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Hey there, A bit of background on myself. I'm currently a 20 year old Junior at the University of Kansas halfway through my second semester. I am an English major, and barring anything terrible or unforeseen I should graduate in May 2012 with a major in English and a minor in Communications. After that I'm looking into becoming teaching certified so that I could teach in the US if I wanted. I have been looking at the Peace Corps for almost a year now, but I still feel like I don't know all that much about it, so I was hoping you could help answer a few questions. First off, you said that most people end up being forced to teach English, but that's what I was interested in doing, so that's good news. Provided I had a degree in English and perhaps a teaching degree, would I be looking at teaching a higher level of English than other applicants? And if so, how much a difference do you think being teaching certified would make? My recruiter had mentioned that in some circumstances the two years spent teaching down there could be put towards the requirements for becoming teaching certified, but neither of us have been able to find any solid and reliable information on that, so I've sort of put it aside. Second, while I really want to do it for the experience it provides, I am very interested in getting into grad school upon my return. My grades are okay, like a 3.0, so I'm not exactly a shoe-in for grad school, especially during these tough economic times where lots of people are going back to school, so do you know exactly what kind of help they offer in that area? They stated that once you get back they are very good about helping you get into grad school, and they say they are "affiliated with over a hundred universities", but that's sort of a vague statement. I don't know how much being "affiliated" with a university can help me get into it, though I'm sure a good word couldn't hurt. Finally, given this shaky time line I'm still on, being that I may go back to school to get teaching certified, which could easily take an entire extra year, when would be the best time to apply? Suppose I graduate in May of 2012, and am going to go back to get teaching certified which, if my advisers aren't completely off target, could be done in a single semester. That would put me fully done with my Undergraduate studies in December of 2012. If that were the case, would it be best to apply as early as summer of 2012, giving a lot of time for the applications to go through and giving me several months off at the start of 2013 before I am shipped out? They've said over and over how long the application process can take, so I'm just trying to get all my ducks in a row. Sorry for the extremely verbose post, but I'm really interested in doing this and just want to make sure I go into it knowing full well what to expect. Thanks in advance!
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Mar 16, 2011 07:10
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Just got my official invitation sent out, I will be heading to Asia in June! I'm pretty excited, I feel like I've been applying forever.
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Mar 25, 2012 05:00
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Monkey Fury posted:I'ma real PCV! Swore in last week, you can add me to the OP if you want; Congrats! Get ready for an experience you'll never forget. And man, do I hate the whole 'Posh Corps' thing. Here in Mongolia we only use that term to rip on people with apartments and showers and broadband internet, always as a joke. Without attempting to start any sort of "Well at MY POST..." discussions, I only ever hear it coming from African PCVs. I've chatted with a few online who just openly scoff at anyone not from their region. Every region is challenging, and just because we're not all living in mud huts doesn't mean we get a 2 year vacation. I'd be more than happy to let an African PCV come live in my glorified blanket fort during a -40 degree winter if I could vacation at their site for a couple weeks! I'm just over the one-year hump now. Our Mid-Service Training was at the end of August (Does everyone have that? It seemed like a Peace Corps wide thing) and now I'm back at my site. It's crazy to think I've been here for an entire year. I look back and see how much I've changed over the past 16 months, and honestly its kind of freaking me out that I'll be out of here in only 8 more months.
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Sep 13, 2013 16:34
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CronoGamer posted:Anyone who thinks PC Mongolia is Posh Corps is either outta their mind or just bitter that they're stuck in sub-saharan Africa. You guys are nuts up there. At MST we had some high up Security Officer from Washington who was a cop for so many years and served in Afghanistan come and talk to us and gave us a big speech about how he'd been shot at and seen suicide bombers and all this, but he would never voluntarily live in Mongolia. I always kind of feel like those guys say that wherever they are just to raise our spirits, but it's always nice to hear. Obviously none of us can really know what its like to live at a different post, but I've spent plenty of days huddled next to my stove thinking how much I wouldn't mind the threat of malaria if it meant I could feel my feet  .
