I was a Peace Corps Volunteer: You can't save everyone

You can't save everyone.
Peace Corps Volunteers aren't saviors. They aren't holy knights. Most aren't even professionals. Peace Corps Volunteers are just people with specific roles and projects to implement while learning and sharing about a host country’s culture.
If you want to be successful during your service, then you have to set realistic goals and ensure that you can physically and mentally obtain those goals. This means you can’t stretch yourself thin doing things that you really shouldn’t. These are tough situations and involve tough choices.
1) Malnourished locals
If you go to Guinea or choose a country with a similar profile, you will see people who suffer from malnutrition. They could be mentally handicapped people who roam around the village, your neighbors who have lost their breadwinners, or even some of your students who struggle to stay awake in class. You will feel guilty, because you have enough funds to eat every day while these people don’t.
The options will be on your mind and perhaps some of these people might even ask you directly, “Can you help?” The short, tough answer is No. Peace Corps doesn’t give you enough money to feed anyone else besides you. If you start feeding other people, then you run the risk of not getting enough food for yourself and then getting sick because of it. If you’re too sick, you get sent home. That means your site will no longer have a Peace Corps Volunteer at all.
For my students who I thought suffered from malnutrition or perhaps other forms of hardship, I talked with my principal, my commissioner, and other people to see what they, as village leaders, could do. They were more appropriately equipped to take positive action. If I was in a situation where I felt like it was too serious, then it’s something I would have brought up with Peace Corps Guinea.
2) Classroom
You will have students who should not be in your class. Oftentimes, they were passed by previous teachers even if they never passed the school exams. This becomes a serious problem in 10th Grade when you have to prepare students to pass a very difficult countrywide exam.
To help them catch up, you can either spend a lot of class time doing review or host extra tutoring sessions. Whatever you do, you must keep in mind that you absolutely must finish the lesson plan as the Brevet will ask questions from any and all subjects that were supposed to be studied. If you do not finish the lesson plan because you spent too much time trying to get your stragglers to catch up, then that means you run the risk of no one passing no matter how well they did on the subjects you did cover.
You can’t take that risk. Develop the right lesson plan and make sure you finish it. That might mean that you simply have to move on from subjects even if a few of your students aren’t getting it.
It’s tough, knowing that you will have students who probably won’t pass the Brevet. The alternative is to have no students ready to take the test.
3) Immigration
During my two years of service, I had people ask me for help with visa applications and how to get to America. It’s understandable that people want to look for better opportunities-we all do it. But as a Peace Corps Volunteer and oftentimes for years after, there’s really not much you can do, even if you want to help. I also don't think Peace Corps Volunteers should be encouraging brain drain when we are trying to help countries build themselves up.
There are volunteers who will promise their Guinea friends that they will do something. It’s pretty much an empty and tiring promise because immigrating from Guinea to America even when married to an American is extremely difficult. Also, you need to understand what that implies-are you helping someone because they helped you a lot? Or because you have some guilt? What are your plans for when they come to America? Did you think anything through?
No matter what, I think most young returned Peace Corps Volunteers should focus on getting their careers going so that they can really help people when it’s within their means.
I hope this video was helpful and that it at least gets you thinking about some of the tough situations and questions that you'll have to consider during your service. Again, my experiences are mine--other volunteers even in my country might have completely different viewpoints. Look for other viewpoints!

[@madi3006]

So I see so many ppl talk about biking. Where do pcv's get all these bikes?

[@dawanrobinson5697]

They give us bikes!

[@veezgetawayz]

Very helpful! I recently applied to volunteer in Eswatini just waiting on a response (:

[@dawanrobinson5697]

Wow! Awesome! Good luck and hope my video help!