Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there we go. We were caught off guard by guest
Speaker 1: producer Casey. He gave us the Caseys the man the
Speaker 1: quick punch. What's it called the quick punt? The haymaker.
Speaker 1: The Haymaker's what we're calling it now. At least he
Speaker 1: was like, we're recording. Yeah, He's like, okay, we're rolling
Speaker 1: be funny monkeys. It's rather than start over. I did
Speaker 1: my cheeks afterward. All right. It's unusual. It's an unusual
Speaker 1: reversal of order, but we're gonna have to go with
Speaker 1: it because we are low on tape. No one's gone
Speaker 1: to Staples, so we just have to use this one.
Speaker 1: We can't record over it again or else it'll snap.
Speaker 1: That's funny. That used to be an issue. Yeah on something. Uh.
Speaker 1: Now there's an abundance of everything. We have all supplies
Speaker 1: out the yin Yang remember that ad for e trade.
Speaker 1: He's got money coming out the wazoo. It was like
Speaker 1: this e er team who were like hustling this guy
Speaker 1: in a gurney to the to the emergency room and
Speaker 1: they're like, what's wrong with them? And they're like, he's
Speaker 1: got money coming out the wazoo and it was coming
Speaker 1: out of his his bottom. That's good his bottom, Chuck, Yes,
Speaker 1: I think we should say that. Um. This is a
Speaker 1: special uh episode dedicated to the countless Peace Corps volunteers
Speaker 1: who listened to Stuff you should Know and who have
Speaker 1: written in over the years to say, hi, you guys
Speaker 1: who were my best friends in you know, Benine, Turkmenistan. Um, yeah, wherever, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, we're finally doing that episode how Peace Corps works.
Speaker 1: We've had quite a few right in over the years
Speaker 1: and they're all super nice folks and uh it seemed
Speaker 1: to really be enjoying their time wherever they are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're there. Um, goodhearted hustlers is how I would describe them. Really. Yea,
Speaker 1: as of right the second Yeah, all right, so um,
Speaker 1: let me take you back a little bit, chuck. Right,
Speaker 1: I don't think we need to go on the way
Speaker 1: back machine. Not far, but it's not that far back.
Speaker 1: But we're just gonna go to UM. October nine, Chile night, Uh,
Speaker 1: two am. And in ann Arbor, Michigan, at the University
Speaker 1: of Michigan, a young senator named John Fitzgerald Kennedy was
Speaker 1: working the campaign trail as his father worked to buy
Speaker 1: votes in other states. And he gave a little impromptu
Speaker 1: UM speech again at two a m. And at the
Speaker 1: University of Michigan. I'm prepared for marks in front of
Speaker 1: ten thousand UM wolverines, and he said, Chuck, as follows,
Speaker 1: how many of you who are going to be doctors
Speaker 1: are willing to spend your days in Ghana ERA? Technicians
Speaker 1: or engineers? How many of you are willing to work
Speaker 1: in the Foreign Service and spend your days and your
Speaker 1: lives traveling around the world ERA. On your willingness to
Speaker 1: do that, not merely to serve one or two years
Speaker 1: in the service, but on your willingness to contribute parts
Speaker 1: of your life to this country. I think it will
Speaker 1: depend the answer whether a free society can compete. So
Speaker 1: I pressed their own button. I accidentally pressed the Catherine
Speaker 1: Hepburn button. But that was what JFK said, Uh, And
Speaker 1: that was the outline that was very good. Chuck, I'm kidny. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: that was the outline, the initial outline. The first time
Speaker 1: you ever spoke publicly about his idea for the Peace Corps,
Speaker 1: Mayor Quimby, I wish I could say my favorite line,
Speaker 1: shout out which one calm down everyone. I know you're
Speaker 1: all frightened and blank. Oh yeah, it was close. I
Speaker 1: almost said it for you, um Sin, since fans will
Speaker 1: recognize it and it's pretty will and we have plenty
Speaker 1: of those crossover fans. Um. So that was the first
Speaker 1: time he ever spoke publicly about what would become the
Speaker 1: Peace Corps. Uh. And two weeks later he gave another
Speaker 1: speech in San Francisco at the famous Cow Palace. Grateful
Speaker 1: Dead played a pretty good show there in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 1: I think the Allman Brothers did too. Yeah. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you were there drinking beers at age eighteen. Uh and uh.
Speaker 1: After that second speech two weeks later in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: he said, Hey, basically, let me know how you think
Speaker 1: about this, and he got twenty five thousand letters in
Speaker 1: response saying I would do that. So um. One of
Speaker 1: the first things he did when he um gained the
Speaker 1: presidency was to sign an executive order saying, okay, now
Speaker 1: there's officially a Peace Corps. It was on March first,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one, that he wrote the executive order and
Speaker 1: it was placed into the budget the nineteen sixty two budget,
Speaker 1: and Congress passed the budget officially enacting the Peace Corps
Speaker 1: by default. Aniversary. Yeah this year it is, isn't it.
Speaker 1: I didn't even think about that. Yeah. They had some
Speaker 1: you know, the graphics all over the website that didn't
Speaker 1: sink in that I was looking at. Yeah. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then shortly after that, well, a little while after that, Nixon,
Speaker 1: who um JFK soundly beaten that that presidential debate, the
Speaker 1: televised one. UM said well, I've always hated JFK. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take his his little pet project and just
Speaker 1: put it over here. And Jimmy Carter came in and
Speaker 1: went and hold on a minute, and he made it
Speaker 1: its own independent federal agency with an appointment uh by
Speaker 1: the president. And it's part of the foreign aid budget
Speaker 1: usually about one percent, right, Yeah, this year it's and
Speaker 1: last year I believe four hundred million dollars, which is
Speaker 1: not chump change. Not only is it not chump change,
Speaker 1: they asked for three hundred and seventy three million, and
Speaker 1: they got four hundred millions. Yeah, I didn't know that
Speaker 1: federal agencies got more than they asked for in the budget. Well, Bush,
Speaker 1: h W and Obama have both pushed for expansion of
Speaker 1: the Peace Corps. I think Bush wanted to double the
Speaker 1: number of volunteers. He wanted to double the number of
Speaker 1: CIA agents in the field. We'll get to that in
Speaker 1: a little bit. Why is Obama want to double it?
