After my time in university, I spent the following years traveling and volunteering abroad. Firstly, I volunteered on a kibbutz in Israel. During that same trip, I also lived with a Palestinian family in Jericho and volunteered at a hostel. These experiences inspired me and lead me to join the Peace Corps.
Adventure is in my blood
At my core, I am an explorer. There’s something about the unknown that keeps me out there walking and traveling through the world into unfamiliar places. The Peace Corps taught me to remain open to different cultures and to embrace new ways of life. I worked as a rural aquaculture promotion specialist in Zambia Africa. For the first three months, I learned the local language, Icibemba. During this training, I learned how to wash cloths by hand, cook over a fire, live under a thatched roof, and engage with a host family. The first day I arrived at my mud hut, I was greeted by a scorpion at my door. I quickly grabbed a rock nearby and smashed his head into the wall. At this moment, I knew I was up for the adventure of a lifetime.
Be adaptable
One of the things I learned during my time as a Peace Corps volunteer is to be adaptable. When you throw yourself into a new place or new experience, it’s inevitable that there’s going to be a learning curve. I remember sitting on the front porch of Doris’ home learning how to slaughter and prepare a chicken for a meal. This is something completely unfamiliar for me as I live in an urban city, Philadelphia. Every day I would bike along the dirt paths to and from the training center and got to know how to fix my tire if it went flat, carry goods in my saddlebags from the grocery stores, and speak the local language with the community around me. When you’re thrown into a new place and a new experience, it’s important to remain open and adapt yourself to the environment. Simply learning the language is enough for you to become accepted with open arms into strangers homes.
Human thriving is possible
When I was stationed in my village, and introduced to my host family, I was greeted with a goat to slaughter and prepare with my host father. This was the ultimate greeting and sign of respect that I’ve ever encountered in my entire life. For the next few days, we feasted on the goat and got to know one another sitting on his floor, eating with our hands, and listening to some of the local music from Zambia. At night, we would chat, look up at the stars, and exchange our cultural differences with one another. In the morning, we would head to the fish ponds to clear the land. In the afternoons, his daughters would come home with bush fruit for us to eat. In the evenings we would pray in the local church. Before sleep we always shared a meal together. Every morning, you’ll see mothers coming home with sticks on their head and babies on their back. The fathers are building churches and homes. His sons are creating the bricks for the homes. The daughters are sweeping the floors and preparing the meals for the morning. Human thriving is possible. The families in Zambia showed me this.
You don’t need much to be happy
Another key take away point from my experience in the Peace Corps is that you don’t need much to be happy. Having a community around you, family, a church, clean water from a borehole, fish from the lake, and some good conversation is enough for you to feel a blissful sensation. The days feel long and rich when you’re under the sun. I would spend many of my days walking barefoot, climbing trees, eating mangos, and even swimming in the local lake. The simple pleasures in life is what bring us true happiness. There’s no material thing or consumerist item to purchase that will bring you this. I learned that happiness derives from within.
Take the road less traveled
What is amazing about living in a village in Zambia, is the fact that there’s so many unfamiliar paths and dirt roads that will lead you to new places. When I would ride my bicycle to and fro, I always found myself lost. This feeling of being lost is unlike traveling throughout America with Google maps readily available. You would have to chat with locals, ask for directions, and maneuver each day in a new way. The chaos of a dirt path is unlike anything you can experience on a paved road in an urban city. My village was positioned 14 hours away from the capital of Zambia. If I wanted to get there and experience urban life, I would have to take multiple taxis and buses. There were many times where the taxis would break down, buses would come to a halt, and there were even some experiences where I had to hitchhike on the back of a pick up truck. What I recognize is, the immediate community and surrounding is what truly matters. The village life provides all. The people live off the land itself and sustain themselves through a community effort. There’s no need to visit the capital. Everything‘s right there on the dirt road.
Try new things
Lastly, I believe it’s important to try new things. Whether it’s some sort of food, experience, or language, remaining open to the new, has taught me endless things. I’ll never forget Doris coming home with a bucket of grasshoppers that she freshly picked from the fields nearby. She simply dropped them in a boiling pot of water and added some salt. We sat on her front porch at night, eating the grasshoppers and laughing, as this is something completely new for me as an American. Oddly, the grasshoppers didn’t taste that bad. Of course, I will prefer eating meat, but to try the thing itself teaches you more then you can learn from reading any book about adventure. The point is, you must make the adventure of your own lifetime. These memories and experiences I had, bring me great joy to this day. I have no regrets from these experiences, but only cherish them in my every day life. It seems that joining the Peace Corps was one of the greatest things that I’ve ever done in my life. It’s some thing I will never forget and will always reference. At the end of the day, perhaps humans are meant to explore, try new things, and learn through experience. The Peace Corps taught me exactly how to do that.