The first “aha” moment came when the flight attendant handed out customs forms as the plane neared Bangkok.
“I don’t have any foreign currency to declare,” I said. “All my money is American.” My seatmate laughed. “What do you think American money is in Thailand?” she asked.
I suddenly realized my perspective needed to change.
I was 24, on my way to teach English in a Thai high school for two years. I had never set foot outside the United States, spoke not a word of Thai and never been a teacher.
I was on my way to being a Peace Corps volunteer.
Fifty years ago today, President John Kennedy signed the order creating the Peace Corps, the agency that sends Americans to developing nations to live and work among the people.
Recently the agency has been criticized over how it handles volunteer safety, including events surrounding the murder of Kate Puzey, a volunteer from metro Atlanta. Much-needed policy changes have been made in response to that tragedy.
My experience was so different. The Peace Corps took good care of the 30 of us headed for Thailand in March 1980. After two months of training, we were sworn in as volunteers and sent off on our own.
My village of Kosum Pisai, an eight-hour bus ride from Bangkok, had a school, a bank, a post office, a market and not much else. I had electricity, but no running water. The closest phone was an hour away.
I loved it. I loved my students. I loved pumping water. I loved learning the language, making the slow transition from tongue-tied to Thai-tongued.
I loved riding my bike into the countryside, listening to the monkeys screaming from the trees, watching the water buffalo in the rice fields, hearing the chanting of Buddhist monks as I passed the temple.
It all seemed so exotic. And yet, I was what was foreign to the landscape.
That was reinforced when my Peace Corps supervisor, a Thai woman, came to visit. She got off the bus and asked a woman how to get to the school.
After giving directions, the market lady proudly added, “And we have a farang [a foreigner] there. She speaks Thai and eats spicy food, just like us.”
A foreigner who speaks the language and eats the food. In essence, that’s what the Peace Corps is all about.
I know that teaching English to rural Thai students didn’t change the world, but it did change me.
The Peace Corps gave me a different lens through which to see the world. I see immigrants and remember what it feels like to be the foreigner. I see people of other faiths and remember going to the Buddhist temples.
I remember that just as American money is foreign in another country, so are some American ideas and attitudes. The Peace Corps taught me that there is more than one way of doing things, and that other ways may be just as valid as mine.
The Rev. Patricia Templeton is rector of St. Dunstan’s Episcopal Church in Atlanta.
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