Thesis: Texts as a way of measuring stages of volunteer integration

Peace Corps Volunteers these days have it so good. While conditions haven't actually changed very much from the 1960s (as evidenced by the book Living Poor by Moritz Thomsen), our ability to communicate with our fellow PCVs and loved ones at home has improved dramatically (and very recently – our welcome kit still recommended that families number their letters). Email, cell phones, Skype, and Facebook have given us unprecedented connectivity, and more than ever we are able to give friends and family at home an accurate picture of volunteer life.

Just over a year ago, I started writing down what I thought were the funniest, strangest, or just most interesting texts I received from my fellow PCVs. It essentially came about because I had no more room in my SMS inbox and couldn't bear the thought of just deleting such priceless snippets of hilarity. So I started a Word file on my laptop and every time I got the "No space: message waiting"-beep I copied the best ones down before deleting.
 
 

In that first month I would get as many as 6 or 7 messages a day that I deemed worth saving. Things like:

“Remote controlled car but the car is attached to a cord which is attached to the remote and dragged. Instead of cutting in slices, they cut the cake in circles. My [host] mom still doesn’t know my name.”

“My host mom is senile.”

“…my neighbor is wearing an “I love hippie” hat. Dirty DHs!”

“Should one year olds be drinking Gatorade?”

“I think I was a party in selling beer and cigarettes to minors and the police are involved. If I got to jail please bail me out.”

“So I’m reading in my hammock and hear a rustle in the bushes. Probably a chicken, or maybe a kid. No, iguana.”

“My hide and go seek moment from last night feels like the Almost Famous I’m-a-golden-god scene.”

Particularly entertaining (to me, at least) were the texts I got about strange food encounters. Not living with a community deep in the jungle, I don't often get offered the interesting fare that many of my friends do, so I live vicariously through their experiences:

"I just had monkey for dinner! Yum!"

"We are going to have possum for lunch."

"I just ate big black ants a.k.a. ukuy."

"I just had catfish caviar, wild animal meat from the jungle, and boiled bananas for breakfast. No wonder my poop looks like an iron chef version of chili."

"I just drank 2 litros of chicha in 32 seconds at our town meeting to practice for a game day we're having against 10 other communities Sunday. I'm representing [my community] for the chicha drinking contest"

...and the subsequent illnesses:

"Woke up with sulfuric burps and intense stomach cramps… chalk another slash on the giardia count."

"Well, we're now in the same 'don't want to see a hot dog for a long time' club after I ate one for dinner last night and spent the night sick, today as well."

"On the upside, I went big on my fecal exam: parasites, 2 types of amoebas, and Ecoli. That's a Grand Slam!"

"I got worms!"

After those first several weeks, these observations began to drop off as the shock began to subside. I went from getting as many as 6 save-worthy texts per day down to one or two. And as constant communication slowed down, I began to get messages from people who felt, perhaps, neglected and needed to talk.

“Hey”

“I need some English.”

“I have the best story ever.”

“Hey when you get a chance could you give me a call? I just need to vent.”

“When I don’t hear from you in a week I get fucking worried.”

Isolated PCVs find great comfort in just getting a chance to speak their own language at the end of a long day or week of verbal isolation. I had the benefit of more saldo (cell phone minutes) than the others, and could call when they had already used up their month's allotment. At various intervals, I got some texts that made me question whether the isolation (or whatever) wasn't starting to get to some of my fellow PCVs. There were strange messages that indicated they might be getting closer to the edge:

“The feeling is beautiful and that’s the best part. PS. [I’m] drunk. Electric love lightning bolts fill the sky.”

“James Bean made me cry.”

“Just killed an equis [very poisonous type of snake] that was crawling up the steps. Totally calm. Totally cool.”

“Maybe I’m overheating because of my hair.”

“We’re all looking for something out here in the darkness. Do we know what it is? No. Will we find it? Most definitely. Things we can feel but not touch.”

“Oops that wasn’t meant for you. Haha.”

“Dead mon. And homeless hungry hung over I slept in a bus stop last night wow”

“You start to find out Who You Really Are (i.e. Who I Am) when there's no power and you're drinking 4 dollar gin solo by candlelight. The answers are somewhere at the bottom of this bottle. Or in the pages of my notebooks. The words are written in the blood of generations lost and they spell something that includes smooth Soul Butter”

But eventually we moved on. The focus shifted (with occasional lapses due to unprecedented ridiculousness) toward work, relationships, and events in our communities rather than culture shock and madness:

“That damn helicopter has been at it again today. It’s not looking like it's dropping the stuff off in Rukullacta but more adentro. If you're at the entrance to the caves looking at the road it’s going into the mountains in front and to the right of the caves. Muy lejos.”

“Okay, cutest thing ever. My foundation that doesn't celebrate birthdays threw me a surprise party last night with cake and dancing. It was their first ever birthday party they threw. Wow!”

“Today, meeting with battalion commander. Tomorrow, hand washing conference.”

“Have you heard of a new mining project in [deleted]? Some of the Germans are thinking of calling UNESCO and getting the reserve status revoked - all through other organizations and using fake names. This sounds like fun.”

“We have adjusted nursery policy to no fires but it is difficult for them because for them quemar is both burn and decompose.”

“At the fiestas of Cotundo and they're totally singing songs from the [Sumaco] national park CD!”

It isn't to say that ridiculous things weren't still happening – just that we had stopped being so impressed. I still get the occasional "There are young girls dancing in bikinis at the women's day event. Where does this fit in?" or "There's one of those candy sellers on my bus posing as a clown and he just stuck a six inch nail up his nose. Sweet lord." But most of the messages I get these days are more like this:

“Um. I. Have. Gossip.”

“Gotta love a cab ride home from a cabby with his whole family in the cab. As an added bonus the cabby even gave me an orange.”

“Oh, did I mention I'm becoming a Godfather on Sunday? Respect Dat!”

“My new favorite word - ecuatorianamente. It comes from the new Pilsener slogan but has become my new life slogan. It translates to Ecuadorianally [sic].”

“I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over the roar of my community rushing onto the field to congratulate me on my game winning header with 20 seconds left in the game!”

“… I missed this so much. I don't know how I can stay away.”

 
I love looking back on all the texts I deemed worthy of saving. It makes me see how far we've come, how much we've integrated, and how much we've shared. I'm grateful for the friends I've got here and how much they enrich my experience as a PCV. So here's to text messaging! And to all of the technology that keeps us close emotionally when the roads are long and winding (or closed by mudslides and protests) between your site and mine.

Love,
Laurel