A Life of Service After PLU

Austin Goble '09, Ruth Tollefson '09, Raechelle Baghirov 05, listen while Sallie Strueby '11, speaks during an Alumni panel discussion on service opportunities at PLU on Thursday, March 22, 2012. (Photo by John Froschauer)

By Katie Scaff '13

Volunteer service is about taking what you're learning in the classroom and making it bigger, according to four recent PLU graduates.

The grads, Sallie Strueby '11, Austin Goble '09, Ruth Tollefson '09, and Raechelle Baghirov '05, shared their experiences in a panel discussion on paid service opportunities on Thursday, March 22nd.

"The phrase 'a life of service' was thrown around a lot," Baghirov said of her time at PLU. "It made you look at what you were learning and how it could be taken to a higher level. I may not have thought of it as 'this is my wild hope component' but it was."

Baghirov studied abroad in London during J-term her last year at PLU and knew she wanted to spend more time abroad. She applied for the Peace Corps after graduation and spent three and a half years volunteering in Azerbaijan.

"Every volunteer service is different and it is what you make of it," Baghirov said. "Meaningful service not only changed the life of those I worked with, but it changed my own life as well. You get more than you give."

For some, like Baghirov, volunteering was a way to fulfill two passions, serving others and traveling. For others though, like Goble, who volunteered with Lutheran Volunteer Corps and Americorps, volunteering was a way to transition from college life to the "real world."

"I was excited about the opportunity to slowly move itno something else," Goble said.

Goble did two years of service. He spent his first year working with Lutheran Volunteer Corps affiliate Eastern Nebraska Community Action Partnership in Omaha. His second year was with Peace Community Center, an Americorp affiliate in Tacoma's hilltop neighborhood. The relationships he formed during these years had a large influence on him.

"I'm the one gaining from their life experience," Goble said. "It's a lot of personal growth, a lot of self examination and getting a better understanding of who I am -- that has shaped me immeasurably."

Though they had different experiences, the other panelists echoed Goble's words.

"It's self-sacrificing but it's so worth it," Strueby said, who is currently volunteering with Americorps at Federal Way Public Schools. "I went into this experience hoping to mentor, inspire, and teach these students and I know I'll leave with it being the other way around."

Volunteering is sometimes seen as a detour on the way to a career, but often it can lead to an better prepare you for your career, according to the panelists.

"It's mind-blowing how much you change," Baghirov said. "It forces you to look at yourself and imagine what you're capable of. I took away this sense that I was self-sufficient. I have the power to change my own life and my own world in everyday decisions."

For Tollefson, her service at Peace Community Center turned into a job. She's now the elementary programs and public relations director for the center. Looking back, she recognizes how her experiences at PLU prepared her.

"When I was a student here I was really really involved in student leadership and I think that is what helped me feel confident enough to go off and do service in a different community," Tollefson said.

Reposted from: http://www.plu.edu/news/2012/04/volunteer-panel/

An Open Letter (Reposted)

Dear Person Contemplating Joining Peace Corps,

I imagine that you’re at a transition point in your life. Perhaps you’ve just graduated, perhaps you’re going through a career change, perhaps you have an itch for something more that can’t be scratched. Whatever the reason, here you are: contemplating joining Peace Corps.

But should you? Is it right for you?

Honestly, you might not know that until you’ve arrived. You can research by reading books and official publications or by talking with current/returned volunteers, but everything you read and hear will probably tell you the same thing: every person’s experience is different. Your Peace Corps life will be uniquely shaped by your country, program, and site. 

I’d like to think, though, that there are a few things that are universal throughout the Peace Corps world, and those things tend all to revolve around how you yourself will change - for the better and for the worse - because of your time in Peace Corps.

‘Sanitary’ will become an obsolete concept. You will eat on mats that you know are saturated in urine. You will prepare food on counters that also serve as chicken roosts. You will not have consistent/frequent access to soap. You will eat street food that is undoubtedly questionable. You will be dirty, dusty, and sweaty at all times. You will have mind over body battles to force yourself to bucket shower in the winter. Bugs, lizards, chickens, ducks, and mice will crap on everything. These things will be ok. You’ll adjust. The sterile environment of the States will become a distant odd memory or a constant fantasy.

