Some Peace Corps stats..

Here is an interesting artice the Peace Corps recently released about the growth in PC this year. 2010 has seen both the highest number of applicants and volunteers currently serving in 40 years, with 13,500 applicants and 8655 PCVs. Also, I apparently fit into all of the statistical majorities concerning PCVs as a group being a young, white, degree-holding, female volunteer serving in an education program in Africa. Not terribly surprising but certainly puts it in perspective.

Peace Corps is definitely growing. In SA alone the education group coming next year will have 90+ people, while our group only had about 44 trainees (of which we are now down to 31). Bringing in new volunteers is great, but of course the increased budget would probably be better used improving what is already there. I can think of numerous improvements that could be made here that would drastically change how successful PCVs are in this country (better/more training, more accountability, more resources, etc.)... but alas that's just me. I'm sure South Africa is run differently than other PC countries, so I can only speak from my experience here. In any case it will be interesting to see how a much larger number of volunteers affects the program here!