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Sep 13, 2013 16:59
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Slaan posted:Eh, I've had malaria twice now. Its not that bad as long as you get it past the 6 months or so mark as you become about as resistant as the locals that don't have sickle cells. And the PCMOs give us the meds for malaria to keep in our house, so we get treatment immediately. 1. Haha, I live in the Gobi so all year around is dry season. In the summer it gets up to about 100, but at night it drops down to like 50 which is ideal for me. It's also kind of nice cause even though it's cold as hell there isn't a whole lot of snow in my area. The winter can be brutal though, especially with if you have any sort of respiratory problems. I used to get bronchitis about twice a winter when I was young, but luckily I haven't had too many problems here. I know a few people who've had a real rough time. I just really wish they would give us space heaters  2. I hear ya on that. Roads here are non existent outside of the capital city, and it's made worse by the fact that Mongolia is loving huge. I only live about 200 kilometers from the capital city, but it's about a 12 hour drive through the endless, roadless plains. I have some great stories from my road trips, though. Nothing like breaking down on a crowded bus when it's -30 outside, putting on every item of clothing you have in your bags and passing bottles of vodka around to keep warm as we pray for cars to come by and let us hitch rides. And no, we don't get horses, but buying them is totally cool. My neighbors have horses and they let me ride them if they're not using them. Kids really get a kick out of the huge American riding a horse to the store.
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Sep 14, 2013 10:30
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Slaan posted:Hey, at least there was vodka! Over here we tend to survive the 5 hour dirt road taxi drives to my area with $1 box wine or $1 bottles of 'whiskey.' I am extremely lucky I got placed in a country where drinking is not only accepted, but very common. Though I would also state that the majority of the 'vodka' here deserves quotes around it. I've never heard of that happening here, but I've had quite a few sisters/cousins/daughters "offered" to me. It's always very awkward because Mongolians are an extremely forthright people so when I politely decline I tend to get a barrage of questions like "Why don't you like her? Is she too ugly? Why is she ugly? Is she too fat, too short, are her teeth bad? What?", and they fully expect me to answer them. One of my first days at work all of the females teachers had me in a room and they asked me to list off who was the most beautiful and who was the ugliest. That was fun.
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Sep 14, 2013 12:38
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Slaan posted:I hope you told the story of how such a competition started the Trojan War to get out of it. Oh wow, that's really sad. Girls tend to get marry pretty young around here, but I haven't heard of things like that happening. I do constantly have teachers try to set me up with the 16-17 year old students though, and that's always a fun conversation explaining the numerous reasons why that can't happen. Monkey Fury posted:I'm pretty sure that everyone who went to Lanzhou got an air purifier! Hooray for burning tons of coal for home heating! I burn coal and dung, and I would imagine I breathe more than my fair share of coal dust. A little air purifier would be nice, though truthfully I don't know if my electricity in my ger could handle it, haha.
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Sep 15, 2013 07:18
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CronoGamer posted:DR is definitely an exception to the rule. Cambodia has a flat-out ban on any motorcycle/moped transportation... which is pretty ridiculous, because it's the way 90% of the country gets around, especially if they're traveling any less than 20km. But the law of the land is, if any PC staff catch a PCV riding a moto, they're done, no second chances, admin sep. I would guess that at least 2/3rds of my group rode them at some point during service regardless, more out of necessity than anything else, but we were always very paranoid about it, and never did it in the major cities. That's funny, because our current Post Director is a Cambodian RPCV, who I think just left Cambodia like 1-2 years ago. She is super strict on the motorcycle thing, and even cited an example of when she was serving how a PCV who had a great reputation was AdSep'd instantly because she got caught riding on a motorcycle.
