The invitation has arrived! Mozambique!!!!!!

It’s here!!!!  My invitation arrived in the mail on Tuesday, and I’m going to Mozambique!!!  It was a beautiful moment because it was late, after 7pm, and I’d given up on it arriving.  Both of my grandparents and my aunt and uncle and their kids and my parents were outside at the house to look at my car, so I had this big pile of family around me when the UPS truck showed up with my invitation.  When I opened it, I yelled and jumped up and down over and over and over again!

It’s taken me this long to update because I have been so busy scrambling to get everything done as fast as possible.  I am so close to the staging date that I don’t want to risk having something go wrong with my paperwork and the invitation packet is so full of information and forms and various steps that even I (the paperwork queen) am having difficulty keeping it all straight.

So how do I feel?  I feel like I’ve won the lottery in terms of my assignment.  Literally.  I had images in my brain of Lesotho (the other potential country I could have been placed in) and from the various blogs I’d read, it is a chilly mountain country just going into winter and volunteers were talking about being freezing cold all of the time.  Plus, when I had imagined where I would like to serve if I could choose, climate-wise it would be somewhere warm and tropical (at least most of the time), but I also hoped for a place faced with challenges where I could feel like I could use my knowledge and skills to make a difference.  I was very (very) drawn to Africa.  So Mozambique is a perfect fit and I am absolutely ecstatic!

What will I be doing?  My placement is as a Community Health Promoter, which is slightly different from what I imagined, but I am still thrilled!  It sounds like there is a lot of work in NGO Advising (my specialty) within the program, working around issues of HIV/AIDS, orphaned children, outreach and education and other health issues.  I’m slightly intimidated, because health isn’t my area of expertise, but I am so ready for this challenge!

What language will I be learning? An added bonus is that one of my concerns about serving in Africa was learning a language that would be extremely geographically specific.  In Mozambique, there are local African languages, but the primary language is Portuguese, which transfers very well to learning Spanish and spoken in a number of places.  When this girl gets home, she will be tan and fluent in Portuguese.  Can you believe it?!

So what now? Well, I’ve sent off my Peace Corps passport application, visa application, PR materials, updated resume and aspiration statement to the country staff and have a packing list.  I am assuming that I will be flying to Philadelphia for staging on May 30.  Thanks to my lovely employer, I have work through the week before I leave (which is a massive blessing financially).  In addition, I have a huge running list (growing faster than I can check things off of it).  Including:

·         Sell my car;

·         Sort and pack my things for storage;

·         Buy the supplies I’ll need;

·         Pay off my credit cards;

·         Save as much money as I can;

·         Start daily Portuguese language training at LiveMocha;

·         Sell some other miscellaneous stuff;

·         Read up on Mozambique;

·         Finish recovering a chair and an art project that I’ve started;

·         Pack, pack, pack and pack!

The long and short of it is that I am beyond thrilled.  I am so excited and relieved and happy and nervous and I’ve been walking around with a huge smile on my face randomly screaming “MOZAMBIQUE!!!!!” at the top of my lungs.  So life is good.

Waiting and Like to Read Ahead? Get Your Peace Corps Documents Online!

This will be brief, I just wanted to share a resource that I've been using.  It's called, Scribd, and if you're not familiar, it is a great source for documents from agencies that you can't get on their sites or anywhere else.  For example, in advance of receiving my packet, I've been able to read instructions for completing my aspiration statement and updated resume, as well as download training resources and the welcome book for both countries that I could be invited to.

Hope you enjoy!

Scribd Peace Corps Documents

I've been INVITED!!!!

I’ve been invited!  I will blog again when I have the invitation in my hand, which is hopefully today or tomorrow, but wanted to put something up here. 

On April 6, I realized that it had been a month since I had been told that my file would be preliminarily reviewed and so I emailed my placement assistant to inquire about the status.  This is what I received in return:

Serah,

I hope that this finds you well.  I would like to inform you that your file has gone through our preliminary review and is complete.  I will now pass it on to a Placement Specialist for further review to best match your skill set to an available program departing in the coming months.  You can expect to hear from her in approximately 4-6 weeks regarding possible placement options that best match your skill set.  I encourage you (as I do all of our applicants) to take this time to continue to gain additional professional/volunteer experience relevant to the program in which you were nominated to.  This will allow you to stand out as an applicant and also make you a stronger resource in a future host community.

I was feeling really distraught about the email, because I had been thinking that this email would be the one that told me where they were considering placing me and instead I was facing another month and half of the unknown.  I assumed that this meant that it would be five months at least before I would be leaving and had to create a new plan.

