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.
We were incredibly nervous to make the call because we were not sure what the outcome of the conversation would be. Would it end with an invitation being sent? Were we going to be told our program was cut and they have no place for us until 2012? Based on the applicant blogs we’ve been reading, we were pretty sure it would be option #2. Regardless, we were happy to finally be getting some information about where our fate would lie. So we called our new BFF, our Placement Officer (K), and we ended up with good news over all. She did ask us a few questions but it was much more casual then we were anticipating. She wanted to know our thoughts on the application process so far, how we are going to handle challenges as a couple, and how our French studying was going. Then, she laid on the information. It started with “well as you know, we ask that you practice flexibility throughout this process”…Oh geez, we were dying to hear what was next…”How would you both feel about teaching?”. We quickly answered that we both would be happy with teaching and were not too surprised since our recruiter had noted teaching as an option for both of us during the nomination process. K went on to say that Chris would be teaching math and I would be teaching English. Our original nominated program has already been filled, but she is looking into 2 other programs for us, both in Sub-Saharan Africa and leaving in the August/September timeframe. She also noted that our French may not be needed but not to stop our self study yet. She was kind of vague about this part, but it seemed to be that she was saying it still may be a French speaking country, just that the language requirement is not as strong??? She also talked a lot about the challenges teachers face in these countries, (i.e. corporal punishment, limited resources, attendance issues), that we should research classroom management, and that I may want to look into gaining TESL experience. Apparently, K was trying to find a place to utilize Chris’ engineering skills but unfortunately, there are just no options open at the moment. As we found out during our nomination, the only possibility would require that Chris had a Spanish speaking background and he does not. However, she did encourage Chris to use his skills in secondary projects and he certainly plans to. The most exciting part of the conversation was that she said she just has “a couple more details to work out” and then she plans to send an invitation by the end of this week. Umm, can I say YEEEEEEEEESSS!!! We were definitely surprised considering that we were bracing for a major delay. She seemed very excited about these placements and made a point to say that we both have a great set of skills for the PC. By the way, she did make a comment that the budget cuts had thrown things off a bit and they are struggling to find placements but things are “finally settling down”. She ended the conversation by saying she should get back to us by the end of the week and “congratulations, you’ve been cleared for service”. Of course we jumped up and down but are being cautiously optimistic as nothing is certain until that invitation arrives on our doorstep. We also talked about the position changes. I am ecstatic about teaching English. I always thought about becoming a teacher and when looking into the PC, that is the position I thought I would do. Chris had mentally prepared for the possibility of teaching instead of doing environmental education and in the end, feels that it will probably be a better fit. He is fantastic with kids, and, this is a much more structured position which will look good on his resume, and he’ll be able to do secondary projects in engineering. We are very happy that our nominated timeframe and region has held up and now, we are officially done with guessing which country it is since the whole French thing could be thrown out the window and if leaving in September, it’s definitely not Senegal. But, we don’t even care anymore!!! We feel so fortunate to be getting an invitation when so many others are getting delayed. The official word is coming soon now. For reals.