of hoops to jump through but at least we’re lurching forward again!

Chadian Women and Food as Enterprise

Making bili-bili

Zhu Jun digs deeper into the business opportunities available to women in Chad, many of which revolve around food:

The vast majority of women in Léré and rural Chad are bound by unspoken gender rules that limit the types of entrepreneurship women can engage in. This generally means entrepreneurship for women in Chad is limited to serving food and drink. In streets near transportation centers and well-traveled roads throughout the country, women and girls hawk snacks including fried bean fritters, Chadian doughnuts or beignets, beans and rice, seasonal fruits, palm nuts, grilled chicken, grilled or fried fish, and packs of water.

Grown men who are not yet married and are thus lacking households of their own (i.e. women to cook for them) often go to “restaurants” run by women, usually simple places where women serve the Chadian staple of okra sauce and boule. In larger, wealthier towns, women and their families may own and operate restaurants that serve more expensive foods such as grilled chicken or fish, French-style baguette sandwiches, or even juice smoothies, made from blenders dating from the ’80s that are powered by gas generators. (These smoothies were colloquially known as “Amoeba Juice” by us Peace Corps Volunteers because, although tasty, they were made with unpurified, contaminated water and one would almost certainly contract amoebiasis or giardia and suffer the runs as a consequence.)

But not all food service-related enterprise is created equal.

Bars, or the rural equivalent of bars, are one of the most common and popular informal businesses run by non-Muslim women in smaller towns and villages. The local, home-brewed alcoholic beverage in Chad is known as bili-bili and is fermented from the locally-grown grains, usually sorghum or red or white millet, sometimes maize, or even a mixture of these. Bili-bili is the drink of the people, made from cheap, easily available ingredients. It is also much more affordable and popular than either of the two Western-style bottled beers produced in Chad, Chari or Gala.

As soon as the sun goes down and the oppressive heat of the day dissipates, groups of women, usually relatives or friends working together, begin to make the bili-bili, boiling vast pots over large wood fires. Doing this at dusk helps women avoid working around the large, hot pots during the extreme heat of midday (the cooler, earlier part of the day is reserved for the manual labor of subsistence activities), and provides light, warmth, and a common activity in a town almost entirely without electricity. Once the bili-bili is fermented and ready, usually after several days, it is transferred into large basins and taken to sites all over town by each group of women. The women sell copious amounts of this very cheap beer (half a calabash costs about 100 CFA, or approximately 20 cents) and they share the profits, costs, and labor.

During the afternoon after work, men (and the occasional woman), disperse to these informal “bars” to drink, relax, and socialize. Muslims, who typically abstain from alcohol, gather at tea bars to indulge in syrupy sweet shai akhadar (green tea) or shai amar (red tea). The drinking goes on until the early evening and then, one by one, the drinkers disperse, returning to their homes or going into town.

First, the positive: Drinking bili-bili serves as a cheap method of stress relief, and as a social pastime, it can help to strengthen and maintain relationships. Interestingly, imbibing the homemade brew also helps nourish Chadians who have a very limited diet. Bili-bili contains high levels of protein, minerals, and vitamins which poorer Chadians would otherwise not get from their daily food. The nutritional advantage afforded by the liquor is recognized by Chadians who often and enthusiastically explain, “Ça donne la force!”

Now, the negative: As with small towns in America, one of the factors driving drinking is a lack of other recreational activities and methods of relaxation. This boredom, coupled with an extremely harsh physical environment, the constant possibility of violence, and no laws or restrictions on drinking age in Chad, has resulted in a unhealthy and entrenched drinking culture. There were extremely high levels of alcoholism in town (estimates were in the double digits) and, unfortunately, there were regular incidents of violence against women, children, and, of course, other men.

Two quick stories:

- During my first site visit, there was a commotion as individuals reported to and from my host father, a local chief and a member of the royal family. Apparently, one of his sons, a host brother I hadn’t met, had gotten into a drunken argument with a man and demanded the man’s sunglasses. When the man refused, things got physical, and the host brother pulled out a knife and stabbed the man to death. Then, my host brother put on the sunglasses and continued strolling down the street. He was later detained at the jail but was reportedly still so inebriated he didn’t understand what was happening to him.

- A young male relative of my host father would visit me often at my house. When he was sober, he was helpful, polite, and serious. Often, however, he would stumble into my living area barely able to stand or walk, his eyes glassy and sometimes even rolled back into the sockets, and alternating between mumbling to himself and making aggressive yet incoherent statements. The boy was only seventeen, but he was frighteningly drunk on a regular basis.