So, I started looking for other jobs.  The next day, I set up an interview (thanks to the help of my Mother’s extensive net of local contacts) for a summer job, and resigned myself to more waiting.

Then, later that afternoon on the 7^th, I got a phone call from a 202 area-code and I didn’t recognize it so I didn’t pick up.  I listened to the message when it finally registered in my brain that it was a D.C. area code and it was a Placement Officer asking me to call her back that day.  I called back immediately and she apologized for the short notice and then asked if we could talk for a little bit.  My heart was pounding out of my chest, but I didn’t want to dare to hope. 

She asked me a number of questions similar to those I was asked in my initial interview. She was mostly just checking-in with me about the challenges of being a volunteer and my expectations of my Peace Corps service.  Then she asked me about geographical flexibility and any preferences I had, and then when I was prepared to leave.  I explained that I knew I wasn’t supposed to make any major life changes until I had my invitation, but that I’d had to, and so I was simply waiting for my invitation to leave.  She said “Well, I’m very glad to hear that, because congratulations, we would like to invite you to serve in Africa leaving on May 31^st in non-profit advising!”.  I immediately started bawling and when I asked her if people regularly cried on the phone with her, she responded that they did and that sometimes they screamed.  I literally cried through the rest of the conversation, but she had a great sense of humor about it. 

I checked the wiki almost immediately and learned that there were two programs leaving on May 31, both of which had non-profit advising programs.  Lesotho and Mozambique.  I’d initially thought that Mozambique had a French-speaking requirement, so was convinced it was Lesotho.  A friend corrected me though and I realized that it is a primarily Portuguese. 

I’m crossing my fingers for Mozambique, but either way I am absolutely THRILLED!  I will update more as soon as I have my invitation.

Here’s to all those applicants out there hoping every day for their placement.  There is HOPE!  And it doesn’t always work the way that they say it will, so stay in touch and stay positive!

Make the Wiki Work for You, Part II: Timelines from Clearance to Invitation and Invitation to Service

I noticed a couple of days ago on my online toolkit that the percentage of applicants responding that they are ready to leave in 1-4 months has been steadily increasing from the time that I applied (up to 54% last time I checked), which indicates to me that there are a lot of applicants sitting out there somewhere in this process and ready to go soon. I’ve been wondering if that bottleneck of applicants slows the process or increases competition for available slots (or both!).  Ultimately, there seems to be a whole lot of great people out there waiting for the news that will define the next two-plus years of their lives.

In my case, I’ve been doing everything I can think to do. As soon as I cleared medical and legal I sent my updated resume to my Placement Assistant (because the blogs I was reading almost universally indicated that an updated resume was one of the first things requested in the Placement Process).  At that time, she informed me that my file would be reviewed within 2-4 weeks. 

That was twenty days ago (but who’s counting?). 

During that time, I have been very patient and keeping myself very busy, but as every day passes without an email from the Placement Office or any change to my online account I can feel the pressure and anticipation building again, and so I returned to the Peace Corps Wiki to see what other data I could play with to give my antsy mind some peace.

My last project involving the Peace Corps Wiki was to use the available placement data to try and deduce where I might be invited to serve. While I didn’t find much more than temporary peace of mind, I was astonished at how many people read that blog. Apparently, I am far from alone in the world of applicants patiently (or not so patiently) waiting for information about their placements and looking for any kind of comfort in the form of hard data. 

So this time, I decided to see if I could get a sense of the normal timeframe between clearance and invitation as well as the how far out the staging date typically is from the invitation date.

There are some limitations to the data that I perceive as significant:

1)      The data on the Wiki is self-reported, which can leave a lot of room for error.  Also, if the person putting their information into the site doesn’t put the day of the month, it is assumed to be the first, which could make it up to a month off.

2)      There is not very much data on the Wiki, 158 entries from 2004-2011 and 128 of those are completed.  I believe I read at one point that there were around 200,000 applicants per year, so the significance of the Wiki data is questionable. (See my plea below that you add your information to the site).

3)      The Federal data is from 2006, and I don’t know even where to start accounting for procedural, programmatic or funding changes in the meantime between 2006 and now.

That said, what did I find?

The chart shows my complete analysis of the timelines, but basically what I learned was:

Clearance to Invitation: The data on the Wiki shows a significantly longer period of time between medical clearance and invitation than the federal report.  For applicants under 50 years old, the report shows an average of 29 days (for all applicants, it shows an average of 38 days).  The Wiki shows an average of 76 days and a median of 54 days.  This means that I should expect to wait between 4 to 11 weeks for an invitation.