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Sep 18, 2013 08:51
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Slaan posted:
Ooh, I didn't know that Kate was in PC Benin. That was like Peace Corps' 9/11. Everything changed after that. Some of my parents' friends were in PC in the 70's, and their children in the 90's, and when I visited home a while ago and told them all about it their immediate reactions were "Holy poo poo peace corps was so different when we did it". The way we got it explained to us is that Peace Corps really had no regulations from it's creation up until that incident with Kate. They just kinda went as they felt like it and when a problem came up they were like "oh, well maybe we should do this". After he death 60 Minutes aired a big story on Peace Corps which was apparently extremely damaging to their reputation. After that it got an actual regulatory body and changed into it's current state. I agree that PCMO is mostly worthless. Luckily I don't have a lot of medical problems, but I have friends that do and I know just how little they help.
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Sep 19, 2013 07:09
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They don't set bones or do anything close to surgery here, so we have to go to Thailand for anything like that. We always discuss what "accident" would be best to have happen to you. I always thought a clean break in the forearm would be perfect, as you would have full hand and leg mobility while you were there. That discussions comes up a lot during the winter time. And it's even like 75% in jest!
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Sep 23, 2013 10:30
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Slaan posted:Yeah, we talk about getting to go to Senegal for medevacs here. For, you see, it's The Promised Land. It has a KFC! The capital city here just got a Cinnabon AND a KFC. I haven't been to the KFC yet, but I've heard several people tell me that they went there and the guy behind the counter said, "Sorry, we're out of chicken".
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Sep 24, 2013 05:02
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"Tequila, your beard is very ugly." "Tequila, you look like an old man with beard." "Tequila, you were very handsome before beard. Now you are very ugly." Fine, I'll shave it. "Tequila, where is your beard? You look bad." "Tequila, you look like a children. Maybe students think you are a children." "Tequila, you grow beard maybe." Go to hell, Mongolia. I can't win.
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Oct 10, 2013 11:03
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CronoGamer posted:Maybe they wanted a well-groomed one? how long had you been rocking it? People in my town didn't seem to mind mine even while PC staff were telling me it was of dire importance to shave it. But towards the end I started growing it out on purpose and it got a little ridiculous, and then I started getting teased a little about it. Still didn't cut it though cuz gently caress 'em. It actually was quite well groomed. The thing here is that traditionally men are not supposed to grow a beard unless 1.) they are 33 years of age or 2.) their father has passed away. But seconding the "Locals don't have good beard growing genetics". We certainly don't have a rule about growing beards, I know about half my batch has at some point grown a beard. They just liked to give me poo poo because they almost never see people with beards.
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Oct 11, 2013 03:25
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huhu posted:Anyone have any good recommendations for Peace Corps books written by early volunteers? I've heard some crazy stories that I'm not sure if they're real or exaggerations and I'd like to read some first hand accounts by volunteers. Me (and pretty much everyone else in my batch) read "When Things Get Dark" by Matthew something or other. It was specifically about Peace Corps Mongolia. I remember thinking it was pretty decent, but I've actually been meaning to go back and read it again now that I've been here for a year and a half and see what I think of it. As far as "hearing crazy stories", this might be a good place to ask. Obviously it's still the internet but SA is probably a more reliable source than "My cousin's brother's friend was in [3rd world country] and told me they ate rats from the streets and worshiped a drain pipe" or whatever you might here from John Rando.
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Oct 24, 2013 15:03
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I've eaten goat face, eyes, stomach, and balls. For several months during the winter it is -25 degrees, and when I wake up in the mornings during that time my home is usually hovering in the low teens (Fahrenheit). My home is also heated by a small iron stove, and I use coal and camel poop to heat my home and cook food. I got punched by a Nazi in a bar. I just spent 4 hours in a vehicle the size of a standard mini-van with 5 adults, 14 middle-school aged children, and 2 babies. The weird part of that story is when we got in my first thought was "Man this thing isn't even full".
