The Foreign Service Journal, November 2008

in tow meant allowing them to swim in the same parasite-infested waters, or stay in the same rooms with mice and rats, that hadn’t bothered me so much a few years earlier. Dancing all night in bars in questionable neigh- borhoods lost its appeal. Trying to justify the U.S. interest in giving grants to help poor schoolchildren, instead of organizing U.S. speakers to explain constructive engagement, became increasingly hard. How long did it take to stop pre- tending that I could remove myself, and now my family, from that pro- tective bubble, from the mercenary work of baldly promoting U.S. inter- ests? I don’t know, but eventually I found myself more comfortable in that bubble than I had been outside of it. There’s still a vestige of that earli- er attitude in each and every one of us who went through that transition, whether it is to try the palm wine or eat the street food or get a ride in the truck or the local bus — all the things that drive the security officers and the health units crazy. And that ves- tige is one of the many features of our Foreign Service that sets us apart from other diplomatic services. Nor is it the exclusive realm of former vol- unteers either, as the Foreign Service is full of colleagues who would other- wise qualify as “honorary volunteers.” One thing remains true. All the Peace Corps Volunteers I know would say they got more out of the experi- ence than they gave. While I love being in the Foreign Service and feel indebted to it in so many ways, it just occurred to me that I’ve never said that about the Foreign Service. Nor have I heard anyone else say it out loud. John Dickson FSO Director, Office of Public Diplomacy Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs A N E YE -O PENER My stint as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Chad (1977-1979) helped prepare me for the Foreign Service in many ways. Living in a remote village without electricity or running water, I discovered how little I really needed. Using French, Arabic and tribal tongues in daily life facilitat- ed the process of learning other lan- guages. And the experience of evacu- ating from the country in an overland convoy to Cameroon when civil war broke out made me much more sensi- tive to dealing with the local American community as a Foreign Service offi- cer. But one lesson still stands out from my first day of handling a class of 90. When two students kept talking, I did what my teachers had done when I was in school: I ordered the pair to sit in differing areas of the open-air class- room. But they refused to budge. I considered making a bigger issue of it, but I really wanted things to go smoothly. Eventually, the two stu- dents stopped talking enough so that I could finish the lesson. After class, the director ap- proached me and explained why the two students had not moved. They were from the Mboum tribe and I was asking them to sit with the Lakka and the Moundang tribes. I’d had no clue that the classroom was organized that way. That experience, and others like it, made me realize how much I needed fresh eyes to understand other cul- tures. When sitting across from diplo- mats from other nations, I came to see that we could look at the same facts yet see them very differently. And I had a better sense of why, in some negotiations, my counterparts could not budge. Michael Varga FSO, retired Norcross, Ga. F OND M EMORIES I am a USAID Foreign Service officer because of what I experienced and learned in the Peace Corps. In 1986, after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, my husband and I were posted to a remote village in southern Zaire, one of Africa’s poorest regions. Living one day at a time took on a new meaning, as I quickly learned the realities of life without electricity, running water, gro- cery stores, and even doctors. My two years there firmly cement- ed my view of the world and my career path. The Peace Corps taught me compassion, gave me the understand- ing and patience to work cross-cultur- ally, and provided me with the coping mechanisms I use every day to navi- gate life in developing countries. It also gave me a deep appreciation for the United States and our unique focus on aiding others around the world based on need, not ideology. My success managing USAID pro- jects is directly tied to my Peace Corps experience. I now know first-hand how a water, health or education pro- ject can transform lives and put people on a path to a better life. While life in the Foreign Service is far from the hardships of that village in Zaire, I do enjoy the occasional power cut and water shortage. Candles and bucket baths bring back fond memo- ries. Dana H. Rose Regional Contracting Officer USAID/Egypt T HINK L OCAL My involvement as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco was in the “good” old days of the 1980s, before the 9/11 attacks heightened security concerns and before rising urban 56 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 8