I've been waiting for this day for years. And it has finally arrived. What's so special about January 13th, 2012, you ask? Well, I will tell you. Today, I begin my application to the Peace Corps. =D
When you begin your application process (which should last around 9 months to a year) one of the first things you are asked is what date you are available to begin your service. After that question, they have a nifty little drop down box which gives you options of months. Unfortunately, the options only extend a year and a half in advance. So, until now, exactly a year and a half (hopefully!) before my departure date, I was unable to start my application.
What on earth, you may be asking, would cause the application to take a whole year? Well, let me give you a little overview of the application process:
1) I fill out the application itself, which is no small task. It will probably take at least a few week to get my references together, write my essays, and give an account of every relevant class, job, or hobby that could help me out. Not to mention gathering up all my financial information, health status review, and college transcripts.
2) Roughly two weeks after my application is received, I should hear from my regional Peace Corps recruiter to set up an interview time. The interview could be conducted in person or over the phone. (More likely over the phone since the nearest Peace Corps office is in Seattle)
3) If the recruiter determines that the Peace Corps will be a good fit for me, and all of my application materials have been received, I will be nominated. This means I will be told in general what region of the world I will be working in, general type of work and an approximate departure date. Nothing is set in stone at this point.
4) After nomination, I will be required to complete a medical review to make completely sure that I'm not dying.
5) If I'm not dying, they will do a legal review, to make sure I'm not secretly a felon, or married, or skipping out on loans, etc.
6) Then, I'll be evaluated on the basis of my skills. They call this a competitive review, where basically they take stock of what I have to offer, compared with other candidates.
7) Finally, if I survive all of that, and there is a position that I qualify for, I will receive an invitation letter. This letter contains the specific country I will be serving in and a detailed job description, and the specific date of departure. You usually receive your letter about 2 or 3 months in advance. It also comes with the "welcome book" for that country. These are actually really cool.. I've found some PDFs online of welcome books for different countries, and there is a lot of information in them. There's a map of the country, a brief history, overview of politics, religion, culture. Information about the climate, the food, the language. A description of what your training will be like. Packing lists specified to that country (so useful! You're only allowed to pack 80 pounds so its nice to know what you'll be able to find there and what you'll need to bring with you). There's also a pretty detailed section on safety in that country and what you need to do to stay protected and safe. Oh, and there're letters from past volunteers to that country! I think this is really cool. The letters will often tell you about challenges that volunteer experienced and how they overcame them, or give you advice or warnings, and they all give a ton of encouragement.
8) After receiving my invitation, I can choose to accept it or I can wait for another invitation. However, its important to be flexible. Just because a country isn't the one you initially hoped for doesn't mean you should reject the invitation. The Peace Corps prizes flexibility in their volunteers, and if you come across as unwilling to compromise, you are not going to be seen as as competitive of an applicant.
9) After I accept an invitation, the Peace Corps will buy me a ticket to my "pre-service orientation site" also called staging. I think this is usually in DC, but I'm not sure. This is short, basically just a chance for the volunteers to meet before leaving the US. Then, we'll all fly out together, and the real training begins in country!
10) I'll have 11 weeks of in cAountry training in the country's capital city, which includes language and cultural training, as well as technical training for your field. Volunteers usually live with host families during their training. After that, I'll receive my official site assignment and off I go to begin my two years!
As you can see.. its going to be quite the process. But I am so excited! I feel like I've waited forever to begin the process, and now that its here, I'm actually a little bit nervous. I mean.. what if I don't make it? What if all the anticipation, all the hours of lost sleep, all the planning isn't enough? I suppose I'll have to cross that bridge if and when I come to it.
While I'm on the subject of the Peace Corps, I think I should probably answer a few questions that I am always asked:
Q: What is the Peace Corps?
A. The Peace Corps is a US Government agency. They send Americans overseas to work in developing countries for 27 months. They only send volunteers to countries who have requested volunteers. The Peace Corps is not about invading and Americanizing the developing world, but providing trained workers for interested countries while promoting cross cultural understanding, both on the part of the people being served and on the part of the volunteers.
Q: Do you get paid for this?
A: Yes. In a few different ways. During my service, I will receive a stipend that allows me to live comfortably at the level of the locals. This means, yes, I will have enough to eat. No, I won't be living in the embassy. Peace corps also pays for my plane tickets to and from my country of service. In addition, some student loans are eligible for deferment or even cancellation, I'll receive $7,425 (before taxes) upon completion of my service, and I'll have free medical and dental care during my service. Also, if I should choose to go to graduate school after my service, I can earn college credit for my service, and in that way, save myself some money!
Q: What will you do?
A: The Peace Corps has a few different program areas. These are: Education, Agriculture, Business and Information Tech, Youth and Community Development, HIV and AIDS, Health, and Environment. Since I will have my TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certification, its a pretty good bet I will be teaching English.
Q: Where will you go?
A: The short answer is... wherever they send me. I don't get to choose my country of service, although I can indicate if I have a region I prefer. But, there are some ways to try to determine where you're gonna go. For me, because I have a background in French, and TEFL, its a pretty good bet (though not set in stone) that I'll end up in a French speaking country that also has an Education program set up today. Because so many people ask me this, and I was a little curious myself, I looked through all the peace corps countries to figure out which ones I was most likely to end up in. Here's a list of the French speaking education countries (the numbers next to them indicate how many volunteers are currently there, which can help determine the likelihood that I will get that place. More volunteers now means more open positions for me!) Cameroon: 221, Burkina Faso: 155, Madagascar: 148,Togo: 118, Benin: 112, Vanuatu: 68, Guinea: 31, and Niger, where the program has currently been suspended. Now, these are the countries where my skills fit the best, but its just as likely that the Peace Corps will see that I know French, and take that to mean that I could just as easily learn Spanish or Portuguese or Kiswahili or Wolof. Basically, it could be one of the countries I mentioned, but it could also be the Philippines or Albania or Kazakhstan or Samoa. I just won't know till I get my invitation. And that's all part of the adventure. =)
Q: Will you have running water (or electricity, or internet, or phone)?
A: Well, that's all dependent on my placement. Not only on the country itself, but also my location within the country. For example, if I'm in Cameroon, but I'm in the capital I might have access to a lot more than if I were in Romania, but living in the rural countryside. Chances are, I will probably have a cell phone. Even the least developed countries usually have cell phones, though service may be iffy, (Though that's not a big change from my AT&T service now!) and phone calls to the states will be expensive. Even if I don't have internet in my home, many larger cities have internet cafes, but the prices vary and so does internet speed. If nothing else, the peace corps office in my country should have internet, and when I make trips into the capital city, I'll be able to use it.
Q: Is it safe?
A: Well.. again, thats dependent on the individual assignment. Some countries are safer than other, some volunteers safer than others. Medically speaking, each peace corps office maintains medical staff for care of volunteers. If for some reason, a volunteer cannot be adequately treated within the country, they can be medivacked (on the Peace Corps dollar) to the states. Also, the Peace Corps has evacuation plans in place in every country, in case of some revolution or natural disaster. The Peace Corps works very closely with the Embassy to be sure that in case of emergency, all volunteers can be safely evacuated. As far as other safety issues such as theft or assault, common sense reigns supreme. There is a lot you can do to keep yourself safe. Don't go out alone after dark. Lock your doors. Don't keep valuables where they are easily seen. The Peace Corps does everything in its power to keep volunteers safe, but accidents do happen.
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