Things I Have to Look Forward To

gchat from my friend currently teaching in Chile:

we went camping in the mountains

where i got tricked into a five hr mountain bike ride

was openly wishing to be kidnapped so i could ride in a car

and then had to fight a goat who tried to steal my food

Had a dream about training last night, so I guess that means I'm finally coming out of denial.  I wish my packing was more representative of that fact.  I have, however, spent much of my procrastination/denial with friends, and this weekend was a great one.  I also got to see some more beloveds in NYC Wednesday-Friday, which was very necessary too.  Extended family will be having dinner together tonight, so more goodbyes will be in order.  Three days...

UVA Alum turned PCV's Do It Big!

Two national media features on UVA friends and their experience with Peace Corps!

Jia, a sorority sister of mine and great source of advice on the challenges of Peace Corps- op-ed featured in the NY Times discussing her experience with Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan and her stance on Peace Corps' response to Volunteer victims of assault and rape

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/14/opinion/14tolentino.html

Jia writes more on the topic on her blog: http://bestlittlebookshelf.wordpress.com/ 

Katie Pollack, just sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteer in Senegal.  Amazingly smart friend of mine and classmate in Research Ethics at UVA. 


Katie is blogging here: http://kpinthepc.blogspot.com/

Very proud of both of my friends! They are both very articulate and witty people, so I encourage you to check out their blogs.

Peace Corps and a President: A True Story

How's this for a 50th Anniversary story?


Peru's general elections are coming up this April.  The leading candidate for President of Peru is named Alejandro Toledo.


Alejandro Toledo was born as the 8th of 16 children in a poor Andean family.  Seven of his brothers and sisters died before the age of 1 year old.  From the age of 6 onwards, he worked as a shoeshine and newspaper boy in Chimbote, the coastal town to which his family migrated.  Here in 1964, two volunteers in the brand new Peace Corps program were assigned.  Nancy Deeds needed a place to stay, and in a shantytown, met a teenager.  While his family's home already had 9 people living in 3 rooms, he convinced his mother to allow the volunteer to live (paying rent) in the front room of the house, where produce was sold.  The two volunteers, Nancy and Joel, began assisting Alejandro with a youth group that he headed. By kerosene lamp in her tiny room, Alejandro and Nancy also had long talks about politics and society. "There's no doubt that I woke up and said, 'Maybe I can go somewhere,'" Toledo remembers. 


A few years later, Alejandro won a small scholarship to study in the United States.  He turned to the then-married couple, Nancy and Joel Meister, for help.  They agreed after he promised that he would return to Peru some day. They helped him enroll at the University of San Francisco, lent him money and housed him until he could find his own place to live. In 1970, they attended his graduation.  Toledo went on to Stanford, where he ended up getting two master's degrees and a Ph.D. in Economics. It was at Stanford that he met his wife, Eliane Karp, a Belgian linguistics student.


Toledo first appeared on the international political scene in 1996 when he formed and led a broad democratic coalition in the streets of Peru to bring down the autocratic regime of Alberto Fujimori.  In the 2000 presidential election, Fujimori narrowly defeated Toledo amidst allegations of electoral fraud and widespread upset over the unconstitutionality of Fujimori's candidacy.  After the fall of Fujimori and a short interim presidency, Toledo was elected president in 2001.  In the land of the Incas, he became the first person of indigenous descent to rule this land in 500 years.


To bring it all full circle, Toledo was the president who in 2001, invited the Peace Corps to return to Peru.  Peace Corps had left the country in 1975, due to political and economic instability.


And now, in the year of the 50th Anniversary of Peace Corps and my entrance as a Peace Corps Volunteer, this man may again be elected president.


Below are some fantastic videos that show the diversity of Peru, and the tour guide is then-president Toledo. It is extremely cheesy at some points, but I loved every minute of this.  The first one is the best, I think.

50th Anniversary, 50 Volunteers, 50 Countries!

I am VERY excited to be a part of a really cool PCV Project!

http://pcsnapshotsofservice.blogspot.com/

You can read more about it on the link but basically a journal will be traveling around the world, to the hands of 50 PCV's starting their service during 2011.  We will each have two chances to write in one of the two volumes and read the previously written stories.  Then hopefully we'll all get copies of it at the end!