Invitation to Start of Service: The data on the Wiki again shows a longer wait between invitation and service than the federal report, but not by much.  Again, for applicants under 50 years old, the report shows an average of 82 days (94 days for all applicants) and the Wiki shows an average of 101 days and a median of 107 days.  This means I should be expecting to leave between 12 and 14.5 weeks after I receive my invitation.

So, given that I’m pretty much three weeks out from medical clearance that means that I am looking at 13 weeks at the least and 25 weeks at the most before my staging date. 

I want to do this too!  Where do I start?

1)      Go to the Peace Corps Wiki Application Timelines page and copy all of the data in the table.

2)      Paste the data into Excel (I had to copy and paste only values into a separate sheet after this because of the sorting buttons that are built into the table).

3)      Sort and analyze as you see fit or helpful.  Personally, I deleted the dates and left only the number of days and then looked at averages and medians overall and by year compared with mine.

4)      In order to see how the Wiki data compared with the Federal data (I assume the Federal data is more accurate because it pulls from a larger sample of applicants), I used the report referenced on the Wiki site that came from the Office of the Inspector General, Final Program Evaluation Report Peace Corps’ Medical Clearance System IG-08-08-E, published in March of 2008.  It uses data from 2006, so I did some digging around for a more recent report and couldn’t find anything.

My requests of you dear readers!

First, PLEASE put your application timeline data on the Wiki site!  The more of us that add our information, the more helpful and informative the data will be for future applicants.

Second, I want to write about the impact of the Federal budget on the Peace Corps.  I’ve been wondering if the lack of a Federal budget is impacting the agency’s willingness to move forward on future programs.  If you have any recommended resources or links or ideas that might help my research on this, I would love if you would share!

Refugee in my own country. Thoughts on leaving everything behind to follow your dream.

I feel like a refugee in my own country.  I know that the Peace Corps tells you not to make any major life changes until you have your invitation in hand, but because of the nature of my job, in order to go when I wanted to (as soon as possible), I had to leave before the legislative session started.  So I said a goodbye to my job, my boyfriend, my friends and my home of eleven years to come to Idaho, save money and wait for a placement.

So I am a refugee, in my own hometown as a matter of fact.  I have left everything that was familiar  in the hopes that I can create a new trajectory for my life by following the Peace Corps dream that has haunted me since I was a child.  Unlike a refugee however, the war that  I’ve been running from is taking place inside me and so in a way, it is inescapable.  I find myself in a Boise, Idaho winter (but at least one that is verging on Spring) waiting.  And waiting. And waiting.  Desperate to hear where I will go and when.  There is no point in settling in, so it becomes difficult to make friends or to create any kind of coherent, stable life.  I suppose it's a good trial run for my Peace Corps service. I’m living with my family, and while I’ve loved the opportunity to get closer with them, I am struggling as an adult to cope with not having my own space and feeling the need to justify my time and activities  I’m not used to accounting to anyone but myself, it’s a very strange reality.  I’m also struggling with the feeling that I am going backwards.  I feel like going into the Peace Corps is something you do in your early twenties (even though the data says that I actually am close to the median age of volunteers). It seems very bohemian, if not adolescent, to abandon a career and an established life and place the next couple years of my life completely into the hands of the federal government.  It takes a supreme ability to let go of control, which is something that is hard for me in just the day to day reality.  And I have no plan B, so I can't even think of where I will be or what I will do if this doesn't pan out.

So aside from work and a relatively stable workout routine, I am here with this void of time in front of me and the way that I attempt to cope with the unknown is that I walk around this town.  I put my headphones in my ears and walk.  For hours.  Down neighborhood streets, passing by houses where I lived as a kid.  Up the hills of Camel’s Back Park.  Downtown, up to the top of the parking garage just to look out at the city.  Sometimes I walk buoyantly, sometimes dejectedly, sometimes so overwhelmed with sadness I can’t stop crying, sometimes so overwhelmed by joy that I can’t stop crying, sometimes simply afraid of the future being so unknown, sometimes energized and excited for the new adventures ahead.  Sometimes I am intensely aware of strangers and their gazes on me, and I become so frozen with self-consciousness that I sniff, widening my nostrils, or I cough, or look at my iPhone to make it seem as if I am doing something, or simply avert my gaze or turn it stony and unseeing.  And sometimes, as is the case more and more recently, I can openly and sincerely smile.  Sometimes I try, but it feels pinched on my face and pained and insincere.

