In this interview, you’ll hear from Jocelyn Haines, a Peace Corps Community Economic Development (CED) volunteer in Timor-Leste. Jocelyn 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 and Cultural Integration
- Surprises and Challenges
- Advice and Support
- 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 CED volunteer in Timor-Leste?
When I first arrived at site, I was scheduled to work 6 days a week with three organizations that focus on horticulture and poultry, local youth-led tourism, and a credit union/savings and loans cooperative, respectively. Two of these work sites are about a 10-minute walk from my house, but one is around 45 minutes away (I certainly get my steps in!).
Although this rigorous schedule slowly dissolved into a more flexible “go to work when I am needed only” kind of deal, my first year was very productive in that I supported members across all three organizations organizations in basic business skills and employability trainings (marketing, accounting, project design and management, digital literacy, Microsoft office, Canva, interviewing and public speaking in English) along with 82 children who participated in my basic conversational English classes. I accompanied my youth tourism group in hosting a rice planting festival, a couple of tourist groups, and catering for various social and cultural events in the village, as well as the capital city of Dili.
Now in my second year, I am focusing on implementing two small grant projects at two of my organizations that we designed at the Peace Corps-led Project Design and Management workshop the year prior. The first project is training 18 (mostly female) local leaders of my credit union group to strengthen their digital literacy and accounting skills, improving efficiency, accuracy, and sustainability for the cooperative’s 269 members and growing. The second project works with my horticulture organization to build its internal organizational capacity to expand its local fresh poultry production with the goal of improving child nutrition through school meals and reducing community dependence on imported (frozen) protein.
As these projects begin wrapping up in the following months, I will turn my focus towards individualized mentorship to my community members, finalizing materials and reports to hand off, and enjoying my remaining time with my community.
2. Why did you decide to join the Peace Corps and serve in Timor-Leste?
I decided to join the Peace Corps early in my senior year of undergrad in college after learning about the program from a peer who joined the Peace Corps in Samoa the year prior. Upon further research, I was drawn to the Peace Corps because it seems well-suited towards providing its volunteers with in-depth intercultural integration and the capacity to implement community-level change that can add unique value to further education or jobs. I am currently interested in pursuing a career in the economic development field, so this opportunity felt like an appropriate test run to see if I am compatible with this field.
While I opted for the “Send Me Anywhere” option (with a few filters because I need a little structure), I was matched as a “Business Advisory Volunteer” in Timor-Leste. I often joke with the staff that I accepted the interview first before looking up where Timor-Leste was on a map, but after a few quick Google searches, I felt that the combination of it being a very young country in Southeast Asia, a collectivist culture, and a chance to fully immerse myself in a culture and language different from my own was too good of an opportunity to pass up.
Now 17 months in-country, I am still grateful that I made it to Timor-Leste as it has been an incredible place where I have grown in skills, confidence, comfort level, and acquired a very large, loving extended family.
Living Arrangements and Cultural Integration
3. What is your housing like in Timor-Leste?
I live with a host family in a rural village in Aileu Municipality (aka the breadbasket of the country) and about 1-2 hours from the capital city of Dili (depending on your mode of transportation). My host family consists of my host mother, older brother, and younger sister (my host father works abroad in England, so I have never met him in person).
My house itself is quite nice by local standards with tiled floors (that are actually quite chilly), concrete walls, a western-style toilet, electricity (we even have a flat-screen TV), running water, and a beautiful view of the nearby lake encircled by mountains and rice paddies. I have my own room with a door that locks, a large window, basic furniture, and walls that I can decorate. Our porch and kitchen are the social hubs of my house, with people gathering to play music, tell stories, cook and bake together, sit around the fire, and eat (I am renowned in the village for piling on the chilis with every type of abundant fresh vegetables and fruits we grow here).
My routine at home when I don’t have work often includes sweeping and mopping the floors in the morning, laundry (we recently got a small washing machine – How Posh-Corps!), helping my family cook, sitting around the fire, watching my little sister, and sometimes helping out in our garden and rice paddies.
