2/9/2009 Leaving Peace Corps Service

I've spent a few days talking about getting into Peace Corps. Today I'm going to address the flipside: ending your Peace Corps Service. Turns out it can end in one of four ways...

1. COS - Close of Service

Let's start with the happiest one: COS-ing. (Yes, in our endless love of acronyms, we've actually turned these into verbs, to wit, To COS, with the letters pronounced in full: to see-oh-ess.) In order to COS, you must have served successfully in your host country for two full years since swearing-in. The COS process starts about four months before your scheduled departure, with COS Conference. You gather with all of your stage-mates, who you haven't seen en masse since Mid-Service Medicals, at your country headquarters. You hear from your Program Staff and your Country Director about wrapping up your projects, saying farewell to your community, planning for post-Peace Corps life, and generally finding ways to leave with success and closure. This conference lasts about a week, and then you return to your home village. For your final three months of service, you're not allowed to take any vacation days; it's time to hunker down and tie all your work off with a bow. Once you've said your farewells to your host family and neighbors, you head back to headquarters for a final goodbye week (and the requisite final goodbye medical exams). And then your service is closed; you've COS'd. Peace Corps buys you a plane ticket home (which most PCVs choose to cash in, preferring to find a dirt-cheap multi-leg flight and use the balance of funds to travel for a bit). COS-ing is the fate that most of us hope for.

2. ET - Early Termination

Some PCVs don't choose to stay the full two years. Countless factors contribute to this. Perhaps their bodies never adapted to the food/parasites/bugs, and the constant sickness wore them out. Perhaps someone back home needed them more than they'd anticipated. Perhaps something awful happened and they wanted to run away. Perhaps there was no productive work in their site and they thought they'd be more useful to the world back in the US. There are as many reasons to ET as there are Volunteers - more, actually, since it usually takes more than one reason to get you to go. But for whatever combination of causes, you decide to terminate your service early, and go home. Folks outside the Peace Corps vernacular tend to refer to this one as "quitting" or "giving up", but I challenge that characterization. Most of us knew what we were getting into when we joined Peace Corps, and prepared ourselves for the challenge...but the unexpected can catch up to anyone. It's less common than you might think - out of the 26 Environment PCTs who showed up on March 1st last year, only 1 of us has ET'd. (Knock on wood.)

3. MedSep - Medical Separation

Peace Corps also reserves the right to send you home. If your body succumbs to something that the local health care providers can't accommodate, they'll ship you back to the US in a "MedEvac", aka Medical Evacuation. But that's a temporary state of affairs. If you're once again hale and hearty within 45 days, you can return to country and return to service. But you only get 45 days. If it takes more than six weeks to make you all better, you lose the chance to return, and you're medically separated from service - MedSep'd. Over your vehement protests, in some cases. I've had several friends ripped out of their service, against their wishes, because their bodies had failed them. Liver failure, kidney failure, even long-dormant genetic problems that had lain dormant until the stress of the Peace Corps lifestyle caused them to flare to life. Of the 26 in my cohort, one was MedSep'd quite early on. Of the 59 Trainees that went through stage together - 26 Environment Sector and 33 Health Sector - we've lost almost half a dozen to MedSeps. The most recently MedEvac'd was my friend Casey, but I'm still hoping that he'll make it back within the 45-day window. He tells his story here. Also, if you refuse treatment by the Peace Corps Medical Officers, they can send you home. They enforce this with especial vigor in malaria countries; if you don't take your malaria prophylaxis (preventative medicine) every single day, and they find out, they'll MedSep you. When I first heard about this happening, about a year before I joined Peace Corps, my reaction was, "Peace Corps can fire you??" And they can, but getting MedSep'd isn't considered getting fired. That's reserved for...

4. AdSep - Administrative Separation

...getting AdSep'd. This is Peace Corps' big gun. Before you swear in, you'll get to hear your Country Director rattle off a laundry list of offenses that you can be AdSep'd for. It includes things like Riding your bike without a helmet, Failing to accomplish anything, Driving a car (or plane or motorcycle), Taking illegal drugs, Impregnating a local woman, and Conduct unbecoming a PCV. Some of these have discretion built in, on the part of the Country Director; others are a zero-tolerance policy. Some shenanigans will actually get you MedSep'd instead of AdSep'd; alcohol abuse, for example, is considered a medical problem. Pregnancy, if carried to term, falls under the medical umbrella. But MedSep'd or AdSep'd, you're still going home. The only difference lies in how it looks to future employers.