Speaker 1: I would assume everyone has pure intentions here, goosh, Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe not all right. Um, it's been a resounding success
Speaker 1: over the last fifty years. Um, there have been a
Speaker 1: hundred and ninety three countries, surf chuck, I believe. Um,
Speaker 1: there have been more than two hundred thousand volunteers total,
Speaker 1: eighteen directors. The guy who's directing now Aaron S. Williams.
Speaker 1: He is the fourth director to have been a Peace
Speaker 1: Corps volunteer. Back in the day, I figured they all were.
Speaker 1: I would have too. Um. One of the more famous
Speaker 1: ones who wasn't it was Paul Coverdell. Remember the statue
Speaker 1: just behind us. Yeah, it says Peace Corps somewhere on it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know what I like about the Peace Corps site.
Speaker 1: When you're trudging through it is when you see like
Speaker 1: an Aaron Williams or whoever. They have their service in
Speaker 1: parentheses next to their name, like Dominican Republic sixty seven
Speaker 1: to seventy was where he was, right, pretty cool? Um.
Speaker 1: Probably the most famous Peace Corps volunteers Chris Matthews from Hardball.
Speaker 1: He really yeah, he did Swazzi Land to seventy. Well,
Speaker 1: I thought you're gonna say, Evangeline Lily, I've lost fame.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I guess she's But I know Chris Matthews,
Speaker 1: I'm not familiar with the other lady. She may be
Speaker 1: the hottest. Which one was she was? She like the
Speaker 1: main female lead. Okay, very pretty lady. Um. Although she
Speaker 1: was Canadian, she must have gotten her citizenship because you
Speaker 1: have to be American. Yeah, that's a good point. Huh.
Speaker 1: Something's fishy that we may have just uncovered in this podcast.
Speaker 1: Or maybe she just flashed her smile and they're like,
Speaker 1: who don't care where you're from? So Um, the purpose
Speaker 1: of this, as you said, you you assume every buddy's
Speaker 1: intensives are good, and I think that that's a nice
Speaker 1: thing to assume. Um. The purpose of establishing the Peace
Speaker 1: Corps threefold. It's the type of foreign aid, right, and
Speaker 1: we have huge enormous foreign aid packages in the in
Speaker 1: the um in the way of like surplus food and
Speaker 1: just straight up money supplies, equipment, weapons, whatever, building things.
Speaker 1: But Peace Corps, Uh, it's unique in that it's a
Speaker 1: supply of foreign aid in the form of no how
Speaker 1: and hands on, get it done. It's like the Toyota
Speaker 1: tundra of foreign eight. Give him manifest Josh, and you'll
Speaker 1: feed him for a day. And what they say, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's based on this right. Teach him to fish, he'll
Speaker 1: eat for a lifetime. Yes, if he, if he, if
Speaker 1: he gets good at fishing, unless he sticks, should we should?
Speaker 1: We say what Their three part official mission statement is
Speaker 1: help the people of interested countries and meeting their need
Speaker 1: for trained men and women, helping promote a better understanding
Speaker 1: of Americans on the part of the people served, and
Speaker 1: to help promote a better understanding of other people's on
Speaker 1: the part of the Americans. That's a bureaucratic mission statement
Speaker 1: if I've ever heard it is. And I just read
Speaker 1: something on NPR from a couple of years ago called
Speaker 1: the Peace Corps Blues and the each country has their
Speaker 1: own director and the former director and Cameroon said that
Speaker 1: he thinks one of the things we're failing on now
Speaker 1: is that a lot of people in these countries don't
Speaker 1: realize that it's actually a U. S. Government program. Like
Speaker 1: they know they're volunteers, but I think they think it's
Speaker 1: some great nonprofit or like a mission group. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that kind of fails at one aspect of the mission
Speaker 1: statement in his eyes that these countries. One of the
Speaker 1: big deals is for these countries to know, hey, this
Speaker 1: is the U. S. Government coming over here and helping
Speaker 1: us out. It's your uncle Sam. It's exactly who you
Speaker 1: now owe a favorite to. He has some other problems,
Speaker 1: but out with the program now, but I'll go over
Speaker 1: those later. So, um, right now, there you have programs
Speaker 1: in seventies six countries, but overall, I think a hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety three countries have had programs at one time
Speaker 1: or another, including country Choose that don't exist. The first
Speaker 1: two to join the program. The interesting countries, as you
Speaker 1: mentioned in the mission statement were um, let me see
Speaker 1: if I got this right, uh, Tanganyika. Tanganyika, which later
Speaker 1: got together as in Zabar to form what we now
Speaker 1: recognize as Tanzania. You knew that? Oh yeah? And Ghana
Speaker 1: was the other two who JFK mentioned in his speech
Speaker 1: in University of Michigan. So, um, it's had a at
Speaker 1: the very least um of widespread impact. We'll talk about
Speaker 1: measuring the impact later, but um, let's get down a
Speaker 1: new gritty right. I think just what we've said already
Speaker 1: has caused some people will be like, where do I
Speaker 1: sign up? Josh and Chucker are endorsing this, so let's
Speaker 1: just skip to the end. Well, the first thing you
Speaker 1: should know if you want to sign up is that
Speaker 1: you're gonna be committing to twenty seven months of service
Speaker 1: of volunteerism or a tour. A tour, you're gonna be
Speaker 1: living for free. They're gonna provide your living accommodation while
Speaker 1: you're there and give you a small stipend to spend money,
Speaker 1: which evidently though, is more money than most of the
Speaker 1: people you'll be helping. Hap That's like that old thing
Speaker 1: where if you have a hundred dollars, you can live
Speaker 1: for like ten years in Peru or something like that exactly,
Speaker 1: and when you come back home they're gonna give you
Speaker 1: six thousand dollars two get you back going. You know
Speaker 1: that they don't want to leave you broke because you
Speaker 1: haven't had any real work for two and a half
Speaker 1: or twenty seven months. So to give you six grand
Speaker 1: to get you going again, put that down payment on
Speaker 1: the apartment, yeah, to get you back in and right exactly.
