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You can add my name to the RPCV list. I was in Madagascar June 2007 until we were evacuated in March 2009 (coup d'état). My blog is at http://adamgascar.blogspot.com and was updated 2-3 times a week for almost my entire service.
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Sep 6, 2009 22:52
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Pharmaskittle posted:1. I've been totally cool since, but a couple years ago I was treated for a few months for depression. If they see that on my medical record, is it going to be an issue? If you so much as hint that you have a history of depression, you can pretty much forget about Peace Corps. On the plus side, they're a lazy government bureaucracy and won't check up on it if you lie about it and don't mention it. You'd be qualified to do the health programs, but I know people who qualified to do health education because they took a single course in college about a health-related issue. So, not really.
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Sep 7, 2009 07:16
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Omits-Bagels posted:Working in intel is an automatic denial. Can lead to or will lead to? Rest assured you will be depressed many, many times throughout your service.
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Sep 7, 2009 17:20
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Pharmaskittle posted:Well, I'll probably just avoid mentioning it. It's not like I was committed or tried to off myself or anything nuts. Basically, things had ended between my fiance and I, and I was like, "Well poo poo, I feel awful. This is the kind of thing people go and see shrinks about to make sure it doesn't get crazy, right?" So it was me getting a professional to help me through a part of my life that I knew was going to be really terrible. The answer to a lot of these questions is "it depends on your site." I was isolated. No within a reasonable distance, no phone service for hours around, no post office even. I could have sent letters by taxi brousse to town and then off into Madagascar, but the time that would have taken/reliability never made it seem worth it. On the other hand, there were plenty of volunteers who had a sitemate (another volunteer from a different sector, usually) or even 2 or 3. Some volunteers had lots of foreigners in their towns. A few had internet in their town. Most had phone coverage. So, isolation is totally random (at least for Madagascar). I imagine other countries have better/worse conditions. But, when I went to site, I was off the grid entirely. I could not be reached by the outside world and I could not reach them. Making friends depends on you, depends on who lives at your site, depends on the culture, depends on your language ability, even depends on your assignment. As an English teacher, I interacted with students 11-23 (I was 22-23 at the time). Sure, I became friendly with a few in a teacher/student way, and one guy I'd consider my friend (19 I think), but the problem was that almost none of them lived in my town. That is, 90% of the people I interacted with on a daily basis lived miles and miles away and went home as soon as school let out in order to get home before dark/to cook dinner. My town was very remote and therefore the other teachers lived in the big city a couple hours away. So they came for 2 days, taught their classes, and left. They were also typically quite a bit older than I was/am. I was friendly with a bunch of people site, but the Malagasy culture is very resistant to foreigners and, at least in my town, always kept their distance. There were a few who would help me out in a bind, or I'd say hello to walking past, but by and large they wanted nothing to do with me. There wasn't a single time I walked down the road (in a town of about 1500 people) that I wouldn't be ridiculed, laughed at, mocked, and stared at. I can only speak for my own experience, your mileage may vary. Your last question is easier to answer: absolutely. I was only asked to teach 12 hours a week the first year and 15 the second year. So from Wednesday afternoon to Monday morning I was totally on my own. My good friend spent way more time planting rice and cattle herding than he did teaching English. I chose not to and just made myself available to tutor at home (I'd usually get 1-2 students a day during the week). Basic existence was time consuming enough that cooking/cleaning/etc took up most of the daylight hours, and reading/studying/music filled the night hours. But if you want to do something more productive with your time, no one's going to stop you. You won't have much training on the stuff (planting rice for example) but you can either ask someone to show you, or ask Peace Corps for available resources (books, handouts, etc.) to show you what to do.
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Sep 7, 2009 22:26
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Omits-Bagels posted:On the medical physical, what does the anus/rectum exam entail? There is no rectal exam... Call the police.
