Coronavirus has been hell and I am glad all of you reading this have made it through safely. We have all lost something due to COVID-19, and in my case, it was the last leg of my service with the Peace Corps. For security and privacy concerns, I cannot provide too much detail about my service, but I started in 2018 and was forced to evacuate my site like the rest of my fellow volunteers upon the horizon of the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine. The evacuation process was swift and a very memorable moment in my service, but it holds little weight to other memories I made during that time in my life.
While serving, I taught English and Economics to middle school students and had the opportunity to do some work with clinics and nonprofit organizations. The most incredible part of my service was being a role model. Peace Corps service is a deeply personal experience and is different for everyone. I am a young Black man who had the privilege of serving as a volunteer in South Africa. Before leaving for service, I had grand ideas of immersing myself in the community and introducing them to sustainable practices like community solar. Little did I know that working in development is incredulously complicated. There were so many barriers to success — some stemming from the community —that the grand notion of implementing small-scale solar infrastructure in my community was an idea that was dead on arrival.
I entered my service ready to have an impact, but every idea I produced seemed to be met with some sort of resistance. Either it was “politically sensitive,” or just too far outside the scope of my primary duties as a volunteer that it would take an extra year or two of service to see that project piloted, let alone scaled sustainably. This was disheartening for me to hear. Up until that moment, the only thing I was sure of in my life was my desire to help people, and I felt like the universe was denying me that opportunity. There were a lot of highs in the Peace Corps, but there were just as many lows. You all do not know this about me yet, but I am a slight overachiever (I really hate being assessed though), and I felt like I was not performing to my standards. If you have not noticed yet, this blog post is all about me, and I realized that that was the problem. I will explain it using an anecdote from my Peace Corps service, and I am going to be vulnerable here, so bear with me.
On a mission to procure resources and donations for my school, I made a deal with an individual who I thought was sincere. This person claimed to be traveling on holiday while currently in law school, and at the same time running a nonprofit. This person sounded like someone I wanted to be friends with. We connected in a neighboring city around my village, and they explained to me their goal of identifying local schools to provide donations to on behalf of their organization. I heard this and was elated. I felt like this was the break I needed to get the ball rolling on some important projects I had lined up, and I was determined to have this individual donate to my school. With all of this in mind, you could say I tried professionally court this individual. Think dinner, networking, and access to personal resources. I did all of this, happily, because I knew the joy on my learner’s faces when we received these donations would be worth every cent.
We established a date and this person agreed to drive up five hours to my village from the city to drop off the donations. Let me paint the picture – it is Sunday afternoon, and I am sitting inside a KFC – yes there are KFCs in South Africa, quite a few actually – where I was for almost 8 hours until it got dark. I called my principal, still confident that this person who claimed to be a warrior of change would come through and deliver as they promised. They of course did not. I cannot put into words the level of embarrassment I felt that day, but I did not go to school Monday because I was not sure how to face the other teachers to whom I promised these donations. Thankfully, nothing was said to the students, as I am not sure I would have been able to recover from that.
Nonetheless, on Tuesday I went to school because not instructing my students was only them. On this particular school day, my grade seven learners had just completed an assignment for science class, in which they all had to grow a plant in pairs. I am sure my learners could tell that something was wrong because I was noticeably quiet and not engaged. I was their homeroom teacher, and usually, we would sit around and crack jokes, or just share our experiences. This is one of my favorite moments from service in the Peace Corps; however, on this day, given the circumstances of the weekend before, I was not really in the mood to ki-ki with them. Then, the most astonishing and unexpected thing happened. My grade 7 learners, as a class, came up to me and decided to give me a plant to take home and take care of. “We want you to have it, sir. We think you will like it.” Now that I think back on it, I do not think my mood has ever changed so drastically and so quickly. The moment the plant left their hands and entered mine, I was all smiles. That moment revealed so much. It revealed that my learners are always paying attention to me. At that point, I had been teaching them for a year and they had grown so comfortable and understanding of me that they could recognize instantly that something was wrong. It reminded me that I must always be at my best when I am around them. I was allowed to have mental health moments, I am only human, but my learners looked up to me in a way that is similar to a younger sibling who looks up to an older sibling who might be five or more years older. That person looks and feels invincible to you. That person who you consider an older sibling, besides your parents, is your first teacher. That is what I was to my learners, I was a big brother and a mentor, and big brothers do not let their younger siblings see them cry.
It also revealed to me, more importantly, just how profound the impact I was having on my learners really was. My learners, my smart, talented, and creative learners were simply happy to have me in the classroom every day. They were happy to see me come in every day excited to learn and teach. They were happy that I was so passionate about what I did, and it made them want to be passionate. They were happy that I came to school every day, as a young Black man, and showed them what opportunities they might have access to outside of their village. My presence and engagement with them opened their world and their possibilities on a scale that I cannot comprehend. Seeing me made certain things real for them. It made the idea of going to university real, traveling, being a doctor, lawyer, etc.
That day I came to understand that the most important thing I could do for my learners and my community was to be a role model. Being a role model means different things to different people, but for me, it meant showing up prepared and being my authentic self. I love Peace Corps and love South Africa — that experience challenged me in so many ways, and it was not always easy to be true to myself. But I made it, and I would not replace the experience for anything. When I think about the Peace Corps, a lot of things come to mind, and not everything is good. But being a role model to my learners is exactly what I was meant to do with my time in the Peace Corps, and I hope I fulfilled that duty successfully.
I am glad I was able to serve as a role model, mentor, and teacher. Working in international development has taught me that while capital and resources are a requisite for development, for that development to be sustainable, there needs to be initiative from both the developer and the community to be developed. Lastly, the beaches in South Africa are unparalleled. I was able to fall in love with the ocean.
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