Meg and I: a Peace Corps Legacy

I wrote this story for our diversity newsletter, and it received some attention from our PC training director who wants to publicize it. Unfortunately, I was not able to upload pictures of Meg without having them being sideways. Maybe someday they'll find their place here.

My name is Anastasia, and I am a 1^st –year Agriculture volunteer. I’m stationed in Western Region, in a little village surrounded by cocoa groves. I am a naturalized American citizen, and what makes me unique is that a Peace Corps volunteer played a prominent role in my education, back when I still lived in my native country, Kazakhstan.

Me circa 1995

Peace Corps Kazakhstan started its mission in 1993, and volunteers participated in such programs as Community Development, Education, Health and HIV/AIDS and Youth Development not only in small towns and villages, but also in big cities like mine, Almaty. Many moons ago, right after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Peace Corps English teachers started to frequent my high school – an austere concrete building with rusty monkey bars sticking out in a deserted playground.

I remember one volunteer very clearly. Her name was Meg, and she was from Chicago (later on I had to find it on the world map, which was wall-papered in my room). During lessons, she used old issues of Rolling Stone and SPIN and snapshots of her friends to teach us such important and exotic-sounding words and expressions as “awesome,” “mashed potatoes,” and “cool stuff.” She had curly hair, bright smile and clear voice. To us, teenage “lost generation” of the 90s, she was very cool. She was also very brave. Coming to a crumbling post-Soviet republic half the world away to live in an old apartment, take a rickety exhaust-spewing bus around the city to teach a bunch of gloomy teenagers in a gloomy unheated classroom took a lot of bravery, sense of humor, and determination.

Looking back, I realize how lucky I was to have Meg as a teacher. Not only did I have an awesome* opportunity to speak English with “a real American” (as many of us would proudly tell our families), she also showed us her own version of America, which differed from Hollywood movies, music videos and commercials that flooded our ascetic media channels. Meg’s lessons helped me to improve my English and gave me enough confidence to apply for a coveted foreign exchange program, as well as college and, later on, graduate school.

Thanks to those Rolling Stone magazines read in our unheated classroom, I am a Peace Corps volunteer myself… My experience is very different from Meg’s: instead of living in a big post-Soviet city surrounded by mountains, I live in the African bush surrounded by cocoa farms. On a typical day I fetch water from the well, go to the farm with a cutlass, hand-wash my clothes, take a nap in the shade, greet neighbors and let local kids draw on my courtyard walls with crayons. However, based from our correspondence (we still keep in touch), both Meg and I have similar emotional ups and downs, little victories, frustrations and epiphanies. Back in Kazakhstan, Meg also felt different (even though her shade of skin was the same as ours). She also craved American foods (which is why she sends me care packages now). Moreover, she didn’t think that her presence at our school made any difference in our lives (it did!). And even though I’ve only been serving for less than a year, I am hoping that my presence in the community will also make a small-small impact – even if it is teaching a local kid to draw or speak a little English (other than the sing-songy “I am fine, how are you?” chant).

We are also a family now – a Peace Corps family. I am honored to be part of this great legacy, and passionate about its mission which, for me, started about 20 years ago when one sunny but cold winter day Meg came to our classroom, smiled and started talking to us in American English with her clear voice. 

  

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*Thanks, Meg.

Coming and going

So, I went to the US in July for two weeks. What a trip it was.

Generally, it was great to come back to good old New England, walk in my favorite Boston  neighborhoods, see friends, eat cheese (aaah, cheese!), and feel generally ignored (as in not being stared at and being called “Obroni!”everywhere I went ). However, I didn’t feel like I missed America all that much. It was just….there. And I was just…..a visitor who politely dropped by on her neighbor to check on things. As my plane was descending at Logan I did not feel any butterflies or urges to cry as I saw familiar buildings of the downtontown. I felt like I was cryogenically frozen for nine months and then woke up one fine day and started walking around Boston. In short, not too much changed in the Beantown while I was in Africa. And yet something was different. It was my perception of Boston and the US in general. For one thing, I was overwhelmed by choices in my life. If in my market town there were only a couple of types of canned sardines, several brands of crackers, and only one type of margarine (Blue Band, baby), Harvard Square was this overwhelming jumble of shops, eateries, brands, sales, coffee houses and ice-cream shops that all screamed: “Buy, buy! Spend, spend! Eat me! We know you want it!”

Many volunteers go back to the States to visit families, attend weddings, eat their favorite food, drink their favorite beer and shop till they drop. I heard some volunteers had hard time coming back to Africa. Some had trouble while they were already in America – there were too many meetings, too many events, too much time driving around and seeing too many people. Many wanted to simply sit and people-watch for hours like they did back in the African bush. I even heard how one volunteer stayed in London on the way back to Ghana – she simply decided not finishing her Peace Corps service.

As for me, I did not have trouble adjusting and re-adjusting myself between my lives in America and Africa. True, there were some comical moments during my visit: at one party, while sitting in the kitchen, I picked all plates clean because  - come on! – it was a crime to leave all this salsa and hummus uneaten. I also put cream cheese on almost everything – cookies, bread, fruit, pasta (how can you NOT put cream cheese on everything? It’s so good!). Ok, so most comical things involved food. I admit, I did miss American food in the bush, and I was happy to be reunited with as many dairy products as I could lay my eyes on. I was also glad to spend my first week in rural New Hampshire – that made my transition from African laid-back way of life to American hustle and bustle easier. I swam in the lake, hiked in the woods and enjoyed a simple camp food (pizza! Mac and cheese! Salad bar! Ok, I’m stopping now….).

When it was time to go back, I did not go to the airport kicking and screaming – I was simply excited to return to Ghana. With two suitcases stuffed with snacks from Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, that is. They will keep me sustained until my next visit. Cheer up, America – I’m still your #1 fan. But I still want to roam around in the African bush and learn a thing or two about its people and myself.