Volunqueers Ep 1: Nick Denson (Rwanda, 2018-2020)

Justin Tabor: Greetings everyone. This is Justin Tabor, co-chair of the LGBTQI+ RPCV group. I am an RPCV from the Philippines. I served from 2008-2011. I am so excited to be bringing this podcast to you and kicking it off with a wonderful episode and wonderful interview with my co-chair, Nick Denson, RPCV Rwanda. You will notice in today’s recording that the audio quality on my end just comes and goes. At the time when we recorded this, I did not know that my microphone had totally betrayed my trust and so recorded an hour and a half of content with very poor quality on my end, so that’s gonna be in the recording here and there. You’ll hear me chime in but I’m going in after the fact just to fix up my audio quality and hopefully give you a better experience and the interview will read a little better with this new audio. So let’s go ahead and jump in. Nick, please go ahead and introduce yourself to our audience. 

Nick Denson: Thanks, Justin, again. So my name’s Nick Denson. I am – as we’re doing this on more of a podcast setting- I am a white male with glasses. I have brown hair and a brown beard. And I’m wearing more like a mint type of shirt. So I am a returned Peace Corps Volunteer. I served in Rwanda from 2018 to 2020. I’m also an evacuated Peace Corps Volunteer because that was around the time the pandemic started. Since then, I have maintained my contact with Peace Corps as I’ve been doing the remote Peace Corps service, so they call it the VSPP. And I have worked with Ukraine for the past 2 years, as well as Morocco and Guyana. 

JT: That’s really interesting. You know I think from somebody – from the perspective of somebody who has worked at Peace Corps headquarters, you are sort of this example of a modern Peace Corps – or a really current Peace Corps experience. You know, the evacuation, the virtual service project, things like that, those all sort of very new Peace Corps. I guess I’m curious as we dig into your Peace Corps journey. What sort of drew you to the Peace Corps initially and why did it seem like sort of a compelling option to you at the time?

ND: I appreciate your question because I had only heard about Peace Corps in a joking context, prior to when I applied first. I had met somebody in college that had mentioned that they were interested in Peace Corps and that usually only people with language skills get accepted. So I didn’t think anything of it until I was in grad school and I did a class in India. We went over like social and cultural diversity, we had an internship and I really appreciated that we were doing this work in a different country, that you could see a lot of the differences that maybe was more challenging in your own culture. And I realized that the capacity that I was there was a really privileged one. Like we stayed in an AirBnB. And I was like, it’s nice to go on this beautiful trip, but this isn’t how people here live. Like, this isn’t – you know – there’s something off about this. So that really stuck with me and I wanted to do international work but I wanted to do it in a way that, like, fit within the frameworks of how people truly live there and not necessarily as a visitor. And that’s why I applied the first go-around. 

JT: I connect a lot with that as well in terms of – you know, like you I also studied abroad. My study abroad was in Singapore and at the time my university was trying to link our school with the School of Singapore and as a result of that, we kind of got farmed around to all these fancy events and people who worked at embassies and professors and all these sorts of people. And at the end of that I was left with a similar feeling of wanting to go back out into the world, of doing a program where I got to have a stronger sense of connection with just like normal people. 

ND: I like the word you use, “connection.” I think that’s maybe what I was looking for – was more of a connection. And I think what really did it for me was – my training is as an art therapist and that’s why I was there – and I remember I was working on a children’s cancer hospital, and one of the kids one day, like we had brought some art materials and he looked at the price that was still attached to one of the papers, and I just remember him saying, “This is such a waste of money”. And he didn’t say it exactly like that but I really thought about it and was like, “Holy crap, like we – this is a waste of money. He could be using this to get food and stuff like that and that’s what struck me that even though I was doing something different, I wasn’t really connecting with the community in a… I’m searching for a word. In a way that was like sustainable. Like we were there for 2 weeks and it was done. It’s like, here’s this great thing that you won’t have. And you know, I am very appreciative of that experience. I’m glad my university did have that option. I think I just realized that there were other ways to do that work as well, or that more work was needed. And that’s what eventually led me to apply for the Peace Corps. And in saying that, I’m also not saying that Peace Corps is the end all, be all. There are definitely things that the Peace Corps does well and areas that it can improve too. 

JT: For sure, totally, and I guess to pivot here a little bit back to your journey with the Peace Corps. There’s so many different avenues to joining. When it was time to apply and you were looking at service seriously, how did Rwanda enter the picture? Was that something that – I guess, did you choose Rwanda or did Rwanda choose you? How did that go?

