You are not your effing Khakis!

    As someone who has collected a string of odd and different jobs, it has always been my stance that a person is not just the job that they perform. Experience has born this out for me over the course of my short and eventful life. Take my friend, we'll call her Molly, Molly is in her late fifties and is enjoying her third career as a gardener working for a large landscaping company near Asheville. She lives with her partner in Asheville, enjoys going to opera, loves the local art scene, and generally milks life in Asheville for all it's worth. However, the fact remains that in the reductive mindset of our times Molly is "just" a gardener.

    In my current life as a PCV I run across this dilemma in another sense. Many of the Moroccans I work with do not socialize with me outside of our interactions in the work setting. My interactions with PCVs tend to fall to the other extreme. I interact socially with PCVs much more than I do actual work with them, and when we do work it is often used as an excuse to create a social event.

    This dichotomy leads to a rather unfair double standard around the value many PCVs, including myself, place on relationships between Moroccans and PCVs and PCVs and PCVs. For example, if my counterpart is a nice guy who sucks at his job I will most likely think poorly of him because I don't interact with him in the social milieu in which he shines. The same holds true for basically any Moroccan in my life with the exception of my host family and friends in my site. It certainly is the tendency almost universally in my working life.

    On the other hand the standard by which I judge PCVs is much more lenient when it comes to their professional performance. These people are usually my friends first, and therefore if someone's personality rubs me the wrong way then it doesn't matter how good they are at their job I won't like them. On the other hand there are volunteers who probably aren't as effective as they could be and might even be outright hostile to Moroccans occasionally, but because I mesh with their personalities I find myself defending them when I shouldn't.

    The fact is that good people are good people, but doing what you say you're going to do is part of that. If you take a job and don't try to at least be competent at that job it indicates a failing on your part. Some personality defects affect other people more than others, but when you go back on your word you always hurt someone. Unfortunately I struggle with seeing the whole picture around both Moroccans and PCVs, and PCVs tend to get the better end of that deal. We aren't our jobs, but they are part of us.

    That is of course with the possible exception of myself. I'm afraid that I will forever be "Peace Corps Jack" to a small group of Fullbright scholars in Rabat. Thanks for putting me up guys, I appreciate the hospitality. Be good and DO WORK!

What’s the difference really?

    Last night I hosted a young lady who has been in Morocco for the past year working on a fullbright scholarship. She only has a little bit of time left and is reflecting on a lot of things that I will have to think about soon. What was the most valuable part of her project? Was her time here well spent? What is she going to do when she gets back to the US?

    I have heard a lot of Peace Corps Volunteers musing on these subjects as they approach their Close of Service dates. It makes me wonder whether we are not more similar to each other than it seems at first blush. On the one hand Fullbrighters are here to do research, and not necessarily provide technical assistance as such. However, they are put in situations that often demand that they lend a helping hand.

    We are told that we are supposed to be ambassadors for the United States from the first day we are in country to the second we leave. Fullbrighters are just told to do good research. Yet we are often placed in sites wherein American Culture is so out of the normative experience that it is difficult to find a common nomenclature, much less actually convey our value system effectively. Fullbrighters on the other hand mostly live in large cities whose populace is much more exposed to western media through advertising, magazines, and television. They actually have a good starting point for a common understanding, and based on our conversation last night they often are able to articulate our culture very effectively. Then again, a lot of what they study, we live. A lot of the people they interview we eat dinner with on a regular basis. They research and we experience.

    The fact of the matter is that Fullbrighters often talk a lot of trash about Peace Corps kids and vice versa. We, the Peace Corps, dominate this country's experience of Americans, even more so than tourists in many cases. There are over 200 of us and the Fullbright program only has 15 kids in country. They have a much harder time explaining what they do, because most people assume that they must be Peace Corps Volunteers or something just like it. It's easy to see how they could resent us. Then again, they get paid four times the amount that we do. They get to live in large modern cities with most of the amenities of home and a much smaller culture gap. It's easy to see how we could resent that too.

    Be that as it may, after hosting a Fullbrighter for dinner, after hanging out and watching the office, and after reminiscing about home I have to say that we have much more in common than not. I miss the same things that she does. We shared many of the same experiences, and struggled with many of the same things. We both feel a call to help those without the opportunities that we grew up with in America and we both feel changed in a fundamental way by our experiences here. We both love living abroad and we love being with the people to whom we have become very close. We are strangers in a strange land that is getting more familiar every day. We are united in so many things that the differences seem to pale in comparison. This post goes out to Steph. Thanks for the Apple pie, the laughs and the perspective. I have talked smack about Fullbrighters for the last time, and I wish you all the luck in America, life and love. See you soon Nsha'allah. ;-p