In this interview, you’ll hear from Erez Hatch-Tuchman, a Peace Corps Health volunteer in Namibia. Erez shares what daily life looks like, the work being done, and how service has shaped their personal and professional growth. You’ll learn about housing, cultural differences, project work, language learning, and what it’s like to live and work in a new country. This interview offers a real look into Peace Corps service and what future volunteers can expect.
Table of Contents
- Volunteer Experience and Motivation
- Living Arrangements
- Secondary Projects
- Training
- Practical Tips and Language Learning
- Social Identity
- Impact of Media and Final Thoughts
Volunteer Experience and Motivation
1. What do you do as a Peace Corps Health volunteer in Namibia?
My host organization provides social services to struggling families, while also running a foster home with a group of kids in our care. My usual work involves helping my co-workers plan and implement community-based activities. Then I get to hanging out with the children in our care after that’s said and done.
A few days per week, I’ll also go over to my local clinic, where I’ve helped community workers trace people living with HIV and refer them to services such as counseling and adherence groups. I also like to help the pharmacy in organizing its medication stock and preparing prescription orders.
2. Why did you decide to join the Peace Corps and serve in Namibia?
Serving in the Peace Corps was always in the back of my mind in high school and college. My aunt served in Guatemala, and many of my grandmother’s close friends served in the first cohorts in the 60s. I ended up studying International Affairs in college, and as my senior year came and went, I was looking for opportunities after graduation. The Peace Corps seemed like a great opportunity to gain practical experience while living in a place that I would probably never think to go to otherwise.
When applying, I chose education or economic development as my sectors, and I chose to serve wherever needed. A few weeks later, the placement office responded to my application with a post in Community Health in Namibia. I was confused that the post was outside of my chosen sectors, but after looking at the description, I decided to go for it anyway.
Living Arrangements
3. What is your housing like in Namibia?
I share a 2-bedroom house with a roommate next to the office where I work. My site is urban – in a large town of 35,000 people. I’m also very close to the regional capital, a large town with about 90,000 people in the urban area.
Secondary Projects
4. What secondary projects have you worked on during your service?
Youth-led bakery
My host organization has a field office where a youth-led bakery makes some of the best bread I’ve ever tasted. The bakery currently runs in a small and cramped corner of an office building. That’s why we applied for and received a small grant from the Peace Corps to help purchase new tools for the bakery as we plan to expand it and move it into a new building with more workspace.
Digital skills
Digital skills are also in very high demand in Namibia. I’ve designed flyers, posters, and other informational/promotional materials for org events; I’ve also downloaded movies and music for the kids and helped my colleagues draft reports using Microsoft Word and Excel. I’m also planning to teach my colleagues how to use Canva.
Training
5. How did Peace Corps training prepare you for service?
I’m really happy with PST (Pre-Service Training), and I thought it did a great job preparing me for most of the challenges of service. One of the highlights was our role-play during the fourth week.
The staff compiled a list of hypothetical scenarios based on real experiences of previous volunteers. Then they picked volunteers to act out the scenarios on the list. The scenarios included things like strangers asking you for money or asking to be your boyfriend/girlfriend, witnessing theft/violence, and stalking. The acting was really funny, and after each scenario, we did a debrief to talk about how we would actually handle those scenarios in real life.
I share that anecdote because I think that PST was at its best when the staff told the volunteers about/showed us the culture and everyday life in Namibia, and the volunteers had to think about how they would respond.
Practical Tips and Language Learning
6. What would you tell future volunteers to pack—or leave behind?
Don’t be afraid of packing non-essential items. If you like board games, bring your favorite board games. A hard drive with a lot of storage space is great if you want to have movies or music at site. If you are religious, bring your prayer book or whatever object makes you feel closest to your faith.
7. How has language learning been for you in Namibia?
My local language was Oshindonga. It’s one of the main dialects of Oshiwambo, which is the most widely spoken indigenous language in Namibia (English and Afrikaans are common lingua francas).
When it came to studying, I found that maintaining a routine is super helpful. 15-30 mins of reviewing vocab and reading/listening to the language and trying to pick apart the words every day was a huge help. I’ve also been using the short stories on Storybooksnamibia.net to keep up with studying at site. It’s part of a larger collection of websites for local languages in lots of countries where PCVs serve, so it’s a super useful tool to continue language learning at the site (provided you have an Internet connection).
Social Identity
8. What advice do you have for volunteers who share your identity?
On Religion
The majority of people in my host country are Protestant Christians, and they take their religion very seriously, so the church is a huge part of social life. But most people I run into also have a very open and accepting attitude towards other faiths. As long as you can claim to believe in god, people are very understanding.
For atheists and agnostic people, things get a little trickier. Because religion is heavily tied to people’s moral conscience, you might draw a lot of suspicion for being an atheist because host country nationals take that to mean you have no morals.
Impact of Media and Final Thoughts
9. If you share content online, how has that shaped your service?
I don’t have a blog or social media page for sharing content from my service, but other people have, and it impacts a lot of the dynamics we have with our counterparts. Namibia is a small and tightly-knit society, so my counterparts tell me about my friends’ posts and videos pretty regularly.
Erez’s experience as a volunteer in Namibia shows how varied Peace Corps service can be. One day might involve helping families access health services, while the next could mean supporting a youth bakery project, organizing medicine at a clinic, or teaching digital skills to coworkers. His story also gives a clear picture of daily life in Namibia, from language learning and cultural adjustment to building strong relationships within the community. For anyone considering Peace Corps service, Erez’s interview is a reminder that flexibility, curiosity, and patience often matter more than having everything figured out before you arrive.
Are you thinking about joining the Peace Corps? If you’re curious about service and ready for something new, apply today. Like Erez, you can live abroad, work with communities, and grow in ways you didn’t expect. Apply to the Peace Corps and take the next step.
The content of this post does not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Government, the Peace Corps, or Namibian Government.