AND my dear blog friend Jessica (future PCV Moldova) is on the same project!!

I have a really good feeling about this :)


On a totally separate note, please keep the Americans, Egyptians, and everyone else in unstable countries right now in your prayers.  I have two friends from college in Egypt right now, one of which has been one of my best friends since first year dorms (Tom).  His blog, with help from his girlfriend in the States, is being updated here: http://afewdaysabroad.wordpress.com/

He's safe and the other friend was actually interviewed on CNN on Tuesday: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2011/02/01/exp.ac.teacher.staying.in_egypt.cnn?iref=allsearch

It seems like the Americans in Cairo right now are finding a strong sense of purpose in carrying the messages of the Egyptian people to the US media.  They all seem to emphasize that any anti-American sentiment is not directed at individuals but at hypocritical foreign policies.  Let's all hope and pray for peace tomorrow.
2/3/2011: Able to talk to my friend Tom on gchat today since internet has been restored.  Apparently the danger to foreigners (especially those with cameras) has really increased over the last couple days, as you might imagine given the news about attacks on Anderson Cooper and other media.  News reports point to the pro-Mubarak protesters for the increase in anti-Americanism, as they see the media really taking a toll on the pro-Mubarak cause.  Tom was actually with another CNN crew that was attacked and has since withdrawn to safer areas.  He was able to post a lot about yesterday, if you click the blog link above.

I just want to serve!!

Got a call today from Susan while I was at work.  My heart started pounding.  This is it, I thought.  I'm going to hear where I'm going in February.  This is what I've been waiting for for over a year.

...Wrong.  Yet again, I've learned that wishful thinking is not a good idea with the Peace Corps.  She tells me that the program I was originally nominated for is now closed (a.k.a. full).  Not surprising, considering that I was nominated for it last March (grumble, grumble).  She tells me that this is very common and that what will happen now is that she will transfer my file to someone named Jason, who works more broadly with Community Development placements and he will find open programs for me.  She assures me that the important part is that she has qualified me for service (noted by the 'placement complete' on my toolkit, I guess), and that she's told Jason about my various strengths and her recommendations for my placement.  Jason should be looking to get me placed in the next two to three weeks, she says.

I'll admit that my eyes started welling up towards the end of this conversation, as I realized that getting placed in two to three weeks (probably at earliest) means I'm definitely not leaving in early February.  At earliest, this means last week of February or early March.  Unless of course "Jason" decides to place me sooner than expected- but again, I've learned that wishful thinking is a bad, bad, idea.  I had never let the frustration get to me before this point, but today I cracked.

The positive outcome of this is that once I got home, I got on my computer and starting browsing through other Peace Corps nominee blogs.  As another nominee wrote, I can't imagine getting through this process without the ability to read about other nominees sitting in the exact same boat as me.  I was especially comforted by one nominee who wrote about how she had not "practiced this line."  I'm not leaving in February.  I'm not leaving in February.

I've been building my plans for my life around an estimated departure date of early February since last March.  Admittedly, it's not the end of the world that I might be pushed back 3 weeks or so, but my fear, after reading other blogs, is that this actually means I'm not leaving until, say, June.  I am not mentally prepared to wait that long... I'm living at home with my mom!

Thankfully I have a temporary job position that is way more than I could have asked for. I get full staff-level experience because of their short-staffed situation; I'm doing work comparable to a Project Coordinator.  Also, we are working on a really cool DoS grant that is bringing Iraqi police generals and major-generals to the States for training, and the rotations start in mid-February... so now I might get to meet some of them!

The hardest part of this news, as other Peace Corps bloggers have felt too, is trying to explain to other people what is happening:

Oh my god!! They haven't told you yet??!  That's so ridiculous!! Is this normal?

Yes, it's normal.  I've been warned from the beginning that it could take around a year from application to invitation. 

So you have NO idea where you're going? They can't even give you a hint?

They don't know where I'm going either.  I was nominated to a broad area, Central and South America doing Community Development leaving around late January/early February, and now that's full.  They've also warned me from the beginning that my nomination is not a guarantee.  It's a matter of matching my skills with the availabilities, and unfortunately the paper-pushing in a federal organization with thousands of applications means that it takes a while.