While making and selling bili-bili can be an extremely lucrative undertaking for women, its numerous negative consequences – many of which impact women directly – make me question the mantra that all enterprise is good enterprise.

I do think that supporting women’s ideas and businesses in the developing world is often effective in raising their standard of living, increasing educational opportunities (particularly for their daughters), and affording women a measure of financial and personal independence. That said, women in the developing world must also negotiate a complex social and cultural framework and it’s important to realize that economics and entrepreneurship are not the silver bullet in every case. Very often, a raised profit margin isn’t enough to ensure the safety and better lives women seek for themselves, their families, and their communities.

Officially an International Blogger

Screenshots: Not the most attractive option but it's late and I'm tired

Well, I’m officially an international blogger. Just felt like sharing. Check out my first post here.

Now, since it would be ridiculous to have a blog post solely about how I re-purposed a previous post for another blog (even if that other blog is in Malaysia!), I’m going to find something else to write about for a few sentences.

I’ve been following the Kiva Fellows blog with (obvious) interest and I really enjoyed reading Nick Malouin’s “Live Music from Senegal” and Eva Wu’s “The Dangers of Being an MFI Loan Officer“. Both posts pulled me in right away and I even clicked through to the originals. (Note to Kiva, I understand why you truncate your posts for aggregators like Google Reader but I am much more likely to read a post when I can read it in its entirety. Same goes to you, The Economist.)

Anyway, I think what caught my attention with both posts was the writers’ awareness of the fragility of safety and security. My sense from talking to friends and colleagues who have worked in the developing world is that it can strip away your illusions about control and choice. Sometimes you’re lucky and sometimes you’re not. My friend Zhu Jun spoke eloquently about this when we were discussing his Peace Corps experience in Chad and it has stuck with me ever since.

In fact, I just asked Zhu Jun if he’ll share some of his observations for a future post. Fingers crossed….

Moving. Again.

Fortunately, this move doesn't involve a truck

Well, I’ve lived in Boston for all of five weeks so I guess it’s time to move again. This one should be relatively pain-free – just a matter of throwing a bunch of stuff in a suitcase and jumping on the Bolt Bus. I realize I should be used to this after the past eight months but I’ve adjusted pretty quickly to having everything I need (and plenty more that I don’t) all in one place again.

As for the past eight months – two months on the road, two months in South Africa, three weeks in New York/Boston, one month in Southern California, another week on the road, and one month in Boston – hopefully there will be many more like it. I’ve been looking into some opportunities in Kuala Lumpur and Kenya, I applied for a Kiva Fellowship, stranger things have happened than getting un-delayed with Peace Corps, and we do have our TEFL certification after all. Plenty of exciting options. Just a matter of figuring out what’s next.

Motivation Statement: Kiva

Massachusetts State Flag (Detail)

Social enterprise changed my life. Okay, maybe not in the way micro-loans change a farmer’s life in Cambodia or direct investment in a mosquito net company changes thousands of lives in Kenya but when I first started digging into social enterprise as a volunteer with New York for Acumen Fund, I knew that this was the direction I needed to go next. My nagging feelings about non-profit and international aid finally had a voice: it’s not enough to try to do good. You need return on investment, social impact, scalability, and sustainability, and more often than not, the actions and ideas need to come from within not without.

Kiva, for me, succeeds in its ability to connect with people on all ends of the aid/investment spectrum while fostering a sense of community both online and across the globe. In my current position as Marketing Outreach Coordinator at Ashoka’s Changemakers, I’ve seen first-hand how effective online networks can be at addressing social problems. Organizations like Changemakers and Kiva are taking crowd-sourcing for social good to an epic scale and it’s thrilling to be a part of the next wave of development.

I think experiences like these at Changemakers and my background in online networking, digital marketing, and social media will enable me to jump right into many of the Kiva Fellow’s roles. I am also very interested in learning more about how Kiva cultivates partners on the ground and how it provides appropriate (but not stifling) support and encouragement. Kiva’s respect for people’s autonomy and dignity, and its desire for Fellows to work in a hands-on, collaborative way is particularly compelling to me and it’s one of the many reasons I would love to support Kiva’s work as a Fellow.

Looking to the future, I think that what I learn from Kiva about building relationships in the developing world, fostering enterprise, and telling high-impact stories in the digital realm will make me a more effective leader, partner, and MBA student. It will also provide me with a grounding in the reality that so many of the world’s entrepreneurs face: having dreams but lacking the resources to achieve them. And if my husband and I ever become un-delayed with the Peace Corps, my experience with Kiva will provide the cornerstone for how to facilitate success while keeping the credit squarely in the arms of the entrepreneur.