~Exploration 2~

The days that I was suppose to go and observe return Peace Corps volunteers kept getting cancelled so instead my observation is on my interview with Carolee Eslinger-Demar. She is my friend’s aunt so she just decided to come over to my house for the interview. It was a very relaxed atmosphere because her husband came with her and my two roommates decided to listen as well. It was slightly strange because as soon as we sat down on the couch she grabbed my list of questions and read then and handed them back and said, “Alright, Let’s begin!” First I started off by asking her where she went because I think that everywhere that someone goes to serve they are going to have a completely different experience from someone else.

She went to Pakistan during the Gulf War. While there she was hit with quite a few challenges that she had to overcome. She was told that three weeks into it her sister and niece had died. When talking about this I was very concerned about her because she looked as if she was going to cry. Another major thing that she had to endure was the fact that she was sent by the American Government so even though she only completed a year and a half she was in India for Christmas vacation when her team was abruptly pulled back to Washington because of the war and they were not allowed to go back and say goodbye or even finish their volunteer work. This was a big thing for her because she was not ready to come back to the United States. She was planning on dedicating two years of her life to the service and now she did not know what to do. It was very hard to hear things on the news about bombing and shootings in the place that she had grown to love.

One of the things that she told me that made me laugh was how she went over there at the age of thirty and was not married. Everyone kept telling her that the “golden years” for marriage were ages 15 to 21 and she was way past the mark. While she was over in Pakistan she was proposed to five times. She laughed and told me that she may have said no but she kept the gifts. This made me wonder if the marriage age was that way in a lot of the countries, and if so why is that?

A host family was something that she really enjoyed having while she lived in Pakistan. They showed her around the place and whenever she went out in public one of her “little brothers” would walk with her because it is their custom to never let a women walk around without accompaniment. When she first arrived she said how funny it was that she would go out in public and because she was so tall and white little children would crowd around her as she walked and poke her to make sure she was human. This is a very good point because she is the minority in this culture and I then began to wonder how well she was able to adapt to this place that she was thrown into.

She told me that the three months training really helped her learn more about the culture so she was not going into it complete blind. She learned how to dress, eat, talk and certain rituals. One ritual was praying seven times a day and even though she did not participate she was still very respectful. If the people in Pakistan are this open to religion I wonder how many other countries would be just as understanding.