ND: Oh my gosh, this feels very Harry Potter-esque, like Rwanda chose me. It’s actually a pretty– I’m gonna try to condense this story. So I originally applied for another placement. I saw something that was working with– as an art teacher with Deaf children in Ghana. And that fulfilled two of my interests. I was and still am an art therapist so I was like, “Man, I can teach art. That’s something I can do.” And I have a huge interest in the Deaf community. It was a population that I worked with at my job, not solely but it was a population that came in contact at my job at the time. So I was like, “This seems perfect.” So I applied and I got considered and then I didn’t hear anything from it and they told me they ultimately went with other options. I think much like anybody, I was a little bummed. And I was like, man well I really don’t know what to do. So I waited a while and then maybe like two years later, I decided to apply again. I really went over what could be different and I applied to the same position because – I imagine most of the listeners came into Peace Corps at different times. When I came in, there was an option to look at the jobs in different places, kind of feel out where you might fit well, and I found the same exact position again and I applied for it and almost immediately got denied. But in my application process, I had said that I was willing to go elsewhere because I felt that if I wanted to do Peace Corps then I should be willing to go anywhere. I understand that’s something that should not be applied to everyone.

JT: [Laughs] Totally, I mean, having been a placement officer, I know that Ghana program you’re referencing. It’s a really small one and because it’s so small, it can be really selective with who gets in, so, you know. If you’re one of those people who have done that program in Ghana, kudos to you, you’re an all-star. But yeah, kind of getting shifted from your original country of application to something else, that’s a really common experience for a lot of candidates and that flexibility is just something that’s really beneficial, both to the candidate I think and to the placement officer they’re working with and to Peace Corps in general. And I think it takes a lot of flexibility to be a good volunteer. Continuing on with sort of your journey to service and Rwanda, I guess, as you were preparing your applications and as you were going through the process, when did you factor in your personal identities. Was being LGBTQ something that entered your mind early on in the process or was that something that wasn’t really much of a consideration for you?

ND: That was something that was of no consideration. I had made peace of – that I just, I mean I was gonna be me but I wasn’t gonna be out to my community because – yeah, I didn’t… The way that I have thought about it, I don’t think this is a realistic expectation but it was the one that I had for myself at the time was that if I’m going to do this then I needed to be willing to sacrifice on something. And so, like I had piercings. Well I had a piercing that you could see and some tattoos, so I was like, I’m just going to have to cover this up, I’ll take this out, and yeah. So as far as being queer, I was like – that’s gonna be on pause. 

JT: I like that terminology of putting it on pause. I use that terminology too, when sort of talking about I guess when I see this with people as well. I guess once you arrived in Rwanda, I’m curious how things went. [Laughs] I don’t want to be the person who asks you, “How was your Peace Corps service?” That’s way too broad of course. But I guess, what were maybe some of those initial impressions, meeting your host family, or just those first weeks or months of your service, how did things go?

ND: Ooh, I mean, I feel like it was such a process of getting to know Rwanda. Like I was super excited by getting to know a language I had never heard of before. Kinyarwanda is the language of Rwanda. It’s very different from other placements in that that is the language that all the volunteers learn. There’s no other language, whereas if you went to like Tanzania or Uganda, there are a bunch of other languages that you could potentially learn, so all of my classmates and I, we learned Kinyarwanda.

JT: All together, the whole group?

ND: All together. Like, nobody learned another language. We all learned Kinyarwanda, which for non-Peace Corps folks, that’s fairly atypical because most other countries have other languages that they speak in different regions. So that was super exciting and I didn’t know anything about Rwanda. The only thing I knew about it was Hotel Rwanda occurred there, and I think that that’s really a statement on our education system in the United States that the only thing we know about Rwanda was the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994. So coming in, everything was just so new. And yeah, like, Rwanda is known for its red soil so that was a huge thing and like cleanliness is a huge thing as well, so the cleaner you are and the more clean your clothes are, the smarter you seem. 

JT: Yeah, I saw that a lot too in my time in the Philippines. They also share that really big value of cleanliness. I don’t know if this is true in Rwanda also but in the Philippines, it’s totally normal to encourage people to have two showers a day and it’s almost expected that you’re bathing yourself multiple times a day.  

