Since I accepted, I began a flurry of research, planning, filling out paperwork, doing other related work, and, most of all, dreaming. I got into the mood and ended up taking most of the day meticulously wording my aspirational statement, which I may post on this blog later, after my Dad is done proofreading it. It took a long time because the aspirational statement and your resume are the first documents the in-country staff will get from and about you. The resume is proving trickier because it is in a VERY simplified version of a format. I haven't heard from the Peace Corps about the email I sent asking some clarifying questions. I need to remember that I don't have to be the volunteer that got his stuff in by the next day, although my overachiever side is dying to. Anyways, I may post my resume to help any of you future volunteers with formatting yours.
I read both of the Peace Corps recommended/required books. The books are PDF files, which you can only get from the Peace Corps or one of its websites (google them) and are quite short, but full of information. The one that was most helpful was A Few Minor Adjustments, which talks about six different phases in the Peace Corps and the adjustments and strategies to address them. I loved this book, and took a few pages of notes as a quick reference on concrete strategies to mitigate difficulties. The other book On the Home Front, is really just for family members. It was a repeat of a lot of the information from the other book. I wouldn't have read it if I had known it was redundant info, but being an overachiever causes one to do certain things. By the way, I wanted to give you a little info about the some of the main parts of the process after you get into the Peace Corps. The first part is called staging. This is where you travel to in the US for pre-service orientation. It lasts 2-3 days. You then travel to your country for anywhere from two to three months of INTENSE training. After that you are given specific assignments, and you begin your service.
Yesterday I decided to see if there were any blogs or online journals by Peace Corps Volunteers on the internet. To my delight, and surprise, Peace Corps Namibia was a common search on Google!! There are tons of blogs and resources for people going specifically to Namibia! They have thousands of photos, videos, sound recording, helpful advice, etc. I spent most of the day perusing and dreaming about my future. I listened to Namibian music and choirs, and read advice on renting a car on one guys website. This guy was an audio engineer or something and he had recordings of snippets of him interviewing other Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) about the different languages. He also recorded the daily morning songs that PCVs learned as part of language training in Pre-Service Training. I was even more stoked when I saw that were a bunch of Youtube videos done by Peace Corps Namibia Volunteers themselves. I have to say that my expectations of what I thought Namibia was like were blown away by the videos. Even as a social worker, stereotypes still abound because of ignorance. I had no knowledge of Namibia before I started reading books and watching videos. I'm hoping to get rid of more of these stereotypes as time goes by and I learn more.
On another note, I got my yellow fever shot yesterday at the Department of Public Health, along with some information on HIV/AIDS (because that's the sector I will be working with). I'm glad that the Peace Corps is covering all of the cost of the vaccination, except for one measly dollar! It's expensive. It's pretty exciting to start doing concrete and productive things for my future work, since I haven't been doing as much as I would have liked in the past few months. By the way, I found a blog from a guy who did the same thing in the Peace Corps as I am going to do. It was extremely encouraging that he said he had zero previous experience and was mainly a community and social development person. What an awesome help! His blog gave me several ideas about how to get some experience with the HIV/AIDS field. Hopefully, I'll be able to volunteer somewhere. The lady at the Department of Public Health said I could volunteer to do a community outreach program, which I would LOVE to do! However, I don't think if I will be able to do it because my family is in the midst of trying to find new jobs, and it will require quite a significant move distance. I do not want to start and stop a project. Whatever the case, I think I am very fortunate to be able to devote three whole months to preparing for Namibia!
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