So, I have come to the realization recently that the worst seems to have passed, and I feel immensely grateful for that.  I laughed out loud when I realized the enormity of what I have been through (much of it self-inflicted) to get where I am right now and to get where I plan to be going.  So although, I don’t feel completely healed, completely ready, I feel like the load is lifting and is slowly being replaced with the sense of purpose and excitement that I have been so desperately waiting for. 

I’m seeing now that these things take time.  Not to say everyone I’ve spoken with hasn’t said the same thing.  But it has felt like one thing after another after another with so little room to breathe let alone to smile in between, that the idea of every truly feeling like I could make this happen seemed impossible.  I was having a conversation with my mother the other day about focusing on the positive, seeing the signs, keeping the hope and I remembered myself as the girl who saw signs in rainbows and birds and flowers and the weather.  Basically everything.  My mother described herself as a Pollyanna, and all I could think was “Man, I remember when I was like that!”  And I wish that I could get it back, because although it can be irritating when you are faced with the eternal optimist (or so I’ve been told by jaded friends), it is such a happy place to live. There was a time when my smile was unfailing, my bouncy greeting sincere, my optimism about the future never soured, I was charming with strangers and I could always say that things would get better and make plans with no doubts that they would work out somehow.  I just knew that everything happened for a reason.  And now?  I overcome a hurtle and I look to the near horizon for the next one that I just know will be bigger or more impossible to overcome.  When I laugh, it ends in this hollow sound, it kind of trails off into nothing because in every moment of happiness, I remember within seconds that it is likely to be replaced by despair.  But you can’t fake the Pollyanna worldview. It has to come from a place of truly experiencing the world in that way.  I desperately want it back.  I feel it in bits and pieces, which I will take with joy, because for the past few years, those moments have been scattered and sparse.

So for now, I’m a refugee, slowly clearing my head of the overwhelming changes in my life, reorienting to a new place and planning for a new life that is nothing like the one in my past.   I continue on, working to cheer as the applicants whose blogs I read get their invitations (and feeling slightly jealous).  I find myself staring lustfully at the picture on the Peace Corps wiki site of the invitation packet and I can’t wait for that crush of paperwork and information so that I can shift into gear and start making plans!

How do you take no information and then try to logically guess where you are going? Peace Corps Wiki, that's how!!!

So, what does a person do when they’ve got research skills, a lot of time to kill and an insane need to have information (any information!!!!) on what is going to happen in the next three years of her life?  Well, she tries to logically deduce from available data where she might be going in the Peace Corps and when.

Thanks to all those research methodology and statistics and data analysis classes I’ve taken, I’ve created a matrix of likely possibilities for where I might serve.

If you are an applicant looking to do the same kind of thing (or even just to know which country you might be going to based on your nomination for your program and departure date), I gleaned this information from the Peace Corps Wiki (a fantastic tool!) and used it to try to give myself a sense of where and when I might be going.  I took the data from both the Placement Calculator and the Timeline section of the wiki site. 

I’ve included countries that:

·         Show Invitations with departures in 2011;

·         As of 2009 Peace Corps data had programs in either NGO Development or Community Development.

I’ve eliminated the following:

·         Departures that take place in less than 7 weeks.  I haven’t been reviewed by placement yet and know they give you the requisite 6-week notice;

·         Departures to Spanish speaking countries.  I don’t meet the Spanish language requirements;

·         Departures to French-speaking Africa. I don’t meet the French language requirements.

I’ve prioritized the data by:

·         FIRST: Countries that have both NGO Development and Community Development;

·         SECOND: Countries that have NGO Development only;

·         THIRD: Countries that have Community Development only.

I’ve organized the data in each subset in:

·         Descending order by the number of volunteers serving in those countries;

·         I’ve assumed that programs leaving in less than 9 weeks are the least likely (as a result of timing) and so have been moved to the end of each data subset.

WHAT DID I LEARN??

#1 Would be the Ukraine and wouldn’t leave until the end of September (Nooooooooooooooo!!!! On both the place and the date!!!!!)  But there are 31 possible programs in the next six months, so that is good news.  What I don’t know is how many of these still have spots, also, I don’t have data on current programming, so some of these could be no longer operating and there could be new additions.  I will update as more information becomes available.  Was this a helpful exercise?  Yes, at killing time and exerting some illusion of control.  Ultimately I’m still left knowing nothing useful.

Cleared legal, on to placement! Being a real person works!

I accidentally reported my student loan as having non-deferrable interest, which isn't the actual case.  But thanks to the quick responding legal reviewer, was able to get all three legal holds cleared.  ONE DAY!  That's a Peace Corps record!

On to the Placement Review!