Anyone ever been in the Peace Corp?????

[spaceman]

???
if so, id be interested to hear your experiences.TIA

 

[spaceman]

?

 

[spaceman]

no one?

 

[T3C]

Nope

 

[pyonir]

No one wants to admit it if they have...

 

[astroview]

good question, I'd like to hear ATers experiences in it

 

[FoBoT]

does it still exist? i thought that was a sixties hippy thing

 

[Rastus]

It doesn't seem to me that anyone who was in the Peace Corps would become computer hardware junkies after they got back.

 

[Thump553]

The Peace Corps is still very active. It was JFK's brainchild, hardly a sixties hippie thing. My niece just spent two years in the Philippines. I discussed it briefly with her and a half dozen of her ex-Peace Corps colleagues at a party recently. I think all of them enjoyed it, but it was a huge lifestyle change from what they were used to in the States.

One thing that surprised me is that they are not all youngsters. They have a fair number of people in their fifties. Apparently once you are a federal employee, if you go in the Peace Corps you time there counts as federal service toward your pension (doesn't work this way if you go in Peace Corps first).

If you are really interested, I'd talk to a recruiter and ask for names, contact info of people who have done this. They are interested in getting good, skilled people who can stick it out in a tough situation-I doubt greatly they would give you a snow job to sign you up.

 

[white]

my friend just got back from the peace corp. he said it wasn't for him since he knew what he wanted to with his life. but he said it'd be good for someone who isn't quite sure and needs some time to figure it out. he also said that the female peace corp volunteers get really desperate. girls who wouldn't have looked at you before are now hanging off your nutsack. he also said that the work they do over there won't change anything for the natives because they'll just go back and work on the farm. he taught math in a west african village and at the "high school" level they couldn't do simple subtraction of three-digit numbers. there would be two or three students who score in the 80's on tests and the rest would score single digits.

 

[gigapet]

I was thinking about going to a 3rd world country in central or south america to educate them about computers and technology. This is a priceless item to have on your resume i think. Not to mention you become fully immersed in a new language and culture. They also give you credit on student loans you owe or something like that. I'd be curious to here someones experiences also. i've only heard about some guy that went to some random african country and contracted hepatitis amonst other things.

 

[308nato]

I roomed with a guy I worked with when I first got out of the service. He spent 2 years in Guatemala, 69/70 I think, in the Peace Corp. He was no big humanitarian, He just didn't want to go to VietNam but wasn't the draft dodger run to canada variety. Being farm types around here, he lived in some remote village and taught them about irrigation, crop rotation, etc.

They taught him how to grow killer weed, he taught them how to make it more killer with a higher yield. they apparently liked each other a lot. He had a life size (6'3 around 270lb) wooden statue of himself they gave him when he was recalled home. Its pretty cool, having a cigar store indian of yourself.

I haven't seen him in 15 years. Last I heard he was living in upstate New York with some ex-model or something.

that doesn't help much i suppose but I thought I would toss it out anyway.