Yesterday I, along with six other volunteers had dinner with the Director of Peace Corps, Carrie Hessler – Radelet. She was Acting Director for a period of time and earlier this year was officially confirmed as Director. She is a very fascinating woman, a woman who has serious experience working in development all around the world (and back again a few times). Of course she was very well spoken, educated and polite, but beyond that I was supremely taken aback by her ability to sit at a table with us and be one of us. Our dinner was a casual one. We went to a small Argentinian steak house in the provincial capital of Chiriqui. She was calm and casual and there wasn’t a minute that passed by that was awkward. It was as if she knew who we were before we even made eye contact. (I mean, she probably hangs out with Volunteers on occasion, so that makes sense, I guess, pero bueno).
During our conversations she basically wanted to know what a PCV in Panama was all about – what our projects were, what our future plans were, who we were, where we come from, and why were we in Panama now, what was our endgame. As the end of our evening came closer she told us a story about a former PCV being reunited with a young man (11 years old during this volunteers service) from a small community in Sierra Leone, that young man is the recently elected President of Sierra Leone, and upon being asked how he came about to be President, he told the PC Director it was because of what he learned about giving back to the community from this particular PCV years earlier. (A beautiful and powerful story, one I’m sure she has told as often as she possibly could, but that doesn’t take away the power from the story itself). She discussed a lot of the changes that are going on with the Peace Corps to come. How technology and the age of the internet are changing the way we look at development, choosing volunteers and how volunteers can more effectively work in the field in the age where a community may not have potable water but may have smart phone service. It was fascinating to hear from her exactly what the process behind the changes are, why certain decisions are being made and how logical they are. As a volunteer in country, we hear a lot about changes to protocols or application processes, and I’m not saying I agree with her and all of the changes that are being made in Peace Corps (maybe because I don’t know or its beyond my pay-grade haha) but I’ve never really been at the table with someone who is in charge of making big policy changes, and if I ever imagined myself sitting at that table, I didn’t imagine it would be with someone that was, so, human.
At the end of the day, though, she continued to come back to how important service is, and what it means to be community minded, how just being present is in itself a potentially a life changing experience for ourselves and also for the individuals we spend our time with. I just can’t get over how normal of a human she was, how she looked us in the eyes and you could tell she respected each and every one of us for the work we are doing, for leaving our doors each day and stepping out into a big scary unknown and how she and how she almost cried telling about her favorite Peace Corps related experiences or stories. All in all, it was a very inspirational experience, I’m back at home now, and I can’t really comprehend everything that happened the night before, I’m not starstruck, because she wasn’t a star, she was just a woman who has dedicated her life and efforts to international development and to volunteers just like me, and if that doesn’t inspire you…
Above is a photo of a me with a fellow volunteer in the province of Chiriqui and the Director. Three Wisconsinites, imagine that.
panamá, wisconsin 