Maya Lau from Senegal on Huffington Post
Maya Lau [After college at Vassar, Maya Lau went to Kolda, Senegal (2009-11) as a PCV and worked in urban agriculture. Coming home, she began working in journalism in New York City. And that is what she’s doing today! Here’s a post she put up on Huff Post the other day titled: “What The Peace Corps Taught Me About Failure.” Ain’t that the truth! (It is published with her permission.] Posted: 11/17/11 09:10 Volunteer life bursts with cultural faux pas, fruitless projects and second guesses. For two years, I felt like the joke was on me. Even on my best days in Senegal, the sudden scream of “toubab,” a taunting word for foreigners, reminded me that my cheerfulness was jinxed, my presence perhaps unwelcome. In West Africa, I confronted the toubab version of myself, a self previously foreign to me that was lethargic, cynical and at home with failure. For a long time I . . .
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Great piece of writing! I will suggest, however, that the value of failure as a teaching tool is highly over-rated.…