Speaker 1: And by the old thing, of course, I mean the
Speaker 1: strength of the dollar. Um. So when you are applying Chuckers,
Speaker 1: you you start out online. Apparently you can do it
Speaker 1: in writing if you like, if you're like an Amish
Speaker 1: kid who wants to write, who wants to sign up
Speaker 1: for traditionalist right, Um, But for the most part, you
Speaker 1: do this application online. And I looked at it and
Speaker 1: it is extensive. Sure you're all of your education background,
Speaker 1: any criminal history, how much you like to drink? Um?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, any military service because one of the first
Speaker 1: things they try to root out is whether or not
Speaker 1: you have any intelligence background. And if you did, sorry,
Speaker 1: I wonder when you build that out for the drinking,
Speaker 1: if you just put like a lot well yeah, like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. There's even a section where they say, like, well,
Speaker 1: let us just define what we mean by problem drinking.
Speaker 1: How many drinks per week is one of those, right?
Speaker 1: How many sexual partners do you have a night? Any
Speaker 1: things that you lie to your doctor about right, Um
Speaker 1: there's also any any financial obligations you might have e g.
Speaker 1: Student loans or um mortgages, car payments. Basically, they're like,
Speaker 1: you can't just use us to escape your creditors. So
Speaker 1: they want to They want to know not not only
Speaker 1: like what you have, but how you're going to arrange
Speaker 1: to pay them, and any kind of documentation you need references.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is like the first application and it's
Speaker 1: very extensive. We want to weed out as many people
Speaker 1: as possible right off the bat, right, and if your
Speaker 1: application is selected, right, they were lucky. First of all.
Speaker 1: I think yeah, I would imagine it's a fairly low
Speaker 1: percentage because there's just so many um red flags that
Speaker 1: they're looking for. So many alcoholics, right, so many problem drinkers.
Speaker 1: That's what they call it. Um that that you know
Speaker 1: if you if you raise one, they're going to be like, no,
Speaker 1: there's ten other people who are applying who don't have
Speaker 1: that red flag. So if you make it through the
Speaker 1: initial application process, they're going to ask you to come
Speaker 1: in for an interview and they weed out more people here. Um. Basically,
Speaker 1: what they're trying to figure out mainly is if you
Speaker 1: are likely to complete your term of service. What they
Speaker 1: don't like is people that have to leave. I'm sure
Speaker 1: that's highly discouraged to leave the Peace Corps during your tour.
Speaker 1: So they want to know if you have like a
Speaker 1: serious if you're in a serious relationship. They want to
Speaker 1: know stories about your childhood, where you've motivated others to
Speaker 1: comp fleet tasks. Um, they want to know, um, how
Speaker 1: you how? Yeah, any medical conditions. I think that's in
Speaker 1: the initial application. Yeah, but it's sort of like the
Speaker 1: army and that you can be denied because of medical
Speaker 1: conditions obviously, right. Um. The one of the one of
Speaker 1: the interview questions I saw was, uh, tell us about
Speaker 1: a rule that you have trouble following. And the correct
Speaker 1: answer for that is, uh, the rule I have trouble
Speaker 1: following is the rule that asks me to stop when
Speaker 1: I've done just enough the bare minimum. That's the right answer. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: would you modify your appearance to fit in with the
Speaker 1: local culture, like would you shave your mohawk or take
Speaker 1: out your piercings? Or whatever. How will you stave off
Speaker 1: boardom The correct answer to that is an iPod full
Speaker 1: of stuff you should Yeah, that's what it sounds like.
Speaker 1: So there you go. There's your all your crib notes
Speaker 1: for the interview. Yeah, and if you pass the interview,
Speaker 1: it gets really exciting from that point because if you
Speaker 1: get an official invitation, it's pretty neat. You get ten
Speaker 1: days to decide, and it's fairly vague. Send some guy there,
Speaker 1: he's like, come on, come on, because basically they want
Speaker 1: to know if you're in for the Peace Corps, not
Speaker 1: if you're in to go to Indonesia and teach English
Speaker 1: or surf, because exactly there might be other reasons. Uh.
Speaker 1: So what they do is to give you ten days
Speaker 1: to decide, and they leave it fairly vague. They give
Speaker 1: you a probably like a probably not even a country,
Speaker 1: probably like a continent like Asia, Yeah, where we're gonna
Speaker 1: send you, and they do detail a little bit about
Speaker 1: what the job you'll have, but they basically want to
Speaker 1: know are you in for the Peace Corps no matter
Speaker 1: where we send you, And if you say yeah, then
Speaker 1: you're gonna get your departure date and then that's when
Speaker 1: you're gonna get some more specific information. He's like, come on,
Speaker 1: high fives. He's like, all right, I'll be back in
Speaker 1: like a couple of weeks with their other letter, like
Speaker 1: you're going to Turkey, and then he goes, uh, sorry,
Speaker 1: no surfing in Turkey, although there probably is, you think
Speaker 1: on the Boss verse surfing Turkey. Yeah, alright, surf Turkey. Man.
