10 Things I Gave Up When I Joined Peace Corps

hey youtubers my name is Andre Oh Rene and I am a current Peace Corps volunteer in Nicaragua welcome to my channel Andre Rene abroad where I talk about Peace Corps travel and working abroad as most of you know I'm currently evacuated from Peace Corps Nicaragua all 168 of us were evacuated roughly a month ago and we are still waiting for further notice to find out whether or not we will be returning but in the meantime I am still making sure that I make a weekly video for you all so in today's video I thought that I would discuss ten things that I had to give up when I joined Peace Corps so I'm actually gonna begin with the easiest thing to give up and end with the most difficult thing to give up so starting with number 10 the easiest thing for me to let go of was personal transportation so as I had mentioned in some of my other videos I did have my own car and bicycle back in Portland Oregon which I actually sold before I left for Peace Corps and during Peace Corps you are not allowed to drive that's one of the big rules you're not allowed to drive you're technically not allowed to sit in the back of a truck you are not allowed to ride a motorcycle the way that I get around my site in Peace Corps is I use the bus system so the nicaraguan bus system is really regular and really safe and I would use buses to travel around the country but also I would use the public urban bus it was called the O'Donnell in my city that's the way that I would get to work I would generally use the bus but if I was working at one of the schools that were closer to my neighborhood then I would go ahead and walk moving on to number nine the next thing that I had to give up was animal products so what do I mean by this I mean that during Peace Corps I have mostly adhered to a plant-based diet so my personal rule in Peace Corps was I never purchased animal products when I went grocery shopping I may have in my other videos I do have my own little casita that means little house in Peace Corps where I live it's my own little apartment space and I have my own kitchen and I cook for myself so my rule was in my kitchen I only bought plant-based products so the reason why I decided to not go completely vegan during Peace Corps and just be vegan in my casita was that if I was ever in a situation where there was not a vegan option or more importantly Amica Owen was offering me something from their kitchen that they had prepared they had thought of me they wanted to include me the last thing I would want to do was to offend somebody by rejecting food that was being offered to me the eighth thing is that I had to give up remembering going backwards from the easiest thing to give up to the most difficult so number eight would definitely be gas lines and ovens so in me Kanoa at least in the city where I was living there are no gas lines leading to the houses so everyone has their own we called it don't be gas which is basically one of those propane tanks so eat everyone had to buy their own propane tanks and we would hook it up to our own stove kind of connected to that is ovens so I did not have an oven in my casita I only had two as two stove burners so I definitely missed the ability to be able to bake but that also takes a lot of gas so even if I did have an oven I don't know that I would use it anyways so the next one might sound kind of silly this is number seven and it is big mirrors may be part of the reason why this is on my top ten is because I was a ballet dancer for a really big portion of my life and then continued to just go to ballet the same way that some of you might go to yoga class or Pilates or whatever so I was very used to having that studio space mirror to glance at myself and look at myself in the mirror I was always very aware of what I looked like all the time so then when I moved to Nicaragua I only had like a bust mirror I didn't have any full-length mirrors anymore it was kind of interesting because then I wasn't you know fretting over the little things as much I think here in the United States I sometimes felt like I had too much access to mirrors you know us girls sometimes we like start fussing over our eyebrows or whatever or our pores and we end up doing more damage than good really so it was kind of nice to not have access to big mirrors but it was also still something that I had to give up alright so number six is a washing machine and dryer I bet some of you are wondering whether or not this is gonna be on my list in Peace Corps I do not have a washing machine and I definitely don't have a dryer some of the other Peace Corps volunteers in my group did live in houses where there were washing machines but mine was not one of them but since I had a casita I did actually have my own wash board it's called a la vendetta or pilla I did have my own pila in my casita which was really great because that means that I was able to wash basically whenever I needed to wash okay number five is libraries so I was an English major and I'm also a certified language arts teacher so I'm sure you can guess that I'm a really big reader so it was really hard when I moved to Nika Dawa and there's just not the culture of literature there now okay if anyone's trying to catch me they do have a literary hero Reuben video he is a poet I will acknowledge him but beyond Reuben video there really is it and a few other authors there really isn't like a culture of books and reading at Nicaragua most people in the evening spend time on their TV or their phone and just kind of chilling that way instead there's