Close your eyes and picture your future service. Maybe Peace Corps conjures the image of you walking down a dusty dirt road with children holding your hand. Maybe you're out on a lake in a dugout canoe fishing with village elders. Maybe you're teaching in a spartan classroom while the snow falls softly outside. Whatever the image is for you, hold it for just a moment longer.
Congratulations! You've over-romanticized service.
Before everyone gets riled up, let me mitigate my own bold statement about Peace Corps. You may very well find yourself in such picturesque locales (I did). You will have your adventure. The experience will change your life. All of this is completely true.
The catch with service is that you're there living and breathing that world for two or more years. It's enough time for the sheen to wear off that National Geographic image. And behind the gloss is where the people live their lives. They were living them long before they were photographed and they'll be living them long after your return to the States.
Part of the over-romanticism is also in how effective you will be. You will most likely not single-handedly change the world. More likely, you will affect the lives of a scant few in ways that never seem apparent during your entire service. There will be community members that range from indifferent to hostile over your presence. Many will spend the whole two years caught up in wonderment as to why you left the promised land to live in abject poverty. Perhaps you're being punished, they may think.
Don't get hung up on these things. While it can be disillusioning, it's also part of the experience. Over the course of service, your community will (may?) understand Peace Corps and, more importantly, they'll understand you. And they will slowly let you into their lives.
You will live in a fishbowl. Over time, you will become a fixture in the community. Sure you're a novelty. Sure, some of them just want to milk you for your stuff. But for some, you'll become a friend. For some you'll become a mentor. For some, you'll become family.
No, Peace Corps will not be what you think it will be. It will be much less and much much more than that. You'll come back home (maybe early) with stories, plenty of new thoughts about the world, and a few more chapters in the book of personal growth. You will have felt extreme joy, deep depression, and experienced unearthly shades of boredom... multiple times... and quite possibly all in the course of a single day.
So would I recommend Peace Corps? While I can't say I'm an advocate for boredom or depression, I can say that my two years in Panama has had a profound affect on my life. I see the world differently. And for good or bad, I wouldn't have it any other way.