In writing this, I have conflated separation from service with going back to the US. In point of fact, as far as I understand it, Peace Corps can't force you to leave the country. They can't deport you if you haven't committed a crime. They can strongly encourage you to go, and in some cases I've heard, it sounded pretty forcible, but there does exist an option known as "Field Separation". If you accept a Field Separation, you're no longer a PCV - no longer associated with Peace Corps at all - so you get no living allowance, no stipend, no right to attend future Peace Corps gatherings, etc, but you are still allowed to remain in-country. Volunteers who have married Host Country Nationals and then chosen to ET will often accept a Field Separation.

So these are the ways your service will end. We all start off hoping for a successful COS, but sometimes things intervene. Peace Corps understands that, and therefore created all these different mechanisms. (...not with a bang, but a whimper...)

As always, if you have follow-up questions, feel free to email me or post them as a comment below.

2/10/09 "Win Layla!"

One of my young cousins has the not-uncommon name of "Layla", from the Arabic word for night, "layl". This adorable toddler has ringlet curls, deep dimples, and a small spoken vocabulary. She loves saying her own name, though, especially in the context of saying, "Mine!"

Actually, she says, "Layla's", which in Tamazight is win Layla. This is a transcultural phenomenon; I can't even count the number of babies, in various countries, I've heard pronouncing ownership. I'm sure that child psychologists have a name for the phase.

It has become a favorite game of all of the adults in her life to point to various things - clothes, body parts, etc - and ask variations on the theme of, "Whose is this? Is this mine? Is it Layla's?" The munchkin always responds, loudly and indignantly, that it's "Win Layla!"

Layla's family lives next door, so I regularly hear her little baby voice, which for some evolutionary reason carries like no adult voice can, calling through the window. I often hear indistinct shrieks and nonsense syllables, but at least once every day I get to hear a tiny but fearsome, "Win Layla!"

2/8/09 SouqTown English Club

Some day, inshallah, SouqTown will get a Youth Development Volunteer and will have regularly scheduled English classes. In the meantime, two English-fluent guys have started an informal English Club. It meets Sunday mornings, and all dozen PCVs in the region have a standing invitation.

Last week, four Volunteers came. This week, it was just me. (Nearly every Volunteer in the region is traveling, mostly for work-related reasons.)

The class is divided between four men, all college-aged or older, and about a dozen girls, all in high school. Not surprisingly, the college students and graduates are much more fluent in English than the high schoolers. Unfortunately, this creates a dynamic where the men speak constantly and the girls hardly speak. Once the club is more established they're hoping to split into ability groupings, but for now, there's just the one group.

They're all friendly and eager, and when we exited at 12:30 I was mobbed with lunch requests. :)

2/7/09 The Three Goals of Peace Corps

2/7/09 The Three Goals of Peace Corps

Though it's not talked about much, in this post-idealistic age, the actual mission of Peace Corps is to "promote world peace and friendship". Hard to believe, isn't it: the United States government actually pays me to promote world peace and friendship. Lhumdullah! I must admit, the very existence of Peace Corps makes me proud of my government. :)

More often discussed are the "Three Goals" of Peace Corps.

Goal 1: Provide technical training.
Officially: Help the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.

Back in the day, this meant that Americans did jobs that needed to be done, from teaching English classes to digging wells. These days, that has come to mean "capacity building", or teaching Host Country Nationals (HCNs), aka Moroccans and Ukrainians and Togo-ans and other citizens of the countries where we serve, the skills they need to do those jobs. We hold workshops for teachers, teach grant-writing so our HCN partners can fund their projects, and demonstrate new practices for farmers...just to name three examples.

Goal 2: Share American culture.
Officially: Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.

This is where I get points for chatting with people. Heck, I get points for living here. Everything I do, say, don't do, don't say...it's all interpreted as What Americans Are Like. This is reinforced and expanded when I explicitly talk to people about American culture, whether it's describing Christmas, or inviting them to a Thanksgiving feast, or sharing my excitement over the election. There are huge misunderstandings of America and Americans, and I'm working bit by bit to identify and remove them. Some are complimentary, like my host mother saying (after describing a mean ex-husband), "There are no bad men in America." Would that it were true, Ama... Others are uncomplimentary, like when a neighbor from my CBT village said, "I saw a documentary that said all Americans are fat." Since there were five of us living in his village at the time, I was able to point out that such a thing couldn't be true, and that in fact, we're not the only five skinny Americans. And still others are neutral but inaccurate, like my host-auntie saying, "No Americans get circumcised. Only Moroccans do that." She was inclined to doubt my assurances that circumcision is common in America - after all, as an unmarried girl without brothers, how could I speak with any authority? - but I reassured her that I've changed enough little-boy diapers to be sure. (I knew all those years of babysitting would pay off eventually!)

