Early Termination of Peace Corps Servoce

I have terminated my service as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I am coming home to North Carolina on Friday, October 12, 2007. I know this may come as a shock to many of you, as I have had a wonderful time at my site in Manabi, Ecuador. However, I have given this decision much thought over the past month and am completely confident that it is the most appropriate decision for me.

The obstacles encouraging me to resign from my position are not interpersonal conflicts. I made wonderful friends and developed relationships in the community and with key organizations. My host family and their extended family members have taken me in as their own. The food is wonderfully flavorful and plentiful, and the climate is absolutely perfect. I have access not only to the basics, but also to resources that provide a very comfortable lifestyle. My Spanish level allows me to verbally communicate with others, and I feel safe at my site. My patience, flexibility and cultural understanding are often tested, but this is not a challenge in which I was not prepared to, or capable of facing. The Latino culture is not new to me, and although I recognize that each country, province, county, parish, and community has its own culture, I do not feel that I am experiencing the typical culture shock that would encourage one to doubt their role as a Peace Corps Volunteer. According to the Critical Periods in the Life of a PCV, at 3-6 months I should be experiencing the behaviors and reactions of fright, frustration with self, loneliness, weight & health changes, homesickness, uselessness. It is not a stereotypical culture shock that I am experiencing in traditional terms. I am neither frightened nor doubtful of my abilities to integrate in the community or to complete 2 years at my site. Although I love my family and some modern conveniences, I do not feel lonely or homesick. My health has been awesome since I arrived to Manabi, and I am able to exercise regularly. I do not feel useless, but do feel that my presence in the community would displace qualified and available local workers, and that the community is capable of changing their reality without my help.

I could certainly stay for 2 years, for I thoroughly enjoyed my personal life in Manabi. At times I felt that I was on vacation. I understand that the goals of Peace Corps include making friendships with people of other cultures to promote understanding and international education. This is a worthy goal, but not sufficient to convince me to spend my life and talents here. I did not join the Peace Corps to spend a quick 2 years serving others so that I could return to the U.S. and start my life. I did not view Peace Corps as a resume-builder, a tool to impress employers and help me climb the corporate ladder, to ease my transition from college into the real-world, to spend 2 years of soul-searching to find who I am, what I believe, and where my passions lie. I joined Peace Corps because I want to use my life to serve others, because I feel that it is my responsibility as a human. I continue to identify myself as a global citizen and feel great desire to understand others and explore the world. However, I do not feel that international development work in this particular capacity fulfils my duties, obligations, and goals as a Peace Corps Volunteer nor as an individual I am constantly impressed by my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers and believe that many of them are truly doing great work. I admire them for their bravery, resourcefulness and perseverance. They have become some of my closest friends in a few short months, and I am very grateful for their friendships. However, I want to live my life serving others in the best and effective way possible, and I feel that my time and talents could be better spent elsewhere. When I listen to the townspeople talk about how gossip and egoism and disunity are principal problems in the community, all I can think about is my own state of North Carolina and the Latino patients at the hospital who are unable to communicate with the medical personal, or the Latino mothers who are unable to communicate with their children’s teacher, or the Latino employees who are being sexually abused by employers but are unable to demand their rights due to ignorance of English and U.S. laws, or the Latino children who are unable to verbally communicate and who are failing in school because they do not speak English. These are areas in which I was involved during my time in college, and I think my passion to serve has greater potential in these areas than as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

