I was sitting in the doctor's office. I didn't want to be there. It's not just that I didn't feel good, but I also didn't want this doctor's visit to prolong things with the Peace Corps. My Facebook browsing was interrupted by a phone call with a 202 area code.
Where is that... Then my phone informed me the call was from Washington D. C. I had no idea how to react. All I could think was
PEACE CORPS?!?!?! over and over and over. I let it go to voicemail as I was not sure I had enough time to take the call. I couldn't wait, though, to ascertain the caller. I listened to the voicemail; it was Skyler Dobert, asking me to call him back. I had a mini freak out, was diagnosed with
gastritis (not that big of a deal), and went to Walmart to pick up some antacid. In the parking lot, I called him back and set up an interview for the next morning at 10:00 am for the Education program in Zambia. My dream come true! I spent the night frantically trying to focus on the questions he had emailed me to answer in the interview. Eventually, I had to go to the church in order to actually focus. It only took me an hour or two, but I had already spent two or three trying to focus.When I came home, I tried to chill out a bit, and went to bed about midnight. I didn't sleep really well, but considering how nervous I was, it was expected. I woke up about 8:00 am even though my alarm was set for 8:30 am. After laying in bed for an hour, I got up to eat breakfast and run through my answers a couple more times.
Generally speaking, it went really well. He started the interview by telling me that I have some kind of medical accommodation that will keep me from leaving until about the end of October. (I think it's the asthma I was diagnosed with about that time this year, but I'm going to check into it to make sure.) Because of this, I am no longer eligible for Zambia, since it leaves in June of 2015. The next program I would be eligible for with my skills and the medical accommodations would be Uganda, leaving end of October, beginning of November. I told him it didn't really matter where I went, and he asked if that timing was okay. It is, so he said we could talk more about it after the interview was over. I had been afraid I wasn't going to be interviewed, so I was glad to hear that I hadn't prepared for an interview for nothing. He began by asking me a few broad "Why do you want to join the Peace Corps?" kind of questions, and then continued to some questions he had emailed me last night. I had no problem with the first set of questions, and generally had no problem with the second either. The only problem I had was with the very first of those questions which was about cross-cultural experience. I was supposed to reference a work or volunteer experience, so having an Iraqi roommate just doesn't count. I stretched a bit on my experience with Hablantes Unidos, tutoring the guys at La Pa and talked about getting to see their culture. Other than fumbling through that, though, I did perfectly fine. The last segment of questions consisted of common concerns, and he asked me to be honest about whether I would be concerned with things like not having modern conveniences or whatever. I had already thought about them as they were on the Peace Corps Wiki site I have read through. The only concerns I really had were about religious differences and acceptance of alcohol. I told him I would be more than willing to adjust, and he told me that it would be covered in pre-service training. After that I was able to to ask him about host families, how they are chosen, and also what a typical day would look like. I would be teaching anywhere from 9-24 hours per week in conjunction with another teacher or principal or something. And I would be able to tell the pre-service training people about my preferences, but normally (in Zambia at least), I would be living in my own hut with a host family as my neighbors or otherwise close. Last, he walked me through the next couple of months. He will put me under consideration for Uganda within the next couple of weeks. If I don't hear from him by the 19th of January, I'm suposed to email him and remind him. (He said he has 400 applications right now, so it's a bit crazy around the office.) Then I have to wait some more. The placement officer won't start looking at applications until March, probably after March 15. Until then, I'm going to start with my medical clearances since they will take longer than normal. He said once he's able to move my application to Uganda, he will notify medical and get things rolling.
So that's how it went! I'm really happy to have it done, and really happy that it went really well. This gives me some time to work this summer (although now the question becomes where to work...) and figure things out with my car and such. I'm not super excited to be leaving later, but I'll still be back before I want to be (before April 2018 to be specific), so it's okay. Now I have so much research to do on Uganda!!
