The Smaller Pockets in My Summer Timeline

Just to add some order to the jumble in my mind

For any curious souls interested in the Peace Corps, let me put out a helpful PSA that the once you are invited to join, the work to officially become a Peace Corps volunteer doesn’t end by any means — not even close. In fact, in most ways, the invitation signals the beginning of all your work to become a Peace Corps volunteer. Shortly after accepting my invitation (you’re only a week after you’re invited to serve), I was greeted by an insane flood of paperwork. Paperwork to apply for some special passport, paperwork for my Mozambican visa. Fingerprinting. A new statement of aspiration and what I hoped to accomplish. Online Safety and Security modules. PDFs about Mozambique and its history and its history with Peace Corps. A volunteer handbook and a handbook for family staying on the “homefront”. Pre-departure checklists, medical checklists, packing checklists. A trillion hours and a billion US Postal Service using Priority/Express shipping envelopes later, I completed the first part before the school semester even ended. This girl spent $5.75 priority mailing a sheet of paper — heart-breaking, really.

Wave two of the paperwork is due about three months after accepting the invitation. This past week of being at home and trying to settle in and unpack my apartment things and repack for Europe, has been split fairly equally between being on the phone with various doctors hoping that they carry the vaccinations I need, being at the doctor’s, the whole unpacking/repacking thing, and a horrible episode on using online live chat customer service. Almost $500, two shots, an uncomfortable probing, four vials of blood, hours and hours in the same doctor’s patient room staring at the same painting later, I have completed a physical, TB skin test, pap smear (why…), blood work for HIV, Hep B, Hep C, etc, etc, varicella titer because I couldn’t prove I had chicken pox before, a pee test, a dental exam, polio and tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (Tdap) vaccinations, and am now trying to find a place that will administer the yellow fever vaccination to me. All within the span of a week, though I will admit my case is slightly different since I am leaving to Europe in a week and need to get everything done before leaving then. As a note to myself, I need my eye exam when I come back from Europe.

Speaking of Europe, I need to do so much research still and I’m leaving in a week! There’s a finalized itinerary for you. We’ve finally booked all of our planes, trains, buses, and hostels so we know that we’ll have places to stay at the very least. Although all the money I’ve spent booking these hostels and planes and trains makes me not want to spend any more money on anything else. I need to start looking up the cheapest, but hopefully still delicious, places to eat. And I need to pack, I need to pack, I need to pack. On the plus side, I just finished watching all of Gilmore Girls so there’s nothing left to distract me from all the other more important things I need to do.

A month before I leave (sometime around August) and after a summer of fun fun fun, I’m supposed to receive all the information and get plane tickets to my staging event in Philly on September 22nd — my official leaving-California-for-two-years date. At the two-day staging event, I’ll meet everyone else that will be serving in Mozambique and get oriented with whatever information that I’m supposed to find helpful. On September 24th, I’ll finally get on a 25-hour long flight (how thrilling) to the Maputo, the capital of Mozambique. My brother suggests I bring a yo-yo because it’ll fit anywhere and is surprisingly entertaining.

Once in Maputo, I’ll spend 3-months living with a host family and attending intensive, immersive training in culture, language, and teaching. I actually won’t actually be spending my two years of service in the capital and during my time training, I’ll also be trying to figure out the site and location that will I will do best in. Apparently, I’m allowed to choose location preferences — whether I want something more rural or urban, inland or coastal, but everyone wants something coastal so we’ll see what happens. At the end of three months, I have to be at intermediate level fluency of Portuguese before I’m officially sworn in as a Peace Corps volunteer — otherwise I think I’ll be sent back home. It’s bizarre to think that the next two years of my life will be conducted in mainly Portuguese and whichever language the local people at the site I end up. I can’t imagine switching from speaking and thinking in English to Portuguese, but on the plus side, Portuguese doesn’t require any rolling of the r’s so at least I’m safe on that front.

God I’m horrible at conclusions, but maybe I’ll get better as I write more but for now, boa noite e até a próxima!