I cannot fulfill “Kennedy’s Promise,” as I do not feel that have a real job to do worthy of the U.S. government´s resources. In 1961 President John F. Kennedy promised: ¨We will only send abroad Americans who are wanted by the host country- who have a real job to do- and who are qualified to do that job. Programs will be developed with care, and after full negotiation, in order to make sure that Peace Corps is wanted and will contribute to the welfare of other people. Our Peace Corps is not designed as an instrument of diplomacy or propaganda or ideological conflict. It is designed to permit our people to exercise more fully their responsibilities in the great common cause of world development.¨ During the interviews I conducted using the Community Needs Assessment Tool (completed with almost every family raising children or youth in my community), the people informed me that the main problems are lack of unity, solidarity, participation, meeting attendance, motivation, and egoism. They believe that this greatly contributes to the lack of success and progress made in the communities and in the province of Manabi. I am told by the people themselves that their lack of animation and participation is a cultural problem. They tell me they are individualistic, egotistic, and do not like to collaborate with other communities or people of different social groups or economic class. On a personal level, I have difficulty tolerating this type of attitude or behavior, especially when these people are well aware that this is what is preventing or inhibiting them from developing as a community and as individuals. The other main problems stated during interviews were the incompletion or lack of social services and projects such as street lighting, sports fields, reliable potable water system, children’s playground, completion of elementary school, updated latrines, and a full-time and permanent doctor at the local health subcenter. These are primarily infrastructure issues, which are not included in my job description as a Health Promoter. I cannot provide economic assistance to fund such projects. Project proposals and plans for the majority of these problems have already been drawn and submitted, and the municipial, county, parish, Plan International, or other organizations have already agreed to work on these projects. Both governmental and non-governmental organizations on the local, regional, and national levels are aware of these problems. The people, or at least the community leaders, know their connections, who they need to contact for projects, how to write a complaint or proposal, but they just often fail to take the initiative to do so. They have amazing resources and many organizations that are willing to help. The majority of problems and needs are on a structural level, and the necessary actors are well-aware of the issues.

In regards to reactive health concerns, such as supply and availability of medicine, adequate number of medical personnel, access to ambulance, or appropriate resources to guarantee the rights outlined by the Free Maternity Law in the Constitution- I do not have access nor power to bring such things and the problems seem to be well known by the powerful actors such as the Municipal, Junta Parroquial, Plan International, CNH, and INNFA. In regards to preventative health concerns, the majority of people in my communities know how to prevent their health problems, and therefore I do not see a significant need for my role as Health Promoter according to the manner in which I was trained by Peace Corps. Those who do not boil their water before drinking (3 families in my primary community) know that their neighbors purify their water, and that they should do so for health reasons. Those that are overweight tell me that they eat too much fried rice. Those that are anemic tell me they should eat more greens. Everyone laughs when they tell me their typical plate consists of rice, plantains, meat, and fruit juice; they know that this is not appropriate alimentation. The vast majority know of many different types of contraceptives and where to find them (subcenter, SORCA, PROFE, etc). Mothers know that they should bring their babies to be weighed monthly and there are 2 institutions that provide this service; every mother I have spoken with has this knowledge, but whether they take the initiative to do so is the obstacle. This was a great source of frustration for me; if parents are not motivated solely by the health and well-being of their child, I was confused as to how I was going to be able to animate them to do so.

The community members and leaders wanted my primary role as a Peace Corps Volunteer to be motivating them to increase participation within the community and with other organizations. Those who told me that participation was a problem also included themselves in the category of unmotivated individuals, and were the very same people who were asking for my motivating spirit. When I asked the community presidents, volunteers, leaders, members, or Plan International supervisors and coordinators, or Peace Corps program directors or volunteers as to why or how I had the ability to motivate these Ecuadorians, they all had the same response. You are a “gringa.” You are a “white girl.” This was and is one of my biggest fears. I am insecure about being white, and very critical of the effect that race has had on history and our current international and interpersonal relations. As a communications major and Spanish minor at the University of North Carolina, for four years I studied cultural and social theories as well as Latin American history and social change. The privilege of being a white, Christian, heterosexual, North American is deeply engrained in my being and obviously part of my identity. I would like to find ways to better manage this tension of privilege, fear and responsibility within me, but it currently inhibits me from being a successful international development worker.