Your body, though, might not adjust as quickly. You will have parasites and infections and illnesses that you had never heard of before training. You will be constantly constipated. Or go the opposite extreme. I hate to say it, but you will probably poop in your pants at least once. You will learn to vomit over a squat toilet and into a plastic bag during a bus ride. You will discuss your bodily functions openly and enthusiastically with other volunteers. No topic will be taboo.

The way you communicate will completely transform. Learning a language from scratch through immersion is a powerful experience. You will learn to have complex communications though expressions, gestures, and basic vocabulary. You will learn to bond with another human being through silence. You will answer the same basic questions over and over and over again. You may never achieve the ability to discuss ideas and concepts. You will develop a new English language which consists of pared down vocabulary and grammatical structures. You will actively think of each word before you speak. Your speech patterns will slow. You will have to define words whose meanings you had always taken for granted. You will learn to listen. 

Your concept of money will entirely alter. Paying more than $1 for anything will cause you to pause and question your purchase. You will understand value in the context of a different economic system. You will learn to barter, even on cheaper items. You will consistently feel as though you have been cheated on the price. You will be enraged by all prices upon returning to the States.

You will embrace the thrilling dichotomies of thrift versus splurge and ration versus binge. No one knows how to budget like a Peace Corps volunteer. And no one can binge like one.

You will be discontented with your work. You will wonder – and scream to the heavens – about the benefit of your presence. You will feel lost in unstructured expectations and crushed by promising ideas fallen to the side. 

Your expectations will fade into an unexpected reality. You will learn to celebrate small victories. You will look at mountains and see mole hills. You will try to tackle the impossible. Maybe you’ll succeed. Maybe you’ll just pick yourself up and take aim at another impossibility.

You will learn to do all of this through pure self-motivation. You will be the one to drag yourself out of bed and out the door. You won’t have anyone holding your hand or pushing your forward. Just you. You will become a stronger person for yourself, by yourself.

You will be a celebrity in your community. That status comes will hardships and benefits that will ineradicably change you. You will be the exception to the societal rules. You will be the foreigner, the one set apart. You will receive privileges and have special attention/status because of your nationality. You will always have eyes on you. You will have joined as an agent of culture exchange and understanding, but you will still find yourself falling into an ‘us versus them’ mentality. Use it. Consider it. Contemplate the value we place on people because of arbitrary characteristics. You will come away from your experience more attune to your own merits, to those that are deserved and to those that are given.

Your culture of personal space, one that maybe you have always taken for granted, will be challenged. You will wonder why you need an entire room to yourself while no one else even has a bed to himself. You still won’t want to give your room up. Privacy will be a privilege or a rarity, not a right.

You will lose all control of your emotions and be on an unpredictable roller coaster of extreme ups and downs. You will go from happy and confident to sullen and tearful by things as simple as ants in your candy or yet another child saying ‘Hello!’ Your highs will be high, but they will be fragile. Your lows will feel inescapable. Your family and friends in the States probably won’t understand this. Your isolation will force you to become your own support system. You will become aware of yourself in the context of solely being yourself.

Your government-issued friends will be your reprieve. The love and closeness you share with people back in the States won’t change, but it will be your fellow volunteers who understand. They will be friendships forged from necessity, and they will be deep and fervent.

You will witness a whole new way of life, and you will question your notion of necessity. You will consider your personal wealth, and people will constantly remind you of it. You will discover what your ‘needs’ are to live a productive, satisfied life. I hope you will remember that when you return to a culture of plenty.

You will be the biggest product of your Peace Corps work. You will change. And you will bring that change back with you.

Reposted from: http://peacecorps.tumblr.com/
http://thesharpiemarkerapproach.tumblr.com/post/42420977797/an-open-letter

All credit goes to the amazing RPCV that wrote this as clearly as anyone could have said it.