One of the comments made by a panelist at the “Peace Corps and Africa” conference I attended in Madison, Wisconsin, in late March keeps reverberating in my mind. At the Oral History session, Bob Klein (Ghana ’61-63), creator of the Archival Project (rpcvarchivalproject@gmail.com), said, “The best way to empty the room at a family gathering is to begin telling your Peace Corps stories.”
People laughed – as if this were a joke. In fact, it struck me as an epiphany. Ah, yes, I thought, this is precisely why literary agents, book editors and commercial publishers steer way clear of Peace Corps memoirs. They know such predictable (read: “boring”) accounts of do-goodism (no guns, no gore) in places most Americans have never even heard of will cause prospective book buyers – even friends and family members — to empty the room.
But what if one’s true Peace Corps story included a rape? That would hold people’s attention, to be sure. Sadly, in our society, sex and violence (put them together and you have rape) sells.
This appears to be what the ratings-conscious media and some DC lawmakers have been focusing on this year of the Peace Corps’ Golden Anniversary: Not the quiet good that has been done by the agency and the roughly 200,000 people who have served as Peace Corps volunteers in far-off lands over the past fifty years, but rather the incidents of rape and sexual assault of young female PCVs by host country nationals.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not at all minimizing these horrendous and traumatic acts of violence. My heart goes out to the brave victims who have come forward and to all victims of this unspeakable crime everywhere it occurs. I applaud all efforts to improve the training and safety of Peace Corps volunteers, and I am sure such changes will be made immediately.
But I would also like to see this currently “hot” Peace Corps story put into perspective. I would like to see a segment on “20/20” (similar to the one aired last January that kicked off this 50th anniversary year with a piece on rapes in the Peace Corps) — as well as Congressional hearings in Washington — on the subject of rapes in the U.S. military. I suspect that the numbers that emerge from this investigation might even be higher.
Rape, tragically, happens everywhere in this world, wherever women (and young girls and even men and boys) are vulnerable to angry, aggressive, violent men – whether it’s an expensive hotel room in New York, a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, an American college dorm room, or even the seeming “safety” of home in Anytown, U.S.A. Who is to blame? What is the solution? Unfortunately, there are no easy answers.
When I lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan near Columbia University for twenty years (before joining the Peace Corps) and jogged in Riverside Park every morning, I carried a set of keys in my right hand, with the points of the keys sticking out of my fist. Fortunately, I never had to defend myself this way. But I’m convinced that being prepared made me appear less vulnerable to possible attackers.
Right now, it seems to me, the Peace Corps itself is under attack. At a time when we should be celebrating its achievements, we’re hearing, reading, and seeing only horror stories. Why? What’s really behind this, I wonder? It smells politically fishy to me.
Since this is meant to be a food-related blog, I’ll try to draw a culinary analogy now: A good, careful, thoughtful cook doesn’t buy smelly fish. Similarly, I don’t “buy” that this current media frenzy over rapes in the Peace Corps is only about rapes in the Peace Corps. I suspect a hidden agenda among some to undermine and malign the Peace Corps, perhaps militarize it, or do away with it all together.
Among the maxims I have taped to the face of my desktop computer is this: “Silence is Acquiescence.” We who have served in the Peace Corps and have positive stories to tell hold the keys in our hand. We can’t be silent. We have a responsibility to tell our truths, too, even at the risk of emptying the room.
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Bonnie,
I love your recipes and your blog, but I disagree with your conclusions in “Something Fishy.” I see nothing to suggest that the current focus on safety of Volunteers is political in any way. It is the Peace Corps women of First Response Action who fought to bring public light on this problem. I was so impressed with the Hearings. I saw women, who had served in the Peace Corps and had had horrific experiences, then survive, recover and direct their considerable talents to correcting the problems they had faced. The panel facing the Committee were all Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, with the exception of the Inspector General, the RAIN Director and the mother of the slain PCV. The testimony was deliberate and intelligent. I think that the Director and the women exemplified the very best of Peace Corps. I can’t fathom anyone finding the testimony in the least bit titillating or dramatic enough to sell books.
For me, one of the failures in implementing the Third Goal is that RPCVs don’t have the opportunity to talk to each other and share our experiences. We are each other’s greatest audiences. We are the ones who can learn the most from each other’s insights. Yet, the plan for the NPCA events in September are for us to sit, like passive school children, and be “lectured” about the future of the Peace Corps by “thought leaders.” Thought leaders!
Give me a break.
Now, I think that we should do our very best, always, to “tell our stories.” But, I know that at office parties or reunions, there are clusters of people who are sharing the same time or place or movement and their talk is of no interest to the other partygoers who group around the TV or mumble how tired they are of hearing the same “combat” stories.
I think that the Peace Corps experience is so unique that “outsiders” feel “left out” or unable to participate and that is why the room gets cleared or the eyes “glaze over.” When my son was young, he loved my stories. Once, in his 1st grade when the teacher said they were going to be studying other cultures. He raised his hand and said his mother could help because “She used to be an Indian.”
Now, of course, trust me, no interest at all.
Really glad to read your insights here Bonnie thanks for sharing them. I had also thought the media stories seemed extremely slanted.