Speaker 1: You get a little orientation appointment and then you get
Speaker 1: sent off to that country for a three month training period. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're eighteen, if you're a US resident, no upper
Speaker 1: age limit, you can be no depending only really old
Speaker 1: and still go to the Peace Corps. I guess if
Speaker 1: you pass everything no dependence, I just noticed that. I
Speaker 1: didn't realize. I guess they're like, yeah, we want you
Speaker 1: to not just abandon your family. That's a nice move. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you have to have a high school diploma, yes, Josh,
Speaker 1: and you do need that diploma. And you also can
Speaker 1: be married. But it's a pretty small percentage. Think about
Speaker 1: three percent or married couples or is it seven percent? Yes?
Speaker 1: Seven percent married single. I think it waffles. So um, yeah,
Speaker 1: one percent is undecided, and that they will send you
Speaker 1: with your married partner. They can there are some assignments
Speaker 1: where they'll send both of you to the same place
Speaker 1: to work together, but apparently those are kind of few
Speaker 1: and far between. You can't put in for your girlfriend boyfriend, No,
Speaker 1: you can't at all, and you both have to be
Speaker 1: accepted fully as Peace Corps volunteers who could be sent
Speaker 1: to different corners of the earth. I think they'd like
Speaker 1: to help people out there. I'm sure they do. UM,
Speaker 1: but you can't have any kids there, and you can't
Speaker 1: take your pets, which is not a surprise, a little
Speaker 1: field mouse, not a surprise at all. You can't take
Speaker 1: your pets. So if you have pets, like you gotta
Speaker 1: look at your life. You know, if you are a
Speaker 1: homeowner with pets, then you probably shouldn't volunteer for the
Speaker 1: Peace Corps. You can volunteer here at home join them.
Speaker 1: I don't know a A. But if you are single
Speaker 1: and you're living in Brooklyn, you don't have any cats,
Speaker 1: and you got time to kill and a in a
Speaker 1: heart that wants to serve the world, and you know
Speaker 1: about UM. I don't know repairing motorbikes in Indonesia or
Speaker 1: you speak of foreign language. These are all things like
Speaker 1: these hobbies, they really get into that. And it's not
Speaker 1: like when you put down your hobbies for a college
Speaker 1: education or a college application and no one really cares
Speaker 1: about that. I hate to break it to you, but
Speaker 1: do they really do? In the Peace Corps, if you
Speaker 1: have skills as a as a gardener, they want to
Speaker 1: know about that, or if you were like a landscape
Speaker 1: or something like that. Yeah, and what what they're gonna say,
Speaker 1: here are all of our programs. Choose. Then you're gonna choose,
Speaker 1: and then they're gonna be like, Okay, no, this is
Speaker 1: where we really need you. And they will send you
Speaker 1: where they need you ultimately based on your skills, your background,
Speaker 1: your hobbies. You could always get sent where you might
Speaker 1: like to go. And if you have know that language,
Speaker 1: that's a big leg up in that direction, I think.
Speaker 1: But I think you should be prepared to know that
Speaker 1: they they may send you wherever. Yeah, that's part of it.
Speaker 1: But you're doing this for the love of helping others,
Speaker 1: and really it doesn't matter because there's only one race,
Speaker 1: the human race. I just think that's really exciting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I did not know where you're going to go, and
Speaker 1: to be I wish I would, I would join, I
Speaker 1: would go back and do it all over again. I
Speaker 1: would do it different. I would join the piece for
Speaker 1: for a couple of years. You can of what I
Speaker 1: always think of when I think of the Peace Corps.
Speaker 1: I think of um, Julie Haggarty and the League guy
Speaker 1: from Airplane when they went and told him, yeah, she
Speaker 1: has a party and he's teaching basketball and Harlem Globe
Speaker 1: Chottera dancing. That was that was different. I was thinking
Speaker 1: the discos scene when he was yeah, that's different. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, that's what I think of when I think
Speaker 1: of Peace Corps. I think of the Tom Hanks movie Volunteers.
Speaker 1: I never saw that one, but that's where he met
Speaker 1: his wife Frida Wilson. Oh yeah, I guess so, huh. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I never saw that because I always hated the Tennessee Volunteers,
Speaker 1: so I refused to see that movie in case it
Speaker 1: helped them anyway. Yeah, and I still do right, Oh
Speaker 1: Josh packing, They only allow you to take two bags
Speaker 1: for twenty seven months, which doesn't sound like a lot. Well,
Speaker 1: not only that, there's a weight limit, yeah, eighty pounds
Speaker 1: right a k A thirty six point to eight seven
Speaker 1: kilograms for our non imperial measurement friends. So what they
Speaker 1: suggest is take things that you cannot get elsewhere, and
Speaker 1: then when you get there you can buy some of
Speaker 1: the other things, like don't don't bother packing crock pot
Speaker 1: because you can get a crock pot in Benin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or can you Well, there's going to be some other
Speaker 1: cookware that you don't wear. Yeah, it's just stupid that's
Speaker 1: going to take up everything. But they said bring you know,
Speaker 1: bring some good old fashioned American undy's and rain gear
Speaker 1: and hiking boots and stuff like that you probably can't
Speaker 1: get in these other countries. Yeah, so you want to
Speaker 1: you want to blow your weight on um, the the
Speaker 1: the essentials that you're not gonna be able to find
Speaker 1: anywhere else. Maybe that iPod. They said, you can bring
Speaker 1: a laptop. But one thing you're not guaranteed is electricity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a there's a pretty common misconception that it's like
Speaker 1: all thatched huts and no municipal water supply, no electricity,
Speaker 1: And that's not true at all. The no thatched hut
Speaker 1: thing is not true at all. The no municipal water
Speaker 1: supply and no electricity. Think, that's extremely true in a
Speaker 1: lot of cases. Well so is the thatched hut here
Speaker 1: and there. Okay, but you can volunteer to go to
Speaker 1: those places. You can you can also be sent to
Speaker 1: those places. But you can also say I want to
Speaker 1: go to a place that has no running water and
Speaker 1: no electricity and I want to help there. Um. But
Speaker 1: there are a lot of assignments where even if you
Speaker 1: say no, I don't want that, they'll be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think they call those people the hard core yes
Speaker 1: of the Peace Corps, Like you know what I signed
Speaker 1: up for this, send me to the edge of the cliff.