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Oct 27, 2013 13:11
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Slaan posted:You can't not post this story now. WELL Last Thanksgiving we had our big Thanksgiving dinner in the capital, and for the new batch it was the first time that we were allowed to leave sites since PST, so we hadn't seen each other in about 3 months. Naturally we were excited, and alcohol was involved. We decided to head to a big club that the older batch told us about. The place was huge, and ended up being about 50% foreigners, between PC and all the Fullbright scholars there. If you're not aware, there's a growing nationalist movement in the capital called Tsagaan Khas (White Swastika), and they're not fans of foreigners. Apparently someone at the club informed them of our presence, and they showed up en masse. At about 12:30, I was moving off the dance floor back to our section of the club near the back. As I go to slide by some Mongolians who were conveniently bunched up in my way, someone grabs my shoulder and spins me around, immediately followed by a right hook to my jaw. The back of my legs were basically pressed against a bench, so I immediately fell/sat down, and then jumped back up. I was facing a massive, shaved-headed Mongolian guy. Not knowing if I did something wrong I immediately apologized to him. He responded by punching me again. This time I got angry and as I started to fight back I felt hands grapple me and a girl's voice say, "Tequila, get away!". I start getting dragged by a pair of people, still shouting what few obscenities I knew. As I was doing so, I had a view of the entire club. It had erupted in a massive brawl. I saw Mongolians punching PC, Fullbright's punching Mongolians, and every other combination. It was insane. The bar had to have 125 people in it and half of them were fighting. We quickly got everyone separated and safe, but there were two events I witnessed I will never forget. One was a Mongolian friend of mine, a doctor who speaks flawless English and is pretty small, throw down his drink and engaged a much bigger Mongolian man. He ran in, and without a moment's hesitation, rabbit-punched him square in the throat before making a hasty retreat out the front door. The other thing, and this has already become something of an apocryphal legend in PC Mongolia, was done by someone I swear was a now ex-PCV, but the person I thought it was claimed it was someone else. As I'm getting dragged away I see a smaller dude pounce through the air, hitting this big Mongolian's chest like a torpedo and bringing him to the ground. Now crouched on top of him, this paragon of diplomacy reared back a fist and dropped it like a hammer on the Mongolian's jaw. The Mongol kind of went limp for a second, and the guy jumped off him. This mystery man then thrust a fist triumphantly in the air and shouted "Peace Corps!" Before disappearing into the crowd. Some people don't believe this happened, but I know what I saw. Anyway, cops showed up, a lot of people got their IDs taken, it was pretty obvious that they started it, so we were all told to go home. I heard later PC got in pretty hot water over it and that they were pressured to AdSep a bunch of the PCs that were involved in the fight, but that didn't happen, which is fortunate cause I'm sure I would have been one of them. Here's hoping this Thanksgiving is a little less dramatic.
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Oct 31, 2013 05:57
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We all keep joking that now is a great time to do something that could get you kicked out, or take a few weeks of international vacation without telling anyone. I don't know about you guys, but we're basically running on fumes financially. Our post hasn't got its 4th quarter budget, and it basically seems like PC Washington just said "Hold tight till January". I feel like they wouldn't be willing to spend the couple grand it costs to AdSep us unless we're like...setting the entire country on fire. They cancelled a bunch of stuff due to lack of funding, Thanksgiving included. We haven't got our allowance for November, and we have a national holiday next week, so it could be a while
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Oct 31, 2013 11:09
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That's about what they did to us, but as far as I know they haven't changed anything in the last few years. I feel back for the volunteers in the capital city though. They get the same settling in allowance as we do, and only a little more monthly allowance, but inflation has caused roughly a 400% increase in EVERYTHING in the capital since 2009. I don't know how the hell they survive.
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Oct 31, 2013 15:02
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I'm trying to find words to console you, but the only part of your post I can see is "I don't have enough money to fully furnish my apartment and get paid to learn Chinese". How the hell are you saving $70 a month and complaining about costs? That's like half my monthly allowance.
