Ten Things I Learned About the United States While in the Peace Corps

For those who may be reading this and don’t know — maybe a couple of wanderers who searched the tags on this blog — I just finished a little over two years of service as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uganda, almost two months ago. I’m now living in Granada, Spain, studying Spanish, traveling, and generally readjusting to the developed world. Now back in a western culture (though not yet back in the States), I have a laptop and a whole lot of thoughts I haven’t been able to express through writing for the past two years. I don’t know where to put them all or how they fit into the larger picture, so I’m just going to throw them against the wall and see what sticks.

Even though I didn’t have the tools or the environment to feel like I could write regularly, the developing world — including Uganda, where I was posted — is not as cut off from the rest of the planet as western readers might think. I bought my first smartphone in Uganda, and many Ugandans own them as well. It gave me much easier access to news, entertainment and social networks; the other alternative was a ten-minute walk completely downhill, for an unreliable and slow internet café (towards the end, I went only because the owner became a good friend of mine.) In my area the network worked so well that on good days I could even watch a few Youtube videos. I say this to establish that I haven’t been totally out of the loop on current events; to visualize a modern-day PCV coming back into the western world, think less Austin Powers and more having seen events in the US through a pinhole… a tiny, terrifying pinhole, which was often easier not to look into. Much more difficult to ignore now. Whole not at Austin Powers levels, it is still hitting me like a freight train. It’s a lot to process and it’s hard to know where to start. 

Of course, by saying I’ve seen the US through a pinhole, I don’t want to give the impression that I’ve been in a tiny black box. Quite the opposite. The world has opened up for me in ways I couldn’t have imagined beforehand. Despite not being in the US, my traveling both in and out of the Peace Corps has shown me some key aspects of it, ways you could only see it from the outside. I guess a lot of what’s been on my mind has been these things. It’s a good place to start. It’s not even just what I hear from other Americans — after all, I haven’t met all that many (despite #8 below) — it’s wrestling with the disconnect I’ve felt from the way I used to see the world and the way I see it now. So maybe I’m mostly writing to myself here. 

Without further navel-gazing, here are the top ten things I learned about the United States while serving in the Peace Corps: 

