The Perks of Being a Volunteer

There are very few things I am sure of in life.  If you asked me 4 years ago, Aparna, do you see yourself living with no electricity and doing your buisness in an outhouse, I probablly would have turned around and walked the other way at how insane your question was.  Yet here I am.
Being a volunteer, and let me be specific, a Peace Corps volunteer, is hard and I don't say that enough.  In no other position would you be living under rules you would never follow follow in any other job (no car, can't leave the country with out permission, etc.), living in a place you would never live in under any other circumstance, and surviving with out all the amenities your parents worked so hard to provide for you.  There are many a times that I question my sanity in deciding to come here and it's going to be a VERY long time before I decide to volunteer like this again.
But being a volunteer has its perks.  For one, I have complete job security.  For the most part I can't be fired.  As long as I am doing something (which doesn'y have to be my job) I get to stay here and I get my measly pay check every month.  I don't really have sick days, or vacation days from my job.  What I mean is that I can be sick for as I need, I can come to the capital to see my doctor, and there are no reprecusions.  I can also decide that I have something better to do than go to school and tell my principal I'm not coming to school the next day.  I don't do this often, but if I need to, then I do.
This leads me to my next point: I get paid no matter what I do.  I don't have to be a good teacher to get my little stipend.  I just have to try.  And trust me, if I were being paid by my successes as a teacher I'd have had to leave the program a few months after joining.  That also means I get no money incentives or bonuses for doing extra work.  Therefore any projects I decide to do outside my primary assignment is done purely because I want to.
But above all, being a volunteer means very little worries about life.  I don't worry about being promoted because I can't be.  I don't worry about paying rent or any other bills because I don't.  I don't worry about improving my quality of life because it's temporary.  Being a volunteer is about being free and I'm going to miss it once I get back in to the grind.  So yes, being a volunteer is hard, but is anything worth doing easy? I think not.