{"id":7004,"date":"2016-03-20T20:30:51","date_gmt":"2016-03-21T00:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newvinegrowing.wordpress.com\/?p=7004"},"modified":"2019-06-07T13:38:03","modified_gmt":"2019-06-07T17:38:03","slug":"james-reindl-left-corporate-life-in-chicago-for-the-peace-corps-in-rural-ghana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.communify.me\/newvinegrowing\/james-reindl-left-corporate-life-in-chicago-for-the-peace-corps-in-rural-ghana\/","title":{"rendered":"James Reindl left corporate life in Chicago for the Peace Corps in rural Ghana"},"content":{"rendered":"

James Reindl worked for 31 years for The Associated Press in roles from journalist to corporate staff. He and his wife, Graca, decided in 2012 to change their lives by applying\u00a0for the United States Peace Corps. They have been serving as agri-business volunteers in rural Ghana since October 2014 and will finish their Peace Corps service in December.<\/em>
\nJim was one of my favorite coworkers, not just because we both studied journalism at Central Michigan University. We’re Facebook friends so I’ve been able to watch his Peace Corps adventure from a distance. He recently posted that their stint will end soon so they’re trying to figure out what’s next after such a massive life change.\u00a0This is my friend, the former AP journalist, reflecting on the decision to leave behind their comfortable\u00a0life in Chicago and\u00a0redefining what matters.<\/em>
\n

\"The
James Reindl and his wife, Graca<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nOn a frigid winter day in Chicago in 2012, my Brazilian native wife came through our apartment door red-cheeked and determined. She\u2019d recently returned from a solo visit to family and friends near Belo\u00a0Horizonte, welcomed back by the weather forecasters\u2019 favorite new phrase \u2013 \u201cpolar vortex.\u201d
\n\u201cYou can do whatever you like,\u201d Graca said, peeling off her coat and hat. \u201cBut I\u2019m never spending another\u00a0winter in Chicago.\u201d
\nI\u2019d heard this kind of talk before but there was a different tone, more decided than wistful. It suggested I\u00a0pay attention and withhold my usual platitudes about how great the city was, especially in summer, which\u00a0seemed particularly far off at that moment.
\nThe conversation turned to what we might do next and I casually mentioned Peace Corps. As a\u00a0naturalized citizen, she wasn\u2019t familiar with the Peace Corps so I explained what I knew.
\n\u201cDo they work in places it\u2019s warm?\u201d she asked. \u201cYes, sure they do,\u201d I assured her. \u201cThen I\u2019ll do it.\u201d
\n
\"Teaching
Jim Reindl teaching in Sakasare as a Peace Corps volunteer<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nAnd here we are serving as agri-business volunteers in rural Ghana in West Africa.
\nThat\u2019s the story I like to tell over a beer with friends. It did happen and Chicago\u2019s brutal winters played\u00a0some small role but what really brought us here is life. You know life; it\u2019s the culmination of whatever\u00a0you\u2019ve done combined with whatever you\u2019re doing, seasoned with whatever you think you should be\u00a0doing.
\nI\u2019d worked for 30 years for The Associated Press as a journalist and later in business and product\u00a0development. Graca had run her own cleaning business. We had the nice downtown apartment, the nice\u00a0car, comfortable furniture, good friends. They don\u2019t call these things \u201ctrappings\u201d for nothing.
\nThis isn\u2019t just a tale of middle class ennui, though. Sure, I\u2019d sit on our couch gazing at the skyline and\u00a0think we were working to support a lifestyle we didn\u2019t really need or want. And, real or imagined, I was\u00a0feeling less relevant at work with yet another job shift being thrust upon me. Graca definitely was tired of\u00a0scrapping with the pressure and stress of owning her own business.
\nThere was also the sense that all those forks in the road from years past had led us \u201cHERE\u201d and now,\u00a0somehow, the road looked like it ran straight to oblivion. Where was the next fork coming from if we didn\u2019t\u00a0make it ourselves?
