As mentioned in the last blog post, all South Africa PCVs (Peace Corps Volunteers) were invited to Pretoria for a meeting concerning the arrest of a former S.A. PCV last weekend. Peace Corps put us all up in a lovely four star hotel (showers!!) and held debriefing and counseling sessions. Many volunteers expressed the same feelings: anger that a PCV would do such a thing, embarrassment that Peace Corps was receiving such bad press based on the actions of one individual and sadness for the victims. A lot of time was spent talking about our feelings (we are In the Peace Corps after all!), listening to and supporting each other and reviewing how to report any improper behavior that we may witness. (No volunteer knew what was happening with the former PCV, but Peace Corps is required to give us all training in reporting anyway.)
Our main concern was that our community would find out about the accusations and associate us with them. After all, when our community hears “Peace Corps,” they think Sara and Matt, and we’re not sure they realize that there are about 170 PCVs in South Africa. Luckily, we haven’t heard anything from community members about the news. Either they didn’t hear about it or they didn’t make the connection, which has been a big relief to us. 99.9% of PCVs are good people who genuinely want to help others. We would hate for people to think that we have anything but the best intentions. Anyway, so far, so good.
Besides the awful circumstances that necessitated the meeting, it was really cool to have so many volunteers in the same place. We not only got to catch up with friends from our training class, but we were able to meet a number of PCVs from other classes as well. It ended up being a fun weekend.
No comments:
Post a Comment