Goal 3: Share world culture with Americans.
Officially: Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

And now we come to the purpose of my blog. All the entries not specifically dealing with prospective applicants, anyway. :) The third goal of Peace Corps is to bring the world a little bit closer together, by letting all Americans - not just those of us who get to live abroad for years at a time - learn more about our fellow Earthlings. Every time I share about Moroccan culture, whether it's in this blog, in an email, in a letter to the school I correspond with through the World Wise Schools program, or even in a phone call, I'm supporting Goal 3. Dear readers, every time you check my blog, or read an old post that you missed, or tell a friend something I shared with you, you're supporting Goal 3, too. So if you're still reading this, thank you! :D

2/6/09 Facets of Flakes

Snow is a many-splendored thing.

Some Berberville denizens huddle around stoves and work limited hours, opening late and closing early.

Others celebrate an act of beauty that dusts the world in feathery white beauty.

Some, such as teachers and students who traveled home for the semester-end break, see an opportunity to turn a one-week holiday into a two-week vacation.

Those whose livelihoods depend on free travel, notably the taxi and tranzit drivers, worry about lost income and escalated "workplace safety" issues.

Me, I'm just grateful I didn't have any laundry on the line. :)

2/5/09 What Comes Next: Your First Nine Months in Peace Corps

Every other day throughout February, I'll be posting information specifically targeted to potential Peace Corps Volunteers. My last PCInfo post (see labels below) was devoted to the timeline for applying to Peace Corps. Today, I'll discuss What Comes Next: Your First Nine Months.

So you've applied, interviewed, been nominated, been invited, and accepted your invitation.

Congratulations! So what happens now?

Pre-Service Training - 3 days: Welcome to Peace Corps, Trainee!

You're In The Peace Corps Now...but you're not in your country yet. In fact, you're not even a Volunteer yet. You won't become a Volunteer until you've sworn in, at the end of your training. For now, you're a Peace Corps Trainee. You'll spend two to three days in an American city, learning some basics about the Peace Corps, making sure that all of your paperwork was filled out correctly (and they collect it at the orientation session, so be sure it's done before you get there!), and meeting your fellow Peace Corps Trainees. These folks will be your support network for the next 27 months, so start getting to know them as soon as possible. I have more details about these days here, written back when I was going through it.

Pre-Service Training (PST): Welcome to Your New Country, Trainee!

This varies a bit by country, but the principles are the same. You're now a Peace Corps Trainee - PCT - and you'll spend something between 8 and 12 weeks being introduced to your new home. In Morocco, we spend the first few days in a major city near the coast, so the Peace Corps staff has easy access to us for medical things and overview sessions (and so anybody who gets cold feet can be quickly flown home), then move onto our Training City.

Once in your Training City, you'll begin learning your target language and some of the major ideas you'll bring to your work. What is the role of a Peace Corps Volunteer? What is the role of a PCV in development? What projects can you expect to work on? How will you engage in cultural exchange? Etc, etc, etc. Expect eight-hour days broken up into 2 hour sessions. If you've ever attended any kind of workshop or Management Training, you have some idea what to expect. Flip-chart paper, big markers, big ideas, group discussions... That's while you're in your Training City, ie a minority of PST/stage. (Given how many acronyms there are, everyone in Morocco refers to PST as "stage", with a French pronunciation - stahzh. I don't know how widespread it is, but I like it. The corollary is that your fellow PCTs are also known as your stage-mates.)

So if you're only in your Training City for a minority of the time, where are you for most of stage? Community-Based Training, aka CBT. You'll live in a village where they speak the language you're trying to learn. You'll live with a host family, with whom you'll spend evenings and weekends, and you'll spend your days studying language and culture. When I went through stage, we alternated between a week or two in CBT and a few days in our Training City...but the stage scheduled to start in March will be only be in the City for a week or two, and will spend the entire rest of stage in their CBT village. Here is the information about stage that Peace Corps sent me a week or two before I left the US.

Pre-Service Training + 5-8 weeks: Site Visit

A week or three before the end of stage, you'll take a visit to the site you've been assigned to. This is your chance to learn the route, experience unaccompanied travel in your country, meet your host family, and see your village. Most of us had a great site visit, but a few folks had a really wretched time, due to food poisoning or other complications. Two actually refused to serve in their village, because of the severity of their medical problems and the fact that there was no phone service (landline or cell phone) with which they could summon help. Peace Corps staff listened to their concerns, had some long conversations with them, and ultimately assigned them elsewhere.