4. What moments or interactions stand out during your service?
It is very difficult to select just a handful of memorable moments or interactions from my service, but the top two that stand out are planting and harvesting rice with my community and participating in community social events.
Every December to March, my entire village mobilizes to help plant each family’s rice paddies, rain or shine. The process is slow but steady, from preparing the rice seedlings for planting, to plowing and flooding the rice paddies, to being stooped over in a long line of people rapidly pushing a few stalks of rice into the watery mud. After several hours of back-breaking work, everyone sits down to enjoy a tasty lunch prepared by the paddies’ owner and admires the patchwork of rice fields surrounding our lake.
After carefully monitoring water levels in the rice paddies, it’s time to harvest from May to August! Once again, everyone heads out to the now golden rice fields – scythe in hand – and collects the rice stalks in bunches to then separate the kernels from the stalk, dry in the sun, de-shell, and finally eat!
And of course, one must balance work with play! From cheering on the local men’s soccer team as their unofficial photographer, to becoming a seasoned member of the party decoration and kitchen teams (preparation begins at least 2 days in advance with little sleep), to dancing all night until sunrise, to having mini concerts and late-night karaoke on my porch with my family’s music equipment, have all become a beloved part of life here.
Not only are these events chances to learn more about Timorese culture, but they are a chance to share stories, document fun memories together through fun photos and videos, and enjoy the fruits of our labor together.
Surprises and Challenges
5. What has surprised you most about living or working in Timor-Leste?
Despite having traveled quite a bit internationally prior to starting the Peace Corps and having interned in Uganda and Vietnam during undergrad (both collectivist cultures by American standards), I was still surprised at the level of interconnectedness between people, especially as you get more and more rural.
Everyone knows everyone (and everyone’s business), and word travels faster than wildfire. When making decisions or handling conflict, the group’s opinion is prioritized over any individual’s. Furthermore, “island time” as we call it here is very real – things will happen when they happen! I often tell people that it is more important here that you greet people on the street on the way to a meeting and be late rather than arrive on time and ignore people along the way.
Another surprise was the diversity of such a tiny tropical country, roughly the same size as the state of Connecticut. Where I am located in the center of the country, it gets cold enough to see your breath in the early dawn, while in some sites (particularly near the coasts), you sweat the minute you step out of the shower. Each of the country’s 13 municipalities has multiple local languages, distinct traditions and superstitions, individual tais cloth patterns, cuisines, and even growing seasons. I have really enjoyed visiting other volunteers’ sites and marveling at how different our experiences are.
6. What challenges have you faced in your CED work, and how did you respond?
I am going to echo the words of a fellow CED volunteer and say that the biggest challenge of working in community economic development in a rural, low-resource setting is the fact that you have to be okay with putting a lot of time, creativity, and effort in for very minuscule output. As much as you try to include stakeholders and participants in the planning process, my experience has been that they are not going to meet your efforts 50/50, and drop out is inevitable for a variety of reasons.
Another major challenge is that the work in CED is very, very broad, making it difficult to predict what will be asked of you at site. You could be asked to do anything from fixing Excel sheets to planting vegetables to sell to teaching English (we joke that we are also part education volunteer). For some, this wide variance can be difficult because you do not feel properly trained or qualified for everything (or anything) that is asked of you.
To mitigate these frustrations, I have utilized three tactics to mitigate my feelings of discouragement and incompetence:
- First, setting very low or even no expectations makes the small output I achieve feel more significant. Knowing that drop out is bound to happen (it is not necessarily a reflection of my performance), I take it as a positive thing that I can focus more on the people who are truly committed to working with me.
- Second, I make intentional efforts to keep including the key people in the discussion (after all, they should have the most ownership of the activity), but when it feels like I am single-handedly dragging everyone else along, I drop it. It is not my duty as a PCV to be the catalyst of change but rather a bridge to the organization’s goals. If they are no longer interested or able to pursue it, it doesn’t benefit me to keep pushing it either.
