Monday, November 1, 2010

Peace Corps Updates

I'll try and keep this short. I had an interview with my recruiter from the Peace Corps almost a week ago and it went really well! It was held in Arlington, VA which is right next door to DC. I guess that's convenient enough considering there are only a handful of recruiting offices around the country so some applicants REALLY have to travel far just for an interview! I believe applicants from Alaska have to go to Los Angeles and this is before they're even nominated to serve. It was pretty easy for me. It was forecast to rain so instead of walking to the shuttle stop and taking the JHMI to Penn Station, one of my friends graciously picked me up and drove me 10 minutes to the train station. I took the MARC train to DC and then 2 lines on the DC underground metro trains into Arlington. The building where my interview was scheduled was only 4 blocks from the metro station but it was completely uphill and it was raining cats and dogs. Even though I had an umbrella, as I was walking uphill, the wind was blowing downhill and I was drenched from knees down. I was also wearing heels which aren't very agreeable with wet weather since it created very little friction between the soles of my feet and my shoes, which were probably about a half size too big. Those four blocks were the worst leg of the trip but I made it and on time!

The interview process was more casual than Teach for America's. My recruiter's name is Chris and he's a really great guy- very likeable and easy to talk to. The first part of the interview was just him explaining how the rest of the process will go, how long it should take, etc. The second part was the traditional question and answer stage. The last part was me asking him questions. I learned two important things about the Peace Corps at this interview, things I hadn't come across during my traditional research. The first is that PC volunteers can live on their own after training, they don't have to live with host families. The other is that all volunteers travel to their host country together, on the same flight, and actually meet each other a few days before their departure in one US city before traveling abroad together. I thought both of those things were cool.

After I asked Chris my questions, came my nomination. He told me he had no problem nominating me and I was surprised I got to help pick my region and program. Of course I wanted sub-Saharan Africa but I didn't think I was going to get selected to go there because I don't have the skills or the kind of degree they're after. However, Chris found a program in French West Africa (we don't know the country) that can use a volunteer in Women and Children Community Development or something or the other. The thing is this program wants volunteers who have some basic knowledge of French and I've never studied French so I had to sign a contract vowing to learn some French before I depart. The good thing is Hopkins offers a French Elements I Intersession course, or at least they have in past years, so I'll jump on that if it's still necessary. It's also important to note that I very well may not end up in the program I get nominated for, for a number of reasons, so I'm crossing my fingers but I'm still open to change.

I missed my stop on the MARC train back to Baltimore so it took me an additional 75 minutes to get home, but when I did, I looked up programs in French-speaking Africa that typically leave in mid-Sept, the departure date of the program I was nominated for, and found Cameroon and Togo, both francophone, to have departure dates around the middle of September, historically. The next step for me is to get medically and dentally cleared. Everything else is of course just a waiting game.

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