Happy Birthday Peace Corps!

March 1, 2011 Peace Corps celebrated its 50th anniversary as an organization that sends volunteers to serve in developing countries.

To commemorate the day, PC had a special cocktail event in Teguz, Honduras. I somehow got chosen as the only volunteer to do a speech - right after the PC Honduras Director Emily and the US ambassador. I never thought of myself as a good public speaker (much like how I feel about my blogging skills) and felt nervous to the bones.

But apparently it was a success, and a group of people even ended up crying from my speech including the director who ended up with watery eyes.

I ended up on 3 Honduran TV channels and on this news site with a photo with the ambassador, PC director, me and Honduran counterpart:


http://proceso.hn/2011/03/02/Metrópoli/El.Cuerpo.de/34398.htmlq

All and all, super cool! And my fav part is that they wined and dined us - Literally with wine and HUMMUS! Oh how I missed my mediterranean love.

Here is a copy of my speech - translated from Spanish so phrasing might be a little awkward:

I have to confess something. When Peace Corps asked me to give this speech, I had no idea where to start or what to share. So I asked for help from one of my best and smartest friends - A 9 year old boy - named David. He dictated to me what I should say as an introduction in front of you all today:

"Happy Birthday Peace Corps for your fifty years of existence in the world and for your serve. Thank you for your serve to people of Honduras and around the world. Thanks Peace Corps for your service to countries and cities. And also thanks for giving work to the Americans. "

This child, at the young age of 9 years, already knows Peace Corps as a service organization, and has Peace Corps as part of his vocabulary. It also seems that he understands the economic problems of the world and the lack of jobs. And it is true, in a sense David knows Peace Corps more than me. David and I live in a town called Maraita in the department of Francisco Morazan. It has a population of 7,000 inhabitants scattered across a valley and two mountains. The town center has a population of 500 inhabitants. Maraita is also ranked among the 50 poorest municipalities in Honduras by the Honduran government. Peace Corps has sent 18 volunteers to Maraita, starting in 1982. Person to person, Peace Corps has created a legacy of service in the cause of peace, and become an internal symbol to promote cultural exchange and give a helping hand. So to David, this organization has been part of his whole life.

We can build a list of items, materials, and donations generated from Peace Corps volunteers easily. In my town alone, volunteers started computer classes at school, constructed a library, trained nurses in the health center in first aid, and taught farmers improved techniques to ensure food security ... and much more. But you can’t find the biggest impact of PC in this simple list.

Gradually in the past 5 months of being a volunteer, I have begun to understand that the best thing what is the best out come of Peace Corps. And one event in particular, finally turned on the light for me.

As a volunteer in the Municipal Development project, my first idea at my new site was to make a participatory budget. For the first time people in Maraita could participate and comment on what should be included in the budget of the municipality and prioritize community problems. With the transparency committee, I organized meetings with all the community leaders. To start the meeting, we did an activity of creating a "resource map" in which each village or neighborhood drew his community and the resources were available to have a map of the community and identifying resources that may be useful in a project. I defined resources and showed an example of a map of other community resources. Then a representative of each village came forward to present their map. They came up to the front and presented their community: "There are homes in poor condition, there is a lack of forest protection, we are not organized and there is no neighborhood council, and so on."

They could only see the stain on the shirt and not the positive. We started again from the top. The description of community changed: "There are many homes - a thriving community with leaders, there is a forest with a spring as a water source, and maybe people here are not organized but we are willing to work." We no longer only saw a town full of poverty. We say communities filled to the brim with human and environmental resources. And the presenters were smiling, feeling, perhaps for the first time, proud of their small village.

Poverty begins and grows in the mind. You can see it in other people as I have seen it in my own mind. Poverty is a weed that is planted hard in the mind with thick, contaminating roots. What Peace Corps does in conjunction with local counterparts is pull out intoxicating weed and turn the hands of the people into hands that work, and work to cultivate and harvest seeds that are virtuous and good.

Nobody liberates anybody else, and nobody liberates themselves all alone. People liberate themselves in fellowship with each other.

And for me, that's the best thing that brings Peace Corps to countries around the world-
A service motivated by compassion, a belief in the rights that every individual should have a life with dignity, freedom and opportunity, a commitment to eliminate the barriers of poverty, ignorance and disease; an unwavering optimism of building a better world together.

Life is short. Even a long human life just adds to 650,000 hours. And from that you still have to subtract the basic things like sleeping and time in the bathroom.

There are few hours in this life. It’s like a shooting star flying fast in the night sky. And at the same time, every six seconds someone dies of hunger in the world.

But always when I wake up at the crack of dawn and smell the coffee and grinded corn in this country, I wake up with a big, wide smile. Because I know that on this day, this day of mine, I have the opportunity and tools as a Peace Corps volunteer to change the world and cultivate peace with members of my community. Maybe today I will bring peace to someone else or maybe I will see it grow within myself… but either way ... I know I have started something incredible.

Peace Corps has created an incredible movement.

Let me conclude by going back to the start - to what that little boy of 9 years said. It rings true – thank you to Peace Corps. Thank you for giving me a job, but not just any job. But "the toughest job I'll ever love" .... a job of service work with challenges, meaning and purposeful. And thank you Honduras for changing my life for the better, forever.