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From: Juneau Empire
Dated: 3/5/2003
My Turn:
Making a peaceful
difference
By FRANK KEIM
The
occasion of Peace Corps Day got me thinking. About war, first
of all, and the men and women who have been deeply involved in
wars. About the tragedy of the Vietnam war, and the many lives
that were needlessly lost because of our misdirected efforts.
And of the imminent war with Iraq. But also about peace and
the many of us who were deeply committed to the peace movement
of the 1960s, 1970s and beyond.
I was a volunteer in
John F. Kennedy's Peace Corps, and met a lot of people who
were idealists and firmly believed in that president's famous
quote, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you
can do for your country!" And when they asked that question of
themselves, it didn't mean spending time holding a rifle and
learning how to kill people. It meant a deep commitment to
helping others less fortunate to help themselves cope in an
ever more complex world.
The "boot camp" in the Peace
Corps was no piece of cake. It meant a grueling schedule six
days a week for three months from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., learning
two foreign languages and how to live in two distinctly
different cultures in a geographic setting that would be
13,000 feet high and 13,000 miles away from home. Then we
spent 1 1/2 months in our assigned country, Bolivia, in almost
complete immer |
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sion before we were considered ready to begin our
two-year preliminary commitment.
The Peace Corps then
was quite different from the more professional organization of
today. A majority were generalists and each of us worked in
everything from sheep shearing and the introduction of new
potato strains to latrine construction and vaccination
programs. All for a whopping salary of $90 per month! We lived
without electricity or running water, and we had to function
in the middle of revolutions and counter revolutions. Simply
because I was working with the Indian people of the Altiplano,
the Bolivian military thought I was a Che Guevara sympathizer,
and I was arrested, jailed and almost shot!
But our
trainers were right. They guaranteed if we finished our two
years there we'd go from rags to riches. Not in terms of the
material wealth we'd earn after the Peace Corps back in
America, but of the riches of the spirit we'd gain from the
experience.
How true it was. I know of no volunteers
who have become wealthy or any who even want to be. But I know
a great number of them who continue to serve their country and
their fellow humans, and who still believe it is possible to
be idealistic in this very mean and shallow age of materialism
in America today.
After plunging into such a
kaleidoscope of families, communities, institutions and
environments so very |
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different from our own, as PCVs we came to understand
the pride and the pettiness, the dreams and the schemes, the
fears and the humor and hospitality of otherwise unfamiliar
peoples all over this island earth of ours. And in seeing how
different they were from us, we also better understood how
similar we were to one another. We were somehow all in this
big old boat together, and therefore we bore the collective
responsibility of working our problems out together.
We
also became aware that if we didn't do this, eventually we
would all pay for it dearly. It's been almost 35 years since I
left the Peace Corps. As for so many others, it was both a
chastening and liberating experience for me, too. It also had
a profound influence on what I did with my own life after the
Peace Corps. What they told us during training, "once a
volunteer, always a volunteer," has turned out to be
remarkably true. Although I realize the world is generally
worse off than before the Peace Corps was initiated, I
sincerely believe there are little corners of the globe where
things are a microincrement better than before a Peace Corps
Volunteer worked there.
Frank Keim of Fairbanks is a
42-year resident of Alaska who worked with the Peace Corps
from 1966-68. He also taught in Southwest Alaska for 21
years.
©Copyright 1997-2003 Juneau
Empire
http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/index.html
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