US mission to Muslims: not easy

Peace Corps volunteer Peggy Greene, tall and gray-haired, a self- assured pusher of life's envelopes, left a career plotting five-star vacations for Seattle CEOs to teach English to the children of Jordanian shepherds.

She says it's a great idea for President Bush to double the number of Peace Corps volunteers and ask the agency, as he said in his State of the Union address last month, to focus on "development and education and opportunity in the Islamic world."

But she and Mr. Bush part ways on just who would gain from putting the Peace Corps on a mission to Muslims. The president imagines the agency helping "to lead the world toward the values that will bring lasting peace."

Greene, who has spent 18 months living in this village atop the rounded, sparsely vegetated hills that rise over the Dead Sea, says Americans would be the main beneficiaries. "For the most part, we're not making a difference" in the countries where the Peace Corps operates, she says. "It's the volunteers who have benefited."

The experience of the Peace Corps in Jordan - the agency's only outpost in the Middle East and one of a handful in predominantly Muslim countries - illustrates the paradoxes of America as global leader.

One is that Americans, as the Peace Corps well knows, have at least as much to learn as to teach. A second is that the most welcome ambassador of American values is often someone who doesn't act very, well, American. And a third is that perhaps no country on Earth is regarded as ambivalently as the US, especially in the the Middle East.

Peace Corps volunteers here say they hear the same sentiment again and again when their discussions with Jordanians turn to world affairs: "We hate your government, but we like you."

Jordan is among the most pro-American countries in the Middle East, which is a long way from saying that it is wholeheartedly pro-American. Jordanians admire and partake of American culture, education, and even ideals, but they are unimpressed with US policy, particularly as it relates to Israel and the Palestinians. It is not too much to say that many Jordanians hate America's increasingly ardent support for Israel.

While Peace Corps volunteers and staff members are enthusiastic about presidential support, they are also realistic about the willingness of Muslim countries, particularly in the Middle East, to host them. "That's one question," observes Peace Corps country director Darcy Neill, "where would we go? Name me some countries."

Created in 1961 by President Kennedy, the Peace Corps has sent some 165,000 Americans to 135 countries in order to provide technical assistance where it is wanted, promote a better understanding abroad of Americans, and help Americans learn about the world. Today roughly 7,000 volunteers live in 70 countries.

The Peace Corps came to Jordan in 1997 and now accommodates 70 volunteers who live throughout this small country of 6 million people.

Half the volunteers are young college graduates, a quarter are over 50, and the rest are in between. About half teach English, mainly in elementary schools, and the rest work on other community-development projects. The program concentrates on promoting education and opportunity for girls and women.

While working in Jordan offers some modern conveniences absent elsewhere, in many ways it's no picnic. "If you're a woman, you're supposed to be quiet, to be silent," says Nicole Hurley, who also teaches English at a rural school. "Talk behind the person's back, but don't be confrontational."

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