Looking back from my New Home

Well, I’ve been putting this off, but I guess it’s time to write one final post, and bookend my experience in the Peace Corps.

 

I am writing this in the library of the Harvard Kennedy School, where I have been studying for just over a month.  Before coming here, I spent a thoroughly-enjoyable three weeks back in Alaska, where I stayed in Fairbanks with my family for about ten days and also traveled down to Anchorage and Cordova to meet old friends.

 

I also met with Ethan Berkowitz, who is running to un-seat Don Young, and even did a day or two of volunteering for Obama.  Later, of course, McCain put Sarah Palin on the ticket and removed Alaska from contention, but while I was up there it looked like we had a shot to take the state for the first time since 1964.

 

It’s alright though; the Palin pick might go down as the “Hershel Walker” trade of political moves—McCain picked up Alaska, and brought home a few right-wing nuts, but in so doing he completely lost discerning independents.  Obama is up seven nationally, leads in all the key states, and has a 93% chance of victory, according to fivethirtyeight.com.  So in that respect I am happy.

 

I am writing this now mainly because my memories of the Peace Corps were jogged recently by events unfolding in Kazakhstan; namely, the departures of many of the Kaz-18’s.

Sarah, who figured prominently in my Peace Corps experience, just left her sight in Mamlutka (now someone else is the northernmost PCV in the world), and is traveling through China.  I wish her all the best.  I am sure she is having some strange thoughts and experiences right now; I know I did on the trip back home.

 

There is an RPCV group here at Harvard (with students from several of the graduate schools), which I am a part of.  It just started—previous attempts to get the club together have failed, apparently—and while I am not taking a leadership position at this date, I do hope to stay involved.  It’s funny: there are a couple of other RPCV’s from the Former Soviet Union, and we are all considerably less enthusiastic about our experience than the Africa Volunteers, who seem to have loved every minute they spent over there.  The FSU was a hard place to be, no doubt about it.  Even though we had more electricity and running water and internet, the people and societies are just so less welcoming and open, and the weather is pretty tough.  So the constant, grinding stress keeps our attrition rates among the highest in the PCV world.

 

While in Alaska I did some “Third Goal” work by giving a presentation to a couple of Miriam’s elementary school classes.  I think the presentations went pretty well, the kids asked great questions, and the thank you’s they wrote later were very touching.  However, the footage that was shot of the presentation wasn’t so good (the camera-woman never panned to the kids), so without a lot of work editing—which would take time I frankly don’t have at the moment—it won’t be able to go up on Youtube.  It’s alright though; an interesting piece of personal history, if nothing else.

 

One interesting thing being at the Kennedy School—a lot of people here are interested in international development.  We have MPP’s focused on it, MPA-ID’s (the ID stands for “International Development”) who deal with it exclusively, and even mid-Career students going from development work to Harvard and back to development work.  It’s interesting because… I’m just not that interested anymore.

The Peace Corps seems to have sapped my ability to care deeply about economic and social problems overseas.  Partly that might be due to the rising problems here in the US.  And part of it might just be the disillusioning nature of the Peace Corps experience; I feel that, at least in the country I worked in, a lot of the problems are caused by the government and the society.  They have the money, they have the opportunity to lift up their people and give them a liberal, democratic state with a high level of actual human development… and they haven’t.  And the people there seem pretty happy about it.  Of course, you can’t really blame the ordinary Kazakhstani; they are inculcated to believe their government and their god-head President can do no wrong.  But one would hope to see just a little more fight in the average Kazakh or Russian.  Is it possible they got the government they deserved?

 

Look at the recent war in Georgia, which broke out just as I left.  I guarantee you, guarantee, that the average Russian and Kazakh guy was ecstatic about the bombing, and completely supported Putin.  Anyone who lived in the Russian media market, as I did for the last two years, totally saw the invasion coming.  And breaking the Olympic peace too… Someday I am going to travel to Russia and literally dance on Putin’s grave.

Still, still, I refuse to completely give in to cynicism.  I expect that gradually my interest in foreign affairs and international development will return, as I internalize more of the lessons from my Peace Corps experience, and simultaneously get  a little more temporal distance from the most emotional (often negative) experiences.  I was an International Studies major after all and I still love to travel.  In fact, I am planning to go to Israel just this December.  Maybe South Africa in 2010, if I can afford it.

 

In the end, I am glad I did the Peace Corps.  Really, I am.  I might not have had the greatest, most happy-go-lucky experience.  I didn’t change the world or save anyone.  I didn’t get married, or use the Peace Corps as a springboard into a great career (if anything, it’s made my resume kind of muddled).  But if I hadn’t done it, I would have always wondered about it.  If I hadn’t done it, I wouldn’t have met some great people, both locals and PCV’s.  I’m proud to be an RPCV.  I’m proud to have served my country in some limited capacity, and maybe reached a kid or two.  And God, I’m happy to be back in America.

Д o встречи !

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