Living the Peace Corps Life

First things first, I have gotten all of my pictures up on facebook which equals four new photo albums. This way you can get a better idea of what I am trying to describe down here. Not to mention pictures are always fun to look at anyhow.

So now that I am an official PCV you might be wondering what my life is like. And in all honest, I am still wondering myself that as well. Basically our job is just about the vaguest one in the book. I think that half of the battle here for me is that our "job" is far from anything that you could ever do in the states. The Peace Corps has three main goals as follows (I am paraphrasing here):

1 - To promote the understanding of Americans in a different culture outside of the United States.
2 - To promote the understanding of that other culture outside of the United States back to the people in the USA.
3 - Teach technical skills that are needed in that developing country.

Now the thing here is that two out of the three goals is basically just socializing; socializing with the people here in Ecuador and then with the people back at home. Only one of the three goals is actually what we would consider to be results oriented which is teaching technical skills. That in itself no matter what country you are in is hard to really measure as well. And in all honesty, you really have to work on the first two goals first before you can work on the third one because if you don't understand the culture, how can you teach?

So I guess long story short, my main job is really just to let people stare at me...which they do all of the time...and try to speak my broken Spanish to them and share our cultures and their differences. Now for someone who is used to working Monday through Friday 8 to 5 (using the analogy here) this can be kind of hard to accept and get used to really. I have a lot of what I consider to be "free" time everyday and there is no set in stone schedule that I will ever have to follow over the next two years.

Now don't get me wrong here. With time I will establish regular classes where I will be teach about the topics of self-esteem, sex education, parenting skills, and so on. Hopefully I will be able to facilitate a community bank as well which would have meetings weekly. But that probably won't become a routine for another six months or so. The first three months of service our job is just to survey the community and see what they need and want to see happen in their community.

It is amazing to me how different the cultures define a "job". Not to mention that when you are brought up thinking that you have to be clocked in to be considered working that changes your view point on everything. Here, there isn't really so much a clock to punch in on (some people do, don't get me wrong). And even without having a clock to punch in on, people can tell if you are doing the work that is needed for your job or not. I guess it really goes back to the point that in the States people "live to work" where as a lot of other people "work to live". And the Peace Corps Experience definitely is a one of a kind "job" that seems to fall somewhere between those two thoughts.

P.S. I have also decided that Peace Corps secret goal number four is to give the host country a constant source of entertainment for them, because no matter what you do, where you go, or what you say...they are going to laugh at you and hit on you.