Peace Corps Volunteer, Secondary School Teacher

1) Free Travel - The American government guarantees a round-trip ticket to your host country regardless of whether or not you finish your two year service.

2) Free Training - When you sign up for Peace Corps they don't just throw you into bush village at the start of your job. Instead, they will give you an 8-10 weeks of training. The training course involves training in the relevant sector you have been assigned -- either Small Business, Health, Education, Fish Farming, and Agriculture. You will also be given training in the local customs and language. During the duration of you training you will be staying with a host family where you will have ample opportunity to practice the language you have been learning and observe first hand the local customs.

2) Work - After training you are then sent out to your site you where you expected to spend two years working in your sector. For my job, I was in the education sector working as a teacher at a Monkey Bay Secondary School in Malawi -- a country in south eastern Africa. As a teacher I was responsible for teaching Biology, Math, Chemistry, and Physics to grades 9-12. My school had virtually no resources -- no text books for students, overcrowded class rooms (70+ students in my largest class), no electricity, etc. In the face of such adversity, you are forced to be creative in your classes -- come up with your own labs using local resources and look for funding to build a science lab. All of this may sound intimidating, but I found that it was extremely rewarding working with the staff and students as they are all eager to learn.

3) Community Involvement - In addition to teaching I also was greatly involved with the community. I coached boys soccer, was a mentor to a local Youth Group, and even played on the local semi-pro soccer team. The Youth group I worked with was in a village along the lake and the only way to get there was by boat or by hiking for 1hr. Usually I would go there before lunch and then catch a boat back to the main village with one of the fishermen. The area is absolutely stunning!

4) Opportunities for travelling - Peace Corps gives you 2-days a month of vacation which gives you ample time to travel around the area. While I was in Malawi, I had the opportunity to travel to Mozambique, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Zambia, Namibia, South Africa, and Botswana.

5) Rewarding Experience - After serving two years in your host country, the whole community will come together to say good bye to you. At this point you finally realize how much of a positive effect you had on your community. When I left the students put on a play where they acted out me having to deal with a corrupt principle who eventually had to leave the school and then after the play the staff at the school had a big feast for me as a way of saying thanks.