If you haven’t read anything about the budget problems the Peace Corps is facing, you can start here.  President Bush promised to double the Peace Corps but he hasn’t done so.  Obama said he would double it as well, so here’s to hoping without much hope.

Anyway, the budget issues are doing more than limiting the number of volunteers and pushing back accepted volunteers to later dates, its also affecting Peace Corps volunteers who are in the field.  I’ve heard of training times being shortened from twelve to seven weeks, of money for language tutors being eliminated, and of cuts in the equipment that the Peace Corps provides.

A few days ago I received information on the first few days of my training schedule.  It was great to have, and it answered a lot of questions that I had.  But there were a few unexpected things as well.  First off, we are required to bring our own bicycle helmets.  This is a reversal of the Guinea welcome book which stated that bicycles and bicycle helmets will be provided to all volunteers[1].  Second, volunteers used to get French-English dictionaries from the Peace Corps, but we will need to bring our own.

Those are two small things, but I worry that small cuts indicate deeper financial issues.  Especially for volunteers in regions of high inflation (the inflation rate in Guinea was 23% in 2007[2]), inflation can substantially affect the purchasing power of their living allowance.  Living allowances for volunteers are limited to a 10% annual increase, larger increases must be approved by the Peace Corps administration (sorry, no source), something I don’t see as likely in the middle of a budget crunch.

Though I haven’t seen it referenced in articles on the Peace Corp’s budget issues, I suspect part of the reason for the Peace Corps sudden budget shortfall is the dramatic decline of the value of the dollar.  For an organization funded in dollars but operating overseas, this could have some significant impacts.  And that may be a good thing, because the value of the dollar has been on the rise again in the last few months (in fact, since the middle of 2007 relative to the Guinean Franc[3]).

All of this is not meant to frighten anyone (especially the parental units).  I just hope that Obama is willing to do what can be done to support the Peace Corps.

And long story short, now I have to buy some more stuff and I’m dangerously close to running out of money, not to mention packing space.

FOOTNOTES
1. Guinea Welcome Book.  Peace Corps. pg 32.  http://www.peacecorps.gov/welcomebooks/gnwb675.pdf↑
2. CIA World Factbook.  https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gv.html. ↑
3. Yahoo! Finance.  http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?from=USD&to=GNF&amt=1&t=5y. ↑