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Nov 1, 2013 10:59
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1,700 tugriks = $1. We get about 270,000 a month. 30,000 of that is technically "vacation" allowance, but I never separate it. An average meal here if I go to a little cafe is about 2,500-4,000. It's a lot more expensive in the city to be sure. You can eat for cheaper if you make all your own food, it's not a massive difference in price though.
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Nov 1, 2013 13:52
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HAIL eSATA-n posted:A few years ago a volunteer in Zambia burned his hut down, hung his dog, and wrote "development complete" on it, then disappeared for a few months. These are apocryphal and the exact type of story you shouldn't believe just cause you hear it. I heard the exact same thing about the fried buns when I first got here, they even said it happened in my post.
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Nov 5, 2013 17:04
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HAIL eSATA-n posted:What country are/were you in? I was told the bun girl was in Eastern Province, Zambia. Maybe she has a twin. Or maybe the training staff likes to spread rumors, who knows. I'm in Mongolia, and the bun thing was actually in one of those "Peace Corps Newspaper" things that always show up in our mailboxes, but in the article it said it happened in Mongolia.
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Nov 5, 2013 18:43
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Slaan posted:Benin had a volunteer who apparently freaked out when she got to post after training and ate nothing but store bought cookies for 2 months straight. They had to send her home when she collapsed due to malnutrition. You know, we actually had something very similar with this new batch. I met a girl at the Peace Corps Office at the beginning of the summer who was doing something with medical and I chatted with her for a bit. She was one of the new trainees, but she seemed really distant and odd. She was super, ridiculously skinny also. A few months later I heard from the new groups that she had basically got sent home within the first week of training because she didn't eat a single thing since they left America. They said she skipped all the meals and nobody ever saw her eat anything for something like 4-5 days. Her roommate also said that she would randomly wake up at like 2 AM and start unpacking and repacking her suitcases over and over until it was time for breakfast.
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Nov 6, 2013 06:01
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N. Senada posted:Partner and I interviewed, seemed to go well. Now comes the fun part. Hope you like waiting!
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Dec 9, 2013 14:41
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I'm lucky enough to spend most of my time here free of insect problems. Although "I'm lucky that it is below 0 degrees for half the year here" is pretty subjective. The only thing that survives here in the winter is ticks. And I loving hate ticks.
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Dec 11, 2013 06:18
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Merry Christmas to all you Peace Corps Goons around the world.
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Dec 25, 2013 05:14
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Slaan posted:Ayup! Raise a glass of whatever your local brew is to all your fellow Goons and My soum doesn't sell any alcohol on the 25th of every month. Woe is me.
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Dec 25, 2013 08:42
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Also realize that whatever sector Peace Corps might place you in there's a decent chance you'll be spending a good amount of time teaching English regardless. It really depends on what the HCA (Host Community Agency, basically who you work with) in your community wants from you. I don't know a single Health volunteer here who doesn't spend a fair amount of time teaching English just because they are asked to.
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Jan 5, 2014 17:36
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Thesaurus posted:People in my town in the Dominican Republic are always asking if I can teach them English or when I am going to start an English class... I always tell them "No/Never." Granted I am a TEFL volunteer, so things are a little different for me, but I disagree with this. I understand if you're too busy to teach every day of the week, but teaching a class of basic English an hour or two a week requires so little preparation. Even when I first got here, and had no real teaching experience of any kind, I could throw together a 45-minute English class with about twenty minutes of work. I'm not a health volunteer, but I have had several requests to put on basic sanitation, sexual health, and smoking/drinking seminars, and I happily said yes. We're in these countries to serve our communities, and if they ask me for something that's out of my sector I'm going to do my best to oblige. Hell, PBWorks has hundreds of pre-made lessons for every sector so you don't have to do hardly any preparation.
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Jan 11, 2014 08:59
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N. Senada posted:So, go see a specialist of my own to get them fill out a report this Friday. One of my buddies popped so many pills every day you would have thought his life was one giant electronic music festival. I don't take any medication for anything, but from what I understand it's not so much a problem of "does this person need to take a lot of pills" it's "does this person have a medical condition that, in a worst case scenario, could not be solved in the country?".
