Peace Corps is not a vacation.

Recently, a fellow volunteer and one of my closest friends here shared with me how an acquaintance from home recently asked her how her “extended vacation” was going in Cambodia. Understandably, she was more than a little upset by this comment, as was I when she shared it with me.

I don’t think this misconception is uncommon, which is why I want to address it here and hopefully nip it in the bud, at least for my blog readers. I imagine it’s something I’ll have to deal with when I get home, from those who are ignorant of what this experience is really like, so I thought it best to consider exactly why the distinction is so stark in my mind so I can better express this to others. Here are a few of the reasons I came up with.

Dress

• Vacation: freedom of dress. On a vacation you wear what you want to wear, maybe even if it’s not what’s culturally acceptable in the country you’re visiting. You’re a tourist, after all. How should you know?
• Peace Corps: restriction of dress. If you want to be accepted into your community, it’s advisable NOT to go out and about in a tank top and shorts if that’s not appropriate in your country of service. Similarly, if there are stipulations regarding dress where you work, you must abide by them if you want to be accepted.

Conduct

• Vacation: freedom of action. If you choose to go out and make poor decisions, that affects only you (and perhaps whoever was with you at the time who you might’ve shamed in the process).
• Peace Corps: restriction of action. If you shame yourself, you shame your entire community, as well as the reputation of Americans in general. For many in your community, you are the only contact they've ever had with an American, so you represent not only yourself but all of America. All of what you do, what you say, and how you act paint a picture, whether you intend them to or not.

Responsibility

• Vacation: No responsibilities and no commitments. Okay, so maybe you’re committed to a dinner reservation or a show, but nothing you’re absolutely required to go to.
• Peace Corps: Commitment to teach English in an impoverished Cambodian school, or work in a Cambodian health center, to the best of your abilities, for two years and three months. No backing out at the last minute because you “just didn’t feel like it” unless you want people to stop trusting you and taking you seriously.
• The weight of this commitment should be elaborated on. There are some days when I feel like the four hours I teach in the morning is an eternity, such is the challenge it presents. At least once a week, I doubt my ability to do this job- this is how exhausting it can be. I haven’t worked in a Cambodian health center or hospital, but I have been inside of one and seen how dire the situation is. Patients are herded together in one room, breathing each other’s stale, sick air, laying on hard wooden “cots,” and pretty much unanimously offered Cambodians’ “treatment” of choice: an IV bag with sugar water. The doctor comes to visit everyone in one fell swoop, so as to save time.
• Commitment to live, eat, interact, and integrate with a host family and the local community. Commitment to help in whatever capacity capable- through establishment of English clubs, girls’ clubs, work with NGOs, help with grant-writing and/or applying for scholarships, and other forms of community development. Each volunteer interprets this commitment differently, but we’re all working to fulfill it to the best of our abilities.
• Again, this point merits elaboration. As a tourist, you’re enabled to glide through your country of visit ignorantly should you so choose, taking everything at face value and being okay with that. As a volunteer, you inevitably learn your country of service’s dirty little secrets. You see the corruption, you learn about a family friend’s double life with a second family, you hear stories about living through the Khmer Rouge… You see the ugliness as well as the beauty, and have to continually challenge yourself to reconcile the two as best you can.

Food

• Vacation: Tasting local foods at high dollar prices in touristy areas, where the food’s likely to be much cleaner than what the local people are eating.
• Peace Corps: Eating what the locals eat. In a developing country, this means getting sick… A lot. I no longer flinch at the sound of my neighbors vomiting, and am unfazed when a student abruptly leaves class due to diarrhea. In a developing country, eating what the locals eat also means, in large part, not getting proper nutrition. People are most reliant on staple foods which provide little to no nutritional value, such as white rice, which fills you up and is cheap. Sugar is another ingredient that’s put in everything, as is MSG, which is considered by Khmer a “super seasoning.” While I physically eat the same amount as I did in the states, I get hungry again more quickly, and due to the empty calories, have gained weight.

Integration

• Vacation: Not required to truly interact with the local people to be able to get by (asking for directions or being able to say “thank you” or “hi” in the local language doesn’t count, although learning a few words is always an appreciated gesture).
• Peace Corps: Required to interact with the local people to survive. Volunteers must learn to speak the local language, on a comfortable conversational level, if we hope to make any kind of meaningful connections in our communities, and work together with local community members to make projects sustainable.

Freedom of Choice

• Vacation: You decide where to go, and how long you’ll stay.
• Peace Corps: While applicants have some say in determining where they will be placed, ultimately the decision lies with Peace Corps. I know multiple volunteers here who were initially under the impression they’d be going to Africa, only to find out several months after their nomination that their programs had been cut, and they’d been reassigned to Cambodia. This is not an uncommon scenario. Peace Corps requires flexibility from its volunteers from the very beginning of the application process. If one hopes to complete 27 months of service flexibility is an absolute requirement, as virtually nothing you do will go as you’d originally planned.

These are just a few of the most glaring contrasts, but I’m sure there are many more. I hope this gives an impression as to why this comparison struck my friend and I as so totally and utterly false, and I hope that as my readers and friends you will do your part to dispel this fallacy should you encounter it. While being a volunteer in the Peace Corps can be “exciting” and an “adventure,” these are only two minor parts in a greater story which is much more grounded in “day-to-day survival” and “patience.” Just as the first pair incomparable to the second, so is a vacation to the Peace Corps.