ND: Yeah, I don’t know if like the two showers a day part but there’s definitely an expectation that like you know, you clean and I mean if not your body, your clothes for sure. Like, as long as – particularly your shoes. That was something that surprised me because in the states it’s like “oh wear and tear”, but I will also admit that I’m not a person that’s like very shoe-focused. I wear shoes until like you can’t use them anymore. Yeah so it just… But shoes are highly prized. You keep them clean and you want to look nice and be seen as somebody who’s respected and welcomed, the cleaner you are, especially your shoes. 

JT: So kind of pivoting back to queer identities, were you able to talk about your own identities in Rwanda or was that just like totally off the table there?

ND: No, Rwanda fortunately is a country in Africa that it’s not illegal to be gay. I think it’s still very – the way that I described it to like family and friends in the states is that it’s kind of like 1950s America but I mean in like a parallel dimension of some sort. I don’t know if that makes sense. But like it’s not illegal but it’s not accepted? So that was nice coming in and I think I was connected more to my fellow volunteers who were queer in terms of coming out to each other in Rwanda as well as I think in many other countries. There’s a queer support group and that was something I was very [inaudible] being a part of early on. So I was connected that way but I didn’t really tell people in my area. And I was also fortunate in that like it’s not illegal to be on apps and stuff like that. It was probably not as safe to be on them as in America but also not as dangerous as it would be in like Tanzania for instance, where police actively get on to find folks who are queer. So that way, I found that I was able to connect and I met some host country nationals, some Rwandans who I could meet and have conversations with and even have relationships with. 

JT: I guess I’m curious about this. Is this sort of a straight up one to one Rwanda Grindr or is this something more like a local app or something locally available that is just a tool for meeting up with other people?

ND: There’s Grindr in Rwanda. I met some folks that way and then also like was – not Okay Cupid, but like–

JT: Christian Mingle? [Both laugh]

ND: No, no, oh my god… There are other dating apps that I use… yeah, I guess it’s a weird setting because I was still, not necessarily figuring out my sexuality but I didn’t really know what kind of gay I wanted to be in the States. And so that was something that became more rampant. I mean, my thought was that I was going to be celibate and very nun-ly coming to Rwanda, and I think having a group I felt more empowered to try to forge like relationships and experience life a little bit more whereas before I didn’t. I also think it isn’t spoken enough about and I feel comfortable sharing here, like porn is a very common thing that’s shared amongst volunteers and as weird as that was, before coming in, I was like “well at least I’ll be able to download some things to come to my host country”. And fortunately my access to the internet, like I was able to watch things. Not just porn but other things like Netflix, whereas some countries don’t have that. 

JT: It’s really funny. I guess, to age myself a little bit. Netflix existed when I left for service but I think it was still at the point where it was DVDs delivered to your home. It was not a thing that you could stream; it was just whatever was available where you were on your device and so we were definitely doing a lot of file sharing. I was not sharing those kinds of files, not porn. But definitely a Harry Potter, Twilight and all that 2000s crap. I think what’s really interesting about what you were talking about and what I really relate to is kind of that notion of like not fully understanding your gay identity or knowing what kind of gay you want to be, gay, lesbian, you know whatever sort of identity you’re living in. I remember… especially now, even before service, feeling so gay and so easily spotted wherever I went and then going to the Philippines and those markers and the things that people look for and the assumptions that people make about you are just totally different and they’re not there. And so I went back to being basically assumed straight and people asking me where my wife was or why I didn’t have a family and things like that. It was just so unusual to me to be back in that sort of situation, if that makes sense.

ND: I love that you bring that up because I don’t, like I think that, like I don’t think that I can pass in the United States as somebody who – I’m not straight passing. And most people, I meet them, I don’t directly say that – but I mean sometimes I do – I’ll mention somebody I’m seeing or like mention about my current boyfriend and I don’t think people are surprised. Yeah, even my parents when I came out weren’t surprised either, so I mean like- going somewhere where people automatically are like, “oh, is your wife coming?” or any time I get along a lot better with them. I would say in Peace Corps is where I made the most amount of male friends in my life, were made with other PCVs. But when I have volunteer girl friends who would come and visit me, [people would be] like, “oh my gosh, is this your cherie?” Because Rwanda is influenced by Belgian French for a long time so people spoke French, “your cherie” is this your [inaudible]. And it’s like “nooo, they’re just a friend, sister maybe.” [Laughs] I mean I didn’t meet a bunch of guys. I met one person that I kind of met with frequently. We weren’t dating. But I think we felt comfortable with each other. And I don’t think people really thought much of him coming to see me or anything like that. But something that was a concern was I was sexually active when I was in Rwanda and something that was a concern was like leaving trash behind. So something that I don’t think I ever thought about in the States was like people going through your trash but that was something that was intentionally done for a lot of different reasons. Some of it was practical things like most people have not a trash heap but an area designated for trash that’s regularly burned, so there are some items that can’t be burned that are taken out. And some of it is like interest in you that people go through your things. So when we would like use protection and stuff like that, that was something that he was very like, “no we cannot leave this here. We need to take it with us, because we can’t leave it here. They’ll go through it and they’ll find it.”

