The biggest challenge.

The biggest challenge I've had while in the Peace Corps was finding people to work with me. At the beginning of my service, I struggled so much to get people interested in my work. No one would show up to my meetings, my local municipality made me wait hours to have a meeting about my ideas and projects, and if people did show up, it'd be 1-2 hours late. I would call local community members to remind them about my meetings and they would not pick up or call me back.

It was as if no one wanted anything to do with me. It made me sad and angry at the same time. I decided to do something big when presenting my community diagnostic. I would also open up about my life to my community. I printed out 100 formal invitations and invited every single authority member in my town. After reserving a room in my municipality, handing out 100 invitations (I even invited the local press), going back the following week to kindly remind them in person, calling them for a second reminder, and persuading them with free breakfast, my presentation day came.

I was so happy to see that 60 people showed up! I explained who I was, who Peace Corps was, showed pictures of my family and where I live back in the States. I also talked about my goals, my role, what work I had done so far, where I want to focus my efforts and how important it was for them to spread the word about me and to take advantage of me while I was here. I even shared a few jokes that they enjoyed.

From then on my Peace Corps service changed. People finally got it. They finally understood that I was genuinely there to help with no interest in return. I received several formal letters that week from local authorities that wanted to work with me, asking for my help. THEY were asking ME to work with them! It proved to me two things: I can’t give up that easily and hard work will always pay off. From this experience I also took with me a better understanding of another culture. Persistency works well here in my town.