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Sep 8, 2009 01:37
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The money they give you may or may not be ample. For my purposes, in a small rural village, I had enough to go to town every few weeks and spend more in 3 days (pizza, hotel, ice cream, internet, etc.) than my neighbors spent in 6 months. But, at site, I lived on about $1 a day (2000 Ariary), depending. Some of my fellow PCVs however, lived in large tourist towns and often had to supplement their living allowances with money from home. They could have been more frugal and lived within their means, but having other volunteers (PC or otherwise) around tends to make you go out and spend more money, take taxis, etc. Also, the crossover in Madagascar wasn't the same as Cambodia, apparently. As English teachers we're encouraged to do health/environment lessons, and vice versa, but I think most health/environment volunteers didn't teach English at all, and those that did maybe did so for an hour or two a week with a couple of eager students. Evil Adam fucked around with this message at 03:55 on Sep 18, 2009 |
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Sep 17, 2009 23:19
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Haggins posted:What kind of stuff can you bring with you? I'm big into photography and wouldn't want to leave my gear behind or give it up for two years. Are you able to secure your personal belongings in the places you are sent? Lots of people brought fancy cameras, lots brought laptops. If you just always keep it on you while you're getting there, and lock it up and don't flash things around, it'll be pretty safe. Things get stolen all the time, but if you don't screw around with it you won't have any problems. That said, I had a digital camera and a phone stolen out of my bag, some people lost laptops. Also consider what kind of stuff you can just get there. I was going to bring my guitar but ended up not and buying one on the street for 30 bucks that lasted 2 years just fine. But in general, you can bring anything as long as it all fits under the weight limit (80k? 40k? I don't remember)
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Sep 18, 2009 03:57
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calhoun posted:What kinds of food did you cook? What cooking tools/appliances did you have available and what was the market like? The food that the locals ate was rice, rice, and more rice. For breakfast, lunch, and dinner. They eat more rice than any other culture in the world. However, it's bland, has no nutritional value, and is full of small rocks that crack your teeth. So, I made other food. I went through phases, though, and a lot depends on what you can bring back from larger cities. Some main staples were peanut butter and jelly, chicken noodle soup (boiled pasta + boullion cube), couscous + raisins/peppers/curry powder, pasta + sauce, potato pancakes, regular pancakes, eggs (omelettes). I also became a baker in my peace corps oven (iron pot filled with sand and tin cans) and made bread, sweet breads, cookies, cakes, etc. So I ate a lot of that stuff too. My market sucked. Mostly rice (with rocks), beans (have to soak for a day before you can eat them), and peppers. Sometimes potatoes, onions, pasta (not in a bag). In the stores you had more options: tomato paste, bagged pasta, snacks, eggs (duck or goose), french bread (stale usually), alcohol, cooking oil, and so on. Cooking tools/appliances can be bought in the big cities. I only had what I needed: silverware/dishware, can opener, spatula, strainer, some pots, frying pan, mixing bowls/plastic ware.
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Sep 20, 2009 09:03
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I loving hate you.
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Oct 16, 2009 23:13
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Same. Talked to my recruiter at an info session, then he was transferred and I had someone new for my interview, heard about my invitation from her, and that was all the contact I ever had with her.
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Oct 17, 2009 05:37
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Rush Limbaugh #1! posted:Missed the new thread. You can add me to the OP, I'm RPCV Bulgaria '06-08 / PCV China '08-10. I think the most important thing to get across to people considering joining isn't whether you can or can't affect change. Instead, they should understand that it's a total game of chance. Maybe you'll be put in a position where you can help, and maybe you'll have the most frustrating two years of your life for nothing, banging your head against a wall. The most important thing we heard during our training was "IT DEPENDS ON YOUR SITE." This was used to answer almost every question we asked. "What are the people like? Are they friendly? Do they work with you? Are the authorities on your side? Are people generally receptive to help?"IT DEPENDS ON YOUR SITE. And this, mind you, was in a country where the people all speak the same language (barring dialects), all consider themselves part of the same ethnic group, and largely have the same culture. Basically, it isn't fair to tell someone they will or won't help people. There are a ton of factors involved, and a ton of them you have no control over.
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Oct 18, 2009 18:09
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CronoGamer posted:I agree with this entirely. But in the first post and first few replies it really seemed like you guys were saying that they won't help people. I'm certainly not saying you're guaranteed to be given the chance to change people's lives, some sites are just unfortunate like that, but you very often do get the chance- at least on a smaller scale. I don't think there's any real disagreement here, but for clarification: Maybe I was over the top in some posts, but I meant that you shouldn't expect to help people. It's best to have low expectations and work against those than to go into your site expecting to change everything and become totally disillusioned after you start to hit walls. I helped a few people here and there, and one student quite a bit, but if my goal were to make all 500 kids in my class fluent in English I would have had an aneurysm when I got there.
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Oct 18, 2009 23:45
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Masters program in Conflict Resolution at Georgetown. I applied while I was in Madagascar so there wouldn't be too much downtime. So, applied June-December 2008, got back in March (evacuated), hung around/working, school started in September. Despite reading hundreds of books, though... christ is my brain complete mush.
