Five Ways the Peace Corps is Better than College

Now, don’t get me wrong—I loved college. In fact, I wrote a couple of blogs for Hampshire’s Admissions office, which despite never really mentioning academics or much else directly related to the school somehow still interested people in attending. But let’s be real: in terms of overall health, hygiene, and sanity, college is basically the worst environment imaginable. Though I now live in a developing country, my life has actually improved in a number of essential areas:

1. Food. Namely, having it. I was off the meal plan for my last three years at school, and trips to the grocery store only happened about once a month, if we were lucky. I pretty much survived on cereal and delivery food, which may actually be worse for you than eating nothing at all. Here I get my three square a day, plus some: Kazakhs are serious about their hospitality, and any time you’re a guest in anyone’s house you’ll find a full spread of snacks, jams, and salads in addition to the meal, which you’ll be pressured into having at least two servings of. My school also has a pretty good canteen, with hot food, samsas, and Kit Kats and Snickers for any American candy cravings that might hit. The bazaar is a lot easier to get to—not to mention cheaper—than the Hadley Stop N’ Stop was, so groceries won’t be a problem when I move into my own place (I think I’m going to go vegetarian as far as my home cooking is concerned, though—the severed cow heads and limbs in the bazaar’s meat section aren’t that appetizing). That said, there are three meals I would kill for right now: a BBQ chicken sandwich from Baoguette in New York City, a pork stuffed chile relleno empanada from Salsa’s in Asheville, and a No. 1 from The Lady Killigrew in Montague, Massachusetts—man, I guess I never realized how much I love sandwiches and sandwich-like things. This, along with our penchant for hot dogs and fast food, is apparently a stereotype about Americans held by many Kazakhs: when I find myself discussing food and “national dishes” (which happens a lot), there’s a lot of confusion over the concept of toasters and the fact that we don’t have one specific, traditional dish we always serve to guests. Kitchen set-ups here tend to vary—some people have microwaves and fridges while others just have an oven and stove. My host family has a fridge, but they store a lot of leftover food and preserves outside or in the pantry when it’s cold enough.

2. Shelter. College is pretty terrible, as far as housing goes. You’re either subjected to the claustrophobic squalor of a dorm or the slightly less claustrophobic squalor of a shared house, which despite the best intentions almost always end up looking like a particularly ill-kept drug den and smelling of PBR, dirty socks, and old pizza. The structures rarely exceed their most basic function of keeping you mildly warm and alive, and the furniture is usually stained, broken—or in at least one case I know of, no kidding—infested with flesh-eating bacteria. My third year, our main piece of living room furniture was known as “The Death Couch,” due to the fact that it had a jagged piece of metal sticking out of its frame. It ripped jeans, stabbed people, and was only slightly more comfortable than sitting on an actual pile of twisted metal. Our other furniture comprised a poppazon chair (also broken, and prone to dumping occupants to the floor in sudden fits of rage) and a stolen Wal-Mart wheelchair, which sadly may have been the most functional and comfy part of the collection. (This wheelchair famously led to the invention of a winter sport known as “wheelchairing”—I’m not sure how that event didn’t make it into the Olympics, but I’m guessing it’s because no conceivable amount of insurance would cover it).

Despite not having some American amenities, my apartment in Kazakhstan is unarguably more hygienic and livable than my college set-up. You always take off your shoes before entering a Kazakhstani house, because tracking in dirt is totally unacceptable. My host family does a thorough house cleaning at least once a week, and my room here is immaculate (especially compared to my room in college, which looked like a thrift store, a toy shop, and Neil Gaiman's library got into a deadly brawl). It’s quieter, too—even when my host family stays up late watching Russian serials, it’s a vast improvement over having the bright ringing drone of Super Mario Galaxy as the soundtrack to pretty much all of my dreams. People aren’t as apt to stumble in and out all the time, and so far no semi-homeless man named Freddy has come to live on our couch, like at Hampshire—but I’m not entirely ruling the possibility of that happening out. Other improvements: none of the furniture seems inherently lethal, my bed is not made of green plastic, and there are never dishes in the sink—mostly because there is no sink, but also because we eat most things family platter-style and washing up is pretty painless.

3. Clothing. Yes, Hampshire had free washing machines. Yes, they were at one point conveniently located right across from my house. Did this mean I did laundry weekly? No. Did this mean I did laundry monthly? Not always. Did this mean I did it yearly? …I’m almost certain. I’d like to defend this grossness by noting that the laundry room itself was pretty disgusting—even though I knew, theoretically, that my clothes were getting cleaner, the stale stench of abandoned sheets and underwear and pools of unidentified liquid on the floor made them seemed somehow tainted. Because there were only three or four washers and dryers for Enfield—the suburbs of Hampshire—the laundry room was also a battleground. Finding an open machine was hard enough, and once you did you couldn’t be sure that someone else wouldn’t just pull your clothes out early and stuff them in a dryer or just leave them in a wet pile somewhere. Although my laundry situation wasn’t great during training—I had one terrible, day-long experience with washing all my clothes by hand that I hope to never relive—here my host family has an automatic machine and does laundry every weekend.

4. Transportation. While the Five Colleges have a great free bus system, it couldn’t always compensate for the fact that Hampshire was fairly isolated. You could ride a bike into Amherst, but when it was freezing and icy—as it was for a good part of the school year—this was a less than an ideal way to get around, and the busses stopped or ran reduced schedules during holidays and Jan Term. Getting to the aforementioned Stop n’ Shop required a bus transfer that never quite worked out, time-wise, and usually wasn’t worth the trouble. There’s no bus system in my town, but getting anywhere at a moment’s notice is never a problem, due to Zhetysai’s overabundance of gypsy cabs. Gypsy cabs (called “dolmuş” in Turkish, which literally means “stuffed”) are unofficial taxis—which isn’t that important of a distinction in Z-Sai, since there are no official taxis. Basically anyone in a car can be a cab driver—some cars actually have “TAXI” signs on their hood, but these can be bought for cheap at the bazaar. You might think the lack of markings would make these cabs hard to identify, but since most people don’t have their own cars and most cars on the road here are, in fact, gypsy cabs, you don’t really need to search them out. They’re usually older, beat-up cars—Opels seem to be a particularly popular gypsy cab brand. You wave them down and they’ll take you anywhere in town for 50 tenge (about 30 cents), though they may stop to pick up other passengers, which can get cramped. I’ve never had to wait more than two minutes for a taxi, even in severely bad weather. Actually, even when I don’t need one, there’s always a taxi around—if I’m walking along the road, I’ll always get the horn beep and headlight flash from someone who thinks I’d rather take a cab. An all-cab system is, of course, not the most desirable transportation system environment-wise, but I can’t say I don’t appreciate it when I’m rushing around or rainstorms make it impossible to get across town without a vehicle.

5. Money. Like most students, I was broke for more or less my entire college career. The income from a work-study job just can’t cover the costs of a student lifestyle, which involves a lot of poor and costly late-night decisions. One of the Peace Corps’ main draws is they say you can make it through the entire two years without spending any of your own money, which I think—if you’re not planning to travel outside the country—is probably true. My monthly stipend more than covers rent and necessities, with plenty left over that I mostly save, because there’s not much to spend it on. While there are cafes and shops here, people rarely go out to eat and there’s not much I need in terms of clothes and other items. Internet time is probably my biggest money-sucker, but even that costs less than a dollar an hour. Zhetysai is particularly cheap—Almaty and Shymkent are pricey (though still not as bad as the States), so it’s probably good I’m banking a lot of my tenge for trips to the city.