Supposed to be.

* I remember reading a recommendation from a friend who had served in the Peace Corps. She suggested that you bring a lot of good books with you. That the most important thing you could bring was really good books. Initially to read, and then, to trade with other Peace Corps Volunteers. At the time this caused my right eyebrow to raise slightly. My left traveled in the opposite direction. The corner of my mouth went up a little bit and I found myself with a disapproving sneer upon my face. I thought: "You're supposed to be helping people with AIDS, and helping without AIDS from getting it. You're supposed to be forming friendships that will make people reconsider their hasty judgment of Americans, and learning new languages. What do you need books for when you have the Arabian Sea, why do you need books when there are monkeys 100 yards from your hut, why do you need books when there are a bunch of kids playing soccer over there. I mean, Jesus, look at them, they're playing barefoot, with a coconut for a ball!
Well…I have now been in the Peace Corps for about 5 months. I've finished 16 books. I don't know what the average American's book reading rate per month is, but I know mine, and it certainly is not 3/month. Granted, back home I read comic books almost exclusively (magazines too), but the only time in my life I could say I've read three books in one month (adult books, not the Hardy Boys when I was 13, or the BabySitters Club when I was 12(for shame, how did I ever turn out straight?) was in college where a crazy prof. who didn't show up for class for the first two months (But inexplicably kept leaving notes on the door every Tuesday and Thursday that she would not be in that day) finally showed up with half the semester gone & told us that we would not be adjusting the syllabus and we would have to read all the books as well as write reviews for them. And the only reason I read the books and did the work, instead of bitch and moan, and complain about the workload was because I had already flunked English 150 and was re-taking it to replace the F (that and the books she assigned were really good (the best of which was The Things They Carried-Tim O'Brien).
Anyway. Now…now 3 books a month is the rate at which I read books. My average over 5 months. Yeah so my point is sorry for the sneer. The Peace Corps isn't what I thought it'd be. Well that's not true. All those things I expected my friend was neglecting while reading books? Turns out you do all those things by dinner time. Then the sun goes down, and unless you're ok with going to sleep at 7:56pm, you gotta do something. No electricity, equals books. In one of the more frustrating Catch 22's I've faced, the supply of books is extremely limited during the one time in my life where I've become an avid reader. So when we Peace Corps Vanuatu volunteers see a book that we'd like to read we immediately snatch it and hide it away from the other volunteers so that no one else can take it first. We've actually had books stolen out of mailboxes by other volunteers. Desperate for entertainment.

*I had another friend who was in the Peace Corps. She put me on her email list and I got monthly updates accompanied by plaintive requests to send her stuff- anything, postcards, letters, packages, emails, anything. At the time I was bartending to make up for the deficiencies in my Americorps living allowance & a guy who came in to the bar who also knew this girl, and was also on her email list would occasionally bring her up in those notorious bartender- drinker conversations that fill bad jokes and propel crime-noir from one scene to the next. Usually he would kind of dismissively roll his eyes and suggest that she wasn't worth his attention. But one night (maybe he had one extra Vodka-Red Bull, or an extra shot of Sambuca) all this pent up anger that had apparently been building in him overflowed and was released in my presence. He ranted that she was an insensitive-uncultured priss, she was supposed to be over there helping people, learning from them, loving them, spreading international peace and goodwill, yet all she could do was send emails about how much partying she was doing, and how people smelled bad, and how she had to piss and shit in a hole in the ground, and "oh its so hard being me". Spittle flicking out he slurred "Duh dumbfuck, that's why it's the Third World and none of us want to go there! You chose to go there to help, so the least you could do is not bitch about how awful it is. I didn't sign up for your fucking email list to be told how awful it is from your unique perspective. The least you could do is provide some inspiration in my boring day at work, but no, instead I get some pile of shit saying how it sucks to eat beans and rice for every meal." Ok, well, I'm paraphrasing, and he was drunk, and this was two years ago, but that was the spirit of it…So I'll try to stop talking about all the stuff that I miss, and how bad people smell.

P.S. I would really love a pepperoni pizza and a Spotted Cow. If anyone could send these via email, I think they would still be safe to eat in three weeks. (I'd eat them even if they weren't safe.)

P.P.S. So I guess the whole point of these stories is that conceptions of what Peace Corps is "supposed to be" just really doesn't jive with "the reality on the ground." So throw out your hopelessly misguided notions and accept my words as gospel.