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Oct 19, 2009 06:27
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Rush Limbaugh #1! posted:One of my buddies from PC China must be in your cohort, he started conflict resolution this year. How are you liking Georgetown? Is your PC experience relevant in your classes? Is his name also a Greek letter? Georgetown is alright. Maybe not as academically hard as I expected but way more work than I was anticipating. Reading and writing just neeeever lets up. I can be more productive in two days than I was in 2 weeks in undergrad, or 2 months, and still be way behind. In terms of relevance to PC... sometimes, but not often. I would say, too, the times that it's relevant have more to do with the fact that we (as Madagascar PCVs) witnessed a coup from start to finish, and I also have an internship with a conflict res organization that is going to start a program there, so my experience comes in handy. But the actual PC experience of living in the village, teaching... eh not so much. Maybe an anecdote here and there.
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Oct 19, 2009 07:43
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melaneyelia posted:I'm halfway through service, and I just took a look at USAjobs.gov. Since we get non-competitive application for a year for federal jobs, I'll start applying for some about six months before COS. I wouldn't mind working as PC admin, honestly, but something involving Health and Human Services would be better. Keep in mind that non-competitive eligibility only applies to some agencies, and not others. Oh, and did they tell you that it does not apply to Peace Corps?
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Oct 26, 2009 03:20
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CronoGamer posted:What? Sure it does. That was one of the big things they promoted at the Career event seminar I went to back in May. This is what I was told. But to make sure we're talking about the same thing, let me clarify. Yes, PCVs get NCE. But the Peace Corps, as an agency, does not use NCE in their hiring process. I could be wrong, but it's what we were told.
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Oct 26, 2009 04:53
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Thesaurus posted:I take it you mean "before you leave from the US" (as opposed to after you finish your service in the country)? I was pretty confident with Malagasy after the 10 weeks of training, but became way more proficient once I got to site. The level people attain, I find, directly corresponded to how many other English speakers they had at their site/how much interaction they had with them. I had 0, so I was pretty good. My friend had a whole Norwegian community (Norway is big in Madagascar...) and could barely get by even after two years. Some people, mind you, only ever spoke English, and some only spoke French! I spoke Malagasy 95% of my day, unless I was teaching. But I even taught English in Malagasy so maybe 95% stands.
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Oct 28, 2009 03:08
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By the way, I work with a girl who got back from Togo I think this year? Her site was Vogon, which always makes me think she did Peace Corps Hitchhikers Guide.
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Oct 28, 2009 15:14
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reddeh posted:Amusingly enough I talked to her yesterday, she is dating one of my best friends who ET'd to come back to the states when she CoS'd. Small world. Haha, I got drinks with them a few weeks ago. That makes 2 PC connections in this thread for me. One from Togo (work with), one from China (go to school with).
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Nov 1, 2009 20:46
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Iwate posted:I'm a teacher now. Err... an ALT in Japan like a few people on this forum. I am also really interested in PC, but I don't want to continue teaching. I want to build houses, farm, or anything using my hands. If you do health, environment, etc. you'll have more hands-on time, but in reality all PC positions are teaching positions. What they have is able bodies (usually), what they don't have is the knowledge and skills. So even if you decide to go farm for a while, the reason you'll be there is to teach someone something. In terms of requesting not to be a school teacher, yeah I think you'll be alright. If they offer it to you, you can always decline. But show them there's some reason to put you as some other sort of volunteer. You need sooooome justification to be a health volunteer, even if its just one class and an expressed interest.
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Nov 18, 2009 04:17
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Stoner Boner posted:I have been nominated for a spot in Sub Saharan Africa, and assuming all goes well with the medical check, I'll be leaving in June. I know it varies wildly but anyone who has been volunteering could throw in their 2 cents. I wouldn't flash it around. I had my iPod the whole time and I think I only let one person see it, and didn't use it outside my house. I know people who had solar chargers and I think they still kept it on the down-low as much as possible. I'm sure you could put it in a window and be fine, and people wouldn't give you too much hassle. I never really got used to the food (rice, rice, rice, and rice) but others did. Even when we were in town, some people would still make rice every day and order it at restaurants. I mostly ate pb&j, pasta, cous-cous, omelettes. The standard fare for the rest of my village was rice and spinach for breakfast, rice for lunch, rice and beans/meat for dinner. You run into other PCVs in your country anywhere from VERY OFTEN (you might live with another pcv in your town) or NEVER (meaning, only ever at the three conferences. Depends on your site and also depends on you. I'd say 3 or 4 people I met there will end up living in Madagascar for a while after Peace Corps. I think one person extended a 4th year with Peace Corps but honestly if you're there that long, you can get a job with an NGO and be paid to be there.
