The Road to Here

The following is an outline of my journey so far up to this point. I had heard the application process was pretty brutal and time-consuming and the rumors turned out to be somewhat true.

It was late July 2006 when I decided to throw my name in the hat and apply. I went to www.peacecorps.gov and ordered the application. It came in the mail the following week. The initial application was rather hefty. Along with your work/education history, resume, etc, you had to include 2 essays. The first was your mission statement of sorts and the second was describing your experiences with diversity. You also had to include 2 sets of fingerprints. I went to the police station in Elgin, IL to get that done for a reasonable $10. It took me a week, but I finally got everything together and submitted it.

About the second week of August I got a call from the Chicago office and they wanted to schedule an interview at their downtown office. I spent the night before preparing and got on the train the next morning to Union Station and from there walked to the office. The lady that interviewed me was super nice and it was not as stressful as the first time I interviewed with the Seattle office several years ago. Through talking with her, my recruiter decided that business advising and business development were the best fit based on my experience. I had not even considered that option as I was initially interested in teaching English or youth development. However, after the hour-long interview, I became excited about this new direction. Though I thought the interview went well, I was unsure if I was truly confident that I had enough experience. My recruiter told me the next step is to relay the information from our interview to Washington DC and from there it was out of her hands. At that point, I was considering a move to Montana and she assured me that I was a strong candidate and not to be too worried about it.

September 13th - I finally received my nomination in the mail and a huge weight was off my shoulders. When I opened it, it was a nomination for the NGO (non-governmental organization) advising program somewhere in Eastern Europe. I accepted the nomination and awaited the next steps. I wasn't officially in quite yet. I spent the next few weeks researching the countries in Eastern Europe that I could end up going. Those included Albania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Macedonia, Romania and Ukraine. After reading through others' blogs, I liked what I heard about Ukraine and I also was intrigued with Macedonia. To be honest, when I first applied, I was expecting to end up somewhere in Africa or somewhere warm and did not expect this at all. When you apply, you can request a few countries of choice. From what I hear, it is nearly unheard of to end up with an assignment in a country of your choosing. At any rate, I requested Jamaica, Fiji and the Phillipeans.

The next week, I received my medical packet which I was dreading based on what I had heard about this next phase of the interview process. At this point I was new into my job and did not have insurance yet which added to the stress level. I had heard trhough the grapevine that Peace Corps applicants are eligible to go to a VA clinic and have everythign reimbursed as opposed to just a small fraction of reimbursement through a regular clinic. I made an appointment at the VA clinic next to the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago.

October 11th - The first day I showed up there, the lady that was in charge of taking me around was pretty cool. I remember she was a big Grateful Dead fan and was really friendly to me and rather "bitchy" to everyone else. I have never seen so many crazy freaks in one building in my life. So this first day was just spent running tests. I got a Tuberculosis shot and they drew blood for a number of tests including HIV and Hepatitus. I didn't realize there was more than one day involved so when we were done with all the bloodwork (and there was a ton of it), we had to schedule a follow-up the next week. The next day there was not quite as bad as I am not a big fan of needles. This day included a dental exam with x-rays, a complete physical and vision and allergy tests. All in all, I was a healthy lad and was out of there in about 2 hours.

Now, I figured since all of my requested exams were complete that I was done with the medical portion. The next week I moved to Montana where they do not have VA clinics. Once I got settled in Billings, I received a letter in the mail. To my dismay, this letter tells me that I need to take another type of dental x-rays and I need to provide a record of my immunizations. My parents didn't have any immunization records on file from when I was a kid and I didn't have anything to prove it so I had to start all over with them. I went to a clinic nearby and got stuck with shots for Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Polio and something else. I also had to get retested for Hepatitus because they took the wrong kind of test in Chicago. I went to my dentist to get those x-rays done and to get a regular cleaning and I submitted receipts to Washington for reimbursement which I got back yesterday. They only covered about 20% of what I paid out of pocket so I currently am working on paying off my credit card bill because of this.

November 14th - I finally got medical and dental clearance along with legal background clearance; now I can just sit back and wait for the inivitation.

Novemer 15th - My invitation packet arrived. I was invited to join the 32nd group stationed in Ukraine for NGO advising. Inside was a ton of literature describing my assignment, Ukraine and what else needs to be done. As I said earler, I had 10 business days to respond and I spent all 10 to make sure I could commit to this 100%. I was skeptical about this assignment due to my experience and some of the literature I read was actually scary as it described how some volunteers are treated violently and how Ukrainians tend to dress professionally all the time. Here I thought I was leaving behind the suit and tie and now I'm right back into it. At any rate, after it sunk in and the dust had settled, I am now anxious to get the ball rolling.