The Most Hated Man in Peace Corps Kenya
Late last year the Peace Corps office tried to get a hold of a volunteer. It turns out he wasn’t at site and no one knew where he was. Peace Corps are essentially surrogate parents and when a PCV goes missing it’s a big deal. In a country like Kenya there’s a pretty decent chance he’s in the hospital or dead. PC Kenya notified the head of PC in DC and many high and low ranking PC staff spent many sleepless nights trying to figure out what happened to this guy. They were about to do an extremely embarassing press release saying a volunteer had gone missing and they knew nothing when the FBI traced an ATM withdrawal to Zanzibar Island. Turns out the guy was on vacation.
The volunteer was using his PC site as a base to travel all over Africa. When you join Peace Corps you are given a special State Department passport. He had used up all the pages in his passport. People at his site barely knew who he was since he was never there. All the staff here were furious. They had spent hours trying to see if a volunteer was still alive and it turns out he had spent his whole tour on vacation. They tried to give him administrative separation (like a dishonorable discharge) but he resigned before the paperwork could go through.
In the past the role of the office was to train us and help us with any problems. Otherwise we are on our own. No longer. PC staff must now keep us under strict surveillance. We must notify them if we leave site for any reason, give two weeks notice and get approval before any vacation time, and our passports are kept at the PC office. Vacation and leave days are counted up to make sure we do not exceed our quota. Needless to say the volunteers hate this. They hate the notifications, the notices, and the general oversight. Many people take more than the allotted vacation so it cuts into vacation time. The staff are not fond of these policies also. Now they must know where each volunteer is at all times. If a volunteer is found elsewhere they get in big trouble. It is also very unKenyan. Kenyans tend to take time off whenever they wish and come back whenever they wish. What does the staff care if we got stuck in route and have to stay another night? The relationship has also changed from a working, friendly rapport to suspicious and skeptical. Many volunteers now lie about where they are going and staff are forced to do checkup calls to verify if the person is truly at site. Several good volunteers have been sent home as a result. My group calls traveling without notification stealth missions while older volunteers call it flying low. I have talked to PCVs who have flown low to America, Amsterdam, and London.
The vast majority of volunteers spend the majority of time at site but it’s also becoming clear with these policies that some volunteers are spending a fair amount of time on vacation.
The end result is unhappy staff, unhappy volunteers, and one guy hated rather strongly by all sides.
So far these policies have yet to affect me as I spend the vast majority of time at site teaching but I will see how the relationship between me and my boss works out.
Late last year the Peace Corps office tried to get a hold of a volunteer. It turns out he wasn’t at site and no one knew where he was. Peace Corps are essentially surrogate parents and when a PCV goes missing it’s a big deal. In a country like Kenya there’s a pretty decent chance he’s in the hospital or dead. PC Kenya notified the head of PC in DC and many high and low ranking PC staff spent many sleepless nights trying to figure out what happened to this guy. They were about to do an extremely embarassing press release saying a volunteer had gone missing and they knew nothing when the FBI traced an ATM withdrawal to Zanzibar Island. Turns out the guy was on vacation.
The volunteer was using his PC site as a base to travel all over Africa. When you join Peace Corps you are given a special State Department passport. He had used up all the pages in his passport. People at his site barely knew who he was since he was never there. All the staff here were furious. They had spent hours trying to see if a volunteer was still alive and it turns out he had spent his whole tour on vacation. They tried to give him administrative separation (like a dishonorable discharge) but he resigned before the paperwork could go through.
In the past the role of the office was to train us and help us with any problems. Otherwise we are on our own. No longer. PC staff must now keep us under strict surveillance. We must notify them if we leave site for any reason, give two weeks notice and get approval before any vacation time, and our passports are kept at the PC office. Vacation and leave days are counted up to make sure we do not exceed our quota. Needless to say the volunteers hate this. They hate the notifications, the notices, and the general oversight. Many people take more than the allotted vacation so it cuts into vacation time. The staff are not fond of these policies also. Now they must know where each volunteer is at all times. If a volunteer is found elsewhere they get in big trouble. It is also very unKenyan. Kenyans tend to take time off whenever they wish and come back whenever they wish. What does the staff care if we got stuck in route and have to stay another night? The relationship has also changed from a working, friendly rapport to suspicious and skeptical. Many volunteers now lie about where they are going and staff are forced to do checkup calls to verify if the person is truly at site. Several good volunteers have been sent home as a result. My group calls traveling without notification stealth missions while older volunteers call it flying low. I have talked to PCVs who have flown low to America, Amsterdam, and London.
The vast majority of volunteers spend the majority of time at site but it’s also becoming clear with these policies that some volunteers are spending a fair amount of time on vacation.
The end result is unhappy staff, unhappy volunteers, and one guy hated rather strongly by all sides.
So far these policies have yet to affect me as I spend the vast majority of time at site teaching but I will see how the relationship between me and my boss works out.
posted by Ross at 7:25 AM
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