Wednesday, December 10, 2003

Medical Forms

How exciting. We got our medical forms on Monday, Dec. 8th. There was a big envelope stuffed into the little mailbox. It contained two more envelopes, which each contained another envelope. Peace Corps bureaucracy sometimes feels like the Russian nesting dolls. There is a medical form, dental form, vision form. Most of them pretty long, especially the medical form.

This is exciting, but at the same time, a little vexing. While we are one step closer on the PC staircase, we now have to fill out a whole bunch of forms, make doctor's appointment, and generally sift through the sorry state of our bodies. After that, though, and a couple more weeks of waiting, we should get invited to the big party in the Caribbean.

We are hoping for the Dominican Republic, keep your fingers crossed.

Saturday, December 06, 2003

Peace Corps Updates

We needed a way to let all of our friends and family know what we were doing while in the Peace Corps. In the mean time, we will be giving a few updates on our preparations for the Peace Corps.

Past timeline of events:

Mid-September, 2003 - We turned in our applications.

September 29, 2003 - First interview with the recruiter on U. of Kansas campus. This interview was about 2 hours. We learned that we may be forced to eat raw meat in cultural ceremonies. We were ok with this. Mainly, the interview was about our willingness to adapt to new things, and what we have done in the past that qualifies us for the Peace Corps.

October 22, 2003 - Mailed our reference forms, fingerprints, background check forms, and job skills to the Denver Regional Office.

November 7, 2003 - Our phone interview with the Peace Corps Recruiter in Denver, which lasted two hours and was pretty much the same as the first interview ("Would you do this if you had to?")

November 12, 2003 - PC open house at KU. Met Denver Recruiter, RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteers) and Nominees (People who have been accepted to a region, but not given an assignment yet). Also learned that RCPV's are most interesting to each other.

November 24, 2003 - We received our nomination. We leave on July 3, 2004 for the Caribbean (either Jamaica, Haiti, Dominican Republic or Eastern Caribbean). Kaelyn will be in Community Development and Shane will be in Environmental Education. That's as specific as we know. This nomination is "70 percent certain," we learned.