1. what a cultural island the US is. The fact that we mainly speak only one language seems bizarre to me now by comparison, having been in a country where over 50 languages are spoken in an area smaller than Oregon; then in Europe, where speaking only one language makes you a bit backwater. (The Brits manage to get away with it, though.) To make this more than anectdotal: the US ranks 115th in the world for linguistic diversity. While an argument could be made for the benefits of a society having one mode of communication, the benefits of bilingualism are far better documented. Paradoxically, this is accompanied by:
2. how immensely influential our culture is. Our film, music, religion, politics, food and fashion are being marketed virtually everywhere, and Americans can find a bit of home virtually everywhere they go, unlike most people when traveling. In Spain, only about half of the music I hear in restaurants and about half the movies I see in theaters come from anywhere but the US. Not only are our biggest clothing brands in department stores, but the words on them are not even translated from English. This is even more true in Uganda: when things can be imported they are usually American or American-influenced.
3. how tone-deaf we are in our media and politics. One of the few diatribes I had sufficient motivation to bust out on Facebook (through a tiny, janked touch-screen keyboard) was about a preview for the action-schlock movie London Has Fallen (watch the trailer here.) Skip to about 1:50 and imagine how this would fall on the ears of anyone who is not American, which, as it turns out, is a lot of people. I saw the preview when I was in the capital city, Kampala, watching the new James Bond movie; while I couldn’t easily see the reactions of Ugandans in the theater, I squirmed imagining how it must have come across.
4. what a political island the US is. Our motivation to know world events (if there is any) usually does not come from having friends who have moved to a place or having met people from a place. When it does exist, it comes from some abstract ideal, or wanting to fact-check those on the other side of the political spectrum. Essentially, the average American has little motivation to understand the world outside its borders, at least on a personal level. I have to imagine that a world war would have much greater personal impact on other nations, who would much more certainly have friends in the nations they are at war with.
5. how great our lifestyle is. This is something cliche for RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers) to talk about, but a cliche is only boring because we have so many occasions to repeat it. On the one hand, I have had to grow up a bit in not expecting businesses to be open 24/7, or even to have any kind of schedule other than what the owner can manage. Both institutions and individuals in the US can be expected to be on time, there is a huge premium on customer service, and public criticism is not only allowed, but often invited by companies and institutions that want to improve. This makes the doomsday political rhetoric of the alt-right feel both hilarious and gut-wrenching at the same time. America might not be the undisputed superpower it once was, but it is certainly not falling apart at the seams. Having seen such a great lack of resources — and life continuing calmly regardless — it is unfathomable that so many Americans are in such great fear.
6. how not-great our lifestyle is. Despite the vast amount of resources, convenience and stability that Americans enjoy, it is not reflected in our lifestyle choices or our attitudes. Uganda has had a dictator posing as a president who has been in power for over 30 years, partly from deft campaigning tactics (a free t-shirt is trivial in the US, but could be a major gift in a poor village) but also from even less democratic methods, such as arresting political opponents and re-writing the constitution with his lapdog political party. Spain has been “in crisis” for the past year because they failed to elect a political party to office. Britain and the EU alike are scratching their heads as to what Brexit means. (These three examples come only from my personal experience; this doesn’t even touch the instability experienced in Ukraine, Syria or other places in the past year.) The United States is, for the first time in several generations, experiencing real political instability with widespread riots and protests, a presidential race that threatened not accepting election results even if he lost (aka, what Uganda experiences every five years), and the most polarized politics in American history ever.
7. that people, are, in fact, watching what we do. I once heard a quip saying that if you think the world hates the United States, you’re a liberal, and if you think the world loves the United States, you’re probably a conservative; and the reality is that people don’t really care that much. This is only somewhat true. It is the case that everyday people have more immediate concerns than what our so-called [link] President said on Twitter, but it’s not the case that people don’t talk about us. People do talk about us, more than Americans talk about any particular country. I am so grateful that my service ended before Lord Cheeto became the POTUS and I would have to see his face hanging in PC headquarters, and would have to answer questions about him to Ugandans and other foreigners. I already had enough of that as his candidacy began to be taken more and more seriously. Europeans I met in Uganda didn’t even poke fun; they mostly just felt sorry for me. As I did, as well. It was humiliating.
8. Americans. Are. EVERYWHERE. Despite our reputation (somewhat deserved) for not being well traveled, go to any major city around the world that is not openly hostile to Americans and you will find a ton of us. It’s been a constantly surprising experience for me. Before traveling abroad I always assumed that I would be forced to interact with locals and learn the language because there would be little other option for social experiences. Not so at all. In fact, when it’s so much easier just to speak the language you know and interact with people who feel more familiar, it can be a difficulty to force oneself to use the language and interact with the culture. I always wonder how we must come across to locals as we travel, and while many see us as strange, naive or a bit backwards, in my experience most people view Americans favorably. One person even called us the friendliest type of person he’d ever met.
9. that the experience of Americans is far more diverse than we often think. I have to confront this whenever someone asks an innocent but misplaced question such as “What are Americans like?” or “What do Americans eat?” or — the real doozie — “How is America different from Uganda?”, and I am completely at a loss to answer, because it’s obviously not gonna have a simple one. Additionally, I interacted with PCVs in my post on a fairly rey favorite part of my service was actually not directly related to the Ugandan people. I was the leader of Peer Support Network (PSN), an organization run by PCVs to promote the health and well-being of their fellow Volunteers in the field. Because of the timing of elections for officer positions, I became the General Coordinator only six months into my 27-month service. Thus, the majority of my service was marked by this role. In serving this way, I came to know PCVs better and to appreciate the vast differences between people who serve. 
10. that, despite our diversity, there are common, recognizable threads to being an American. As in the previous point, I have to recognize the presumption in claiming that I can speak for all Americans. Nonetheless, when I say “the American lifestyle,” I think we all have something similar in mind, which I outlined above, even if we do not consider ourselves as participants in it. There’s a certain camaraderie amongst PCVs that comes from an innate understanding between us that I was not even aware existed. I can now understand viscerally why immigrants form small communities within American cities and how crucial that must be to their well-being. It’s not a matter of liking the new country or even of having new friends within it, but the simple comfort of familiarity. 

Ten is a satisfying number. I decided to make the blog a list around item number 6 and I began to worry I’d have to shoehorn things in to complete it; but once I started, it’s been more difficult limiting it to ten. It seems like a good place to start, a way to structure not only my experience but future blogs. In any case, it was unrealistic for me to write a blog from Uganda, despite my best efforts. Many PCVs do it, but I felt there were simply too many obstacles in my case, mostly having to do with technology.

Perhaps it was for the best. Looking back over private journal entries and audio recordings during service, I can see myself wrestling with the experience and often being ungraceful in the struggle to make sense of it — I only ever seemed to find the time to write or record when I had a strong emotional need to do so, a time when it took too much effort, energy I could not spare, to hold back snap judgments and reactionary evaluations. Readjustment to western culture is its own nightmare, some say even worse than the initial integration to the host country, but at least now I have the benefit of easy internet access, coffee shops and comfort foods. 

I don’t really intend on making this a “Peace Corps blog,” especially as I’m no longer in the Peace Corps, but it’s obviously cathartic to write about — especially since I don’t have to put that annoying disclaimer at the end of the blog or have what I say policed by headquarters. (Case-in-point, number 6: calling the Ugandan president what he is — a dictator with a democratic costume — would have been a major no-no during service. Likewise, speaking out against the president would have also been a no-no, a restriction I probably could not have dealt with.)  If there’s any questions I can answer as a PCV feel free to shoot them my way, and I’ll be able to give a more no-bullshit answer now that I’m done.