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Nov 27, 2009 06:31
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heliotroph posted:Serving in Panama 2009-2011 Ag vol; completely missed this thread. You were in high school for 5 years?
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Dec 8, 2009 05:55
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Omits-Bagels posted:A little update: I don't know anything about being married (in PC or otherwise) but a friend of mine had skin cancer before his service and was accepted. Took a lot longer, I believe, but he got in. I have a semi-rare heart defect and was let in. You'd be surprised!
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Jan 14, 2010 01:23
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Omits-Bagels posted:Do you know if there is a specific amount of time they want you to be "cancer free" before they'll accept you? No idea. I'd ask my friend but we were evacuated and he transferred to Mali. Not particularly easy to reach.
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Jan 14, 2010 02:21
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Alpha posted:I don't think I could cut it in the peace corps, I think the cultural isolation is the hardest part, can any of the volunteers comment on that a bit more? Well, can you be more specific? You mean like not hearing new music/seeing new movies for 2 years? Or not being a part of the culture you're in?
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Jan 19, 2010 07:17
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I wore khakis and a polo shirt, if I recall. It was also like 100 degrees and I spent the day running around trying to find parking for the commuter line, running to catch a subway, wandering around Boston looking for the HQ, and got to the interview like 10 minutes late.
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Jan 19, 2010 07:29
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Here's a link to pictures from my first year in Madagascar Also: My bedroom (bed, bookshelf/dresser)  Another room, where you would first walk into the house. On the right is my water filter and dinner table, in the background is where I kept my food, pots and pans, dishes, etc.  The food area and kitchen (you can see just about all there is to it, it doesn't extend to the right at all. It was about the size of a closet)  My backyard, with trash pit. Kids would stand outside the fence all day and bother me.  My "shower" hut, which I didn't end up using that often.  Front of my house, peach tree.  My desk.  There was another room in the back I left empty because the house was way too big for one person (especially me) to fill. They built it specifically for a Peace Corps volunteer so I guess they imagine we had a lot of stuff? All in all the house was pretty sweet, especially for my town. Most of the other houses were mud/clay. But, in exchange for a nice-ish house I had no electricity, no running water, no phone/cell phone service, barely any radio stations, and an outhouse (hole in ground) that I never took a picture of. You're welcome. Evil Adam fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Jan 23, 2010 |
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Jan 23, 2010 23:31
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Here are some picture from around town. My school. It was funded by a Libyan bank and was brand new when I got there. I literally taught the first class in it. We even had solar panels thanks to a grant. I taught something like 9th/10th grade here.  The inside of one of the classrooms. This grade had about 55 kids per class, 3-4 per table.  My town! It's just this one road. It's kind of Wild West-ish  Same spot, looking the other way.  A typical side-of-the-road grocer. Beans, rice, candy, chalk, goose eggs, macaroni, popcorn (terrible), pot scrubbers.  From up on a mountain/hill looking down at my town.  The idiot kids.  The aforementioned mountain/hill, towards sundown.  My younger class. This is about half the room. There were 65-75 kids per class at this level. 
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Jan 23, 2010 23:58
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My door had a hole bored into it that you just pulled on when unlocked. gently caress doorknobs.
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Mar 18, 2010 07:11
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Stoner Boner posted:I just got my second package from the peace corps that wanted more information about some stuff I believed was clear in the first place. I am getting discouraged now, and I've been jumping through hoops for a long, long time. How many pieces can they possibly ask for? ProTip: Never ask "how many hoops can Peace Corps make me jump through?" The answer is infinite.
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Mar 24, 2010 21:04
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At some point before my Christmas vacation I caught what is known in Madagascar as a "parasy" (parasite). They live mostly in sand, burrow into your toes, and lay eggs. A lot of volunteers get them once or twice a week. This was my first. So, Christmas morning it was getting huge and also itchy, so I bought a safety in on the street and some gauze. What you do is stab into your toe all around the blister that's formed (careful not to rupture the egg sac or you have biiig problems), grab the piece of skin with gauze, and rip it out. You're left with something like this:  Click here for the full 604x453 image. Have a nice day folks.