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Jan 27, 2014 08:27
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xcdude24 posted:I don't want to brag, but my training house has hot water, a washing machine, and a western toilet Posh Corps X-Treme.
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Feb 2, 2014 13:29
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CHARLES posted:Yeah well...we might have a latrine, but we've got high-speed internet! Speak for yourself. I'm on cell phone internet that barely loads Facebook and won't let me use Google because it thinks I'm a bot.
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Feb 3, 2014 09:09
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xcdude24 posted:Morocco. Getting assigned a training spot seems to be a total crapshoot- some people are having to drive 10 miles for internet, share rooms with host family, etc. I'm always surprised at the things people expect going into this. My training site had no internet, and even when we went into the big city about once a month for some special training we'd only have time to use internet for maybe half an hour a day. I had my own room during training, but since my host family's home was basically two rooms it was only really "mine" from about midnight-6AM when they were sleeping. If you are expecting to have internet and Western-style privacy in Peace Corps, I have some bad news for you.
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Feb 11, 2014 05:13
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GenSpecific posted:How is Benin? I have a friend going in June to do CED. It is actually pretty nice since I will be going to Sierra Leone for math education at the same time. Only CED I knew was a buddy of mine who was living close to me ( relatively speaking). I never actually saw him work, but he did get to travel to literally every major location in Mongolia on his HCA's dime and sleep with lots of girls. Seemed like a sweet gig.
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Feb 13, 2014 15:58
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Just received my official CoS date. I'll be home by June! Now just have to find the motivation to continue my work for the next two months.
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Mar 23, 2014 09:27
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Monkey Fury posted:
Well of course everyone is making 10x what you do, you're a volunteer.
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Mar 25, 2014 11:08
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My initial interview with my Peace Corps Representative was in August of 2011 and before that interview I had to fill out a big application asking me which regions (Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, ect.) I would be willing to go to. During the interview I asked about that and my Rep basically said that you can say you'll only go to X place, and they will take that into consideration, but you have to realize it lowers your overall chance of acceptance into Peace Corps. Also your site is subject to change at any time before your official invitation is sent out. Up until about two weeks before my invitation arrived in the mail I was scheduled for Eastern Europe. Once you're training in country, about halfway through PST, you get a little form to fill out that is a "Site Request Form". You can say whatever you want, "I want to be in this city" or "I don't want to be in the East", or whatever. However, what we were told was there are 7 criteria for placement and your personal preference is basically like 6/7 in importance. Things like your personal health issues and the need of the HCAs in your country are the things that really matter. But once your site is selected you can't change it unless you choose to just leave Peace Corps. I thought the Site Request Form seemed kind of pointless mostly because when we got it we had only been in country a little over a month and had been living in one tiny area, so unless you were very familiar with your country before you moved there you really don't know enough about the different villages/cities/areas to make an informed decision. In Mongolia most people just said "Don't send me to the Gobi" or "I want to have another volunteer at my site".
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Mar 28, 2014 09:59
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Slaan posted:I have CoS conference in exactly one week. Life is returning to normal rather fast! I'm not sure if I am You and me both brother. Except all I feel is 
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May 2, 2014 11:47
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I got my itinerary mailed to me and will be going home in just a few weeks. I just got back to site yesterday morning and at like 6 PM my Mongolian brother walks into my ger carrying a box filled with beer and says in broken English, "Tonight...maybe we...drink all beer." And we did.
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May 14, 2014 04:44
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Well I had the opposite experience as Slaan, I applied to about 11 jobs at once and heard back from none of them, but can attest that the RPCV Links section of the official Peace Corps website is the place to check. Almost of all the jobs looking for an NCE candidate have a special e-mail or something you send directly to the person doing the hiring.
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Nov 11, 2015 01:08
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