Speaker 1: Here's my iPod. Even that's crazy. Yeah, A lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of these people are teach in these in
Speaker 1: like local schools though that you know, they have power
Speaker 1: and water and they're they're more. It's not as third
Speaker 1: world as you might think it is in many cases.
Speaker 1: I would imagine in a lot of cases, it's like, um,
Speaker 1: some of the places we went in Guatemala or they
Speaker 1: didn't have anything resembling in municipal water supplies. It was
Speaker 1: just like there's a there's a pond over there. But
Speaker 1: it wasn't printive, no, I mean there were buildings and
Speaker 1: structures and people wear clothes and things like that. It's
Speaker 1: not like living with the Yana Mamo exactly. So what's
Speaker 1: day to day life like, Josh, if you're a peace
Speaker 1: war volunteer, um, well, day to day life is actually
Speaker 1: a lot looser than you would think. Basically, they give
Speaker 1: you an assignment like say, um, we want you to
Speaker 1: teach agricultural techniques, modern agricultural techniques or maybe sustainable agricultural
Speaker 1: techniques to these people in Guam. Great well Guam even
Speaker 1: qualified though it's a U S territory, I would think
Speaker 1: it'd be outside of the US foreign policy scope. Let's
Speaker 1: just say someplace in Africa. Then let's go again with
Speaker 1: um tanga yaka, tanga yeika, Yeah, tanga yika um. And
Speaker 1: you go and you say, okay, well this is here's
Speaker 1: some ideas for how I'm going to teach these people
Speaker 1: sustainable agriculture and tangan yika uh and um that you
Speaker 1: get there and they're like, there is no tangan yika anymore, jackass,
Speaker 1: it's all Tanzania. And you go, well, it's still applies.
Speaker 1: So here's what I'm going to do. And your day
Speaker 1: to day, your hours, um, how you interact with people,
Speaker 1: what you teach them. Probably it's a lot up to you.
Speaker 1: There's nobody looking over your shoulder like they pretty much
Speaker 1: just give you a parachute and drop you off, say
Speaker 1: see you later, good luck. That's not true. You do
Speaker 1: go alone, though, and depending on how remote you are,
Speaker 1: you may be the only American face you see for
Speaker 1: a while, although in other places there might be other
Speaker 1: volunteers that you know within the town, but you're still
Speaker 1: technically sent alone. One of the things I think we've
Speaker 1: skipped over is you are allowed to receive friends. Your
Speaker 1: friends can come visit you on their own dimes. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that. I didn't either, but they can come
Speaker 1: hang out with you if you want. Yeah, you need
Speaker 1: to see a friendly face or whatever. Um packages you
Speaker 1: can get packages. You can go, um travel at your
Speaker 1: own expense. You can go to the capital city. You
Speaker 1: can go wherever there's WiFi and load up on your stuff.
Speaker 1: You should know episodes. Um you can do a little
Speaker 1: sight seeing whatever you want. Again, you're stutting your own hours.
Speaker 1: But I think for the most part, they imagine that
Speaker 1: if you are the kind of go getter who volunteers
Speaker 1: for a peace corps, you're not just gonna like lay
Speaker 1: around all day. True enough, although that same guy mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1: Robert Strauss, who was the director former director in Cameroon,
Speaker 1: said he does feel like these days some volunteers use
Speaker 1: it as quote employer of last resort, and that, uh,
Speaker 1: some recruits use it as an extended spring break from college.
Speaker 1: I can see that, and I think that's rare. But
Speaker 1: he says that is a problem, and he wants the
Speaker 1: standard to be what you talked about. Well, you know
Speaker 1: that's Peace Corps problem. Their their process is not rooting
Speaker 1: them out. Yeah, you know it needs to be like
Speaker 1: are you a pothead? Yes, no, there's your there's your
Speaker 1: rooting out system. And depending on if you were a pothead,
Speaker 1: it would depend on where they would send you. Like
Speaker 1: just how bad of a pothead exactly? Um, you mentioned
Speaker 1: packages to Chuck you can't get packages. But our good
Speaker 1: friend Um grab Banowski, who wrote this, he says that
Speaker 1: there are there is such a thing as quote corrupt
Speaker 1: mail workers who pill for your packages sometimes. Um, it
Speaker 1: could take forever. So he recommends that you have friends
Speaker 1: and family start sending you packages and letters before you
Speaker 1: even leave the US, so that when you get there,
Speaker 1: you'll get some stuff in the first few months and
Speaker 1: it'll keep you from being so homesick. I would send
Speaker 1: myself a bunch of stuff, you know, I wouldn't count
Speaker 1: of my family to do it eighty pounds because they'd
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I wouldn't get any
Speaker 1: packages to like the end of year one if I
Speaker 1: left it to my family. That's not true, that's not
Speaker 1: I don't know. I didn't get a lot of college packages.