Swearing-In: Par-tay!

Congratulations! You've successfully completed PST/stage. You've mastered a new language (more or less), you've learned what you're expected to do for the next two years, and you're being sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer. This is a Life Moment, so don't be afraid to savor it. You'll hear speeches from your Ambassador or his/her designate, from your Country Director, and from the PCT with the highest score on the Language Proficiency test. Your host family will have been invited, so they'll get to see you with all your fellow Peace Corps folks. After the ceremony, you and your family get to feast at a banquet. When the banquet ends and the families go home, the newly-fledged Volunteers get to celebrate however they see fit. My swearing-in was held at a fancy hotel with a gorgeous pool (and I do mean *fancy* hotel - it's where Brad & Angelina stay when they're in Morocco!), so we all busted out the bathing suits and had a pool party. The details will vary, but trust me that this will be a celebratory moment for you - plus your last chance to socialize with your stage-mates, except for those few who are placed near you.

Swearing-In + 1 day: Leave Stage

It's time to say farewell to your training city, the Peace Corps staff, and your stage-mates. You'll probably travel with other Volunteers - there aren't *that* many transportation options in developing nations - so you'll get to postpone your goodbyes with a few for another couple of hours or even a day, but after that, it's time for homestay.

Swearing-In + 1 or 2 days: Homestay

Welcome to your new home! You've just arrived in your site. Your host family, who you met a couple weeks ago during your "site visit", helps you bring your belongings from the bus/tranzit/taxi station to their house, where you'll be living for the next two months. Here is your opportunity to enmesh yourself in the life of your village. Use it as best you can. Visit your neighbors. Help your family with their chores/work. (Girls, yes, you can go to the fields; guys, yes, you can help in the kitchen. You may need to insist, but they will eventually let you.) Befriend your siblings and their friends. And here's a tip: keep studying your language diligently. It's easy to slack off without the structure of stage, but trust me, the faster you're comfortable in your new tongue, the faster you'll be comfortable.

Swearing-In + 2 months: Leave homestay

It's time to say goodbye to the family that has hosted you, fed you, cared for you, and made you one of their own. Or, if you're in the unfortunate minority, you get your Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free-Card. Most of us enjoy our host families - I really love mine - but a few poor souls feel like they've been under house arrest. But however you feel about it, it's time for you to move into your own house/apartment and start taking care of yourself...unless you're in the tiny minority - no more than one or two per stage - who choose to stay with their host families for their entire two years of service.

Swearing-In + 5 to 6 months: In-Service Training (IST)

Spend a week in a Moroccan city with your entire stage. This is a blast for several reasons, not least of which is that you probably haven't seen more than a handful of your stage-mates since Swearing-In. But now you're all back together, in a city which undoubtedly has more going on than wherever you live, since Peace Corps doesn't place PCVs in major cities (for security reason). You'll present information on your site, discuss challenges and potential solutions, learn about applying for various kinds of funding, and hang out. You'll also get various vaccine boosters and your first in-person access to English-speaking doctors since stage.

After IST, you'll meet back up with your stage-mates at Mid-Service Medicals, at the one-year mark, and then again at your Close-of-Service conference, three months before you leave country. The rest of the time, your only exposure to other Volunteers comes through people posted to your region and any traveling you do. Does this sound lonely? It shouldn't. It just means that most of your friendships and interactions will be with Host Country Nationals, aka the people born and raised in your new country. This is a good thing; after all, two-thirds of the Peace Corps goals focus on cultural exchange. More on that next time, on February 7th...

2/4/09 Full Circle

Regular readers have heard me talk about H**, my language tutor and friend. She was my Language and Culture Facilitator during stage, and since she lives in SouqTown, she has continued to help me in countless ways since swearing-in.

On Monday morning, I told her about an email I'd gotten from our Country Director. He was passing along praise for PCVs teaching English classes, from an Embassy staffer. Here's an excerpt:

We had to choose 25 students to participate in the YES program (a 1 year student exchange program at the high school level) . My colleagues and I on the panel were very impressed with the English language skills of the students who had interacted with Peace Corps volunteers. In fact, their English was by far the best and they did a wonderful job expressing themselves. I also just went through a similar selection process for one of our university programs and one of the students whose English was truly superior was one who once again was taught by Peace Corps volunteers . The Peace Corps volunteers are clearly doing a wonderful job and should be commended.

In response, she said that she wished they'd put an English class at the Youth Center in SouqTown. I explained why there isn't one - politics, mostly - and she said that back when there was a Volunteer, she did a fantastic job.

H** never volunteers information about herself, but on a hunch, I asked if she'd worked with this long-ago PCV. She nodded.