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Apr 5, 2010 08:28
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I was put on Doxycycline and not Mefloquine and I think that was a major reason why in 21 months I got sick all of one time. I generally have a stronger 'stomach' than most people, too, which would likely account for why even the other PCVs on doxy got sick all the time.
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Apr 16, 2010 21:18
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Pocket DeSade posted:Haha, I should have added "local people permitting..is it ok to have sex with locals?" PCVs definitely got Malagasy boyfriends and girlfriends. I can think of 3 marriages off the top of my head and a few other long-term relationships. Random sex seemed to happen not so much between PCVs and nationals, but intra-PC definitely.
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Apr 27, 2010 07:32
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Fart Car '97 posted:I haven't posted in this thread yet but I just got job assigned to Mali/Environmental Agriculture this morning. I'm shipping out July 1st. If I had the choice to do Peace Corps in any country, it would be Mali. Music is awesome, government is stable and functions rather well, people (I hear) are really nice. Check out Amadou and Mariam, Habib Koite, Toumani Diabaté, Ali Farka Touré, Vieux Farka Touré, Oumou Sangare, Rokia Traoré, Tinariwen... So much good music.
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May 19, 2010 06:03
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Adjusting to those conditions takes like 10 days. Once you learn how to take a shower from a bucket, etc. it's all good. And you don't really miss electricity too much.
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May 21, 2010 21:22
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Unmistakeable Fire posted:My friend's sort of lady friend is going on a Peace Corps mission soon, and while he isn't too committed to her, he is still jealous. Do Peace Corps people live the usual kinky life of expatriates? In my experience, very few couples made it through the 2 years or even tried. Most went on a sort of break (I don't know if they got back together though). I think I only know one girl who made it all two years and went back and lives with her boyfriend now. As for me, I broke up with my girlfriend at the airport (it was short term anyway and she knew I was leaving soon) and then started dating another volunteer shortly after we arrived. It would've worked out better if she wasn't batshit crazy.
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Jul 8, 2010 13:15
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RagnarokAngel posted:OK something that just occurred to me because of Mu Cow's post, but anyone with experience with this can answer. I started thinking about it around June 08 (I arrived in Madagascar in June 07), looking around casually for programs. Told people I'd like to write recommendations for me in July to start thinking (do this, do this). Started to take some of the GRE books home in September and studied all day every day. Took the GRE in the capital at the end of October. Started writing essays, honing in on the 5 schools I'd apply to/requested transcripts be sent to them/etc. after that. Deadlines were mostly around January 15th so I worked while on vacation on finishing everything up and got it in around New Years. (Mind you, I didn't have my GRE results back yet so I just went out on a limb). Heard back from schools starting around March 09. It was easier and harder to apply from Madagascar. For one, I had all the time in the world to study for the GRE. It was also easier because it was a paper test. I took a lot of time on the essays, too, but I had no electricity so I had to spend my banking days in town writing and editing every few weeks. Finding schools was a pain in the rear end because of slow internet and eventually just found a list of the top 5 programs for my field and applied to those. Also, getting everything uploaded could be a pain in the rear end with slow connections. Luckily, all of the programs I applied to allowed you to do everything online, which was helpful. Doing it by mail would have been awful. I ended up getting into 4 schools and waitlisted at the 5th, so it all worked out pretty well, and I'm going into my 2nd year of grad school this fall. Let me know if you have any questions.
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Aug 26, 2010 16:02
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Winna posted:I leave for orientation on thrusday. Any words of wisdom? I'm stressing the gently caress out. It can't possibly go any worse for you than it did for the PCV that was just shot dead in Lesotho.
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Sep 6, 2010 09:21
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Winna posted:No, but you can request up to another year if you have good reason for it. Yes, you can. Some friends of mine from Madagascar just got to their new site in South Africa. Plenty of people go for a second time, though I don't know if I've heard of someone that's done it three or more.
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Sep 6, 2010 23:49
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Winna posted:Ah, I was told it was discouraged so others who hadn't experienced it got preference. Yup, I was 21 months into it but couldn't care less. Groups that had just got there were pretty pissed but some transferred around Africa, some re-enrolled, lots just took the RPCV status and got jobs or did AmeriCorps. Anyway the people I mentioned were just about done like myself.
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Sep 7, 2010 03:07
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