The Foreign Service Journal, October 2008

Volunteer Leader, I attended a trainers workshop in Cotonou. At a reception the chargé d’affaires, Charles Twining, held for our group, we had the chance to chat a bit about being a diplomat. The next year my spouse, Ed — also a Peace Corps Volunteer in The Gambia (see next item) — entered the Foreign Service and was assigned to Douala as adminis- trative officer. Unfortunately, there was going to be an unavoidable two-month gap between him and his prede- cessor — not a good thing at a post that supported all incoming and outgoing shipments to five other posts. Feeling cocky after my Peace Corps experience, I pitch- ed the idea that I come to post in advance of Ed and do his job. I would then move into my position as budget assistant when he arrived. It happened that Charles Twining had become Douala’s consul general! He remembered me from our brief meeting in Cotonou, and welcomed my offer. After Douala, I accompanied Ed on his tours to Bombay, Bridgetown, Dakar, Abidjan, Djibouti and Berlin — working at interesting jobs at each post. In 2003, while in Berlin, I became a direct-hire Office Management Specialist. My first Foreign Service tour was for 14 months in Kabul, sans spouse. But Ed and I reconnected in Stock- holm in 2005, and are now both back in Washington. Susan H. Malcik GSO Training Assistant Foreign Service Institute usu D IPLOMATIC B OOT C AMP Much of my Peace Corps experience (The Gambia, 1980-1982) was fun. But a lot was tough, like hunkering down during the 1981 coup d’etat or living with the con- stant threat of malaria. The Peace Corps advertises that it is the toughest job you will ever love, and that is not hyperbole. In fact, a Peace Corps assignment is diplomatic boot camp: two years of intense, full-contact, sandals-on-the- ground, cultural immersion. The skills a volunteer acquires are not bookish but experiential, and immedi- ately put to use: eating without utensils, taking a bucket bath, knowing when shaking hands is appropriate, butchering a chicken, speaking Mandinka and Woloff. These were survival skills. They were also learned in a context quite different from the Foreign Service Institute. FSI teaches culture via language instruction and area studies, but that doesn’t come close to equipping you to speak about the weather in the local language while a rainy season gale is blowing through the open classroom window. Those skills have helped me tremendously as a Foreign Service officer. I now have a template that assists me in understanding any culture, in the same way that learning one foreign language helps you learn another. Although I have gone on to live in many places, it is to The Gambia that I most often make com- parisons. For instance, when I went to Bombay for my consular tour, I found many things different from back in the United States, but some were closer to the Gambian context. I’ve found my Peace Corps experience so important, so useful to my current career, that I think it should be listed on my employee profile. (At least time spent as a Peace Corps Volunteer counts toward State Department retirement.) A volunteer’s performance probably tells as much about his or her diplomatic potential as a universi- ty transcript. My experience as a management officer is that former volunteers make for happy FSOs. The transition from a mud-brick thatched hut to an embassy-funded house with a generator and running water is pretty easy. The frame of reference for what former volunteers expect in living standards overseas is not purely American, but tempered by what they see the locals have — because they have lived as locals in another country. Thus, I find that former volunteers are pleased with their housing and willing to put up with small inconveniences that drive other Americans batty. Former volunteers also can make for happy local employees because they are not reticent about shaking hands with the facilities maintenance guys when they show up at the door! Ed Malcik FSO Director IO/OIC usu C OMING F ULL C IRCLE The Peace Corps is a perfect preparation for the Foreign Service. All too many Americans serving over- F O C U S O C T O B E R 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 43