A decade or so ago, a Volunteer taught H** English. This enabled her to study English language and linguistics in college, which made her eligible for employment with the Peace Corps, where she uses her flawless English to teach new PCVs the languages and culture of Morocco, which they use to teach young Moroccans English.

The circle has been completed. :)

This loop, anyway. But as the embassy officer's email indicates, our work continues to bear fruit. In fact, H**'s slightly ulterior motive is that her little sister is now at an age to start visiting the Youth Center...

And the circle keeps turning.

2/3/09 Joining Peace Corps - The Timeline and Application Process

Disclaimer: This post ended up a LOT longer than I'd anticipated. The application process is multi-tiered and complex, as well as terribly opaque, and I wanted to give a thorough explanation...which means that this is long. Hopefully very useful, but long. Also, I detailed my own experiences with the application process as I went through it, as you can read here and here. You can also find everything I've written about the Peace Corps Timeline here.

So, you've decided to join Peace Corps.

What happens next?

Application Part 1: Who Are You, and Why Do You Belong in Peace Corps?

Step one is filling out the application on the Peace Corps website. This took me a little over 3 months, partially because of my procrastination and partly because the application is so long, and requires minute details of your past. Here's the list of pages you'll fill out:
Personal Information
Application Information
Legal Information
Financial Obligations
Intelligence Activities and Organizations
Military Status
Family Information
Dependents
Job Preferences
Post-Secondary Education
Language Skills
Licenses and Certificates
Employment History
Community and Volunteer Activities
Geographic Preference
Practical Experience
Essays

Application, Part 2: Medical Information

Once your application is submitted, you're allowed to access your medical questionnaire. They'll ask you about you and your family's experience with nearly every disease or condition imaginable. Whether you've ever sought counseling. Whether you wear glasses. Whether you've ever been diagnosed with ... anything. Etc, etc, etc. They're hoping to send you to a country where you'll go months or years without access to Western medicine, so they need to know that you'll survive.

One other note: I'd never advise anyone to be less than forthright, but in the interests of full disclosure: The medical questionnaire can create problems. If you've seen a therapist at any point in the past 10 years, you'll need to get that therapist to complete a 6-page analysis of your mental health. A friend who saw a counselor for a few months after her parents' divorce, and another who got a handful of sessions of therapy after a sexual assault - in both cases, years before they applied to Peace Corps - have both told me that they wished they'd said No to that question, and saved themselves (and their long-lost therapists) a lot of hassle. But they did both end up in Peace Corps, so maybe honesty was the best policy, in the long run.

Application, Part 3: Recommendations

It's not enough for you to explain why you're wonderful; your friends and colleagues need to agree with you. Peace Corps requests three recommendations, one from an employment supervisor, one from a volunteer work supervisor, and one from a close friend who has known you for at least two years. If you have no work or volunteer experience, you can substitute a professor. Your application won't be reviewed until your recommendations are in, so this is the time to nag your friends and recommenders. Kindly and gently, of course, because they're doing you a big favor.

Application + 2-4 weeks: Interview

Assuming you've correctly filled out the application and are at least slightly qualified, you'll probably be granted an interview fairly quickly. (Yes, there are a lot of qualifiers in that sentence. There are no absolutes in this process.) Peace Corps likes to brag about how selective the process is, based on the ratio of applicants to Volunteers, but the truth is that most people who start the application never finish it, so the number of "applicants" is artificially inflated. That's actually one reason the application is so horrifically long - if you don't have the patience and dedication to type stuff into your computer, you probably don't have what it takes to serve for 27 months in an underdeveloped country.

So now you're at the interview with your recruiter. Expect to discuss the information on your application, as well as your chosen region. Why did you choose it? How flexible are you? (And remember, flexibility is key.) I reeeeally didn't want to go to a blistering hot country, so I made a note on my application and during my interview that my ridiculously fair skin sunburns in minutes (lame but true), and so I'd really like not to be anywhere near the equator. Result: I'm in Morocco, north of the Tropics, technically, but within hours of the Sahara.

...just as an object lesson in how much your preference is considered. :)

Also at the interview, they'll probably fingerprint you, for the FBI background check. Oh, the background check - one of many reasons you shouldn't lie on your application. There are Volunteers who have been convicted of minor crimes before, including drug abuse and civil disobedience, but they were all up-front about it. There are no Volunteers who tried to hide their past indiscretions. And don't think that "expunged" means the FBI can't find it. They can and they will.

