Rachel M. Beard

If you’ve met me in-person, you’ve heard me talk about Namibia.

You’ve seen the way my eyes light up, the way I smile and trip over my words as I try to pour out all the love I have in my heart for the place that I once called home. You know all the stories about my learners – like Timotheus, who used to steal my scissors and run off with them, and Linda, who used to stay late just to look at the pictures in the library books. You’ve heard me talk about my work and my home, about Etosha and Windhoek – about the Peace Corps and everything that comes with it.

I hope you received these stories with an open mind. But I know not everyone does. It might be you’re one of the people who narrowed their eyes as soon as I said “Peace Corps” or “Africa”.

That’s okay. I get it. You probably have one of two views on the issue.

The first is that you can’t imagine why anyone would want to live in a shithole country like “Nambia“. You ask me how I lived without reliable water and electricity. You ask me if I ever felt unsafe, if I ever ate bugs or learned Swahili. Your perception of an entire continent is based around stereotypes that I can’t blame you for having. They’ve been in your life since childhood, and they’re constantly reinforced by modern news stories.

How can you believe anything I tell you about Namibia when the only thing you know about it is a photograph of Jill Biden handing out M&M’s to the stereotypical “African child”?

I don’t mind correcting people’s assumptions – if they’re open to it – and I think everyone could use a reminder that America isn’t perfect. Not everyone has access to clean water, for example, and it isn’t exactly safe either. Americans take a lot for granted, and it’s natural to be curious about a place you’ve never been before.

The second view – and this one is far more frustrating to deal with – is that you think the Peace Corps is “voluntourism“. Your opinion of me drops as if I’ve just told you I think all Africans are bumbling idiots. You think I spent my two years in Namibia talking down to my colleagues and building orphanages that nobody wanted in between trips to the beach.

I’ve never been to the coast of Namibia, by the way. I’ve heard it’s beautiful though.

Voluntourism – as the name suggests – describes a growing industry that combines volunteering and tourism. You pay a fee to a company, and they send you overseas to build a hospital and go on a cruise. It’s closely tied to the “white savior complex“, or the phenomenon of white people traveling to places like Namibia with an “I know better” attitude. These “saviors” say they want to help and would never agree that their intentions are rooted in racist assumptions.

But the reality is that they don’t view the people they claim to serve as their equals. As a result, they end up reinforcing colonial systems of power instead of tearing them down.

In 2019, a lawsuit was filed in Ugandan civil court against American missionary Renee Bach. Bach – who had no medical training – opened a critical care clinic in Jinja, Uganda, in 2010. Five years later, 105 children had died in her care.

The case was settled in 2020, with both of the mothers involved in the suit receiving around $9,500 and no admission of liability from Bach or her clinic.

“We just needed [Bach] to acknowledge that we are human beings,” Ugandan lawyer Primah Kwagala said on behalf of the mothers she represented in the case. “We have feelings and we felt used by you when we came to your facility.”

When the lawsuit was first filed, Kwagala wondered what would have happened if the situations were reversed. What if a young Ugandan woman with no medical training had gone to the U.S. and set up a similar clinic to treat impoverished American children?

“She would have been prosecuted,” Kwagala said. “She would have been behind bars. I don’t think she would have lasted two hours.”

I cannot state this clearly enough: Peace Corps is not voluntourism. The Peace Corps has high expectations of its volunteers that include integrity, equity, intercultural understanding, respect, and professionalism. Their global guidelines even cover personal appearance, political expression, in-country relationships, religious proselytizing, and the ownership of radio transmitters – which is prohibited, by the way.

Any Volunteer found violating these policies is immediately reprimanded – or even removed from their post, if necessary. This accountability does not exist in voluntourism.

But the most important difference is that Peace Corps’ approach to international development is to do as they’re told. They only work in countries they are invited to, and they leave when they are asked. Any communities – including clinics and schools – that want to host a Volunteer need only apply and ask for one. Peace Corps develops its trainings and assigns Volunteers in partnership with each host country government. Their three-month long trainings go beyond the skills Volunteers will need for their work. They cover cultural competencies, local languages, and even healthy coping mechanisms.

When I say I was in the Peace Corps, I can see a certain narrative unfolding in people’s eyes. That I hopped off a plane, drove to a village, and kicked a Namibian teacher out of their school so I could “save the African child”. That I ran an unlicensed clinic worthy of an HBO documentary.

