PEACE CORPS IN THE 21 ST CENTURY: A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS

113write letters or whatever or can’t imagine entertaining yourself, you might get a littlebored and frustrated.” 195And one Macedonia volunteer posted, “I am bored out of myskull, I'll do anything to help.” 196Volunteers are often times responsible for finding theirown projects. These blogs illustrate their difficulties in getting projects initiated.Rudolph Becker couches his feelings of boredom in a positive light. He says, “I getreally lonely and bored and get depressed. But than other days I wake up and just lookaround and realize that I am being payed [sic] to live in Beautiful Costa Rica, whileliving in a small rural community helping people, and learning Spanish, with basicallyzero stress in my life.” 197The boredom is tolerable considering the many benefits ofservice. Becker is a good example of the tenacious spirit of volunteers. They have beentold by the organization that development work is a challenge, so they make the best of it.In all of these examples, we see the positivity and willingness to help and the patiencethat comes with development work. In sharp contrast to the organization’s recruitmentrhetoric, the volunteer account of service provide a realistic picture of what it means tolive abroad with the Peace Corps. On the official web site, we never hear of thepossibilities of boredom or work, but this is a common theme on volunteer blogs.Sustainability is another significant topic on these sites that does not appear in the officialorganizational rhetoric.SustainabilitySustainability is the ultimate goal of Peace Corps, meaning that each volunteerproject should be able to survive long after the volunteers leave. Volunteers expressanxiety over being able to create sustainable projects that will continue. Anne, a