Note to vegetarians: While serving as a Volunteer, you must be willing to eat what your host family eats. While they may accept your not eating the meat itself - mine did, after a while - the fact remains that everything they serve will have been cooked with meat. If you've been veggie for a long time, you may want to start reintroducing meat into your diet, a little at a time. You have enough to deal with upon the start of your service - you don't need your gut to start rejecting all meat-infused food. Lots of vegetarians have joined Peace Corps, so don't think it's a deal-breaker, but you and your recruiter *will* have this conversation.

Depending how well your interview goes, your recruiter may tell you which region he or she is planning to invite you to. Or he/she may not. Don't read too much into it.

Application + 4 weeks: The Waiting

You've been interviewed. If the interview went well, you're probably going to be Nominated. Eventually. Here's a good time to practice the Peace Corps skills of patience and persistence. Don't harass your recruiter, but it's OK to check up on them every week or two. They may need another one or two pieces of information from you that are stalling your application. I'm sure they'd get around to calling you for it eventually, but PC staff are human too, and therefore distract-able. It's up to you to make sure your paperwork is flowing through the proper channels.

Application + 1-3 months: Nomination

Congratulations! Your recruiter thinks you'll be a great Peace Corps Volunteer. Along with your nomination letter, you'll receive a package containing some paperwork about the region (but not the country) to which you've been nominated...and medical paperwork. Lots of medical paperwork.

Note: They won't tell you this, but you'll now be handed over from your recruiter to your "placement officer". So any questions you have will be routed to someone new.

Nomination + 1-12 months: Medical Testing

Remember that detailed medical questionnaire you submitted? Part 2 of the application? It went to the Office of Medical Services (OMS), who have now sent you a four-page checklist that you and your primary care physician will fill out, plus a page for your dentist. (Peace Corps needs X-rays, as well. And since they won't send you to a dentist until your Mid-Service Medicals, 15 months after you leave the US, go ahead and get a cleaning now, too. And consider scheduling one for just before you leave.) Don't skip anything or leave any blanks, or they'll send it back to you. You'll need a TB test and bloodwork, so plan for at LEAST three visits to your doctor. And yes, ladies, you will need a pelvic exam.

In addition, any question in the online questionnaire that you answered Yes to will result in extra pages for you and your doctor(s). What's the current status of your condition? Can you back that up with renewed medical testing? What's your glasses prescription?

All these doctor visits can get pricey. Peace Corps will reimburse you for some of the costs, but not much. A better route is to find the local VA Hospital - there is one in nearly every American city - and they'll give you the full physical for free. Uncle Sam scratches his own back. :) Also, they claim that several fairly expensive vaccinations are required before you go...but some of my friends later got these vaccinations for free during Pre-Service Training. I have no idea why, but if your budget is tight, you should talk to OMS about it.

Application + 3-12 months: Legal Clearance

The FBI checks you out. If you aren't guilty of anything you haven't already explained away to your recruiter, and if there aren't any outstanding warrants for your arrest, this should be quick and easy. Should be, not is. The FBI is busy, so this may take a while. I thought that this was a bit of a joke, since I've lived a (generally) virtuous life...but it's still a hurdle, and you still have to jump it successfully. Also, if you ever blew off a parking ticket or moving violation, the traffic court judge probably issued a bench warrant for you, so you'll need to clear that up before your application can proceed.

Medical paperwork submission + several months: Dental and Medical Clearance

OMS has reviewed your medical records and test results. If they have any questions, they'll ask you to redo some portion of the exam and/or bloodwork. OMS is chronically understaffed - there are a lot of much better-paying gigs for doctors - so this process can take longer than a healthy person might expect. But once OMS is satisfied that you'll survive 27 months without regular access to western medicine, they'll clear you, and send you a note letting you know that you've been cleared. Once this final hurdle is crossed, you're invite-able.

Final Clearances + 1-2 weeks: Invitation, aka We Want You in the Peace Corps!

They'll email you to let you know that your packet is in the mail, but the packet has been overnighted, so at you won't have to wait long (for once!). If your invitation is on the early side, you might get some nifty Peace Corps freebies, like a patch to sew onto your backpack, a keychain, a luggage tag, a bumper sticker, etc. I was nominated only a few days before the window closed, so didn't get any of that stuff. :(

"Window closed"? Turns out that Peace Corps promises not to invite you less than six weeks before the beginning of training, so as to allow you enough time to shed the trappings of your old life and prepare for the new one. My training began March 1, so my placement officer *couldn't* invite me (or anyone) after January 21st.

That's the official line, anyway. I do have a few PCV friends who got their invitation with only two or three weeks to go, so apparently exceptions are made from time to time, but you shouldn't expect one.

