INVITATION!

The wait is over! I can’t believe the moment we have been waiting for since August FINALLY came. Chris and I received our invitation on Wednesday evening. We have been invited to serve in Mozambique leaving on September 28th as teachers in English (me) and Math (Chris). It took a day or so to get over the initial shock of the country. We both had ideas about where we would be going and researched a lot of places, but Mozambique was never really on our radar.

INVITED to Serve in the Peace Corps

We are elated. Our PO said she would get back to us by the end of this week, but once noon on Friday (today) came around, we were sure it wasn’t going to happen. Well, she surprised us around 2:30 when she sent an email saying the following:

Christopher and Laurie,

It was a pleasure speaking with you earlier this week. I am happy to inform you that I have qualified you to receive an invitation, and identified a program for you. Congratulations for completing the final phase of the application process.

The details -
Assignment: Math Teaching and English Teaching
Region: Sub-Saharan Africa (not a French speaking country but your language prep will come in handy!) 
Departure: September 27

In preparation for these assignments I would recommend that you both look into tutoring/teaching options in your respective content areas, ideally with high school students or adults. When you receive the invitation you’ll get a better idea of what to expect.

You should receive the invitation in 5 – 7 business days. Please let me know if you have any additional questions about Peace Corps service.

I immediately welled up with tears of joy. This is it. It is really and truly happening. Next post=Where we are going. Wow.

Placement Email

Things have certainly changed. We received an email from our placement officer today asking us to schedule a time to chat. Lucky for us, we both had taken today off since we were driving back home from Pittsburgh for Chris’ marathon. So we set up a time to call her in the afternoon. We printed out the millions of questions we had been asked to answer on paper throughout this process (the recruiter’s interview questions, the couples questionnaire, our essays from the application, etc.) and read over all to get our heads in the game.

Waiting, Waiting... More Waiting

Unfortunately, today I am writing because I am discouraged and need to get this out on paper. What a difference 2 weeks can make. We were feeling like we were rounding the last corner and now everything seems farther away than ever. The past week or so, all of the blogs we read of fellow PC applicants noted that when talking to their Placement Officers, they are being told there are a lot of programs being cut and their invitation/departure date may be delayed because of this. You see, there was a large budget cut in the government a couple of weeks ago which resulted in PC losing 6.5% of it’s budget for the rest of 2011. Therefore, they are now scrambling to figure out how they will adjust for the amount of money they lost. We really could not have been a PC applicant at a more unlucky time. When we first applied and were nominated, we were told that this was “a great time to apply” because Obama was going to give the PC a budget increase and they wanted to almost double the amount of volunteers in the field. Well quite the opposite has happened so now we are sitting in a pool of a lot of other qualified applicants who had drank the “great time to apply” kool-aid with not nearly enough positions to fill. Things really hit a low note today because I saw a blog post from another couple who also was slated for an August departure date and their Placement Officer informed them that placement for couples between July-September are “almost non-existent”. I called Chris to share my disappointment and he decided to call our Placement Assistant to see if he could provide any info. Last we heard, he had sent our updated resumes to the Placement Officer who we had hoped to hear from by now. Our PA basically told Chris that because of the budget cuts, many placements are currently on hold while they figure out which programs will be cut. He thinks the decisions will be made by next week. Chris told him that we need to let our rental property know if we are moving out by the end of this month so if our PO can at tell us SOMETHING before May ends we can at least have a better idea of what we need to do about our housing situation. He said he will certainly provide this info. to our PO, but cannot make any promises about when we will hear from them. He also reminded us that based on our departure time, the PC has until the end of June to send an invitation. Yes, yes, we know this but I’d like to plan the next two years of my life ASAP please. ☺ So, we didn’t get a whole lot of info., but Chris said he was very nice, seemed somewhat optimistic and at least felt as though we are prodding them along in some way… Today, for the first time in this whole process, I feel crushed. Defeated. It’s upsetting to go through all of the hoops, be at the very last step, and still feel like you are not even close to completing the process. Not to mention all the research we’ve done on the country we think we are going to (Senegal) and getting comfortable with the positions we were nominated for (community development and environmental education) should be thrown out the window. It is really up in the air as far as when and where we go and what we will be doing…We are starting to have conversations about how life may have to go on without serving in the PC and this is the first time I have felt like that might be a reality. But, we know we are ready for a new adventure, to experience a new life outside of Columbus, Ohio and live passionately, even if it’s not with PC….But wait, this is silly. We don’t have any concrete information on our placement situation yet. So, I will stop now before I go further down that path. I like to tell myself I am an optimistic, positive person. Man, am I being tested right now.