The envelope, s'il vous plaît...

Greetings to one and all,

Today I received the big blue envelope with the invitation to serve in the Peace Corps, and... I'm going to Morocco!

Scheduled to leave the USA in mid-September... with at least part of the assignment involving teaching English! Yeah!!!

I'm really looking forward to it, and will be writing more soon... I just have a lot to look over here, so if you will please excuse me!

A bientot...

The invitation is in the mail

After being contacted yesterday by the Placement Officer, and responding to her immediately, I was settling in for another wait, perhaps a couple more weeks. Much to my surprise, I logged into my e-mail today and learned that an invitation is being sent to me in the mail this week. Needless to say, I am thrilled that it's on the way! I don't know what departure date or host country the invitation mentions... Stay tuned for another post, coming very soon!!!

Placement Officer Makes Contact

This morning, upon logging into my e-mail account, I saw that I had a message from the Peace Corps. When I opened it, I saw that it was not from the general e-mail account at the Placement Office, from which I had received previous messages from Placement. No, this was the actual Placement Officer. This is the final person with whom I will be in contact during the application process.

Now, the Placement Officer can say very different things to different people in this initial message, depending on the timeline for which they're considering someone. Some people, initially being contacted by the Placement Officer, receive an e-mail asking them something like, "We're considering you for a position in X country, leaving in six weeks. What do you think?"

In her e-mail message this morning, the Placement Officer asked me a half dozen general questions to help her evaluate me for a placement. That makes me think they're evaluating me in a less rushed fashion. So, it seems unlikely that she's going to contact me tomorrow, saying something like, "We know it's short notice, but would you be interested in departing for Benin (or Madagascar) in the middle of July?"

FYI, I've been regularly (but I honestly don't think obsessively) visiting the site www.peacecorpswiki.org and reviewing departure dates for various countries. That site contains information contributed by Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, as well as current applicants. It also has some information obtained from formal FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests to the Peace Corps. So, it's a helpful source in terms of trying to look at where and when a potential invitation could invite me to go. That's where I came up with the theoretical invitations to Benin and Madagascar in July. But I digress.

So, the Placement Officer sent me some questions this morning. I felt that some of them were following up on questions I had been previously asked. For example, in my interview last September, I told the recruiter some steps I was going to take to prepare to enter the Peace Corps. In my response to the Placement Officer this morning, I told her the various things I have been doing to continue preparing to enter the Peace Corps: studying French; volunteering; attending Peace Corps information sessions, which, BTW, I have found to be probably my best source of information, since at them, I hear from former Returned Peace Corps Volunteers; reading about the Peace Corps; and figuring out what I'm going to do with my stuff, which will mostly be getting rid of it.

I have to say that it felt good to get that e-mail message this morning. When I posted a cryptic status update on Facebook today about being contacted by the "P.O.," my friends were jokingly writing that perhaps it meant "parole officer." I feel like I am about to embark on a grand, joyous, wonderful, beautiful adventure. By contrast, I also feel like I'm about to leave behind a line of work which I don't think I'm going to miss. Hence, I was happily amused at those jovial comments expressing symbolism of an escape out of something which I want to leave behind, and into an experience which I strongly suspect I am going to find incredibly liberating, empowering and enlightening.

This is turning out to be harder than I expected it to be...

So, I've been sifting through my belongings and papers for months now, in anticipation of the day when I receive my invitation from the Peace Corps. I've been trying to get prepared, so that when the invitation comes, I'll be ready to go.

In the last couple of weeks, though, I've cut down into depths I haven't touched in over a decade. Both physically and emotionally. I've looked at papers I haven't read in a dozen years. And that has elicited feelings in me I hadn't anticipated. There are reasons why I hadn't looked at these papers in so long: because I've been out enjoying my life; out doing things I've wanted to do for years; out having fun; out enjoying the present; out there looking forward instead of backward.

I've been sifting through these old things, only because I'm forcing myself to do it, to minimize what my parents and sister will store for me until I return, whenever that is. So by making myself sort through these things, I'm placing my choice, to uproot myself, squarely in front of myself. This decision is becoming more real, and less avoidable; thus the effects of it are becoming real, and less avoidable. I'm getting ready to move out of the country for some amount of years. And now that that choice is starting to become concrete, I'm feeling anticipation of the withdrawal that I'm going to feel. A profound sadness. I've told some of you that it's not just because I'm going to be away from my family and friends for so long. Also not just that I'm leaving the San Francisco Bay Area, California, and the west coast, of which I am so fond.