Invitation + However Long You Want: Making The Decision

You've been invited. Peace Corps is asking you to serve in X country, doing Y work, leaving on Z date. This may be a surprise, or may be exactly what you expected. If it's a shock, give yourself some time to make a good decision. The most common "If I knew then what I know now..." that I've heard from PCVs is that they had no idea they could turn down an invitation, and still serve eventually.

Of course, Peace Corps doesn't want you to be a dilettante about this. If you turn down several viable invitations, they may decide that you're not serious about serving, and stop inviting you. But the little-known truth is that YOU DON'T HAVE TO ACCEPT YOUR INVITATION. You really don't. If your sister is getting married in a few months, or if your dad just had a stroke, or even if you're just mortally terrified of the country they're assigning you to...you can pass. You'd better have a good reason for passing, and defend it to your placement officer, who will do his/her best to convince you accept this invitation. But the truth is, you can refuse an invitation once, maybe even twice, and still serve in the Peace Corps. What you can't do is travel for any reason during the first six months you're in country, so if your sister's wedding or your best friend's baby-due-date or your mom's surgery are taking place in the six months after your scheduled departure, you have some serious thinking to do right now.

On the other hand, a lot of Volunteers - like me - did not go where they planned to, but still ended up in a fantastic place, living a wonderful life. Don't be afraid of the unexpected.

Pre-Service Training - 3 weeks: Staging Packet

Once you've accepted an invitation from Peace Corps, they'll start sending you information about your training (also known as "staging" or "stage"). Three weeks before departure, you get a packet with some useful logistical information like your flight numbers and travel times, plus some paperwork on cultural expectations and tips on adjusting to your new life

So there you have it. It's a long process full of bureaucracy...but then, your service will have its share of paperwork and bureaucratic roadblocks as well, so you might as well begin practicing your patience, persistence, and flexibility. If you have any follow-up questions, please put them in the comments below or email me. And thank you for considering Peace Corps!

The Wide-Eyed Innocent's Guide to the Peace Corps Application Process

My Pre-Peace Corps Timeline
My Pre-Peace Corps Timeline, cont.
Other Peace Corps Blogs
So You're Thinking About Joining the Peace Corps?
Joining Peace Corps: Timeline and Application Process
What Comes Next: Your First Nine Months In-Country
The Three Goals of Peace Corps
Leaving Peace Corps Service
The Sectors: Youth Development
The Sectors: Small Business Development
The Sectors: Health
The Sectors: Environment
Top 10 Reasons to Join Peace Corps
Top 5 Reasons to Reconsider Joining Peace Corps
Peace Corps Applicant FAQs
Your Peace Corps Toolkit
Final Thoughts for Applicants
Gender and Development: Int'l Women's Day
Peace Corps Applicant FAQs II

2/2/09 "It's not a chicken!"

In Tamazight, the word for baby is "mumu", pronounced exactly like it looks - moo-moo. Because of the heavy French influence in Morocco, from colonization and then from the ongoing French tourism, nearly everyone recognizes the French word "bebe". *Nearly* everyone. Uneducated women, which includes most of the women in my village, know only Tamazight, not any Darija (Arabic) or French.

The other key word you need to know for this story is "bibi", which means "turkey" in Tamazight.

Recently, some French tourists stayed with my host family, while my Xalti and her new baby were visiting. They clucked over the "bebe", murmuring various French endearments. Some of Ama's friends dropped by for tea, like they do most days. They heard the tourists, and turned to them with consternation. "Iga mumu, mashi afulus!" they cried with alarm.

"It's a baby, not a chicken!"

I wasn't there at the time, but Ama delighted in recounting the story to me. And to everyone who stopped by for the next week or two. This story is going to be around for a while...

The next time Ama asked me to keep an eye on the bebe while she and Xalti were in the kitchen, I turned to her, with wide eyes and alarm in my voice, and said, "Iga mumu, mashi afulus!"

She laughed all the way across the house.

2/1/09 So You're Thinking About Joining the Peace Corps?

I've been inspired by The Hegemonist to devote some time explicitly to people interested in joining the Peace Corps. I've had these potential PCVs in mind throughout my bloggery, but I want to take some time to address them directly. For the month of February, I'll alternate these posts with more typical ones (for my loyal readers).

So you're thinking about joining the Peace Corps?

Congratulations! That's awesome. :D It deserves your best thinking.

