I responded to an email from someone thinking of joining the Peace Corps asking about engineering and the two-year commitment. I figured it made good blog fodder, so here it goes...
Thanks for the email. It's hard to put the experience into a neat little email. First, let me just say that every volunteer's experience is different. I had talked with many returned volunteers before leaving for Panama. I think their experiences varied considerably. Some found themselves in rural settings like me, others working in larger cities. It all depends on what positions are open at the time of your application. It also depends on your interview, where your engineering background will place you in certain sectors of work.
I would say that my engineering background has helped in terms of designing and explaining gravity-fed water systems. That being said, I don't do a lot of engineering out here. There are other engineers in my group that are doing their master´s (MI) here in Panama and do more engineering as part of their work. Generally speaking, the designing of aqueducts is about as technical as it gets and it isn't too theoretical. You probably won't have to break out the fluid dynamics book to design a good system. On the other hand, there is the whole social engineering aspect of designing a good system for a remote community with little access to capital or replacement materials. That's where the challenge comes in. To keep this idea short, you probably won't do a lot of engineering, but your experience will make up for it in what you'll take away by stepping into someone else's shoes and trying to design something appropriate for their needs. It involves deconstructing a lot of what you learned in the classroom and opening yourself up to the people in your community.
The two-year commitment can be hard at times. Looking forward, the time seems so long. Looking backward, the time seems to have flown by. Everyday is different. Everyday is interesting. After being in my site for almost a year, I completely understand why two years is the minimum. Development work is a slow process. It takes a long time to understand the community dynamics, who you can work with, to find out what the community really wants/needs.
I would definitely recommend the experience. It has certainly shaped my world view and will add context to the rest of my life. It's also the hardest experience I've ever had. I've found that the bugs and the heat and lack of electricity and buses that don't run on time aren't the things that are difficult. It's the cultural differences. It´s finding the common threads between you and a community worlds apart that is the challenge.
I had a romantic idea of development work, that my community would accept me with open arms. In some ways that's the case. I'm a part of the community, participating in their meetings, eating meals in their homes. But it doesn't necessarily equate to a full understanding of why I'm here and us picking up shovels to build an aqueduct. Most people are still trying to figure out what the Peace Corps is, let alone meeting for a work day or health presentation. It's a challenge. You'll have bad days. There will be days where you feel alone and you just want to go home. But then you fight through it and are rewarded tenfold. And you'll find yourself growing and changing in ways you never even thought about. And I think it's that experience that will make you a better engineer in the end. You'll have a set of experiences that set you apart from your peers and are applicable to any context because it's life experience. You'll come back two years older and thirty years wiser.
I hope that helps.
