How to join the Peace Corps

"Joining the Peace Corps is a serious decision, and so it requires much patience and persistence."

How I did it: The biggest obstacle for an older volunteer such as myself is the medical review. I had to get my doctors to write letters and fill out forms. Fortunately they are all very supportive of my decision and went that extra mile for me. I had to struggle past an initial decision for deferral of service. In the end, persistence paid off.

Lessons & tips: The Peace Corps requires documentations of every illness, every accident, every surgery, every chronic condition, every routine diagnostic procedure you've had going back at least 5 years, and every medication you currently use. The faster you can provide these things, the more complete your documentation, the quicker the process will go. Also: get to know the RN who is reviewing your file, and keep in touch.

Resources: My Peace Corps recruiter was a great source of morale boosts whenever I felt discouraged.

It took me 8 months.

It made me So happy!

Focus on Change

It's amazing how the knowledge that the invitation is in the mail has focused me on the many things I need to do to be ready. I have to shut down a home that's been my refuge for 11 years. There are a huge number of tasks right there. I believe there are lists of tasks arriving with the invitation. Gathering resources, practicing my French AND learning Arabic, yes! — I am looking forward to building on the foundation of the bits of Lebanese and Iraqi Arabic I picked up working with the language project for three years.

But it's that first big project, down-sizing and preparing to put personal stuff into storage, shutting down services and closing accounts, selling stuff, consolidating necessities and planning for management of legal and financial affairs, etc. — that is the monster I have to tame.

Right now I'm spending a lot of my spare time making lists.

INVITED!!!

I got a call from the Placement Office yesterday but didn't see the message until this morning. The Placement person had only one question she wanted to check out; having satisfied that, she went on to tell me she's sending out the Invitation today. I'll be working in Small Business Development with handcraft artisans! Woo-hoo!!! I'm so excited!

Time to start brushing up my French!

I can't wait to start telling the world.

My Recruiter

I had a conversation with my recruiter today. She encouraged me to make personal contact with the Placement people. She is going to send me contact information for someone in that office.

There is some competition, she tells me, because the Peace Corps deliberately "overbooks" the positions, though probably not on a one-to-one basis. The idea is to cover all of the positions because of course, some applicants will not make it through (not difficult to imagine) or will drop out in the process. Of late, fewer people are dropping out due to the economy. This makes sense, but it's all just idle speculation for me. The Placement process is different for each type of program. I understand, for instance, that nominations to agricultural programs is much less competitive than, say, nominations to educational programs. Apparently it's more difficult to find enough qualified people for agricultural programs, whereas the largest majority of applicants are qualified to teach.

I am glad now that I didn't choose to accept the nomination for teaching. I'm very happy with the "Special" nomination. I think I have a very good shot at it. The recruiter wants me to have a conversation with Placement about my language background. Her confidence in me is very high. I want to think that's because she knows more about the position than she can tell me. She denies knowing anything more than she's already told me: that the position is in the North Africa/Middle East, that it requires a (minimal) background in the visual arts, and that staging will happen in September. That was enough for me to decide I wanted the nomination. Now I just have to be patient.

The Placement Process

I am through the medical review process, but still have not reached the planning stage. The planning stage, as the Peace Corps warns us again and again, should not begin until after the Invitation is received. This is hard. No planning means: No planning. I can't make any real plans for the future while I await the Invitation. Living in limbo. As time goes on, the amount of one's life affected by this planning prohibition grows. Should I put my winter wardrobe away for one year or 3? If I do put it away, what things should I plan to pack instead of to store? Yeah, it gets that detailed, although that is just the latest. Many of the things that come up have bigger implications than that.

I got an email Friday from the Student Aide at the EMA Placement Unit. I have no idea what "EMA" stands for. She is requesting an updated Resume and any changes to contact info. Here's an interesting quote from her email: "Please keep in mind that this stage in the process can be competitive as there are typically two applicants nominated for each spot available. Given this, an invitation is never guaranteed and applicants should make no plans to go overseas unless an invitation has been issued and you have spoken to headquarters staff to accept your invitation. "

Two applicants for each spot available. Hmm... That means that about half of the people who make it through the medical review do not get invited. Wow. I had no idea. Imagine going through all this and then getting passed over for an invitation.

I'm not too worried about my own case, though. Where age was a bigger hurdle during medical review, I think it'll work in my favor in the Placement process. My volunteer work, teaching film and digital arts to middle-school kids, should also give me an edge in the case of the particular nomination I received. So I am optimistic.

Cleared!!!

Well, at last! I got a call from the medical screener. She told me my letter would go out today, clearing me for service. At last, at last, I can go on to the next step. The medical screening is definitely the longest part of the process.

The next step: Is 'Placement'. I am expecting to be asked for more documents. Definitely an updated resume or CV. Possibly I will be asked to write a few more paragraphs about myself, my expectations and aspirations.

At the end of this process, I will receive the coveted 'Invitation,' which will tell me exactly where and when I am going to serve, and what I'll be doing. I am hopeful that this part of the process will take only a few weeks.

Patiently Awaiting News

Hopefully my doctors have faxed the necessary letters to the OMS by now. This stage is a test of patience. I (my health-care providers) have submitted the final documents (knock-on-wood) and now I must wait. If I don't hear tomorrow, I will call them, but they should have all the items by now, so it is up to them and I'm sure I'll know very soon.