Wanderer
sub-Saharan Africa, AF
Female, 28
After spending five years in the corporate world, I packed up my life and moved to a small town in sub-Saharan Africa. I'm officially an Agriculture/Environment volunteer, but I do anything that is needed in my community--teach English, plant gardens and teach neighbors that not all Americans resemble what you see on TV. I have almost two years of experience living like a local in one of the poorest countries in the world, but I've gotten the best experience of my life. Ask me anything!
My perspective has shifted drastically while living here. On one hand, I now see Americans (myself included), as selfish and ignorant. We are short sighted in all the wrong ways and we care more about pop culture and celebrities instead of what happening within our borders and around the world. When people complain about lack of jobs in America (meaning lack of "acceptable" jobs), I think about the desperate poverty that unemployment brings here, where kids will sell gum for 5 US cents just to make it by. When people complain about the healthcare in America, I think about the millions of people who don't have access to clean water or even rudimentary health services, who spend every last cent they have to travel to healthcare when the medical situation gets SO BAD they can no longer live with it. By the time most people here even get to health care, they're dead people walking because it's no longer repairable.
Living here has made me realize that even with all it's problem, it's such a blessing to be born and raised an American and a native English speaker. Americans are afforded so many more opportunities in the world. Every year half a million Ethiopians apply for a lottery to be given a short-term US Work Visa so that they can fill the jobs Americans reject. These people are doctors, professors, teachers and in general, well-paid individuals but the opportunities in America are so much greater they would leave it all behind. It makes me rethink my perspective on immigration.
Even with our problems, and I know American has many, I have come to think of it as the most amazing place on earth and have never been more proud to call it home. Living here has made me grateful for all I have been given without earning. Living here has made me angry. It has made me a feminist and political. But it has also made me a better person and a better American.
On the other hand, seeing what aid has done to the developing world make me question our approach. We try to help but instead we destroy. Ethiopia was such a beautiful, proud nation in the time of Haile Selassie and, in some ways, by funneling so much money in we have destroyed it. I question our international tactics and whether or not they are the best. I question who we call our friends and why. I question why military might is so much more important than humanitarian efforts.
I'm not sure if that entirely answers the question, but in sum, living here has given me a vastly new perspective on the world beyond my personal bubble.
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Personally, I've heard wonderful things about Namibia and have always thought it would be interesting to serve there. If I'd be able to choose at the time I applied, I would have preferenced it.
But aside from that, it's hard to choose when you actually have the entire world open. Every country is amazing and challenging in it's own ways, but I believe that's what makes each service unique.
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