JT: That’s sort of shocking to hear. I guess what comes to my mind is the word “paranoid” or something along those lines, where you’re really worried and paying attention to how other people are looking at you, perceiving you, and I suppose that’s one of the byproducts of living in a smaller community like that. 

ND: Definitely. And people would. My host family, different things would go through the trash and again it’s not necessarily all about- sometimes it’s a practical thing of like… I was the westerner coming in and was like “this is going in the trash” and it’s like “no, no, no, it doesn’t.” This glass bottle for instance that you put in the trash, this doesn’t go in the trash. Glass bottles are recycled in Rwanda. And so like, you know, you give it back to the person that you took it from. That was a practical thing. it wasn’t all about getting up in your business. It was more like this is something that doesn’t go here. But on the opposite side of being__ about your identity, I think something that I often took for granted was that I’m the westerner. And I think that for the man that I was seeing, like that’s where he lived. Rwanda is a small country. There are over a million people that live there. Somebody could be like oh my gosh this dude was with that white person and they left a bunch of condoms. 

JT: I guess that makes me wonder – and I’m curious what it was like when you did come back to the states when that wasn’t a thought process you needed to go through. What was that like? Was that liberating, was it just a return to normal? How did that feel?

ND: So I need to preface that I came back right at the onset of the pandemic. So life was very different. I live in Vegas and it just was surreal. Even though like if you were to go out on a street right now in Vegas, it’s pretty busy, it’s packed. But then there was hardly anybody out and my mind was still blown. I was like, “Oh my god, there’s so many cars and there’s so much that’s available.” I have a particular memory of my mom getting pissed at me because she was like, “you’re so judgemental and it was like, “well you don’t need two grills in your backyard.” [Laughs]. “It’s just you and dad. Why do you need these two things?” Or the fact that I had like water that I could drink from in my bathroom. Not to say that I regularly drink water in my bathroom. But that was a thing that I did not have. I lived in a compound in Rwanda so it was like an apartment on someone else’s property and I didn’t have any running water. I had a spout that I couldn’t use all the time because it was too close to my little latrine. For folks that don’t know what a latrine is, it’s like a drop toilet, like an outhouse. And it was too close to where the outhouse had the hole dug for poop. So sometimes when the water was high or it was wet season– So Rwanda has two seasons, the wet and dry season. So in the wet season, there’s a lot of water that would get into that and so I couldn’t drink that water or use that water really.

JT: [Inaudible]

ND: Yeah that’s a whole other issue. But essentially coming back to the States, it’s just like, oh my god there’s so much to take for granted. Like I’ve been taking bucket baths and the fact that there’s a shower in my – right next to my room, that was different.

JT: I wonder if you have this experience too. It’s pretty, maybe it’s universal to all of us RPCVs. You know, you go to a conference, you’re at MST or something like that and you’re in one of the hotels and you are reunited with hot running water available to you and you just take the longest, hottest showers of your life and are like “I love this so much!” Okay so making the hard pivot away from your mom finding a used condom and sharing porn with RPCV, wondering if you have any evacuation stories or harrowing tales from leaving Rwanda that you wanna share.

ND: Hmm, I think any time you’re evacuated, there’s a worry. There are other countries that have been evicted which I’m sure some listeners are aware and others aren’t but evacuations do happen and you gotta get out of the country fast like. So in Rwanda, my cohort was at our COS conference when we started hearing about like, oh Italy might be closing down because of this weird disease, this weird virus. And I honestly didn’t think anything of it because like we had in 2018 through 2020 like there was an ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, so most of the Rwanda volunteers- Peace Corps Rwanda was like, are we gonna get evacuated because of ebola? What happens if I get ebola? But we didn’t. So like it was asked at our COS conference like do we need to worry about it and our director was like, you have nothing to worry about. So I didn’t worry about it and I happened to go to the capital because I ended up taking like a chair position for the Peer Support Network in Rwanda so I was meeting with others when we, not a day or two later, got the alert that we were evacuating. And I was with somebody else in my cohort who was there for something else and we were just like what is happening. They just told us that it was okay and all of a sudden South Africa, which is where our medical hub was, was shutting down the borders and that’s why we were being sent home. So we had until Friday because we were told that Rwanda was going to shut down its air space on Friday and we had that amount of time. So they were lIke you need to get home, you need to pack up your stuff, and you need to get out. Like we have these points where we’re going to pick you up and you better be there. 