nobody really reads in the evening at least in the socio-economic class that I was interacting with and there is almost like no access to books the places that are called liebe dead yes I know that sounds like libro which is the word book in Spanish but liebe ideas in Nicaragua actually is like an office and school supply store they don't usually carry too many books kind of difficult to find books in Nicaragua honestly so I really missed having access to my library so the next item on my list is outdoor exercise so I am from the Pacific Northwest and here in the pnw there is just a huge culture of outdoor exercise and sports we're really close to the mountains were really close to the ocean we're surrounded by beautiful forests I was so used to going out in nature all the time pretty much every weekend growing up so that was really difficult when I got to Nikko and realized that it like there there are definitely a lot of things to do outside you know you can go hike the volcanoes and stuff and there's also trails that you can hike but I would generally want to do those things with other Americans or a trust and economic friend and there just wasn't as much ability for me to be able to do that with the same frequency as I did in the United States before I left for Peace Corps the second from the top for me of most difficult things to give up when I left for Peace Corps was dance well let me go back a little bit so I was trained in ballet from the time that I was - until I graduated from high school at the end of that during high school I was going ten to eleven hours a week to the studio so I spent a lot of my teenage years in the dance studio so there's a really big part of my life I did quit dancing during college but then in graduate school I picked it back up again and just immersed myself in it completely I also picked up hip-hop during that time and I just got very used to having access to the dance studio all the time being able to go to classes and so when I went to Peace Corps you know I thought okay maybe I'll trying to find somewhere I can dance and while there is folkloric dance in Nicaragua my site didn't really have any places where I could take lessons or immerse myself in the local dancing culture in Nicaragua so that was really hard for me I would off Just Dance alone in my room when I felt really desperate you know just put in my earbuds and then dance around but nothing replaced being able to go to the studio itself so when I came home for Christmas break I went a whole bunch I have not gone to the dance studio during my evacuation because just like financially I don't really know where I stand yes we're getting a per diem right now but I don't know how long I need that money to last in case I don't go back to Tamika Ella so I'm just trying to play it safe so I've been just exercising in other ways but definitely I still love dance dance is still very important to me and should I find myself in a more permanent situation in the United States again I will definitely go back to the dance studio okay the number one most difficult thing that I had to give up during Peace Corps was proximity to family and friends so this probably doesn't come as a surprise I'm sure many of you are thinking about this if you are planning to apply to Peace Corps that's probably one of the first things on your mind especially if you have a significant other I don't so that made it a little bit easier for me but I definitely have some peers who did leave significant others and even husbands and wives back in the US while they did service but the good thing is I did land in a house with Wi-Fi so I have been able to keep in really close contact with my family and friends during Peace Corps during my time in Peace Corps my mom actually was able to come and visit me and it was super lucky because she actually visited me the months before I got evacuated she came and stayed with me for the full amount of time that someone is allowed to visit you during Peace Corps and then my best friend also visited me during my service it can be a really amazing experience for people to come and visit you during Peace Corps because especially if it's someone who's really close to you like family or really close friends or a significant other chances are you've already been telling them so much about your Peace Corps experience and for them to come and see it with their own eyes it's just a really awesome experience so there you have it those are the things that were the most difficult for me to give up during Peace Corps again from the easiest the most difficult it was personal transportation animal products so veganism gas lines and ovens big Mears washing machine and dryer libraries hot water outdoor exercise dance and proximity to family and friends so those are the things that were the most difficult for me if you are a current volunteer or an RP CV and you have some different things that you thought were really difficult to give up during Peace Corps go ahead and comment below thank you so much for watching this video I'll see you all next week

Channel: Andrea René Abroad

Views: 34,513

Keywords: Peace Corps, Peace Corps Nicaragua, Peace Corps Sacrifices, What do I have access to in Peace Corps, Can I drive during Peace Corps?, Can I be Vegan during Peace Corps?, Will I have wifi during Peace Corps, Will I have internet during Peace Corps, Can people visit me during Peace Corps, 10 Things I Gave Up When I Joined Peace Corps, peace corps experience, the peace corps

Id: qZjvq6Yxxk8

Length: 11min 32sec (692 seconds)

Published: Wed May 30 2018