Speaker 1: Let's just say that I neither care packages. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: was like, do you even know what that is? I
Speaker 1: want you to send you one of these? And I
Speaker 1: basically just walked my dad around the store, like put
Speaker 1: this in there, put that in there. Yeah, it's getting
Speaker 1: a little heavy. I mean, we can take the can
Speaker 1: goods out right. Yeah. But of course now went to
Speaker 1: school sixty miles from where I lived, So if I
Speaker 1: would have gone like across country, I might have got
Speaker 1: more care packages. Maybe you just keep telling yourself that exactly, So,
Speaker 1: Chuck Um, there's some advantages once you return your tours over.
Speaker 1: There's some advantages to um being a Peace Corps volunteer.
Speaker 1: Uh didn't hurt any resume. It shows a lot of
Speaker 1: stick to itiveness and get uppitude and beyond the fact
Speaker 1: that it like proves your commitment as a human to
Speaker 1: a task, which is huge. You also get the inside
Speaker 1: scoop on getting a government job if you're interested in
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Yes, like you get um you're
Speaker 1: available to list that other people might not see. Your
Speaker 1: privy to information. You're also given priority hiring priority over
Speaker 1: somebody who may even have better qualifications than you but
Speaker 1: wasn't a Peace Corps volunteer, sorry, sucker, which is one
Speaker 1: of the reasons our government functions like it does. Um,
Speaker 1: So what is the stunt, Chuck? How do you measure
Speaker 1: the success of something like the three points of the
Speaker 1: mission statement? You said, Strauss criticized one of them. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about the accomplishments. Well, that's one of the problems
Speaker 1: is it's tough to measure that in any sort of
Speaker 1: sort of statistical way. So the only way you can
Speaker 1: really measure it is to talk to the volunteers themselves.
Speaker 1: And usually when you talk to them afterwards, they're like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I learned pretty quick that I was
Speaker 1: gonna have to kind of reset my goals and make
Speaker 1: them a little smaller in scope, like going from I
Speaker 1: want to help the world too, I want to help
Speaker 1: this village. Yeah, which is good, and that's helping the
Speaker 1: world because seven thousand people doing that in villages all
Speaker 1: over the world, so combine collectively, it seems to be
Speaker 1: doing that. Yeah. But it is tough when you have
Speaker 1: a four dred million dollar program, even though it's a
Speaker 1: scant fraction of the of the but of the budget. Um,
Speaker 1: you still have to show metrics, I imagine, and pretty
Speaker 1: tough in this case. You know. Uh, yeah, I guess,
Speaker 1: but I mean, like you said, there's no quantitative way
Speaker 1: to spell it out because you can't. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess you could go pull people where there have been
Speaker 1: um uh Peace Corps volunteers and ask them, do you
Speaker 1: like America more or less? Now? Yeah, and if it's
Speaker 1: more than awesome, there you go quantified. There's a check
Speaker 1: right there. They do say that most volunteers come back
Speaker 1: feeling like they gained a lot from it, for sure.
Speaker 1: So that's one of the three right there. You go,
Speaker 1: at least at least one third of it is accomplished. Um.
Speaker 1: There are also a lot of criticisms as I think
Speaker 1: we've kind of leaked out here there of Peace Corps,
Speaker 1: which is you know, that's any any noble experiment is
Speaker 1: going to um result in criticism. There's always going to
Speaker 1: be poopooers, people who you know, don't put their money
Speaker 1: where their mouth is, but yet have plenty of time
Speaker 1: to point out all the problems with something e g. Me,
Speaker 1: So what are they? Uh, Well, sadly, should we go
Speaker 1: ahead and get into the crime thing? Sure. One of
Speaker 1: the criticisms is that there has been crime committed by
Speaker 1: and against Peace Corps volunteers over the years, and um
Speaker 1: that the Peace Corps hasn't done a very good job
Speaker 1: of backing these people, and some alleged they've even tried
Speaker 1: pretty hard to cover up a lot of this stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was UM it was I think last year. This year,
Speaker 1: UM in Washington there was a bit of a stir
Speaker 1: when Congress was basically forced to start inquiring into how
Speaker 1: the Peace Corps handles reports of, say like sexual violence
Speaker 1: against volunteers. UM. A group of volunteers was organized by
Speaker 1: a former volunteer named Casey Frazy, and she started UM
Speaker 1: First Response Action, which is basically like it's the group
Speaker 1: former volunteers who were subject to sexual violence and who
Speaker 1: were mistreated by the Peace Corps when they returned a
Speaker 1: lot of them reported basically being implied that it was
Speaker 1: their fault. What had they been drinking, what were they wearing,
Speaker 1: had they been like sleeping around? Basically were they asking
Speaker 1: for it? Which is not what you do to your people. Know,
Speaker 1: And uh, Statistically, every year, on average, twenty two Peace
Speaker 1: Corps women report being victims of rape or attempted rape,
Speaker 1: and more than one thousand from two thousand to two
Speaker 1: thousand nine reported sexual assaults. And you know a lot
Speaker 1: of these go unreported still, so that number may be higher.