JT: Wow. 

ND: And so I think all of us were in kind of like a “what is going on” because nobody really was sick but we did have somebody in our cohort who had come from India and there was an outbreak on the plane that they had come back on that was being kept really hush hush and all that. But most people weren’t sick at the time. It was just like oh my gosh, we heard somebody somewhere was positive. So all that is to say is like in less than a week, we were evacuated out of our communities and were expected to have – like all the stuff, I had a project I had been working on an animal husbandry project and they were like “you need to find that money and bring it back to us”. I have less than a week- First off, it got stolen by the guy who we paid to do the animal husban–  like build – we were gonna do rabbits and the dude who was supposed to build the rabbit houses, he skipped out with the money. And so my counterpart, who is amazing and I can’t acknowledge enough how much I am appreciative of her and so glad that she was and we still talk to now in my life. Like she got it and it was just a super weird time. So we ended up getting on a plane because they told us that we needed to get on then like it was now or never. And they brought a special plane to pick us up, somebody- people in Uganda as well as Malawi and we were gonna go to Ethiopia. Ethiopia was the hub where they sent most of us and they had rented out like an entire– it was just bananas. And I recognize I spoke really fast and it’s still not capturing everything. So I’ll stop now so you can ask…

JT: Yeah, to use your words, it was bananas inside of Peace Corps as well. And I think to those on the outside, it could have appeared that Peace Corps was sort of this light switch that was on one day and off the next. But I think you’re highlighting that there were some serious logistics that went into getting people out of not just one country but multiple countries and all the quarantines and the flights and all these things that went into this. And I’m sure that one day there’s going to be a great evacuation podcast that someone does for all of these stories about that. 

ND: I can only imagine. And I mean, it was surreal because the last time Rwanda had been evacuated was for the genocide. It was weird having some of that history of knowing the last time this happened and the circumstances and we didn’t really know what context we were leaving our counterparts. And this was something all Peace Corps Volunteers were going through so I can only imagine like volunteers that were leaving because of political strife and didn’t know what was going to happen to their communities or counterparts. Which I didn’t either but it was still in a similar boat as them and my family was still at risk so I think there were places, like when the genocide happened in ‘94, ‘93, there was a real concern that the community you were at might not be there anymore. 

JT: Yeah. So you mentioned animal husbandry. Let’s pivot off of that. No, I am kidding. Yes, let’s move past the pandemic and the evacuation and all of that. Now that you’ve been back in the states and maybe have had a moment to reflect on your service, are there any stand outs or things that you’re proud of?

ND: That’s such a hard question. I mean, I’m proud that I did it. I don’t regret going. I think my eyes were opened a little wider, which I’m super thankful for. And I think and hope that this is evident throughout our interview together. I just thought about the world a lot differently, about the generalizations that we have about places like Rwanda and how our economy in America and the work that Peace Corps does and the work that could be done. I feel a lot more aware and I still feel like I have a lot more to learn and maybe that’s what I’m most proud of, like the humility that was reinforced while I was there. 

JT: No,  I think that’s a really important thing to say, you know. I think that everyone – I think it’s a totally valid thing to walk away from Peace Corps service and say “my greatest accomplishment was making it through, persevering, making it out the other side,” however you want to say it. There’s so many volunteers where the traction doesn’t get going, things don’t stick, and it’s hard to leave those two years pointing at something you achieved and feeling really good about it. And I think that one of the reasons why the federal government should continue to do Peace Corps and put money towards Peace Corps is because it’s those experiences that build us up and open our eyes that provide so much value to our country and to America. I mean, we started off this conversation talking about going abroad and feeling like what we wanted to experience was to connect with people and I think that’s really what Peace Corps does so well, and so I think your answer is totally valid and great.

