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I first applied to Peace Corps in 2011, yet circumstances at that time prevented me from completing that application. I reapplied in 2013 and that summer I vacationed in rural Jamaica where I met a family who happened to be staying at the same house. The father was a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer from Costa Rica. He had met his wife during service and they have two young children. I considered the occasion serendipitous as I asked him about his Peace Corps experience which he spoke of favorably. I left Treasure Beach with a sense, if asked, I too would join the Peace Corps. That July the invitation came offering a January departure to Morocco to work in the Youth Development sector. Timing and circumstances were ideal enabling me to fully complete the process. I was a salaried, management professional at the time with educational contracts throughout the U.S. and a time-sensitive option to relocate to Chicago. The decision to join the Peace Corps would be a considerable one impacting me, my colleagues, my clients, my family, and countless others who I had yet to even know. Today, I am writing to you as a current, third year volunteer with five months left of service. I feel a strong desire to articulate what service has meant for me as a thirty-something, mid-career individual, and how impactful it can be for others at similar life stages. To focus the article, I want to concentrate on a few key lessons reiterated by service that have been and will continue to be the most transformative going forward. Lesson #1. Resiliency and the importance of differentiated effort. Learning a new language, adhering to different culture norms, and working with a lack of resources produce challenges that I had easily anticipated. However, the much harder discovery has been in realizing the matrix of coordinated time, conscious decision-making, attitude adjustment, and sheer heart required in real time to be of service day after day, year after year. The idiosyncrasies of service have seemed ever ready to reveal gulfs to be bridged in my patience, character, and focus. There have been times when the resounding theme was “get back up, try again, and do it quickly with compassion for self and others.” Surrendering to this with humility and a growth mindset are decisions I have had to make routinely. The other decision reinforced from service is the importance of differentiated effort which aids resiliency. By this I mean engaging in new, often unfamiliar actions to accomplish a tasks, goal, or bring about an outcome. You think you can plan the path from point A to point B, but in the context of Peace Corps service, I have learned that my arrival will often depend on my willingness to try new things, be uncomfortable, overcome fear, and exhibit cognitive flexibility. Lesson #2. Recognizing, understanding, and identifying with a wider range of humanity. Peace Corps service has presented me with rich opportunities to interact with other people under circumstances and in scenarios that might not otherwise have occurred. And in the midst of differences, I have learned in some measure, to circumvent discord, negotiate, and connect with others. Examples abound. Witnessing minds and hearts move beyond dissonance and open to someone from outside the religious majority; understanding how income disparities can impede one’s ability to assess daily routines and change behavior; or recognizing the opportunities, as well as the bleakness societal systems can produce in the lives of people are just a few of the vantage points the Peace Corps experience affords its volunteers. Being interconnected to a wider array of humanity has taught me that expectations can and do change about what constitutes a project’s success, an individual’s happiness, or a relationship’s value. The humanity I have encountered throughout my service has encouraged me in so many ways to reconcile that the majority of people are in fact doing the best they can where they are with the information they have been given. Lesson #3. Gratitude and un-entitlement. I have told people outside and inside Peace Corps how grateful I am that our government funds this agency and offers its citizens this unique opportunity. It has been an extraordinary education. I quickly discovered as service commenced how grateful I should be for the United States and anyone who has fought for the diversity of its people and the opportunities the citizenry has to build full lives. Most importantly, service has compelled me to confront entitlement within myself and in others. Living most of my life in the U.S. where comparatively speaking there is an abundance of products, services, avenues, and ideas had developed an inattentive attitude to the undeserved privileges of citizenship and culture that I get to enjoy. I was not entitled to a breadth of childhood experiences, but I had them. I was not entitled to a standard of education, but I received one. I was not entitled to gainful work experiences and compensation, but they were available eventually. Volunteers worldwide know firsthand that such things are not available to large portions of the world population. Gratitude is a wonderful thing as is the process of un-entitlement which has opened up a plethora of authentic connections, real learning, and meaningful growth. These lessons resonate distinctly with me having entered into my Peace Corps service in my thirties at mid-career. On one level, human resources, standard operating procedures, technology, and Western expectations regarding time (and everything else really) were so familiar to me. They made things easy, maybe even mundane. Peace Corps service remedied that while offering an invaluable chance to reconstruct and further my professional training. And on a second level, I opted to serve at a time characterized by disruption - economically, politically, socially, or otherwise. Sometimes strategic and often times symptomatic of oppositions at play in an interdependent, highly competitive world, disrupted could be used to describe the environments in which volunteers serve with respect to a host country’s unique history. Peace Corps service mandated I brave disruption and figure out how to make measurable progress in spite of it. That practice is timeless, highly needed, and incredibly relevant to our societies and institutions today. As I write this article, the app on my phone indicates I have 150 days before my official Close of Service in May 2017. I am not counting down because of a readiness to leave necessarily although the season has changed so to speak. Instead, service has taught me to number my days, to press in as much as I can, take nothing for granted, measure my effort, and to above all, celebrate this experience and the community that have in so many ways offered me some of what I thought I wanted and everything I know I needed. I can transition out of Peace Corps knowing that I am a more complete and competent individual, citizen, leader, and very soon, RPCV. One of the best books I've read this year is Courage and Calling: Embracing Your God Given Potential by Gordon T. Smith. It is full of rich insights that have helped me focus my energies concerning my work and livelihood. Strongly recommended.