- And finally, I was honest with my community about what my actual skills and experiences are so that they can create (somewhat) realistic expectations of me – remember, both parties are doing a dance to get to know the other’s abilities and boundaries, especially in the first few months
7. What secondary projects have you worked on during your service?
Although my three primary organizations and various host family obligations keep me busy, I did have time during my first year to teach a 6-month basic English class over 80 young children in my community, including my younger sister (11 of them were awarded certificates).
Now in my second year, I have had a request from another local organization to provide a short accounting workshop for its members, and am considering facilitating a resume/CV writing workshop for the youth in my community, many of whom are looking at job prospects abroad.
Advice and Support
8. What advice would you give to future CED volunteers in Timor-Leste?
I had mentioned above that it is important to be honest with your community about your abilities. That being said, don’t be scared off of doing something just because you have minimal experience in it – the internet exists, and you can also rely on personal connections or other PCVs to help you out!
Furthermore, I am someone who struggles with setting firm boundaries, and it took a toll on me during my first 6-8 months at site to the point where I felt that time for myself and my host family was severely compromised. Although I wanted to be able to say yes to as many requests as possible, I felt that I did not have the capacity to constantly follow up and make sure all of them could be completed to the best of my abilities.
My lesson learned from this experience is that since your schedule is very much in your hands as a CED volunteer (compared to ED, which follows the academic calendar), communicating your boundaries to your counterpart(s) early is crucial for your peace of mind. If you are unsure how to do this (like me), you can ask your host family or Peace Corps staff to help you devise culturally-appropriate ways to have these conversations.
9. How did Peace Corps training prepare you for service?
Pre-Service Training (PST)
Pre-Service Training (PST) was 9 weeks in a large town called Gleno (it can vary between cohorts), where we lived with host families and had structured training 6 days a week. Our language and culture trainings were 4 hours in the morning in cohorts (4-5 people each) and 4 hours of technical trainings in a central training location or out in the community doing practicums. Although the schedules were generally the same, all trainings were split by CED and ED volunteers, with the exception of Saturday half-day cultural trainings, where we were all together.
In our spare time, we were encouraged to spend time with our host families (learn how to wash clothes, cook, go to cultural events and church, and practice the language we learned with them), playing badminton or soccer with the staff, or visiting other volunteers’ houses. On a personal note, I didn’t start to really feel confident in my language or integration abilities until about a month into my training, but progress will come slowly but surely if you give yourself the grace to look funny, make mistakes, and feel humbled (you WILL feel as competent as your 5-year-old younger sibling for a while).
In-Service Training (IST)
In-Service Training (IST) was a major milestone in that it marked the end of your “site jail,” aka the first 3 months you must remain at your site in order to integrate into your organization’s/schools and local community. All of us volunteers were very happy to see each other in person again and compare experiences (everyone’s site has its own charms and challenges). The trainings themselves focused on reflection on what we’d learned so far at site, planning for the impact we want to make in our first year, how to use the Peace Corps internal reporting system VRG, OpenSpace Technology workshops, and some more technical trainings based on a survey that was sent out ahead of time asking what kinds of skills we needed at site.
Project Design Management (PDM)
Project Design Management (PDM) was a multiple-day workshop we completed with our identified work counterpart(s), where the Peace Corps staff walked us through the process of how to identify, design, implement, monitor, and evaluate community-led projects at our sites. This gave us a chance to brainstorm or further refine project ideas and create a concrete plan of action in collaboration with our counterparts.
Mid-Service Training (MST)
Mid-Service Training (MST) was structured more loosely after getting PCV feedback from previous trainings and consisted of structured time for peer-to-peer conversations and knowledge sharing, guest speakers, technical training refreshers, more OpenSpace Technology workshops, a report of our post’s impact in the past year, and logistics about the second year at site and beyond (extending, re-adjustment support, closing service, etc.). I also took the opportunity to take another Language Proficiency Interview (LPI) to get a better sense of where my Tetun language skills were at (you can also test local languages as well as Bahasa Indonesian and Portuguese).
The main takeaway from all of these trainings is that your feedback to staff does matter, and it’s important to build good relationships with your post staff because a relationship of mutual trust and respect will create the most productive and positive experience for everyone.