\nI\u2019d thought about Peace Corps years ago but the forks I took led me farther from acting on PC but not\u00a0from doing service. I did volunteer work in Chicago and now there was a way to combine the two.
\nWith\u00a0Graca\u2019s agreement we went off to a recruiter and roughly 18 months later we landed on Oct. 8, 2014, in\u00a0Accra to begin training and our service.
\nNow we\u2019re on the slow glide path to the end of service in December and another fork. Was it worth it? Did\u00a0we accomplish anything? What\u2019s next?
\n
\"Reindl
Jim Reindl, Peace Corps volunteer in Ghana<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nCreating our own fork in the road to choose between continuing our life and doing something completely\u00a0different definitely was worth it. It\u2019s funny to write that sentence because \u201cit\u201d was the very thing we were\u00a0deciding to get away from. And, I\u2019ll admit, I\u2019ve found myself from time to time longing for some of what I\u00a0was longing to leave behind. I chalk that up to human nature.
\nBusiness school teaches you about opportunity costs. Giving up comfort and a healthy income for a life in\u00a0rural Africa and the enforced poverty of a Peace Corps volunteer\u00a0makes you look like you flunked. But the reward of living in\u00a0another culture \u2013 however stressful, and it is \u2013 cannot be compared with money.
\nOne of the biggest challenges here is redefining success. Americans like things measureable and\u00a0quantifiable. We want our ROI and we want it in the near term. Peace Corps is about sustainable development and\u00a0that simply doesn\u2019t lend itself to mass scaling when you\u2019re working one community \u2013 one person — at a\u00a0time.
\nGlobally, PC has three goals:<\/p>\n
    \n
  1. work in your assigned discipline;<\/li>\n
  2. introduce your host culture to\u00a0American culture, and;<\/li>\n
  3. introduce Americans to your host culture.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In a way, then, just completing your\u00a0service and talking about it with the folks back home makes you a successful volunteer.
    \nMost everyone I know has done far more but it\u2019s still simple stuff. For example, we\u2019ve started three\u00a0community-based organizations but only one of them is really doing anything. We\u2019re raising fowl and\u00a0rabbits and doing a couple of school gardens to help improve income and nutrition.
    \nTwo years might seem like a long time but when you\u2019re working with a different culture you can barely\u00a0scratch the surface of behavioral change in that time. Success often blossoms well after you\u2019re gone and\u00a0there\u2019s no one here to measure it.
    \nWant proof? On a recent trip to Sao Tome And Principe we met a man\u00a0who saves turtles. He said he was trained by a PCV more than 20 years ago and he never spoke to the\u00a0volunteer again after he finished his service.
    \nWill they talk about us in Wusuta in 20 years? It doesn\u2019t really matter. We know we\u2019ve done some small\u00a0good and we can take that with us as we head to whatever is next. We\u2019re learning to live with uncertainty.
    \nIt isn\u2019t always pleasant but we\u2019re learning to accept what we get rather than force our experience into our\u00a0expectations.
    \nWe no longer own a home though we have a few things in storage back in Chicago. We\u2019re going to have\u00a0to figure out a plan. December\u2019s fork is coming but who knows? We might get an entire set of silverware\u00a0to choose from!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    James Reindl worked for 31 years for The Associated Press in roles from journalist to corporate staff. He and his wife, Graca, decided in 2012 to change their lives by applying for the United States Peace Corps. They have been serving as agri-business volunteers in rural Ghana since October 2014 and will finish their Peace Corps service in December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7030,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[53,58],"tags":[1545,1551,1652,2000,2313,2686],"yoast_head":"\nJames Reindl left corporate life in Chicago for the Peace Corps in rural Ghana - Newvine Growing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.communify.me\/newvinegrowing\/james-reindl-left-corporate-life-in-chicago-for-the-peace-corps-in-rural-ghana\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"James Reindl left corporate life in Chicago for the Peace Corps in rural Ghana - Newvine Growing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"James Reindl worked for 31 years for The Associated Press in roles from journalist to corporate staff. 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