Today we’re talking to Jonathan and Carissa Woodruff, a Peace Corps couple in South Africa. They both are working as Education volunteers. What Jonathan and Carissa share gives us a better understanding of the work volunteers do. We learn about the challenges, rewards, and personal growth that happens from volunteering in a new place, especially for couples. They talk about living in a different country, working with local people, and dealing with surprise situations. Join us as we learn about Jonathan and Carissa’s journey and see how volunteering with Peace Corps can change lives.
Table of Contents
- Volunteer Experience and Motivation
- Living Arrangements and Cultural Integration
- Surprises and Challenges
- Practical Tips and Language Learning
- Partner-Specific Questions
- Impact of Media and Final Thoughts
Volunteer Experience and Motivation
1. Can you tell us more about serving as a couple in South Africa?
We assist with English literacy at two rural primary schools in South Africa. Carissa volunteers at one school, and Jonathan volunteers at another school about 5 minutes away (walking).
2. What motivated you to join the Peace Corps and choose South Africa?
We always wanted to volunteer in another country. It’s something we’ve talked about since before we were married, and then 11 years into our marriage we still hadn’t done anything like that. Peace Corps was on our radar at the time, but it wasn’t a frontrunner, after doing some more research, we applied for Peace Corps.
We applied to serve where we were needed most, and the Peace Corps invited us to volunteer at primary schools in South Africa to assist with English literacy, which was surprising since Carissa is a nurse by profession, and Jonathan was a high school math teacher for a year. Ultimately, we accepted the invitation and were excited to try something new.
Living Arrangements and Cultural Integration
3. Tell us more about your home situation
We have an excellent host family with host parents and four host siblings, all adults working in other areas outside the village. We stay in our own dwelling on their property. At the moment we also have three dogs on the property, cats, lots of chickens, and cows as well.
Our village is rural. South Africa has a lot of different cultures, and our village and the neighboring one has people from at least five cultures. That means the languages blend together a little bit as people learn different ways of saying things. In fact, it can be seen as an act of solidarity to use multiple languages in the same sentence.
As for the food, we take a public taxi once every few weeks to the grocery store. It’s similar to the grocery stores in the USA. We even cook similar meals as we do in the US, just with different ingredients and a small amount of creativity.
4. Any memorable experiences or interactions you’ve had?
We’ll always remember our time with people in the community, friends and host family. Fun times always involve food and good people, and we’ll remember those.
Surprises and Challenges
5. What has surprised you most about challenges in South Africa?
Jonathan – One challenging thing has been adjusting to the culture of time and planning. I like to know all the details ahead of time, to know who/what/when/where… all of that. It took me a while actually to figure out that there are culturally different values at play around those logistical things. I’m guessing the USA is probably very extreme in our values around time, and I’m no exception, so there was a learning curve for me.
Carissa – One thing for me was the heat of summertime. Also it was so hard to come here where there aren’t any mountains. It’s very flat and dry. I missed my mountains and green trees.
6. What challenges did you face while working on projects?
Jonathan – I think the biggest challenge for me was trying to find the intersection of what the Peace Corps expects of me, what my school needs, and what I want to do / what gives me energy. A lot of projects fall through for various reasons, so I had to learn a lot of things the hard way just by trying different things and learning a lot throughout the way. Now I have a more informed and realistic plan heading into 2025 that I’m happy with.
Carissa – My school deals with a lot of challenges that can kind of distract from projects. It’s been like that since we got here. For example, we got hit by a windstorm just before the end of the 2024 school year, and the wind picked up one of the roofs and dropped it right in the middle of the schoolyard. Nobody was at the school when the storm hit, so thankfully nobody got hurt. But we’re entering 2025 with no roof on one of the buildings, so there are a lot of challenges like this.
7. Could you share some of the secondary projects you have been involved?
There are definitely opportunities to do fun and extra things. For example, Jonathan loves chess (find me on chess.com… my username is HikeItAll… we should play correspondence chess!), so he has an informal chess club that takes place during recess.
Practical Tips and Language Learning
8. Anything that you packed or didn’t pack that you’d like to tell future South Africa volunteers?
The standard packing list they give you is pretty handy. One thing we brought that’s useful is headlamps. We wear them any time we venture out at night to go to the outhouse, or to dump dishwater, or on occasion when we’re walking back home late from someone’s house. It helps to avoid accidental encounters with snakes.
Jonathan – I mistakenly thought we weren’t going to go on any vacations while we were here, so I neglected to pack things like hiking shoes.
Carissa – You can get pretty much anything here. We were surprised at how much access we have to things here, even some of the same brands from the US.
9. How has learning the language been?
So, we actually learned two different languages. Jonathan learned Sepedi, and Carissa learned Setswana.
One interesting thing about South Africa is people speak a lot of English. It’s the most common second language people speak. So, we actually communicate in English a lot both in our village and at the schools.
There’s no need to learn any of the language before staging. People in our cohort were learning three languages. Some of us were learning Setswana, others Sepedi, others Xitsonga. But a different cohort might learn other languages still, such as isiZulu, etc. Some of the languages are similar to each other, but others are very different, so we’d be afraid you might try to learn one language at home only to find you have to learn a completely different language for site.
