Prologue Part III: The Long Wait

So that leads us to the five-ish months between my interview and when I finally got accepted. Yeah, it took that long.

I got home from the interview and had to correct my application essay. Apparently if there are 3 or more mistakes, they won’t accept you as an applicant for an English teacher. I had that many mistakes, but my recruiter told me to correct and send them to him (though he didn’t say what was wrong, so it’s not like he was completely bending the rules for me). I guess my interview went better than I thought (see previous blog post for why I’m still shocked).

Sent in my corrections and I guess they were good enough, because about two weeks later, my recruiter called and asked me if I’d be willing to go to certain countries

[editor’s note: I just noticed one of the essays said I spent summer 2008 in Uganda…that should be summer 2007…oops].

Now, Peace Corps can only tell you what region (Sub-Saharan Africa, South America, etc.) they’re sending you, but he did give me hints like “a French speaking country in Africa” so I had a little more of an idea than just “Africa” or something. I turned him down on every country for two or three weeks. After that was, like, two weeks of silence. I had no idea what was going on. Finally, he called me in the middle of class. After class I listened to the message asking me if I still wanted to go to a country in the Middle East (my top choice of region), apparently there were like only seven spots open. The way my recruiter explained it to me earlier, he gets weekly updates of what countries want what types of volunteers and how many they’re willing to take in at that time. Crazy excited, I called him back after, got the machine, left a message. He called me back in the middle of my next class. I ditched class for a few minutes to take that call, hoping no one would notice the phone vibrating in my pocket as I left the Psyc building. And like that, I was nominated for the Middle East/North Africa region. What that means is that the recruiter for the Middle East/North Africa region now had to approve of my application and okay my nomination.

As I said earlier, this took place over the course of weeks. I had been preparing for Peace Corps since my sophomore year of college (volunteering in Africa, taking Peace Corps-related classes, learning to play an instrument), there’s no way I would just lay around all passive and such during the final stretch. So what was I doing?

1) I was taking an Arabic class (trying to get nominated to the Middle East, after all) as well as a class called "Teaching English to Non-English Natives"

2) I went to Slat Al Juma’a (Friday prayers) every week with the Muslim Student Association

3) I set up a little Quran study group with a Muslim friend

4) I found a group on campus that tutors English to other (mostly foreign-born and at UMD for grad-school) students and volunteered.

5) I got a job at the university gym for one semester (where I also got CPR certified)

7) I volunteered at the university health center

8) I emailed my recruiter updates on how all this was going. Visibility is key, right?

Now, I had first heard about Peace Corps and what they do my sophomore year in a presentation when my recruiter spoke at the University of Maryland. I went to one or two more before I applied at the end of my Junior year. Now, as a Senior, I went to every single one (there’s a presentation at Maryland about once or twice a month). One time, I walked in a little late, and my recruiter chuckled and just game me this smile, then went back to his presentation. Towards the end it got to the point where when talking about the application process, my recruiter would turn to me and ask if there was anything he missed or what it was like for me to apply…and then I’d be put on the spot and try to look all knowledgeable in front of a group of strangers. Once or twice a potential applicant would ask for my email or if we could meet up to help him/her with the application process.

Meanwhile, I had to get all my medical/dental stuff done. Apparently my “primary physician,” as specified by my health insurance card, had retired. I had to find a new one, alert my healthcare people of the switch, and get some tests done. I also had to get my teeth examined (more on that later). I sent in all my medical/dental forms, kept going to presentations, volunteering with the English-tutoring thing, Friday prayers, Arabic, all my other classes, finding time to hang with friends and other people, etc.

Finally, I get a call from the Middle East/North Africa region. We’re talking months had passed here. I'd even applied for a few other jobs just in case I didn't get into Peace Corps. Still, I’d updated her with all my Peace Corps related goings-on once my normal recruiter told me that he nominated me to that region (reason being that he no longer had my file, she did now). She asked me if I was doing the English-tutoring thing. I told her I was, and started going into detail about it…caught my breath for a sec…and she told me I'd been nominated to the Middle East/North Africa region. A smile happened as I started to comprehend what she had just told me. It took a day or two for my Peace Corps handbooks/acceptance forms and such to come in the mail and tell me I was going to Morocco. The next day I called her back to confirm that I want in.

You'd think that's it. But wait, there's more...TO BE CONTINUED

Prologue Part II: My Peace Corps Interview

Here’s the story of my Peace Corps interview as best I can remember it (remember, that was nearly one full year ago)...

So it’s the day of my interview, and I had everything prepared the night beforehand. I’ve got a copy of my birth certificate/whatever else Peace Corps wanted, my clothes are all laid out, and my mom’s letting me borrow her car.

I wake up in the morning, shower, and get dressed. I’m wearing khakis, a t-shirt, and a button-down shirt over that. The t-shirt is from America Counts, an organization I volunteered at, helping tutor math after school to kids who could use the some help (be it that their parents work multiple jobs/have no time, they don’t speak too much English, or any other reason). It’s a really great organization, but I digress. Over that I’m wearing a very bright, green button-down shirt (the shirt is unbuttoned so you can clearly see the America Counts t-shirt underneath. This shirt was a present from my host family while I was volunteering in Uganda. I figured that if my interviewer commented on my choice of clothes, it would lead to a nice side-conversation about why I’m awesome/Peace Corps material.