One fun way to learn about the Peace Corps life is to read blogs by Volunteers, like this one. :) You can find them all - or nearly all, anyway - at www.peacecorpsjournals.com. Just pick which region you're interested in, and then which country. Not all blogs are created equal, of course, and while PC does a great job at finding our blogs and posting them there, they're not as diligent about removing them. Under Morocco, for example, there are 131 blogs listed...but many of those Volunteers are already back in the States. So feel free to click around, and don't be discouraged if your first attempts aren't successful. As they say throughout training, our bywords are patience and flexibility.

Or maybe you want some quick facts? There are a bunch available online - like here and here. The numbers constantly change, because new Trainees ship out and Volunteers return (voluntarily or otherwise). As of 9/30/08 - just four months ago - 7,876 Peace Corps Volunteers and Trainees, aka PCVs and PCTs - and get used to the acronyms - were serving in 139 countries. President Obama has spoken warmly of Peace Corps on many occasions, and it seems likely that he will double our size to about 15,000 active volunteers by our 50th anniversary in 2011. Another key fact - we're in our "Host Country" for 27 months altogether: 3 months of training, often referred to as stage, followed by 24 months of service. So if you're looking for something short-term, keep looking. There is some great discussion of this and other issues at So You Wanna Join the Peace Corps?.

Official Peace Corps information sessions are another great resource. They take place all the time, usually on college and university campuses. When I was contemplating this life, I went to a couple of them. They got repetitive in a hurry, so I don't recommend going to several, but going to one is invaluable. You can find one near you here.

One question that came up each time, because it isn't clearly addressed in the official site, was "How much say do I get in where I'm placed?" There's no straightforward answer because the process is individualized. I'll go into more detail on this in the future, but the short answer is that you can - and should - express your preference, but there's no guarantee you'll get it. Peace Corps recruiters do their best to match your skill set with a need for that skill set...and if they need someone who can do what you do in Jamaica, then that's where they'll try to get you to go. Also, you only get to choose a region, not a country. I'd been hoping to go to Jordan, so I requested Middle East/North Africa. I ended up in MENA, all right - but in Morocco. (A blessing in disguise, as it turned out!)

The information sessions and blogs are most useful for clarifying your expectations. "Peace Corps" often conjures up visions of living in a thatched-roof mud house in sub-Saharan Africa, digging wells in dusty villages. Some PCVs still do that, but the focus has shifted to capacity building. When I first heard that, I took a mental step back; it sounds so jargony and ... vague. It turns out that it means helping people learn to help themselves. The "Give a man a fish..." idea. If we want our work to be sustainable - another piece of jargon that means it'll outlast our presence in-country - then the people we're working with need to be able to carry on in our absence. A Volunteer digging a well has made a tangible contribution to her village, but the Volunteer who teaches a local group how to dig wells, and how to write grant requests to buy the materials for wells, will leave behind a village empowered to meet their own needs for water. And that's just one example.

There are various "sectors", or categories of work you could do. The most common sector worldwide, encompassing 35% of active PCVs, is Education, which usually means teaching English classes, but can also mean teacher training or other things. There are no "Education" Volunteers in Morocco, per se, but most of us educate in one way or another. The next four most common sectors are all present here: Health & HIV/AIDS: (21% of PCVs worldwide), Small Business Development (15% worldwide), Environment (15%), and Youth Development (5%). I'll devote a day's blog to each of these.

But while you're thinking, go ahead and take a look at the application. It's incredibly long - 15 or 20 screens, as I recall - so better to start earlier than later. It will take time to compile everything you need, from contact info on all past jobs, to everyplace you've lived in the past ten years, to a comprehensive medical history...it's good to get a jump on it.

The Peace Corps slogan has changed recently, from "The toughest job you'll ever love" to "How far will you go?" They're both valid. In Peace Corps service, you'll be challenged daily, thrilled regularly, and will travel - both in miles and inwardly - farther than you can imagine. So keep thinking about it. Whatever you decide, you'll be glad you considered it.

The Wide-Eyed Innocent's Guide to the Peace Corps Application Process

My Pre-Peace Corps Timeline
My Pre-Peace Corps Timeline, cont.
Other Peace Corps Blogs
So You're Thinking About Joining the Peace Corps?
Joining Peace Corps: Timeline and Application Process
What Comes Next: Your First Nine Months In-Country
The Three Goals of Peace Corps
Leaving Peace Corps Service
The Sectors: Youth Development
The Sectors: Small Business Development
The Sectors: Health
The Sectors: Environment
Top 10 Reasons to Join Peace Corps
Top 5 Reasons to Reconsider Joining Peace Corps
Peace Corps Applicant FAQs
Your Peace Corps Toolkit
Final Thoughts for Applicants
Gender and Development: Int'l Women's Day
Peace Corps Applicant FAQs II