I don’t think I’ll ever forget the moment I received that email.
I am writing to introduce myself as your Placement and Assessment Officer here at Peace Corps Headquarters. Now that you are medically cleared I completed my final assessment of your application today. It is clear that you demonstrate many of the characteristics Peace Corps seeks in successful Volunteers, such as adaptability, flexibility, realistic expectations and a strong motivation to serve abroad for 27 months.
Based on my assessment I have granted you placement clearance, essentially the last clearance needed to receive an official invitation. Congratulations!
I will issue your invitation packet to you tomorrow so you can expect to receive it within the next 3-5 business days. The packet will include information pertaining to your assignment, country and specific dates of service. Please be sure to read through the required readings before contacting our office to officially accept your invitation. As you know, the invitation is for a Science Education program scheduled to depart to the Africa region in June.
Based on your well-rounded experience, as well as your language background, I think you will be a strong asset to this program, M. Please keep in mind that though you have experience in Latin, it is strongly encouraged all people invited to this program begin studying French independently in anticipation of their departure. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the invitation soon.
Congratulations, and welcome to Peace Corps!
When I got my invitation to serve in the Peace Corps I was on cloud nine, happier than I’ve been in years, crying tears of joy in the middle of the library and grinning like a fool. That lasted the entire day. And then the nerves set in. The nerves that everyone else seemed to think of when I told them about the 27month commitment but that had never fazed me before…that is, until it was real. And like most times when I start to feel stressed about something I decided to just ignore it until I couldn’t anymore. Well, first I cross-referenced PC Wiki Timeline to try and figure out where I’d been invited to serve… and then I proceeded to ignore my nerves. But really, even in the moments when I was mentally imagining the day I’d be leaving this town-- this town that has quickly become my home and all the amazing people I’ve recently met that I’m just not ready to say good-bye to yet--I knew I was going to accept the invitation. I’d just regret it too much if I didn’t. And so, after thinking it through for a couple of days, and receiving my invitation packet to serve in Burkina Faso leaving for staging June 6th--I wrote my acceptance letter and officially became a member of the United States Peace Corps. It took 361 days from turning in my application to getting my invitation, but now my next big adventure begins in 37 days! It really is a good life :-)