ND: I appreciate that. I mean I think that I am hesitant of like– it’s hard to talk about making it through when I think about like this community exists with and without me. This is a group of people’s everyday life. I mean, I don’t think that I necessarily think that like me going to Rwanda was necessary for me to be humbled, like I don’t think it’s something that every American needs to do in order to be aware, or like a rite of passage. I don’t want to make it seem like that but I will say it allowed me to understand more about how the help that people need vs. the help that people think that they’re getting. And so I- that’s kind of more about what I mean by that in terms of practicality and there are a lot of great programs out there that support communities. And sometimes queer communities in other countries but I think that when you don’t think about things, like there were very well intentioned organizations that would come through and like give animals to families in my catchment area, my community. But they didn’t think about like how does the community see this animal, how will it be taken care of, is it fulfilling the need I want it to? So if X company thought that they were going to give this family a goat because they were going to get milk out of it for an indefinite period of time. Well, if you don’t vaccinate the goat, if you don’t educate like hey by the way, this goat is meant to milk, families aren’t– they’re gonna do what they typically do in that situation. Like they have meat for a few days. And so it’s not really fulfilling the thought that was created there or like the animal can get sick and die before the family can ever use it and it’s like here’s this great idea but there wasn’t a practical aspect of it. And like how I can relate to some well meaning organizations that support queer folk in other countries, like what kind of help do you think that you’re giving here? And I’m not saying all of them are like this but is the idea or thing that you’re releasing here, is it an invasive type of thing where it can’t be supported or are you empowering people that might get hurt by their community around things like that. And so I guess I’m creating a weird bridge here between like our talks about queer identity as well as thinking through like how the resources that are brought to a place can really be used. 

JT: Yeah, having studied international development, those kind of stories of goats going to the wrong place or trainings being done in a totally wrong way, those are scattered throughout the literature of what you study in development and I think that is where Peace Corps Volunteers have that great perspective on community insight and making sure that community input is included in projects and things like that. You know, except for often queer communities, unless it’s an HIV project but I can go off on that for hours; that was basically my thesis. 

ND: Well I mean I think it’s a great subject because Peace Corps in general does have projects that are specifically related to HIV or AIDS support kind of work but usually the queer part of that is left out. And maybe there’s a little bit of rightly so because it’s not everyone that comes in with HIV and AIDS is queer but I think there are different aspects and more of a conversation around that. 

JT: That reminds me of a project that went on in the Philippines when I was a volunteer. I think that the country had gotten some PEPFAR money or some kind of funding for these HIV trainings to go on. And so I was able to do not the original training but sort of like the echo of the training of trainers or something like that. So a site mate of mine was coming to my school to talk to my students and the balance that was agreed upon with me and my fellow coworkers was that the teachers wouldn’t be there and so that way students would feel a little safer talking about things of a sexual nature at school, however we were also told not to delve too far into LGBT topics, which just really sort of cuts the wind from your sails when maybe one of the most compelling reasons for having this training is now taken away from you and this whole community of people who were really highly represented amongst my students are now suddenly taken out of the conversation explicitly. 

ND: So true. I mean, I know that there were other volunteers who wanted to be more involved in like queer activism, and they were cautioned by our director like stay clear of that. And at the time, I felt very indignantly angry about it but now that I think about it and the more that I know about doing work, it’s a really big thing about safety. And not just your own but also like how the communities are affected and like who is being put in danger by this information, like that’s something that comes more into my mind, like are you creating a sustainable presence? And that brings me right back to being in that hospital room with the art materials and the kids. It’s like, here’s this great idea, and something that– I believe in the healing power of art, and that may sound cheesy and maybe it is, but if you’re not doing it in the capacity that this community is used to, it’s not going to be continued. And I don’t believe the art therapy was continued in that cancer clinic I was working in, and you know, who’s taking up the reins of the queer activism when you’re gone? And I recognize that not every volunteer in Peace Corps is white or white appearing, but I mean like, is the protection that was granted to the people that you’re working with because they’re affiliated with a white person and now they’re gone? Or like an American was powering this idea and now that they’re gone, who’s there? And some of it is a conscious decision and the other part is like of the people that you’re working with. I can see where treading lightly would be helpful.

JT: Yeah, and you know, your average Peace Corps Volunteer is 24, 25, something like that, maybe 23. And I’m not accusing you of this of course, but coming straight out of school and you’ve been in an environment most likely where you haven’t had to put these things down, you haven’t had to press pause on them, back to our boombox analogy from earlier. But then you come to this new cou– you’re throw into a new environment, you’re putting pause to this identity that has otherwise been on the table, and then you see this opportunity – a chance to plan that local pride parade or that training or that thing where maybe you can tap back into that identity for a minute. That’s a really tempting thing and I think you should be careful as the Volunteer to make sure that you’re doing that for the good of your community and not because this is a chance to kind of be yourself again in that environment.