Well my friend's wife's brother's friend was a Peace Corps volunteer... he/she got nominated in February and he/she left that June!  Are you sure something hasn't gone wrong?

I know, it sucks.  I'm qualified for service now (which means they definitely want to send me somewhere) and even before that I became a "valuable asset" once I got medically cleared- only 1 in 3 people who make it to that point get cleared.  Timelines vary a lot depending on the individual's skills and nomination- I was nominated to Central and South America doing Community Development, which I imagine is in high demand so I'm not surprised it's taking longer than average.  If I was an engineer or a farmer with no regional preference I imagine I would be leaving a lot sooner.

But I think my friend's wife's brother friend was nominated to Community Development too.  Yeah, definitely Community Development.

Well, I don't know.  This is just the way it is, but I really want to do this so I'm willing to wait.

What happens if they send you somewhere toooootally random?  I mean, are you sure you want to do this?  It seems like a really hard process.

I don't think the application process is a reflection of what the experience is going to be like.  From what I've heard, Volunteer life is a wonderfully independent experience, where I can basically shape my work in the host country into whatever I think is valuable... that doesn't sound a lot like the paper-pushing of a federal bureaucracy to me.  Peace Corps is the ideal program for what I want to do for the next two years, and the positive side of this waiting time is that I have started to consider how exciting it would be to go to a region outside of Latin America that I know less about.  Okay, maybe I've just gotten more desperate.  But either way, I am still committed to Peace Corps.*

*as long as they send me somewhere warm.

The hardest part about answering these questions is that they come from people who care about me and just want to express their frustration that Peace Corps isn't giving me the attention they think I deserve.  I want to be annoyed at this questions (actually, I am annoyed) but I try to remind myself that they come from a place of caring.  The problem is the daily question-and-answer sessions feel like mild humiliation, where I repeatedly say things like "maybe by my birthday... maybe by Thanksgiving... maybe by Christmas... any day now..." only to set up myself and those close to me for more waiting...  And more skeptical looks and comments, which only increase my feeling of alienation from people who don't understand why I'm doing this.

Again, I want to express my thanks to all the other Peace Corps nominees who have candidly shared their experiences on blogs.  I would be so lost without the stories of others, and it reminds me that I'm not being screwed over and I'm not slipping through the cracks.  I hope we all continue to grow in our ability to practice "patience," as the Peace Corps placement office likes to remind us :)

Peace Corps Process

I'm coming up on my one year anniversary of submitting my Peace Corps application. As you can then guess, it is a very long application process that I have sometimes avoided explaining in detail to my friends and family, both because I often doubt they want to hear it and because it can be stressful just to think about. Now that I'm (hopefully) in the final stage of the process, here's a timeline of how the process has gone for me, which will hopefully shed some light on why I don't know how to respond when someone says, "oh, so you got it? you're in?" You are warned, this is a long post.

October 13, 2009: Submitted my online application. This included lots of background and resume information, two essays, and three recommendations. I thought it was interesting/cool that one of the recommendations had to be from a friend- thank you dearly, Haley Bryant! After pressing submit, it then leads you to a screen where you quickly fill out a medical checklist- Yes, I have had this condition and No, I have not had this one.

November 11, 2009: Received an email inviting me to set up an interview with the UVa Recruiter.

November 19, 2009: Interviewed with Tom. Had to bring fingerprint cards, background check forms, and more forms. Was told at the interview that he wanted to nominate me to community development in a Spanish-speaking country. I was ecstatic for this, since that had been my ideal assignment but I hadn't wanted to get my hopes up. Tom was wonderful and I thoroughly enjoyed the interview, which I suppose is unusual. When I first arrived and filled out more short essays, he skimmed over my application. He looked up and asked, "so, I've got some things to tell you about yourself. Do you want this now or later?" While confused I responded "now," and in one breath he said something along the lines of, "You're a very driven person, a great leader, very intuitive and creative, you're not afraid to jump into a big project and see it out until it's completion but your weakness is that you often shoot before aiming. You tend to get yourself in way over your head but you push though it. Am I on the right track?" I told him my psychologist parents would be very impressed.

