A quick scroll through the Peace Corps Couchsurfing Facebook group will easily turn up a handful of posts from other volunteers who are coming to Thailand, either to get away from the cold of their country of service or to celebrate with a Close of Service vacation. Bangkok is also the medical hub for the Europe, Mediterranean and Asia region, and often the islands in the Pacific as well. I met a couple in Cambodia, whose response to me telling them I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand was, “I didn’t know we still had Peace Corps in Thailand.”
The infrastructure – paved roads, running water, consistent electricity. The amenities – 3G Internet, a wide variety of Western and ethnic food choices in multiple cities, washing machines. These things have earned Peace Corps Thailand the somewhat derogatory title of “Posh Corps” in the Peace Corps community. And Thailand is not the only one.
Returned Peace Corps volunteer (RPCV) Alan Toth served in South Africa, another country that has the Posh Corps label attached to it, and made a documentary about volunteers in South Africa exploring what it means to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer and touches on serving in a more developed country.
Interviews with Post Corps Volunteers
I think that this film does a really good job of exploring and explaining what it is like to be a Peace Corps volunteer. Through interviews with a handful of volunteers throughout South Africa, who were currently serving at the time of the interviews, the audience gets a sense of what it is volunteers do in South Africa and the emotional ride that a volunteer goes on through their service.
Toth also interviews people from some of the volunteers’ communities, giving the viewer a sense of what having a Peace Corps volunteer in their lives has meant for them, which is really nice to see and hear as a currently serving volunteer.
Motivations to Join Peace Corps
Toth explores the reasons behind wanting to volunteer, from the idealistic desire to make a difference in someone’s life to the desire for personal growth and challenge to wanting to get out of a less than satisfactory job and career path. But one volunteer, George, puts it best by saying that Peace Corps is not a good option if you are looking to run away from things, because really what it ends up doing is exposing all the things that you struggle with even more.
Volunteers’ Role in the Community
The volunteers also talk about how their view of their role in their community has evolved and changed, from being someone there to build things to being there to build relationships. One volunteer alludes to the idea that she is providing a different kind of role model and showing the girls in her community a different path that they can take, just by being present there. But she also takes it a step further in being proactive by hosting girls’ groups.
I like what one man had to say about the effects of a volunteer; he made the argument that even a so-called “bad” volunteer – someone who parties or doesn’t show up to work so much – ultimately isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because while they may not have done their job, that volunteer isn’t seen as evil which makes it much harder to demonize the United States and Americans. A kind of, “Sure, he was lazy, but he wasn’t a bad guy.”
Critiques
One thing that I wish the film did more was explore more of what it meant to be serving in a country with more development. There was some discussion of it at the beginning of the film, but I would have liked to have seen more about how it affects volunteers and their work in the country.
For a movie with the title “Posh Corps,” I was hoping more time would be devoted to what it means to serve in a country that gets that title. The little discussion that was related to this idea, I felt a lot of parallels and similar feelings to serving in Thailand.
Happiness is Subjective
However, there was one comment made by a volunteer named Sean that went to the effect of, even though there are big cities with first world living happening, volunteers should not go there if you are unhappy or frustrated by the lack of such things in their village, because what really will make you happy is staying in your village and integrating.
That comment was something that I completely disagree with and felt rather offended by.
First, I don’t think it’s fair for anyone to tell someone else what makes them happy.
Second, while I understand that one of the big pushes of Peace Corps is integration, and I understand much of the benefits of it and encourage it as well, I don’t think that is really the answer, especially for people who identify as members of groups who are oppressed within the cultures of the communities (i.e. identifying as homosexual, transgender, being a woman, etc.). Having a part of your identity being something that is constantly under attack, absolutely warrants a break from such a culture and attempting to integrate into that line of thinking is ultimately more psychologically damaging than is worth the benefits.
Third, I fully believe that there is no wrong way to be a Peace Corps volunteer. For some people, that means only leaving their village to go to Peace Corps trainings. For others, that means learning as much as they can about their country by seeing as much of it as they can. For others still, it means making the connections with the people who have money in the capital to the people in the villages and giving them a reason to care about their fellow countrymen and -women. That statement is not something that I endorse when I endorse watching this film.
Recommendation
That said, I do recommend watching this film, especially if you are considering applying for the Peace Corps or you have a loved one who is serving. You can visit the film’s Web site and order a copy today. Toth has also made Posh Corps Shorts about various other countries that some consider to be Posh Corps. Thailand has not yet been featured, but I can imagine it will be.