ND: Exactly. And I’m not saying that like– I do think that you have to be intentional, which is like what you’re saying about figuring out what’s for you and what’s for others, because if I’m to– it’s great for you to be you. I think this idea of like– I don’t think that true selflessness exists, but that’s a current philosophical thing, but I do think it’s important to do things that [inaudible] you refill your cup, as I imagine any Peace Corps folks know that metaphor of like the cup filling. Like how is this idea of like your cup being filled, how is it affecting the people around you? 

JT: Yeah. Well, I am a little conscious of time and we are getting into some heavy territory here. So maybe this is a good point to pivot and start to head towards the end of our time together. I guess one of the last topics I want to cover with you is just kind of seeing if your experiences in Peace Corps, your time in Rwanda or even the work you’re doing now with VSPP, has any of that contributed to your career or like helped you develop skills or things like that that you think are useful or helpful or something like that?

ND: I think that there isn’t enough understanding of Peace Corps outside of like government agencies for people who make informed choices about– like if I include I did Peace Corps, some folks may not really know what Peace Corps does and they can see what I’ve put on there. I think that it is helpful when you’re applying for jobs with the federal government and as well as like state governments. People just have more of an awareness of what it is. But I would say outside of that like, I feel like I got a lot of valuable experience. I don’t know that that is what got me jobs at places and sometimes like I’ve had family members that are like, well do you feel like you kind of wasted your life or sacrificed your professional career to do this thing? And I’m like, I don’t think so. I think it’s a continuation. I was not going to do art therapy in Peace Corps. That’s not what I was there for. And I think that I want other people to know that when you come into Peace Corps, like you have a very specific niche that you’re doing and as far as creative therapies, I was very intentional that even though I am an art therapist, I’m an art therapist in the United States. That didn’t [inaudible] the confines of what art therapy is and the place where I’m at. So that wasn’t something that I utilized often but I did think about it a lot. But that wasn’t what you asked. It was more about how has service cha– I think that it was more about like my view points more. And that’s something that’s important to me now in terms of like [inaudible] and like speaking out and getting involved in international—

JT: I think that what you’re talking about really resonated with me. And you and I have I think discussed this in not a podcast setting, but my undergraduate degree is in clarinet performance. And you know, I was never the best clarinet player and I don’t play in a symphony and that was never really my career goal. But going into the Peace Corps certainly– a degree in music is maybe not the most obviously useful degree to be holding and walking into a developing country setting. That being said, I think that you can still make use of it and you can still find a way to have it develop you and add value, sometimes though not in the most obvious ways. The way I always think about this and have talked to candidates about it. If you sort of imagine these two versions of yourself: person A goes into the Peace Corps and does that and gains the two years of experience that we’ve talked about, gaining new perspectives, international voices, seeing a developing country in action, how other people live. All of that is sort of invaluable, it’s hard to quantify. The other version of yourself joins the workforce and sort of does whatever that thing is that you thought you would do, publishing, marketing, medicine, sales, what have you. And that version B of yourself has two extra years of relevant job experience. Maybe you’d make middle management faster. That’s great but is that really what you want to do in this world? Is that valuable to you and is that super important? I think that’s an important question. When you’re comparing yourself to other candidates who are going for the same jobs after you get back, that person who maybe has two more years of relevant experience – that’s great, but you are also this marketing person, this medical sales person who has seen the world, who can empathize with people, who can think at things in a creative or non-linear kind of way. And that’s the value add. You have to be the one and I think this is an RPCV skill that everyone needs to hone and develop, you have to be your own hype man. You have to do the translation work to the person who wants to hire you and explain, “I have the relevant skills, I have the degree, I haven’t used it in two years, but here’s all the ways that I as this RPCV am gonna add these new fresh perspectives that someone who maybe has a little more skill in this area just doesn’t have and they can’t get it because there’s only a few avenues for it.”

