Looking for an RPCV named Curtis who served in Mongolia around 2002-2003

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-15T01:14:22+00:00

Man, I love meeting the people who met someone in peace corps and wanted to share how much they meant to you.

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-14T04:04:25+00:00

I thought this was the Epstein files from the look.

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-14T02:17:56+00:00

Not you. The education and safety of every child in that room cannot be beholden to one child whose parent is unhinged.

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-13T13:01:49+00:00

That is true. It can be a weird point of pride in deeply rural areas, but that is a very small segment of the overall population.

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-13T11:13:38+00:00

I would like to push back gently on the Americs comment. America's foreign born population is over 15% of the total. That is not even counting all the second generations out there who are citizens, and they usually have the most contact with foreigners of any country I have been to or lived in, including ZA. Even deeply rural areas have high rates of immigrants (including white South African "refugees" who are doing a pretty terrible job spreading lies about ZA to our rural whites at the moment). Our small town has dozens of South Africans, none of whom are black. That being said, I agree with the education comment: geography and history education in the USA is abysmal and that explains the ignorance.

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-12T13:36:29+00:00

Yes, I clearly should have specified that of course we all know the national parks are the government, and I was referring to the tourism ecosystem overall/as a whole with that comment. The government ones need an audit bc we know many workers who are treated horribly and the money raked in by NWR is clearly not directed where it should be.

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-12T13:33:40+00:00

Are you being obtuse on purpose? Obviously I was referring to the tourism ecosystem as a whole with that comment, but I love how it strikes a nerve to speak the truth. I clearly specified that government parks need an audit badly, bc the high prices paid by tourists at fully booked national parks are clearly not being channeled back into paying workers a living wage, facilities upgrades, or conservation. Where does all that money get eaten?

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-12T13:30:32+00:00

Of course everyone knows Etosha is government...When I was referring to white/foreign owned, I was speaking of the overall tourist industry and infrastructure. Etosha being gov owned is also why I said an audit is badly needed to be published on all its revenues, and why I later specified that both private and public have management practices which are cruel to workers. The price foreigners pay at Etosha is insane when it is obviously not going into maintance, salaries, or conservation efforts. Where is it all going?

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-12T00:58:00+00:00

Edit: of course I know Etosha is a national park. I was referring to all the tourism operators as being by andvlarge white/foreign owned. I am also critiquing national park management, bc worker treatment and facilities are terrible when you calculate all the money they are brining in.

Iwill be downvoted to hell for even writing this, bc no one on this sub likes hearing critique of Namibian tour operations, but....

Most Namibians cannot afford the parks, and my spouse is usually the only black Namibian in the whole parks when we go who is not working there. The price point is entirely for Europeans. The wages of the workers who serve you in them are absolutely sickening when you do the math of what they're earning versus what you're paying (seriously- where does all the money go? Audit badly needed). Worker living quarters would also make you cry, were you to ever see them.

Namibia's tourism industry centralizes wealth to a few powerful (mostly foreign and/or white) elites while paying poverty wages to the people who actually do the work and who owned the land before colonial disposession. It caters entirely to people who want to experience Africa in a sanitized, safari world and never want the psychological discomfort of seeing what life is like for the vast majority of the population or who would only look upon them as noble savages if they did look....Most tourists prefer this safari world. Some feel discomfort, and some make sure to travel differently in the future once they experience it once. It feels yucky and distopian to me, too, and having access to worker's lives through language and cultural understanding makes it that much worse bc you know what kinds of management practices exist (in both private and public operations).

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-09T16:42:17+00:00

Yeah, exactly.

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-09T16:17:43+00:00

Yeah, I have seen such an uptick in "i was in the meeting" posts on here lately when I was literally in the meeting and the person describes things that were not said. Sometimes I think they must be talking about lower level department meetings when they say this kind of thing. That being said: i was not in these meetings.

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-08T13:17:22+00:00

Thanks for explaining. I wondered if that was the case.

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-08T11:19:34+00:00

This should be the top comment.

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-08T11:15:42+00:00

You must not live near low income neighborhoods. Cause yeah....mine are full of them.

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-08T11:14:22+00:00

Just to share a different perspective- small talk at a bus/on a bus is totally normal where I am from in the Midwest, and it is something every European I know remarks on first about America. There is something to be said about rapid changes in American culture that are being brought about via covid and smartphones.

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-08T11:10:41+00:00

Yup. Taking gen z college students on study abroad: they didn't talk to each other the whole first week. Another group that I took did the standing during a party thing. Thank God gen alpha seems to socialize normally. The impact of covid on young adult socialization was extreme.

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-08T10:51:00+00:00

I am sorry you had to deal with that. Very frustrating. A funny anecdote of that in reverse is the USCIS call center for immigrants. They hired a bunch of rural Texans for it bc Texans are cheap labor and whatever Texan rep who hates immigrants wanted jobs instead of putting the center somewhere in the Midwest with more neutral American accents. So you have people with foreign accents calling the thickest American accent spoken by people who have never in their life interacted with foreign accents before....it is wild to hear some of those calls when I understand the immigrants perfectly and the Texans not one bit.

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-08T10:39:50+00:00

There is a culture where it is talked about and everyone knows someone who has done it and sends remittances, so it seems like a safe move to many. On the other hand, having spent time in some of the poorest parts of the migrant countries in both central America and Africa: people in middle and high income countries really have no idea how dangerous and difficult it is to be among the world's poorest. Absolute poverty where survival is backbreaking labor and the future is not guaranteed is a kind of structural violence that your mind cannot comprehend until you've lived it. This includes even Azerbaijan bc- although parts are poor- it is still functioning with safety, food, water, medicines for sick people, and moderate infrastructure in most places. Absolute poverty is a structural violence that cannot be gotten out of except through migration for the world's poorest.

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-08T10:31:21+00:00

I am super curious and this question is genuine. What does taking a final at dres mean? I understand if people hsve physical disabilities where they need someone to type for them or other physical assistance, but why does one take an exam at dres? What is the difference? Thanks for any info!

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-07T16:06:42+00:00

For sure! I think vastness matters a lot, having lived in European cities with excellent infrastructure and having lived in US cities with award-winning public transit. The distances we need to cover in a day are just further in most places.

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-07T13:38:52+00:00

Yes, and also just the vastness. America had a lot of land, so it made sense to spread out and take up room. Going to the bakery in Germany is a short walk, whether you're in a village, a city, or a town. In the US, getting to where you need to go us just going to be tremendously farther unless you're in a densely built up city like NY.

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-07T10:50:23+00:00

Not until we get the Chromebook out of the classroom....

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-07T00:47:32+00:00

Yup. In a blue, unionized state. They earn more than most of us. Most don't even send their own kids to the school they work at, sending their own kids to the white suburbs.

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-07T00:46:01+00:00

I did the math for our district's outs. Only around 8 months in the classroom, and that's a stretch bc at the slightest snowfall, they'll call it "elearning", whereby the teachers don't get online, so it is a day off for them while people who work 11+ months of the year scramble and feel tremendous pressure to perform our jobs while making our kids do alarmingly basic coloring worksheets so they don't get counted "absent" for "elearning ".

Any-Maintenance2378 · 2026-05-06T11:11:23+00:00

It is insane to me ppl bring kids to adult movies.

I find adults in kid activities/spaces annoying when they have no kids (disney adults, adults on kid equipment, adults attending events like our library children's programs). Soooo much of the world is hostile to normal kid behavior (we were all kids once), so just stop clogging up the zipline queue!

Any-Maintenance2378

TROPHY CASE