Practical Tips and Language Learning
10. What would you tell future volunteers to pack—or leave behind?
My best recommendations for you to pack are: gifts (stationary, clothing, and everyday tools are favorites here), a nice water-bottle (although avoid a straw unless you have a good method to clean it), small and lightweight decorations for your room (photos, cards, notes, paperweight), a few command hooks, undergarments (it is hard to find new ones here), shoes if you have big feet, silica gel packets (as mold is a major problem here during rainy season), and some way to document your experiences. Additionally, if you wear glasses, bring two pairs as they can get very dirty and damaged throughout your two years here (Peace Corps can also help you replace them, but they may not be in a flattering style).
For the sake of your aching shoulders (you will be moving ALL of your luggage around several times), I would strongly recommend that you do not bring: power banks (you will be given one), physical books (maybe only 1-2 favorites if necessary), toiletries of any sort (unless you need a specific brand), general medications (Peace Corps can provide them for you), and food from home (maybe only bring a few snacks to get you through the first few weeks of adjustment).
Most of the things you need for daily life can be found here (if not in your village, then in the capital city of Dili), so don’t worry too much. If you travel abroad during your vacations, you can also buy nicer things that will feel like such a treat while you are in-country!
11. How has language learning been for you in Timor-Leste?
Before coming to Timor-Leste (and even now), I would not say that I have a particular talent for learning languages, but Tetun is a relatively easy language to learn as it does not have tenses and things sound as they appear written. That being said, one major challenge is that because it is a relatively newly adopted language (historically, most people used their local area’s dialect to communicate rather than a common language), its grammar and spelling rules are quite ill-defined, and its limited vocabulary means that it draws a lot of words from Portuguese and Bahasa Indonesian (and a little English).
Prior to boarding my flight to Timor-Leste, I did not know any Tetun, so my first week in the capital was a bit of a struggle (I think I could have pursued a career in mime), but the Peace Corps staff was so patient, and my Language and Cultural Facilitator (LCF) was amazing. Her method of teaching my small group and me was that our language lessons every day were completely in Tetun (when we were stuck, we could use a little English), pushing us to implement the language quickly rather than worrying about direct translations from English. Although there were some growing pains with this method, I think that being “thrown in the deep end” and being completely immersed in the language both at training and at home with my host family (none of them spoke any English) forced me out of my comfort zone and expedited my acquisition of basic Tetun.
By the time I swore in and came to Aileu, I felt that I had the basic ability to hold daily conversations and learn about my community. Once at site, I did not make any significant effort to learn new vocabulary, but rather built it up through osmosis from constantly socializing with my community and through teaching various courses that often required looking up technical terms ahead of time.
Currently, I feel very confident conducting all of my work in Tetun and was even told I “talk like a Timorese person” by another PCV’s family member. In my second year at site, I am making minor efforts to learn the local language, Mambae, to the amusement of my community.
Social Identity
12. How has your personal identity shaped your service experience?
I am the youngest volunteer in my cohort (and the previous one), a heterosexual female in a committed long-distance relationship, short and average-to petite build, non-religious, Chinese-born adoptee, an only-child, and “the most introverted extrovert” as my friends call me.
Being a young, un-intimidating female means that I am perceived as quite approachable in my community and am able to make friends quite easily. At my site, the majority of my close social circle are young adult males, which is something that the Peace Corps advises us to approach with caution (I feel this varies greatly depending on the culture at your site). Although I am not sure if my dynamic with youth of the opposite sex would be different if I were single, I have personally found that I am able to blend easily between male and female social groups as a foreigner who is known to be in a committed relationship, and can put up with lots of light-hearted teasing!
Initially, I was worried about being openly non-religious in a country where religion is so prevalent, but it has turned out not to be a major issue. Although some people are kind of confused when I say I don’t believe in any God, it is generally met with acceptance. Out of respect, I tell my family that I can accompany them to church for major holidays such as Christmas and while they pray at events, but I will not participate any further (such as receive communion or cross myself before eating).