Speaker 1: And that's We're not trying to poop anything, but that's
Speaker 1: really sad. And you know, Obama and the and the
Speaker 1: new guy Aaron Williams have said that they need to
Speaker 1: take this way more seriously and make it a more
Speaker 1: victim centered approach, taking more victim centered approach to this.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons that that's going on, apparently is
Speaker 1: because there's a clause in the nineteen Peace Corps Act
Speaker 1: that says, if you're a Peace Corps employee, you mean
Speaker 1: as a Peace cor employees, do you know that she
Speaker 1: worked at h Q, Yeah, you can't be you can't
Speaker 1: work there for longer than five years. And the whole
Speaker 1: point is to keep the keep the place young, keep
Speaker 1: the ideas fresh, or keep it you know, really um
Speaker 1: um rolling with the punches. But one of the one
Speaker 1: of the problems with that is that it has no
Speaker 1: institutional memory. If no one's been there longer than five years,
Speaker 1: there are some who are grandfathered in, but if no
Speaker 1: one's been there for longer than five years, and your
Speaker 1: director comes aboard like every three or four five years,
Speaker 1: maybe um, there's no memory on how to handle big
Speaker 1: problems like this. So things can very easily be brushed
Speaker 1: under the carpet. And sadly, Josh, there have been by
Speaker 1: my count, three murders the Peace Corps volunteers. One just
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine, Kate Pusey was murdered in Benin,
Speaker 1: and uh this one drew a lot of a ten
Speaker 1: because Kate was essentially ratting out a local employee of
Speaker 1: the school she was working at, who she believed was
Speaker 1: h sexually assaulting the girls at the school. She wrote
Speaker 1: the Peace Corps office and somehow this got back to
Speaker 1: him and he tied her to a porch and slit
Speaker 1: her throat, and the parents were pretty upset that this
Speaker 1: was leaked. And although I don't think they like verified
Speaker 1: if the Peace Corps leaked it, surely they wouldn't do
Speaker 1: anything like that. But they're pretty upset that it wasn't
Speaker 1: as confidential as it should have been and that it
Speaker 1: led to her murder. And then, most famously, um was
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies. Deborah Gardner was stabbed to death
Speaker 1: by another volunteer in Tonga in ninety six. And he
Speaker 1: is still walking streets of Brooklyn. Yeah, I've read a
Speaker 1: New Yorker article on this. It was really interesting. So
Speaker 1: what there was a series of legal quirks that led
Speaker 1: to him batt Yeah. What happened was she was very
Speaker 1: pretty and he liked her very much, and she did
Speaker 1: not return the affection. And one night, after a party
Speaker 1: in the town where there were some other volunteers, she
Speaker 1: got a little too drunk apparently fell down a couple
Speaker 1: of times on the dance floor, and one of her
Speaker 1: ex boyfriends who was there, took her back to her
Speaker 1: hut and you know, put her to bed. Five days later,
Speaker 1: Priven comes into her hut and stabs her twenty two times.
Speaker 1: And it was um supposed to go a little different.
Speaker 1: He had like a pipe and a knife, and like cyanide,
Speaker 1: and it was supposed to be he was supposed to
Speaker 1: like knock her out and torture her, but she like
Speaker 1: a woke up when he got there and fought him off,
Speaker 1: and it just led to like, you know, a brutal stabbing.
Speaker 1: He was trying to pull her out of the hut.
Speaker 1: When people saw him, he fled on a bike. She
Speaker 1: was able to name her attacker before she died. And um,
Speaker 1: they had a trial in Tongo where he was um
Speaker 1: where the American government said he has schizophrenia and we
Speaker 1: are going to if you let him go here, we're
Speaker 1: gonna commit him to an institution in Washington State when
Speaker 1: we get back. And uh, problem is when they got
Speaker 1: back to Washington State, you they didn't accept you know,
Speaker 1: like you couldn't commit someone at that point. So it
Speaker 1: was basically not a ruse, but it was they got
Speaker 1: him out of the country and then basically there was
Speaker 1: no recourse. They couldn't try him in America and they
Speaker 1: couldn't commit him involuntarily, and he went, you know what,
Speaker 1: I don't want to go I'm going back to New
Speaker 1: York and that's what he did and that's where he
Speaker 1: still is. So had he been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Um,
Speaker 1: I think that he had by one doctor there. But
Speaker 1: then later on he did volunteer to go to this
Speaker 1: hospital and get tested and they said that he suffered
Speaker 1: from uh from psychosis in the moment, I can't remember
Speaker 1: what they called it, but basically went nuts that night.
Speaker 1: But he's not schizophrenia, doesn't have schizophrenia. He's walking around
Speaker 1: New York still huh. Yeah. Wow. They wrote a book
Speaker 1: about it, and he keeps it pretty low pro but
Speaker 1: I would imagine he's got a pretty good job. He
Speaker 1: worked for Social Security as like a eighty thousand dollar
Speaker 1: year computer guy. So it's really sad. Yeah, but that
Speaker 1: is the exception. We don't want to pay a negative
Speaker 1: picture here, but um, they have. They have called on
Speaker 1: the Peace Corps to clean up their act for sure
Speaker 1: when it comes to crime. Yeah, and the Peace Corps
Speaker 1: first part says we do not place Peace Corps volunteers
Speaker 1: in unsafe environments. That's what Aaron Williams said, But he
Speaker 1: also said we need to we need to handle like
Speaker 1: the any victimization that does happen way better than we are. Um, chuck.
Speaker 1: There's also the CIA allegations. I don't know much about this.
Speaker 1: So for basically since its inception, just the value of
Speaker 1: having said in thousand kids being placed in local environments,
Speaker 1: gaining the trust of people, interacting with other nationals from
Speaker 1: other countries, uh in a third place, a neutral setting,
Speaker 1: just the the intelligence value of them by default is
Speaker 1: is incalculable. But the from the outset, the two have
Speaker 1: been intended to be separated, right, Peace Corps has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with intelligence, Like if you have an intelligence background, sorry,
Speaker 1: you can't be in Peace Corps. If you're in Peace Corps,
Speaker 1: you have to wait four years before you can get
Speaker 1: a any kind of intelligence assignment in the military. Um.