If you are working on a development agenda in 2016, gender parity is a likely component. Gender equality is enshrined in the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. The United States government’s Let Girls Learn initiative informs us that 62 million girls worldwide are out of school, unable to access education because of cultural barriers, poor infrastructure, the absence of clean water, or proper sanitation. As a Youth and Community Developer, I often listen in on conversations that shed light on the consequences of patriarchal systems that leave women and girls at a disadvantage. While that narrative is vast, it does not have to become absolute. That is why the Department of State’s Dads and Daughters campaign is so important. In this commentary, we meet Fatima-Ezzahra Outznit and her father Mohamed Outznit. Natives of southern Morocco and culturally Amazigh, one might assume that Fatima-Ezzahra might marry early and become a housewife given strict cultural norms. However, her father chose to motivate her differently. Having left the countryside as a youth, Mohamed sojourned in Casablanca as a restaurant worker where he intermingled with people from diverse backgrounds and cultural affiliations. It was there that the seeds of possibility were planted. Throughout our talk, Fatima-Ezzahra recounts her father as being supportive and optimistic about her education and freedom. She recalled, “He always took me to school. He was always there. He came to my awards ceremonies. That is just his mentality.” Courage is another notable aspect of his personality as our conversation revealed. Courage was necessary to resist family pressure to say no to his daughter’s participation in the State department’s Kennedy Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program. Trusting his daughter to participate and to travel to the United States while still in high school was the moment Fatima-Ezzahra said she was “most proud of her Dad.” Now in her final year of English studies at Mohamed V University’s in Rabat, Fatima-Ezzahra knew from an early age that continuing her education and developing a career could be options for her in contrast to an early marriage. “Using resources to educate Fatima-Ezzahra is a profitable investment,” explained Mohamed. A point which has extended beyond mere economic security as Fatima-Ezzahra collaborates with other YES alumni through an association that organizes and executes youth and community development projects throughout Morocco. For Mohamed and Fatima-Ezzahra, gender equality is not culturally exclusive, but also an element they discover throughout their faith. “Even some the Prophet’s wives worked,” they remarked, “religiously men and women are equal.” Referencing the Quran and Hadiths, they professed how important it would be for girls to be educated in order to understand the religion and implement it in daily life. Mohamed’s advice for other fathers is to teach their daughters, to trust them, and to give them their freedom. That mindset has produced a fruitful relationship between Mohamed and his daughter - one of mutual respect, support, sharing, and admiration. All of which would be considered blessings in any culture or religion most likely. #DadsandDaughters One thing I love about the simple village life is walking in the early morning while there's coolness in the air and the sun isn't fully risen. Workers are just starting their tasks - delivering butagas tanks, sweeping sidewalks, or shepherding their goats. We exchange smiles and pleasantries. There's an unhurried nature to it all. Just genuine moments of human interaction. I meet these people who are satisfied with their corner of the world and the tasks they have at hand for the day. They express happiness and gratitude. They appear to have a measure of freedom and are unencumbered by "the queues (although I do love a time-sensitive queue), lattes, traffic lights, or the smartphone bings of a Western world. I buy a few pieces of candy to give to random people I pass by. They receive the gesture with "God give you good things" or "God bless your parents".
Sigh, simplicity.
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AuthorWelcome. After years as a manager in the education field, I accepted an invitation in 2014 to serve with the U.S. Peace Corps in Africa in the Youth Development sector. There have been no regrets. Disclaimer: The contents of this site and opinions expressed therein are mine personally and do not reflect any position of the Peace Corps, the US Government, or the Kingdom of Morocco.
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