PEACE CORPS IN THE 21 ST CENTURY: A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS

118makes it impossible to keep going. 206This particular volunteer was writing about fellowvolunteers who had recently decided to leave their service. Liz explains this further inanother post. She writes of her own challenges when dealing with the children of theDominican Republic.. . . my neighbor. He is staring over my shoulder watching me type this, and Ifind it kind of annoying. That is one thing that is still trying about this wholething. The little kids just cant get enough of the Gringa. There is a little girl thatcomes into my house every day (Never asks to come in, by the way. Knockinghasnt reached this country yet. To be fair though, I think doors are a recentaddition.) named Carina, and no matter whether I am washing my face, reading,napping, whatever, she just sits and watches me. 207American culture privileges privacy and personal space; whereas many other cultureshave no concept of these words. Volunteers express frustration over their loss of privacy.This can manifest itself as a hard adjustment period. In some cases volunteers resort tocultural stereotypes in order to define their new experiences.Stereotypes are rampant in these blogs. One volunteer attempted to explain this inher blog by saying that volunteers have a terrible tendency to believe that because theyhave had cultural sensitivity training and have lived in a place for a year or so, they aresuddenly experts on their community and have the right to speak of the culture as if theyare a part of it. 208Ryan Smith, a volunteer in Albania, writes, “but it is still nice to sit onthe Adriatic and look across with yearning for Italy and the rest of civilization.” 209Albania, in this volunteer’s mind, is not a part of “civilized” society. Ryan fails toprovide further insight into his statement. Whereas Shella begins to make a cultural