Application Status
You were nominated on September 29, 2009.
Status
Congratulations! You have accepted an invitation to serve in Mali. See below for further details.
Evaluations required to become an Trainee
Dental
Complete. Peace Corps has completed your dental review. There are no dental holds on your account at this time.
Legal
Peace Corps has completed your initial legal review. There are no legal holds on your account at this time.
Medical
Complete. Peace Corps has completed your medical review. There are no medical holds on your account at this time.
Place
Complete. Peace Corps has completed your placement review. There are no holds on your account at this time.
PLACEMENT required to become a Trainee
Invitation
Congratulations! You have accepted your invitation to serve in Mali. You will soon be receiving additional information from your country desk, the travel office, and the office of staging about preparing for service.
So there you have it, I am officially Mali-bound. I turned in my passport and visa paperwork on Saturday and am now working on my revised resume and my aspiration statement. I also received Rosetta Stone for French, Levels 1 & 2, on Friday, and have been working my way through that as well. One of these days I'll need to start packing and selling off my car and furniture. So much to do, so little time... but damn is this exciting!
Hi, I randomly surf the peacecrops journals and wiki (i'm a current applicant). first off, CONGRATS =)
ReplyDeleteSecond, did you get Rosetta Stone from the PC or did you have to buy it yourself?
I actually bought it without thinking the PC would pay for it. But right after I did, I found out that the PC used to provide it free. I called the PC to check if they still provide it, and they said that they stopped doing so because they were not receiving the results to warrent it.
ReplyDeleteHey, congratulations on your invitation! I've been perusing various sites trying to get info about my potential assignment locations and stumbled across your blog. I'm still [increasingly anxiously!] awaiting placement - I'm also supposed to leave in July to a French-speaking country in sub-Saharan Africa. I've had my fingers crossed all along for Mali. I've heard of some people who get invitations as late as 2 weeks ahead of time, so I'm still holding out hope!
ReplyDeleteI'm also going to give you an unsolicited book recommendation. "Somebody's Heart is Burning" by Tanya Shaffer is a phenomenally written travel memoir by a woman who spent a couple years volunteering in Ghana and traveling through other countries in West Africa, with a memorable section on Mali. I spent a semester of college in Ghana and read it after I had been there a couple months. You could certainly read it before you go, but I'd recommend picking it up now and saving it for after you've been there for a while - it's so eloquently written and really captures some of the most awkward cultural encounters I'd had.
Anyway, congrats again on your invitation. I'm looking forward to keeping up with your blog as you get ready to go!
Hi, Mike,
ReplyDeleteI was a TEFL PC volunteer in Chad from 1978-1979.
My group had to leave before our 2 years were up because of the civil war in Chad. PC has placed and then pulled so many diffrent groups of Chadian PCVs since 1979, that it would be impossoble to keep track of it. I read about you in Carol Currie's column in the Asheville Citizen Times yesterday (July 4). I looked at your packing list and really had to laugh. If I could do it again I would have packed completely differently. As you probably have already figured out, you can buy clothes very cheaply in any marche in Mali and probably should have not brought anything except the clothes you wore on the plaine and some excellent rain gear and footgear. I went to Chad right after graduating from the University of South Carolina, but I live in Asheville now. Life was so different back then: no Internet, no I-Pod, no cellphones, and the PC didn't even issue sunscreen. All of us packed shortwave radios. AIDS was still a mystery, and I wonder about my fellow vols who bedhopped their way through 2 years of duty...Bon chance avec les etudes francaises. You were lucky to get placed in such a great post. I would take Chad, Mali, or Niger over almost any place else in Afrique. I'll be checking your blog. Let me know if you need anything from Asheville.