I've realized that I'm going to be ripping myself, in a rather jarring way, out of the only culture I've really ever known. The culture which has shaped me since before I was even aware of my own consciousness. So I've realized that I'm going to be leaving behind almost everything which is familiar to me. It's not so much frightening as it is making me realize that I'm going to be leaving behind so many people, places, institutions and things which I find comforting. I had certainly thought before now about how much I would miss people I love. But I hadn't really thought that I would significantly miss the cultural comforts to which I'm accustomed. Foolish of me not to have expected it, but the truth nevertheless.

As I type this blog post, I'm realizing that the end results will be so worth the discomfort, withdrawal, and pain I'm going to feel. I'm going to learn about, and teach, and help, people I've wanted to meet and know and befriend for many years now. I'll be adding cultural richness and exchange to my life. And perhaps, in time, I will come to be comforted, welcomed and warmed by some of the new customs, traditions and practices which I am going to learn through another culture. Maybe come the day, years from now, when I board my transport to leave my village in which I will have served in the Peace Corps for years, I will feel a separation anxiety which will rip at my heart just as painfully as what I feel now. And if that is how I feel upon completing my Peace Corps service, then one of the goals of the Peace Corps, to improve U.S. citizens' understanding of other cultures, will surely have been met.

Up Until Now...

I'm going to start at the very beginning. Or, I should say, as far back as I can remember.

I first remember wanting to go into the Peace Corps in the summer of 1996, right before I started law school. But, as most of you know, then I went into law school. Then I wanted to go into the Peace Corps right after I finished law school, in 1999, but I wasn't able to go into the Peace Corps then.

Toward the end of 2008, I started filling out the application for the Peace Corps. But then I shelved the app. In retrospect, I can say that I just wasn't ready for it. I was too much under the grip of a fear of loneliness while being in the Peace Corps.

But after not too long, the idea started creeping back into my head. And I started receiving messages of encouragement from completely different and unconnected places. One such instance of encouragement came in early August 2009, when I went on a hike in the East Bay led by a woman named Greta Franklin. Greta quit her job to hike the entire Appalachian Trail. In one trip. She had never gone on long hikes before then. I remember one moment in particular on that hike she led in Sibley Preserve up in the Oakland hills. She said something like, "I encourage you, if there's some major change, some adventure that you've been wanting to pursue, to do whatever it is you've been wanting to do."

The final push of encouragement, which was the catalyst leading me to irrevocably decide to be in the Peace Corps, came just days later when I was sitting in church one Sunday morning. The pastor was talking about doing what Jesus asks us to do, helping others. And that when we worry about being lonely, the pastor said, "Jesus says, 'It will be OK. I will be there, with you.'" And that was the moment when I decided that I would definitely go into the Peace Corps.

We often think of togetherness as being physically together. But there are different types of togetherness, different ways of being connected, showing that we care and that we want to help. And I've also reminded myself that I will be forming new relationships, and new emotional bonds, in addition to the ones I already have, all of which will help me when I'm in the Peace Corps. So, on that Sunday morning last August, I truly had thrown off the shackles of fear which had been preventing me from submitting my application to the Peace Corps during the previous year.

In late August 2009, I submitted my online application to the Peace Corps, and had my recommenders submit their recommendations on my behalf. In mid-September 2009, a recruiter interviewed me at the downtown Oakland office of the Peace Corps. The interview was a couple of hours long, and mostly consisted of his questions for me. Near the end of the interview, he asked me if I had any questions for him or other thoughts I wanted to convey to him. I told him that I really wanted to teach English in the Peace Corps, and that I would really like to use my knowledge of French. He told me that many of the English teaching positions in the Peace Corps are in French-speaking west Africa. He next told me that the Peace Corps now requires people who want to teach English in many French-speaking countries to demonstrate their proficiency in the French language before being invited to be a Peace Corps Volunteer in those countries. He explained that applicants can do this in one of two ways: (1) have taken a certain number of semesters of college-level French within a certain number of years before applying, or (2) get a certain score on a test administered by The College Board (which also administers the SAT). I didn't qualify based on having studied French recently enough, so that only left the second option for me.

