Has anyone here served in the peace corps? I am seriously considering it after graduation.

i havent personally but a friend of mine was in it for years and she talks about it all the time. she got to travel all over the world and helped lots of people. from what shes said you have to learn to live without many if any luxuries. but if i didnt have a child i'd totally do it too.

A guy on my uni course spent 3 years in the peace corps and said it was fabulous. Not that it was easy, and there were bits he didn't really like talking about, but he said it was the best thing he'd ever done.

i am thinking about it, but my art major would be kind of useless there ....

My ex boyfriend's best friend was in the Peace Corp. She came and stayed with us afterwards. She was sent to Ghana in West Africa. You definitely live w/o any luxuries. She liked the families she was helping. I'm not sure how it would be as a veg*n. You would most likely be stuck with whatever food was available and insult the entire tribe if you refused. I am also pretty sure that she had no say in her first assignment.



She also came home with some kind of illness that she received barely if any treatment for there. She had some kind of growth on her knee and was nauseous and dizzy from it. I think she is okay now (2 years later), but only after US medical treatment. She has not decided to go back. She is helping female prisoners gather job skills and make a life for themselves on their way out - in Arizona.

I'm really considering it, though it's hard to take any time off between degrees when you're a music performance major... Still thinking about it, though.

I thought about it a lot after I got my degree. I had concerns about being able to eat veg (like Trueveggie was saying) and I couldn't bring myself to leave my pets. Part of me still thinks that it's a great idea, though.

yeah, i dunno about being veg*n either. sigh

oh yeah i almost forgot the nastiest thing my friend told me about it. i cant remember what country she was in but she ended up getting these horrible stomach pains and went to a dr for it. turns out she had gotten a parasite and when they pulled it out it was worm like thing with teeth....yikes.

The Peace Corps is very much a US government agency, and it carries plenty of baggage accordingly.



If you have a specific service you want to provide, or just a particular place where you want to help out, you'll probably have a better experience and be of better use if you sign up with alternative non-profit efforts.



If you haven't already considered it, you might look into shorter-term commitments/experiences through university anthro department programs, church programs, or organizations like Eurep. This way you might get a better feel for what you want to do. These types of programs aren't as wholly immersive as longer-term ones, which can make keeping a veg*n lifestyle more practical than otherwise.

I wouldn't worry too much about veg*n food. I did volunteer work for a couple of months (I know, not the 2-year-thing that Peace Corps is, but it gave me a taste of it!) in rural Guyana in South America, and food was just not a problem. A simple "I don't believe in eating animals", or "that will make me sick" was all it took to refuse food - I'd just have extra helpings of vegetables! :-) Animal products are not a huge staple in the diets of most non-Western countries anyway; it was very rare that they were offered.

i do understand that the Peace Corps is part of the US state department. I would much rather represent an NGO, however, unfortunately it is unlikely i will be able to pay off my student loans before i've missed the oppurtunity to volunteer abroad. wtih the peace corps, you can defer repayment until you return, and they'll pay part of your loans back for you.

why would you need to pay off your loans? Put your loans into forbearance or deferment while you're away; any kind of financial hardship will allow you to do so. Hell, I was able to defer my loans for a few months while I was going through my separation. Surely you could get one while out of the country making very little money.

Actually, you can get a forebearance on your student loans simply by asking for it. They ask for a reason and all you need to say is that you can't afford it. Every year they send you a letter and you do it all over again! I did this for years after school, when I wasn't working all the time and didn't have the funds to pay.

These are UK organisations but they sometimes work with other international ones. They might provide an alternative to the 2 year placements, and can also sometimes advise on what to do about loans etc.



www.vso.org.uk

http://www.csv.org.uk/

http://www.idealist.org/volunteer/travel.html list of places that do volunteering abroad. i'm looking through it right now

i just wanted to tell everyone that i applied for a workcamp in Vermont for two weeks of building tent platforms and living in a tent and eating vegetarian food. gotta start small and see if i like it.

Great news! I hope you'll let us know all about it !

boo !!! didn't get in !!! they wanted to keep the gender balance and only had a spot for a guy...

so i'm considering applying for a master's international program. basically i'll do a year of classes in houghton michigan (coming from texas...i'm expecting more of a culture shock in michigan than latin america), then do 2 years in the peace corps, then one more semester in michigan...