The Description of Service

One of our main responsibilities by the time we leave is to put together a Description of Service (DOS), an overview of everything we have done in the last two years fit onto about one page. This is also the only documentation that you get from Peace Corps that proves that you were a volunteer, and it's your only official record of your work. For the rest of your life. So it's kind of a big thing.

I've been hard at work on my DOS but writing about what I've done is difficult for two reasons: First, I'm tempted to use jargon and buzz-words, so I'll write something like, "Sensitized youths and vulnerable children on children's rights issues," when I really just yelled at a few straggling kids to get to school. Second, after I completed my first draft it really didn't look like I did a whole lot. Maybe it's perspective.

Also, most of what happens here is impossible to sum up in one sentence and falls outside of typical "work." For example, I can say that I trained 25 farmers in food security, or that I organized a workshop to train 25 farmers on improved agriculture (without specifics those statement could mean anything), but I can't say that I yelled at some kids to go to class. One of those happens once or twice, the other happens nearly every day. Which has more impact?

Here are some excerpts from one draft of my DOS:

- Read 54 novels of varying length, both fiction and non-fiction.
- Studied for 3 months for the GRE, learning over 100 new vocabulary words.
- Improved haggling skills, obtaining a price reduction of an average of 50% for all transactions.
- Suffered through less than 8 bouts of gastro-intestinal issues obtained from poorly prepared food and contaminated drinking water, among others.
- Managed to not get malaria.
- Maintained a relatively healthy diet and mastered cooking 3-pot meals on 1 burner.

The other draft looks more like this:

Project Development and Organizational Support

• Advised 4 organizations on program design and management for small enterprise projects.
• Developed a comprehensive coffee cooperative plan which included over 1,000 farmers in 35 farmer groups and increased farmer incomes by 200%, and established a village microfinance scheme.
• Networked with 3 international organizations resulting in strong partnerships and access to over $150,000 of capital in the form of loans and grants.
• Increased farmer profits of pineapple by 500% by introducing a value-addition scheme.

Educational Support and Training Facilitation

• Developed a comprehensive curriculum for teaching business and entrepreneurship at a rural vocational school and taught 24 students in business and entrepreneurship through formal classroom teaching, assignments, and field work.
• Mentored staff, teachers, and community members in bookkeeping and recordkeeping skills.
• Conducted 3 trainings on building fuel-efficient stoves with community partners.
• Trained 25 villagers in improved organic agriculture techniques, including composting and crop rotation, resulting in a 250% increase of bean yields over traditional methods.

Community Health

• Led 3 trainings on constructing and using improved fuel-efficient cook stoves.
• Linked 12 communities with the local NGO HeWaSa (Health through Water and Sanitation) and lobbied local government to upgrade, fix, and improve water sources in 12 villages.
• Trained 25 farmers and 65 youths in 3 communities in nutrition and food security.

Specialized Training

• Life Skills training – Peace Corps Uganda (one week).
• Program Design, Management, and Monitoring and Evaluation training – Peace Corps Uganda (4 days).
• Sales and Marketing Workshop – USAID Uganda, Sustainable Tourism in the Albertine Rift (2 days).

Leadership in Peace Corps Uganda

• Chairman of the Volunteer Advisory Committee (18 months).
• Led pre-service training activities with new volunteers.
• Obtained a Peace Corps grant worth $5800 to facilitate a three-day farmer’s workshop.
• Participated in redeveloping the Economic Development program, including identifying and establishing new goals, objectives, and indicators for the program.
• Helped organize Peace Corps Uganda’s 50^th Anniversary Service Day celebration and managed 120 people engaged in 7 activities during the event.

Close of Service

Our Close of Service (COS) conference just wrapping up. A two-day affair at a rather swanky (in Ugandan terms) hotel on Lake Victoria, we covered the logistics of leaving as well as important stuff like resumes, interviews, and what to do for the rest of your life. It was also a good time of reflection of our past two years of service. My training class began with 41 people, and 31 have made it to the conference - pretty good. Also, I know my last date as a Peace Corps volunteer: SEPTEMBER 22.

To be honest, now that I have the date the shock of leaving has begun to set in. It took a year from when I submitted my application to when I left for training. There was so much hype before going, and preparations and trainings once I got here. Twenty-four months felt like it would never end. With the days slowly ticking by, the months flying by, before I know it, it is already June (Christmas feels like last week). And now it's over.

What does a post-Peace Corps life mean? I'm scared to go home and find out. I'm afraid that once I go home I'll never go abroad again. I'm worried that I'll get stuck in some menial job again to pay my bills and before I know it I'll be fat and old. I have nothing to do from when I get home until I leave for grad school (applications are pending!) - about 10 months. If anyone wants to hire me, please give me a call! I'm a great babysitter, and I know how to keep chickens.

Friendships and Relationships- I have met some of the best people in Uganda. As volunteers we are taken out of our comfortable known world and flug halfway across the globe and put with a group of complete strangers. It is these strangers, 150 in Uganda, with which you make your friends and support structure. Volunteers come from all walks of life with diverse histories, interests, and goals. Since I am forced to hang out with these other volunteer we develop friendships and bonds that, if we had remained in America, probably would never have happened.

These people are amazing. It opened my eyes to everyone out there. They have been remarkable, challenging me to improve myself and my capabilities. I thank my fellow volunteers for the amazing experience I have had; it would be incomplete without them.

And here's to the next 15 weeks. I have a lot of work to wrap up but still many goals I want to accomplish and friends to make. Mom and Dad, it's been a long time away, but I'll be home before you know it.