I researched the test, the College Level Examination Program (CLEP) test, a little bit, and learned that The College Board only lets people take it once every six months. Wanting to go into the Peace Corps as soon as possible, I resolved to pass the CLEP test on the first try.

Near the end of my interview, the recruiter also told me that the Peace Corps also requires people who want to teach English to have volunteered at least 30 hours over a three-month period, either tutoring English or assisting a teacher who teaches English. So, in early October, I started volunteering as a tutor and teacher's assistant, which I have been very much enjoying.

The recruiter also told me that because I wanted to teach English in the Peace Corps, he would hold my application until I gained the relevant volunteering experience. Once I knew that my application would be on hold for three months while I gained the requisite volunteer experience, I realized that I might as well take as much time as possible to prepare for the CLEP test. Having gained the necessary volunteer experience in early January, I took the CLEP test in early January, and did well on it, achieving more than the minimum score which the Peace Corps requires of applicants who want to teach English in French-speaking countries.

When I brought my CLEP test results to my recruiter the next day, he told me that given the volunteer experience I had gained, he could nominate me for an English teaching position in any of the host countries to which the Peace Corps sends people to teach English. He then immediately added that because I had spent so much time studying French, that it made sense for him to wait until he saw an opening to teach English in a French-speaking country. I agreed. BTW, when a recruiter nominates a Peace Corps applicant, the recruiter is recommending that an applicant advance to the next stage of the application process. In nominating a Peace Corps applicant, a recruiter is also suggesting that a particular Peace Corps applicant would be well-suited to a particular volunteer position in the Peace Corps which will become vacant.

In late January, I was nominated to teach English in the region which the Peace Corps calls "North Africa/Middle East." Now, the Peace Corps only sends volunteers to two countries in that region: Morocco and Jordan. My recruiter told me that the posting, listing the position for which I was nominated, stated that "knowledge of French is preferred." So, impliedly, I was nominated to teach English in Morocco.

Several days after I was nominated, I received forms in the mail for my dentist and doctor to fill out. I made the necessary doctor appointments, and in mid-February, I mailed the dental and medical forms back to the Peace Corps. Applicants have to provide this information to the Peace Corps because the Peace Corps provides medical and dental care to volunteers while they are serving in host countries. The Peace Corps needs to make sure that it will be able to provide the dental and medical care which a particular volunteer needs when he or she is serving in a particular country.

On March 1, I received my dental clearance. Several weeks later, I received my legal clearance, indicating that there were not any legal obstacles to my entering the Peace Corps, such as a criminal record, or any civil legal obligations or complications, such as involvement in any civil lawsuits.

The Peace Corps informs applicants of updates to their applications by sending them an e-mail telling them to log into the website to get the update. For some reason, those e-mails from the Peace Corps are always sent just slightly after 2 a.m. Very early in the morning on May 7, I woke up. Really it's more accurate to say that it was in the middle of the night. Unable to fall back asleep for a while, I finally got out of bed after 3 a.m. I thought, "Who knows? Maybe there's an update from the Peace Corps..." When I checked my e-mail early that morning, I indeed had an e-mail from the Peace Corps telling me to log into the Peace Corps website to receive an update. Upon logging into the Peace Corps site, I saw that the medical section had been changed to say that a decision had been reached regarding my medical clearance, and that I should look for a letter in the mail. WHAT?!?! I thought, "Well, there's no way I'm going to fall back asleep now."

Later that morning, I received an e-mail message from the Placement Office in Washington, DC informing me that I had received my medical clearance. The Placement Office Admin Assistant also asked me to send any updates regarding any new volunteer experience I had gained, as well as any new classes I had taken. I immediately sent them an update about my volunteering, and I sent them a record of the French classes I've been taking at the Alliance Française, both before and after I took the CLEP test.

And now, I wait, for an invitation from the Peace Corps. Basically it will be for wherever I'm most needed, which may or may not be Morocco.

So that's all there is for now. FYI, future posts will be significantly shorter. I wrote so much so that people who didn't know all of this would be brought up to speed. Also I was trying to anticipate potential questions. But if you still have questions, ask away! I love talking about, and learning about, the Peace Corps, and I'm very excited about it!