Partner-Specific Questions
10. As a Peace Corps couple in South Africa, how has your experience differed from that of individual volunteers?
Our CDO (Country Desk Officer based at PC HQ in DC) visited us at site and asked us what disadvantages there are to volunteering as a couple, and we said, “None.”
That was early into our time here, but still, to this day, we wouldn’t say there are any disadvantages. One thing to be aware of is that one person might be feeling super low and the other one is riding on a cloud, and you might switch the next day, or you might be riding those emotions for a while.
For us, we haven’t often been on the same level emotionally. Usually one of us is down and the other is up, and then later the other person is down and the other person is up. There were times when one of us was ready to go home and the other one wanted to stay, so you have to be prepared to deal with that. You really have to love the other person, or else selfishness might turn your difficult situation into an impossible one.
There are a ton of upsides though. We get to talk to each other all the time. At the end of the day, we can debrief about how our day went, or we can process through difficult things together. We have a built-in partnership that makes the experience free of loneliness and full of support.
Also, Carissa has strengths, and Jonathan has different strengths, so we can really blend those together to do better than we could do alone. Carissa is incredible with building relationships with the kids and the community, and Jonathan excels at language and technology things, so it works well.
11. Has being a couple affected your integration into the community?
Being a couple in South Africa has definitely affected our integration for the better.
#1 Carissa gets minimally harassed. Sexual harassment can be a problem for single female volunteers, but people in our village know that Carissa is a married woman, and they respect that.
#2 Carissa loves to bake, and we often give baked goods to people in the community and sit and talk with them to start and maintain relationships. Going together as a couple to people’s houses is helpful, even to motivate us to get out the door and to be comfortable with making connections.
#3 People appreciate our relationship. We’ve been told by multiple people that they notice we love each other. I think it’s nice for anyone in the world to see a positive relationship. We’ve also been told by multiple people that we are “twins” because we do everything together, which is not really the cultural norm but seems to be appreciated nonetheless.
As for cultural differences, there’s nothing too big. One thing that’s different is men tend to be in one area and women in another. For example, when preparing for a wedding feast, you’ll find the women on one side of the yard cooking salads and things, and you’ll find the men on the other side of the yard cooking the meat.
12. What advice would you give to other couples considering Peace Corps service?
The first thing is to have a good relationship before volunteering.
Things can be intense sometimes, and if things aren’t already good in the relationship, things could potentially become really difficult. Imagine not having a good relationship, things in service are really tough and all you want to do is to be alone, but you are stuck in a tight space together where it’s extremely hot, there are lots of flies… you can see how toxic things could get.
The other reason it’s important to have a good relationship before coming is because it helps you to remember who you were as a couple before you started volunteering. This experience can really change you for better or worse; it can change you as an individual, and just the fact that you are experiencing different things in a new environment can stretch your relationship in a way that hasn’t been stretched before. So being really clear on who you are as a couple before you come into it can serve as a lighthouse when darkness falls and you start to forget who you are / were.
Also, embrace personal growth, and talk through it. If you’re not learning and growing, you’re probably not doing it right. And sometimes you can learn and grow in different ways, but you can always grow differently together.
Impact of Media and Final Thoughts
13. How do you think a blog contributes to your overall mission as a Peace Corps volunteer?
Jonathan – So I actually made a “community blog” or “wiki” for all Peace Corps volunteers called Peace Chickens. It’s hard to start a blog and to rank on Google high enough so people will actually read it, unless of course, all you want is for your friends and family to read your blog, in which case I would recommend Substack.
Otherwise, check out PeaceChickens.com. You can learn from other people’s experiences and also share your own tips, tricks, learnings, and advice. Peace Chickens is brand new, so maybe you can be one of the first contributors.
14. Any last comments or observations you’d like to pass on to future South Africa volunteers?
Doing Peace Corps is really hard. It’s been hard in ways that we could not have anticipated. We thought it would be hard because we would have to do our laundry by hand (we do), maybe we wouldn’t have running water (we don’t), and things like that. None of those things are what makes this time so difficult. It’s other things.
Jonathan – I came into this thinking I would be doing a service for others and that it would give me lots of warm fuzzy feelings for being so generous. That’s not at all what this is. It’s not about what I can give; it’s about exchanging cultures and ideas and love with the people around us, and that’s it. In fact, when you take personal growth and self-learning into account, I’ve taken way more from this experience than I can give. It’s been really hard not in the ways I’ve expected, but at the end of the day, if I can mentally set those things aside and focus on what really matters, I can say that I’ve learned and grown.
Carissa – I came into this experience knowing that I would be pushed more than ever before. People told me before I came here that I would be changed forever. Now, I know that to be true, but I also have changed in ways I didn’t think that I would. Coming from a health background and going into a new area of education also has stretched me and taught me so much about myself and even my interests for the future. There have been so many beautiful moments that have come from being here and some that I will cherish for the rest of my life. I agree with Jonathan in that I have taken more from this experience than I have given.
What are you waiting for? Opportunities like this don’t come often. If you have a passion for service and an adventurous spirit like Jonathan and Carissa‘s, apply to the Peace Corps today. Expand your horizons, push your limits, and create positive impact as a volunteer. You never know how serving as a Peace Corps volunteer could change your life.
The content of this post does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Government, the Peace Corps, or South Africa Government.
