"Free" Speech

First, let me start off by saying that I do love Peace Corps and all that they do. Even after this horrible experience, I would love to go back and do more response work for them. I love the idea of Peace Corps(PC) and a lot of the time I believe they are doing a good job. As a volunteer, our safety is about 95% us and 5% PC. We have to make friends with the locals, get them to care about us and when things start to go bad, that they will help us out. That's our security, we don't live behind a fence, we live with the people, we act like the people, we become a part of their community. That is how a PC Volunteer keeps themselves safe. PC responsibility is to help us when we discover ourselves in a dangerous situation and can't get ourselves out without their help.

This experience, in Liberia, has altered my view of it all. I've always known that it was runned by the US Government, thus having policies and procedures that really don't make sense. This is why when PC Liberia told me that they were taking a wait and see approach before they would come to get us, I knew all I had to do was put pressure on PC Washington, from my family and friends, who then would put pressure on PC Liberia, who then would get us out of Voinjama. Which is fine, I know the system and will work it. I've been around awhile, know that the government only works when there is pressure on it, so I created my own pressure through my network, I'm not one to wait for someone else to help me, I will do whatever I can to help myself.

PC Liberia finally got to us, by 3pm on that Saturday, a full 28 hours after I told them we were not safe in our town. They didn't even send a car for 21 hours after the first call and 19 hours after I said it was too dangerous for us to stay. This is what really bothered me. I understand part of PC is that we tend to live in dangerous places and it isn't their fault for civil unrest. What is their fault was the lack of response after I mentioned that it was unsafe. According to my country director, they were trying to get us out by helicopter, if you choose to believe this, that's fine, me personally I'm still up in the air about it all, because nothing was mentioned from her to us about this until our talk on Monday morning. Pretty convenient if you ask me. Even if they were working on getting us out by helicopter that day, they still should have sent a car up to us, it took them 9 hours to get to us from the capitol. (And by the way, our Safety and Security officer had enough time to pick up other PC Volunteers' mail and drop it off on our return...another note, he also said our situation wasn't that bad and he had seen worse during the war) If we were able to get out by helicopter, then all they wasted was gas, if not, then they would be that much closer to us. The only road out of my town to the capitol was the one where all the rioting was taking place, so they didn't even know as of Friday if it would have been safe enough to pass, which is fine, they should have waited in the closest town to us that was safe and then took a wait and see approach. And since there was only one road out to the capitol, they should have sent a PC car from Guinea, which would have taken 2 days to get to us, as well. Again, all they would have wasted was gas. But no, they didn't do their plan B until plan A failed. This is my beef with PC Liberia and why I left, I did not feel safe there with their inability to responded to an emergency. PC Liberia was lucky that nothing happened to us, that on that Friday night, it stormed so bad that, in my opinion, it broke up the rioters, because on Saturday night, the locals picked up guns and shot at the Jordain riot police. One could say that the weather saved our lives, cause who knows what would have happened.

Now on to my beef with PC Washington. I've heard from two different sources that they knew of PC Liberia inabilities to take proper action. To what extent, I don't know, but the fact that they knew they weren't doing the best job but didn't do anything before this incident is what kills me. They would have let them kept going in the same direction until something bad happened. And honestly, I don't know if PC Washington would have sent anyone to Liberia to help reconstruct their plans if it wasn't for all the actions both me and my roommate made. If we had died, I would have held PC Washington responsible for my death. They knew the staff wasn't the best but did nothing to help improve it until it was too late. They kept sending volunteers there and were even planning on sending 2-year volunteers there come this June. I give up my time to come and work with an organization that I love, but now I've seen that they don't love me. They don't care about the safety of it's volunteers. They are only reactive, not proactive.

If I was to do Peace Corps again, or if I was to give advice for all volunteers, I would say, now I know, my safety and security is all on me. Still call and tell PC what is happening, but know that in the end, it's up to you to get yourself out safe and sound. That they really don't care about your safety and if anything were to happen to you, it would be your fault, not theirs. So sorry PC, it was my fault for not understanding the full agreement that you had already arranged, and just failed to let me know...