Finally, I enjoy that I am able to share both American and Chinese culture, as well as share stories of my travels abroad. Being adopted is a little difficult to explain, but people generally understand the idea of someone else’s parents raising you and tend to view it in a positive light (especially being an only child).
13. Did your identity lead to specific challenges or situations?
Timor-Leste is a very patriarchal, Catholic (~98% practicing), and largely mono-ethnic society, as well as being a recent post-conflict democracy. Although tourism and social media are slowly exposing more of the country to foreign cultures, some people just do not yet know how to act around someone whom they perceive as very different from themselves. Most of the time, their questions and stares come purely from curiosity (I try to give people the benefit of the doubt).
One of the most frustrating things I encounter is that people tend not to believe that I am American (“You don’t look American, so how can you be from America?”) and that people too often incorrectly racially profile me (“you have a Japanese/Korean/Chinese face”). Sometimes they will try out a few words in a random asian language to test to see if I will respond to them. Typically, I will either ignore them completely if it’s someone random, but if it’s someone I know or have a good chance of running into again, I will explain that I am from America, but born in China, to assuage them.
More generally speaking, unwanted attention and mild harassment such as catcalling and “do you have a boyfriend?” are unfortunately not uncommon for volunteers in Timor-Leste, especially female-presenting volunteers (although female host country nationals also face this). I am lucky that my village is particularly safe and accepting of (female) foreigners, but it is a challenge that I regularly contend with when I travel within the country, especially in larger towns and cities or when I travel with other PCVs.
For all of these annoying encounters, I have found the best thing to do is to ignore the calls and, if they are really persistent, confide in someone you trust who can help you mitigate the situation. This is where having good relationships with your community is a great safety net, as they can offer protection and better cultural knowledge on how to diffuse the situation. When in higher risk situations – such as parties, public transport, and other social hubs – just use common sense, bring a companion if you feel the need to, and you can always use a white lie (“Peace Corps doesn’t allow me to ___”) to get out of a conversation or activity you are uncomfortable with.
14. What advice do you have for volunteers who share your identity?
Goal 2 of the Peace Corps is “to help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the people served”, so if you are visually different from the caucasian appearance typically associated with American people, you are a walking lesson of the diversity of America.
During MST, we talked a lot about the legacy we want to leave in our communities, and I mentioned that as one of the only POC in my cohort, I feel that one of my greatest impacts is in teaching people that appearances do not have to match other people’s conceptions of your passport or cultural identity. Now, I twinge with pride every time I get questioned about my racial/ethnic identity, and my own community members pipe up and explain how “America has people of all different appearances and cultures”.
Impact of Media and Final Thoughts
15. If you share content online, how has that shaped your service?
I have always been inclined to use my personal social media to create a digital record of my experiences and my time here as a Peace Corps volunteer in Timor Leste is no different (my camera roll has 5,000+ photos and videos from my service to date). However, I am very thoughtful with what and how I post on my accounts, as things go viral here very easily!
Whenever I publish anything online, I make sure that I am including content that shows the humanity of my site, am mindful of what language I am using (English vs. Tetun) for accessibility, and always keep the thought in the back of my mind that anything I post is up for grabs as a dinner topic for anyone in my community.
That being said, it has also been a great medium to connect with my community (I chose to accept friend requests on social media while I am still in country), learn about how the youth in my community communicate online, and share bits of my life from in-country with family and friends at home and vice versa.
16. What final advice would you share with future volunteers?
The past year and a half has been a whirlwind of immersion and new experiences-ones
that have taught me so much about resilience, teamwork, and ingenuity. My cohort and I often quote the words of an RPCV from Timor Leste who said, “It doesn’t get less hard, you just get better at dealing with it,” which I think sums up the Peace Corps experience.
You will be pushed in ways you never imagined, make connections that make it hard to leave, and get as much out of the experience as you put in. My advice is to keep your expectations to a minimum, come with an open mind and heart, and you will inevitably return from your service more resilient, more confident, and filled with stories and new perspectives to share.
Are you thinking about joining the Peace Corps? If you’re curious about service and ready for something new, apply today. Like Jocelyn, 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 Timor-Leste Government.