The reality is that I was a body in an otherwise empty classroom. I cleaned out a storage room to make a library when my principal asked me to. I taught the classes I was told to taught, I invited my counterpart to trainings hosted by other Volunteers, and I let my learners make fun of me for being nice to dogs. I made friends with my hike drivers and drank rosé with my neighbors at the evening braais. I laughed at my learners’ jokes, and I got angry when they talked too much in class. I jumped when I saw snakes on my porch and rolled my eyes when I found my neighbor’s pig in my kitchen.

I was just a woman living in a village – I didn’t change the world, and I certainly didn’t “save” anyone.

As hard as the Peace Corps tries to avoid doing harm, it’s still an imperfect organization. I won’t deny seeing white saviors among my fellow Volunteers, and I can never say with complete confidence that I never perpetuated any stereotypes myself.

I remember a particular Volunteer who was always quick to lecture others on their privilege – and then objected when Peace Corps sent them to a site they viewed as “not needing” a Volunteer.

When I told my Namibian roommate about this Volunteer, she ranted at me about them for a full hour before we went to bed. Even in the shower, she was yelling, “Did someone fill out that application for them? Och – if they do not want to be here, they should just go home.”

I often reflect on a conversation I once had with my school’s principal. She told me about a previous Volunteer at my school who had raised money back home to pay for plane tickets for two of her friends in the village. She flew them back to the States and took them to a wedding and a baseball game.

My principal shook her head at me and wondered why the Volunteer didn’t raise money for the unfinished school hall instead.

Another Volunteer in my cohort once posted a reflection of their service online. In it, they expressed their belief that service was “supposed to” make them feel “as though [they]’ve suffered and endured”.

This sparked a long late-night discussion between me and the friend who shared the post with me. “Why did they associate Africa with suffering?” we asked, even while knowing full well what the answer was.

A Namibian friend once complained to me that they didn’t like it when Volunteers spoke slowly to them, as if they were dumb. A Volunteer once remarked to my friend that they didn’t want to adopt a Namibian accent as they feared it would make them sound “uneducated”. My Namibian roommate often took issue with my “disrespectful” directness when I took issue with her drinking.

I feel strongly that the Peace Corps should not be above criticism. There are some Volunteers who do more harm than good, and Peace Corps itself has failed its volunteers on more than one occasion.

Earlier this month, it was reported that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) paid a visit to the Peace Corps Headquarters in DC.

I’m disappointed – but not surprised – that DOGE may be targeting the Peace Corps with future cuts. As if slashing its pitiful $430.5 million budget would have any impact on America’s trillion-dollar deficit.

I had a chance to talk to the Director of the Peace Corps when she visited my agency last year. She told me that applications to the Peace Corps are almost half what they were pre-COVID – and that retention rates were dropping, too. Namibia has just 36 Volunteers in country right now. My cohort alone had over 50 people in it when we arrived in country.

Maybe those people who roll their eyes at my service had a point. Maybe it’s time to give up on Peace Corps, to accept that its mission is too outdated for a modern era where young people aren’t interested in public service and America has other priorities to focus on.

But maybe not.

While supporting my agency’s senior leaders during a visit to Kenya last year, my colleagues took us to a village in Siaya County to see how malaria prevention programs are conducted in the field. When we got out of the car, a group of young women from the DREAM Project were there to greet us with traditional singing and a welcome dance. I joined the circle instinctively – making no effort to hide my clumsy movements and tone-deaf voice. I made a dozen or so instant friends that afternoon.

When we got back in the car, my colleague turned to me almost immediately. “When I saw you dancing,” he said. “I just thought – a-ha! Peace Corps!”

Guilty as charged.

Every Volunteer I know didn’t let being evacuated from Namibia deter them from their passion for public service. My best friend now works at Sea Grant, where she contributes to environmental education programs. Two of my closest friends went to grad school after Peace Corps – one is currently working at a renewable energy lab and the other just started his career in orthotics and prosthetics. Another friend works at a nonprofit that serves people experiencing homelessness. Another inspires children as a swim coach, and still others work at solar panel companies, United Way, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

None of us are looking for glamorous jobs or chasing after six-figure paychecks. We’re just trying to do work that we consider meaningful. We’re worrying about the state of the world on late night phone calls and wondering what we can do to fix it. We are journalists and civil rights activists, astronomers and authors. We are representatives and senators and governors. We are founding companies and building non-profits and conducting groundbreaking research.

But we are also leading nature walks through our local parks. We are supporting our local libraries, leading science camps, volunteering with amputee foundations, taking ASL classes, planting native wildflowers in our gardens, and helping our neighbors out when their car batteries die.

Peace Corps Volunteers – whether we’re living overseas or at home – are just imperfect people who want to help, even if we don’t always know how.

And I think our country needs that now more than ever.