Didn't hear from Tom for a long time and was very confused about some "status updates" and lack thereof on my online toolkit. Tried to call him a number of times over winter break with no response. Finally emailed him and received this autoresponse on January 19:
As of January 12, 2010 your new University of Vriginia Peace Corps recruiter will be Jessica xxxxxxx. Please redirect all correspondence to xxxxxxxx@peacecorps.gov Jessica may also be contacted by phone at 202-xxx-xxxx
If you need to contact me personally in regard to the Cameroon Water Project I can be contacted at xxxxxxxx.

January 19, 2010: Emailed Jessica and got a response the next day. She explained:
"You have not received your medical paperwork yet because you have not been nominated. At this point there are no open programs that match your skill set so we will have to wait until new programs open. There is the potential for new programs to open next week, and if that does not happen, new programs will be opening in March. I will keep you updated regarding potential program openings, but until then, just sit tight!"

...lots of more anxious waiting. I guess Tom had said the same thing about waiting for there to be an "opening" for me in community development in a Spanish-speaking country, but I didn't expect it to take this long and had sort of thought from our conversation that I was already nominated.

March 2, 2010: Received a call from Jessica, nominating me! My nomination was to South America, Central America, or the Caribbean (Spanish-speaking) working with at-risk youth, leaving in February 2011. While that departure date was later than I was hoping for, it was better than the alternative I had expected from my conversations with Tom, who had suggested June, July, or September 2010 departure dates. She asked that I continue gaining experience with "at-risk youth" (kids growing up in areas of heavy crime activity, incarcerated/neglectful/alcoholic parents, etc.) until my departure.

Returned from Spring Break to find my medical packet ready to begin. Tried to set up appointments as quickly as possible, since I had been told this is the longest/most "patient" part of the process.

~April 1, 2010: Mailed my completed medical packet. This included full dental exam, lots of immunizations, detailed descriptions of my allergic reactions, etc. Turns out that for every box you checked "Yes" on that quick questionnaire after completing the application, you get an additional form to explain that condition. So this part included numerous doctors visits, phone calls, faxes, and tracking down doctors that I hadn't seen since I was 13.

May 27, 2010: Dental clearance received, which was great, but what about medical? I had been warned this might take a long time... Called the Medical Office sometime around then and asked when they might be looking at my medical clearance. They tell me around August/September, since they put people in priority-order depending on when they are leaving. Basically, I was low man on the totem pole.

June - August 2010: Volunteered with DC Scores camp in DC, thanks to the recommendation from my friend Katie Neal's dad. This organization runs an after-school program during the year for DC Public School elementary and middle school kids and the curriculum is focused on soccer and creative writing. I absolutely loved the camp and the kids and talked with them about the possibility of coming on as a girls soccer coach in the fall.

July 29, 2010: Received a letter in the mail stating that my medical packet was "incomplete" because two lab tests were missing. I eventually figured out that those two tests (which I had included) just needed to be redone because it had now been over a year since they were done in May 2009.

August 13, 2010: Medically cleared!!

August 27, 2010: Legally cleared!

So now my application is officially in the Placement Office. It's a big relief to be medically cleared, because 1 in 3 people who make it to that point (application, interview, nomination) aren't eligible to serve. Basically, think of the number of conditions that are totally treatable in the U.S. (example: asthma) but might be life-threatening in an isolated area with no electricity or refrigerators (good luck finding albuterol). Here's a non-exhaustive list of the conditions that can defer/disquality someone from Peace Corps service.

The Placement Office says they will be reviewing my file in the next 4-6 weeks. I don't know if that means that I will be receiving an invitation then, but I've been sending them updates to my work experience. An invitation isn't guaranteed, but everyone I've talked to has said "not to worry about it" at this point. I hope they're right! The other thing to keep in mind is that I could potentially receive an invitation outside of my nomination, but my understanding is that that's more likely for applicants whose nomination doesn't include a language skill. So I might not end up working in youth outreach, but hopefully will be staying in Latin America.

If you're thinking about applying and have any questions about the process, please feel free to leave a comment.   As long as this process has been, I'm confident it will be worth it because Peace Corps is a great fit for my personality and what I want to do for the next two years.