The first-ever Peace Corps volunteers in Myanmar have arrived in the country.
It’s a small group of six, and the program also appears to be starting small, with the English-language focused teachers based only in Yangon Region, according to an interview with the country director in the Myanmar Times.
Peace Corps volunteers are normally spread out all over the country depending on facts on the ground.
It is plausible that some areas were considered either unsafe or unstable because of the presence of armed groups or other factors.
Plans for the program seem to have shifted over time.
About 20-25 people were supposed to make up the first group, and the timing is slightly later than the “late 2015” arrival forecast by the White House in its 2014 statement announcing the Peace Corps Myanmar deal.
Elections were part of the delay, the country director, Maura Fulton, said in her interview with the paper.
Many saw the announcement in 2014 as only the latest in a series of moves to enhance US-Myanmar relations.
For the Peace Corps to operate in a country it has to be invited by the prospective host, and the invitation often serves a symbolic sign of improving ties between the US and the respective country involved.
In the most recent example, the US announced that the Peace Corps would come to Vietnam during President Barack Obama’s historic visit there in May. It will also be the first-ever program in Vietnam.
Around the same time that the invitation was announced here in 2014, Obama referred to Burma as “Myanmar” even though the US still uses the pre-1989 name.
Ambassador Scot Marciel has suggested that the official name change could be any day now.
Myanmar will be the 141st to work with the Peace Corps, which was first established in 1961.
In the surrounding region, four countries (Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, the Philippines and soon, Vietnam) work with the US government-funded organization.
We wish the small group luck as they embark on their assignments, which typically amount to three months of training and two years living in the same village, town or city.
From the look of the Peace Corps Myanmar Facebook page, where photos of the volunteers show them learning how to tie longyis, we think they’ll be just fine.
