In response to
Say you *did* end up joining the Peace Corps…where would you like to go, and what would you hope to be doing?
That is an interesting question. When I think about the Peace Corps, I primarily think about what I’d get out of it: Foreign Language fluency, experiences I might not otherwise have, an enforced slowdown on many parts of my life.
But what I would hope to put into it is a trickier thing. I’m a good teacher (it’s the work I’ve most enjoyed in the past, too, but that’s a different question). I could teach math and basic science, economics, other debatably useful things in a subsistence agricultural economy. I could do some manual labor, though probably no more than a native. In terms of where their needs are, I feel I am poorly matched.
My economic development prof (with much real world experience) suggests that what’s needed most in developing nations is a) human capital development, particularly the sorts of institutional arrangements whereby one is individually rewarded for doing a good job (yay, capitalism), and education; and b) agricultural development, so that they produce food more efficiently, thereby freeing up labor for other activities.
I’m not sure my current skillset (heavily focused in abstract knowledge) would be greatly helpful, so your question, which I’d been asking myself before you ever asked it, is another big stumbling block for me actually signing on.
In terms of where I’d want to go? Africa or South America is where I’d see myself going. After 2 years, I’m sure I’d experience a change in my current comparative lack of attraction to Latinos or Blacks, and I’m not sure that’s a good thing. I don’t suspect that most of the places I’d be going would be homo hospitable. I don’t suspect they’d be vegan hospitable. I also have fears for my recently discovered medical condition, and possible relapses requiring surgery. And going to the HIV entrenched subsaharan africa would likely put San Fran as “ground zero” for AIDS in a very different perspective. Having only slightly more global awareness than the average American, my expectations for Latin America v Subsaharan Africa are not well differentiated in my mind, let alone significant distinctions between the countries that the peace corps would consider sending anyone let. (Somehow, I doubt Rwanada is going tc be getting many peace corps people).