ND: I learned more about behavior change, and I think some of that is why I was recruited. The other part was that I worked in the hospital, which I think that to the person that found my application was like “maternal and child health? Somebody who worked in the hospital?” And I was like, “well, I worked as a – I worked on an in-patient psych unit, I wasn’t necessarily counseling people on dietary restrictions.” But I did get a taste of like how behavior change is slow, which is applicable to my job now as a counselor and a therapist. Behavior change is super slow and there’s a lot of systems in place that are preventing people from doing things that maybe they know. I think that most of the things that I taught as a maternal child health volunteer, I think people knew, like maybe what they should be doing, just like in the States, we know we should be eating healthy but we still get a burger when we’re feeling a certain way. It’s– people in general are efficient creatures and we like to do the things that are easy and that’s like the best and the worst part about ourselves. So I think that was what was also humbling, like these systems that are in place, like the community then with like water is a concern. But in the United States, there are still things that prevent people from doing things that may be within their best interest but it’s not practical.

JT: Okay so I think we’re just gonna ask you one final question here and hopefully this is a valuable question for those considering Rwanda in the future but do you have any advice, thoughts, tips for someone who is considering applying to Rwanda or like as we were talking about earlier Rwanda has sort of found them?

ND: So I mean Rwanda is an amazing country. I think that there’s not a lot of information about Rwanda is doing well. And like Rwanda’s also super small. My – the farthest volunteer from me was 9 hours away, which for some volunteers, that’s their closest volunteer. And it’s a small country so there’s plenty of opportunity to fully experience the place that you’re working in. I don’t necessarily consider Rwanda like my forever home, but I’m so glad that I lived there for nearly two years. I’m very appreciative of the communities that took me in. You know, I– yeah, it’s not an experience that I would change. So I think there’s plenty about Rwanda if for whatever it’s not on the top of your list, the countries that maybe you are afraid of or don’t think about. Like when I first saw Rwanda as a posting I thought, “oh hell no.” [laughs] Because I just didn’t know. I think that when you’re doing your search, it’s helpful to do a little research and see what’s out there. So I highly recommend Rwanda but it’s like any placement, there are pros and cons everywhere and ultimately you gotta do what’s right for you or what you think is right for you at the time and it’s okay if it ends up not being okay for you. 

JT: You know I think that that theme of making good choices, doing your research, doing what’s right for you is probably going to be a large theme of this podcast as we learn about different countries. One of the interesting things that I have seen play out as a former placement officer for the Peace Corps is how this idea of choice which is not something I had when I was looking at my Peace Corps service – how choice has really sort of created this marketplace of countries where for any number of reasons, some are more or less popular. And what you’re getting at is that some countries just don’t have nice curb appeal. I was the placement officer for five years for Fiji and it’s just not hard to sell Fiji. Everybody wants to do that, everyone thinks they would like to go to this island country and be near the beach. But Fiji has brand recognition, there’s the water. You know what Fiji is. For a country like Rwanda with a… checkered past?

ND: [laughs] That was so diplomatic.

JT: With something like that it’s just harder to convince people to go there. They’ve heard this one thing and it clouds their whole judgement, so I think what Nick is saying and what’s important to do is push past that, go a little deeper, think about the country and check the bias and make sure that there really is or isn’t something there for you that you would like. Don’t just take it at that initial reaction. And I think with that, we have sort of reached the end of our conversation. We’ve done a good job getting back out to the macro level of all of this and so I just want to give you, Nick, one final opportunity, final thoughts, ideas, things you want to plug. Take it away.

ND: I just want to express my appreciation for being interviewed, for being the guinea pig, so to speak. But also very appreciative to be a part of this organization, to have you as a co-chair, like it’s ultimately so appreciative. And for those listening, I’m glad that you took a listen. If you ever have any questions, you’re more than welcome to reach out to me personally. I think that I have like my email– or you can get in touch with me through the Peace Corps email. You’re more than welcome, so thanks again, Justin. I really appreciate it and thank you all.

JT: No, no, really, Nick, thank you for all that you have done and for being willing to step into this and be the guinea pig and learn all this with me. If you out there, listeners, have enjoyed today’s content, we invite you back for more. We’re hoping that this is going to be a monthly series so we will be putting this out in November of 2024 so check us out again in December. Most likely our next guest is going to be our other board member, Bill Sweigart, who served in Africa back in the early Peace Corps days. Bill is full of some really wonderful stories so I do hope you will spend some time getting to know Bill with me. If you are enjoying or are interested in delving deeper or being connected into our community, please visit our website: www.lgbtqirpcv.org. You can also reach out with email questions to connect with an RPCV, to find others. Our email address is lgbtqirpcv@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you and to sharing more stories in the future. Thanks, bye.