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Just because Africa is "strange" and "exotic" does not mean it is much more dangerous than a city in the US.
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I didn't mean to imply anything of the sort - I'm the last person to think Africa is incredibly dangerous because of it's "exoticness". (I've suggested a minor in African languages and speak Swahili - Africa doesn't scare me.)
But being a PC volunteer isn't some perfectly safe and arranged activity, because you're working largely on your own in an unfamiliar culture/language/town/country - something that is always dangerous when people don't take it seriously. To quote a 2004 report, "since 1991, while the number of Peace Corps volunteers has grown by less than 30 percent, the reported incidents of assaults against volunteers has more than doubled. That includes a 112 percent increase in aggravated assaults. In 2002, by way of example, a Peace Corps volunteer was assaulted or robbed every 23 hours."
I plan on applying to join the Peace Corps, and those statistics aren't meant to scare people or suggest that those things can't also happen to you in the United States. I just think it's important that people aren't wearing rose-colored glasses about the prospects of working in a developing area, so they know what they are applying to and can hopefully keep safe beyond using bug spray.
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