Speaker 1: So that on paper they're very much separate. But everybody,
Speaker 1: including people who live in these countries that are being
Speaker 1: served by Peace Corps, have always assumed Peace Corps volunteers
Speaker 1: are often asked to do intelligence field work. And in
Speaker 1: two thousand eight some kids came forward in Bolivia and said, hey,
Speaker 1: while we're down there, government told us to to start,
Speaker 1: you know, keeping reports and filing reports on Venezuelan and
Speaker 1: Cuban nationals who were living and working down there. They
Speaker 1: wanted to know all about these people. That's intelligence field
Speaker 1: work and has that proven Yeah, well yeah, the the US, uh,
Speaker 1: the Peace Corps said that this was uh an error,
Speaker 1: that it was in violation of Peace Corps policy. But
Speaker 1: basically that yeah, enough of these these believing volunteers came
Speaker 1: forward that they couldn't say that it wasn't true. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it was kind of thing. So apparently it has happened
Speaker 1: at least once. Um, and it's not like wet work
Speaker 1: or anything like that. I don't think the Peace Corps
Speaker 1: volunteers have ever been asked to like Greece a dictator
Speaker 1: or anything like that. But wet work I've never heard
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, that's that's hands assassinations. Yeah, what does
Speaker 1: wet mean? I imagine blood and gore tissue wet from blood. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So um, those are the criticisms. Again the chuck. I
Speaker 1: think we should say that my hat is off to
Speaker 1: Peace Corps and the volunteers for the work that they do. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and and if you're a female Peace Corps volunteer, be
Speaker 1: really careful. We encourage you to be very mindful because
Speaker 1: you know you're alone in these countries and bad things
Speaker 1: do happen sometimes, and um, just be vigilant and take
Speaker 1: care of yourself. Oh yeah, and I think that that
Speaker 1: goes for all Peace Corps volunteers. Women are a little
Speaker 1: more susceptible to to that kind of crime obviously, but
Speaker 1: uh yeah, yeah, got anything else, No, I think that's
Speaker 1: it man, Hap Corps. Yeah, hats off to you, and
Speaker 1: thank you to all of our listeners who are Peace
Speaker 1: Corps volunteers or have been Peace Corps volunteers, and who
Speaker 1: have written us to say thanks for being there. We hope,
Speaker 1: uh well we we thank you back for taking us
Speaker 1: along on your trips. That's pretty cool. Kennedy's children, that's
Speaker 1: what they call them, or they used to. I don't
Speaker 1: know if they still do. Kennedy's illegitimate children. Well, that's
Speaker 1: a whole different batch. So okay, that's Peace Corps. If
Speaker 1: you want to know more about it, you can type
Speaker 1: in Peace Corps in the handy search bar how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com and that will bring you this fine,
Speaker 1: fine article. Um and I said handy search bar, Right
Speaker 1: you did, dude. It is time for listener mail. That's right, Josh.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this from an Irish uh listener. And
Speaker 1: I think I've said before I love me some Irish
Speaker 1: and Scottish people. You mean I read an Irish bar
Speaker 1: the other night. Were there any Irish people there there? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's always at least a couple. So uh, Like I said,
Speaker 1: I love I love meet some Irish and Scottish. They're
Speaker 1: great folks. I've had some good friends from that part
Speaker 1: of the world, and so I'm gonna read this now. Um.
Speaker 1: As a longstanding recruit to the stuff you should know Army,
Speaker 1: I always expect to hear something new and interesting when
Speaker 1: I listen to you guys. So I never expected to
Speaker 1: be singled out and spoken to directly, breaking the tenuous
Speaker 1: podcast reality barrier. But that's exactly what happened yesterday. A
Speaker 1: little relevant detail to begin with. My name doesn't invite nicknames, John,
Speaker 1: being too normal in Killeen awkward to manipulate into anything else.
Speaker 1: The best that fourteen years of school could give me
Speaker 1: was the nickname j K, which is stuck for most
Speaker 1: of my life. So anyway, I was stuck in traffic
Speaker 1: in Dublin the other day and the Government watch List
Speaker 1: podcast was coming to an end. I was I was
Speaker 1: beginning to think about how Orwellian Irish slash global society
Speaker 1: really is. It started to give me that weird feeling
Speaker 1: that someone who I couldn't see was watching me, or
Speaker 1: that people were talking about me. Then Josh decided to
Speaker 1: confirm this paranoia and said, if you want to know
Speaker 1: more about the terrorists watch list and probably end up
Speaker 1: on the watch list yourself. J K. I genuinely panicked,
Speaker 1: convinced that the US government was after me. Apparently my
Speaker 1: reaction to a foreign government pursuing me is to break
Speaker 1: sharply and almost cause an accident in the middle of
Speaker 1: the city. I came back to reality and kept driving sheepishly,
Speaker 1: avoiding looking in my rear view mirror and the angry
Speaker 1: driver behind me. So thanks in kudos, and if you
Speaker 1: read this out loud, I'd love to give a quick
Speaker 1: shout out to Luke and Andrew, to other members of
Speaker 1: the Irish Battalion and great friends. So Luke, Andrew and
Speaker 1: John and Ireland Ireland, thank you for writing in. Go
Speaker 1: eat some Shepherd's pie and drink a beer for me
Speaker 1: and me and Josh. Yeah, thanks a lot, j K
Speaker 1: H j k UM. If you want to let us
Speaker 1: know about the time we've spoken you directly, or if
Speaker 1: you want to tell us about your Peace Corps time.
Speaker 1: It's pretty cool. You can send us an email to
Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com. Be sure
Speaker 1: to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Speaker 1: Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most
Speaker 1: promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought to you by
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