Before joining the Peace Corps I had doubts of the success or ethicality of international development. I was afraid of being an outsider, of creating yet another “us” versus “them” dichotomy, of imposing my values on others, of telling people how to live their lives, of being ignorant to the true plight of these people, and of the great and often dangerous power that a white person (consciously or unconsciously) can possibly have on foreigners. When I became aware that my Peace Corps country assignment was Ecuador, the opportunity to live and work with Latinos and gain a better understanding of the Latin culture brought me great joy. I was allured by these possibilities because my desire upon completion of my Peace Corps service was to work with the Latino immigrant population in the States. However, this joy was paired with a great fear that somehow I would contribute to the disempowerment or subordination of the people I was to be serving. Through my studies I have gained much knowledge of Latin American conquests and inappropriate, unethical, elitist, hierarchical, and racist international development projects that serve to victimize those receiving such “aid.” I also had a slight fear of working with Plan International (an independent development agency with whom I was assigned to as my host country agency) for similar reasons. Counteracting these fears was the hope that as a Peace Corps Volunteer, as one person living in a community, I would have the ability to separate myself from any organizations or programs which I deemed inappropriate. I hoped that I could push my fears aside in order to successfully work with people who had basic and essential needs, which whom I could share my public health knowledge and cultivate cross-cultural friendships. I hoped that I could somehow diminish the power that my skin color had on me and others. However, these hopes were crushed and the obstacles that followed are too much for me to manage in the current context. There are certain obstacles of my whiteness that I anticipated facing, based on my experience in Central America. These are issues that are annoying but manageable, such as being lied to about the cost of items in the markets and in transportation because I am seen as rich, despite the fact that I too live below the poverty level; being sexually harassed and seen as provocative and “easy,” despite my conservative clothing; being approached for money or visas, because I live in what is viewed to be the richest country in the world. With my whiteness comes certain privileges, for in popular culture it is seen as good, successful, powerful, normal, etc. But for me personally it also invokes the fear that I may use this privilege inappropriately, which became a very real and ever-present fear due to the fact that my identity as a “gringa” was what Ecuadorians believed to be the principal factor and tool I would use to motivate people at my site.

I believe wholeheartedly that these people are capable of transforming their own reality without my presence. I would not consider leaving if I thought that they could genuinely use my help, meaning the technical assistance, connections, and resources I have to offer. I feel the communities already have this at their fingertips; I understand that inefficiency, people’s distrust in governments and other organizations resulting from the empty promises often made, and other inherent obstacles to social change in developing countries are part of life here and part of development. I understand some of the complex and complicated reasons why the people in my communities do not choose to participate. However, I truly believe that if I continued my service, my work would not reflect the Peace Corps Project Criteria or Development Philosophy: 1) project increases local capacities, 2) beneficiaries are among the needy, 3) project seeks lasting solution, 4) beneficiaries are part of the project development process, 5) project uses locally-available resources, 6)volunteer assignments are at local levels where needs occur, 7) volunteers do not displace qualified and available local workers, 8) project is complementary to other development activities, 9) project has potential for replication. In fact, I think that my presence in the community would perhaps contradict many of these criteria, and negate or weaken the work already being done by Ecuadorians themselves. I am confident in these communities, the families, the designated leaders, the natural leaders, the intelligent children, and the outgoing youth. They have many examples in their our community of individuals who have ¨succeeded¨ in their personal lives, such as attending an institution of higher education, participating in and learning from the free capacitations or workshops, or becoming doctors and professionals, if this is how they wish to define “success.” From the community needs diagnostic, I have gathered that these people know what the problems are in their community, the steps that need to be taken in order to alleviate or solve them, as well as their potential resources and institutions willing, capable, interested, or currently working on these issues.

I will return to the States on October 12 to begin my job search. I desire to live and work in the Carrboro area, as I am aware that there is a large Latino immigrant population residing there, and I am familiar with many issues that they face. I am looking forward to seeing friends and spending time with my family, younger siblings, and boyfriend. I am extremely excited about continuing my commitment to a life of service, and finding a job which makes better use of my passions and talents. I intend on searching for job opportunities with Latinos in the hospitals or school system, or in areas of international education and cross-cultural understanding.

Thank you so much for your support, and the hard work, time, and effort that many of you spent to allow me to become a Peace Corps Volunteer. Your letters, emails, thoughts, and prayers were and are very much appreciated! I wish my fellow Omnibus 98-ers the very best of luck in their service, and would love to provide any assistance I may, whether than means an encouraging email, or finding an interested class for the World Wise School Program or other type of exchange, or whatever it may be. My love for and interest in Latin America and social change will surely remain strong, and I am confident that my decision to terminate my Peace Corps service will enable me to live a more productive and fulfilling life.

If you would like to contact me, my permanent address is:
Sarah Kenney
302 Whisperwood Dr.
Cary, NC 27511

My email address will remain the same: kenneysarah@gmail.com

I look forward to re-connecting with you all, and would love to hear what is happening in your lives. Thank you again for your wonderful support!!!