I am a Peace Corps volunteer in Uganda, coming to the end of my service in December of 2015.
The Peace Corps has changed a lot since it started in 1961. It no longer operates in certain countries like Afghanistan or Turkey, but has added other countries like Cambodia and Kosovo. The original programs, which started only with teachers, have since expanded to include things like ecotourism and developing water and sanitation resources.
One of the biggest changes in the Peace Corps has been how the agency, its staff and its volunteers communicate. Since the availability of phones, and then computers and Internet has increased, Peace Corps volunteers have kept up with the emerging face of technology in the developing world — in 2009, the Peace Corps created a Twitter, Facebook and YouTube channel. Many volunteers start blogs when they go into service (Peace Corps runs a blog competition each year), Skype with their families and friends back home and turn in required agency paperwork by email. The Internet has long since arrived in an important role in development work.
These things were unthinkable at the inception of the Peace Corps, obviously because the Internet wouldn’t be invented until 20 years past the agency’s founding. But the idea then was that as the family of a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV), you might receive a letter or postcard from time to time, or as the technology improved, a phone call full of static. The new age of interconnectivity has helped achieve one of the main goals of the Peace Corps: to help Americans better understand the lives of the people in different countries.
But yet there is still an attitude in some circles of PCVs that if someone is online frequently, they are somehow missing the point of the Peace Corps. There is a definite generational disconnect between older PCVs who didn’t necessarily grow up with technology, and younger PCVs who easily navigate smartphones, social media and online activism. But I also argue that there is a gender gap.
Aside from a few people, most of the PCVs I know who shun technology or see it as less important are men. Foreign men have more privileges in Uganda than foreign women. They can move around with less harassment. They are assumed to be proficient and intelligent. They usually move around at night with less fear of assault or theft. I think that because all of these options are open to men, they see the Internet as less of a necessity and something more of a luxury.
I don’t have that luxury.
Most of the teachers at my school are men, with only two women on staff. For fear of cultural misunderstanding, I don’t hang out with the men in the evenings. I don’t often leave my house after sundown, which is about 7 p.m. each day. Every interaction I have with Ugandan men is tinged with fear or uncertainty until I can figure out if it’s someone I can trust.
I’ve been harassed while walking down the street, sitting in restaurants and taking public transportation (which is my only way to get anywhere). I’ve been the subject of repeated harassing and sexual phone calls because a friend’s phone was stolen (as well as the numbers with it). I’ve been touched, stared at, propositioned. I need an escape.
My school is geographically isolated, with most other volunteers being two hours away. Having the Internet as a constant companion allows me to share my joys and frustrations, get feedback from other PCVs, catch up with American family and friends and read global news daily. My computer allows me to write, read, watch American TV shows and movies and play games.
I think women are often criticized for spending too much online — for selfies on Instagram, Facebook posts, Twitter rants. But online is where my support lives. Online is my self-care. Technology allows me to deal with the difficulties of living in Uganda, and allows me to share the successes and beautiful people I meet as well.
Statistically, there are almost twice as many women as men in the Peace Corps. This was close to the response rate I received when I asked fellow Peace Corps Uganda volunteers about their Internet use. I found that 60% of women surveyed used between 1 GB-5 GB per month. In Uganda, that is the middle range for Internet pay-as-you-go packages. This was actually roughly the same amount as men surveyed, at 50%. Where I found the data surprising was at the higher end of Internet use. At the highest range, over 7 GB per month, there were a few “power users” among the men using large amounts of data versus the women who had far fewer in that range.
In speaking with other volunteers, it became more common to see that women use technology for more social means, while lots of men (especially the power users) use large amounts of data for online gaming, YouTube videos or downloading games and other media. It appeared that while roughly the same percentage of women and men used the same amounts of Internet, they were using it for different reasons.
Shaming people for spending time online or insinuating they should spend more time offline, in their communities, integrating, fails to see people (especially women) as whole beings. For some, the Peace Corps is an opportunity to detach from the busy American tech life they were living in the U.S. They can choose to be online; they can choose to respond to emails in a day or in a week or in a month. For others, detachment would only be a detriment to mental health, and would make them less effective volunteers as well as less happy people.
As for me, I’ll keep buying small, slow Internet packages from my house in the village until I leave Uganda. From here, I can see the world, and the world can see me.