I gather my documents that prove I exist, print out some mapquest directions, bring my ukulele along, and walk towards my mom’s car. Only problem is, the car’s missing. Frantic, I call my mom’s cell phone. I get the machine. I keep calling, then my brother Joey tells me Mom never answers her cell, try calling her blackberry. So I do, and of course she picks up on the first try. My mom went grocery shopping, she thought my interview was an hour later than it was. Great.

So she brings the car back, I rush outside and usurp it. For some reason the GPS isn’t working right. Not all the letters respond on the touch-screen, so I can’t actually enter the address of my regional Peace Corps office. Fine, whatever, that’s why I printed out the mapquest directions anyway. As I’m about to pull out, my dad’s car drives up the driveway. Within about 30 seconds, we switch GPSs, and I’m on my way.

As I’m driving, my recruiter calls my cell. I answer, he’s just confirming that I’m coming. I reply that I am, but that I may be a few minutes late (the estimated time I tell him is the time the GPS says I’ll arrive). Traffic’s horrible, I call him again and tell him I’ll be a little later than expected (trying to look responsible, here). I’m nervous, I’m late, I planned to leave early but my morning was crazy. Whatever, I find a parking space a few blocks from the Peace Corps office, put some money in the meter, and run.

As I’m standing there in the waiting room, my Peace Corps recruiter comes and walks me to his office where he’ll interview me. We pass by some woman, he stops, and introduces me as the guy whose application essay she liked. Sweet. We get to his office, and the interview’s going really well. I apologized for being late, he told me it’s no big deal. He did mention my clothes, though. Apparently a lot of people fail to take the Peace Corps interview seriously and come dressed in whatever (a suit is preferred). I explain my reasoning, he kind of smiles and tells me that’s fine. I’m relieved. We go over some facts on my application, you know, just to confirm that my address is right, what my name is, and that my social security number is...oh G-d. So, being a college student, I got really used to putting my Student ID on all my tests/papers/whatever. I may have kind of written my student ID in the "social security" box on my application. "No problem," my recruiter says with a smile, "that's why we do this." About an hour or longer into the interview we stop everything because I have to put some more money in the meter (this is so not my day). I come back, the interview’s going really well, and all I can think about is everything that’s gone wrong. Well, it turns out there’s some more. I forgot to get myself fingerprinted (Peace Corps sent me a card with spaces for all my fingerprints and I was supposed to get that done before the interview). No biggie, my recruiter walks me to a back room and we get it done there. As I’m being fingerprinted, he starts to talk to me about possible places I could serve in as a Peace Corps volunteer. Am I in? He hasn’t officially told me yet. But he’s already talking about countries I could go to. Weird.

As my recruiter’s a former Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand, he says goodbye to my in Thai. I return the favor by saying “welaba” and telling him that it’s goodbye in Luganda (the language my host family spoke in Uganda). Feeling pretty good on the drive back when I get a call. It’s my recruiter, I left my passport and other important documents in his office. Crap. He did keep a photocopy of them, though, and offered to mail the originals back if I was already too far. I drive back, pick up my stuff, and give him an awkward smile as I say goodbye to him in English.

Smooth

Prologue part I: The Application

Hey, so I haven't actually gone to Morocco yet (still got about 2 weeks to go). Seeing as how I can't very well write about what's happened to me in Morocco yet, I'd like to start this blog with what happened before the start of my Peace Corps service.

Some people have asked me why I joined the Peace Corps in the first place. Others want to know why Morocco. Still, others have actually asked me for some advice about how to get in. I’m hopefully going to answer those and a few other questions in my first few blog posts. So let’s start somewhere close to the beginning.

When filling out my Peace Corps application, I had to answer two essay questions. Here’s what I wrote/submitted:


Essay #1

Cross-cultural Experience
Peace Corps Volunteers must be open to ideas and cultures different from their own and may need to modify their appearance or behavior appropriately. Give an example (between 250-500 words) of a significant experience that illustrates your ability to adapt in an unfamiliar environment. Please highlight the skills you used and the perspectives you gained. You may draw from experiences in your work, school, or community in the U.S. or abroad. Please list the date(s) of your experience.


Honestly, I think that since coming to college, my life qualifies as a cross-cultural experience. I was a nice Jewish boy with a Jewish day-school background, and so were almost of my friends. I lived a pretty sheltered life. Now I have Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and atheist friends. I’ve sat down to lunch with the homeless and listened to their lives’ stories. I’ve prayed alongside the University of Maryland’s Muslim community, and learned some fundamentals of Islam from them. After a year of studying Bible with a Korean missionary, I went with her family to their church. I’ve helped edit a Nigerian man’s book, I’m involved with several charity organizations; and am very proud of being a founder of one involving sending Ugandan refugees to vocational school. Together with the rest of America Counts, I’ve tutored math to minority children here in the U.S. My life has become a cross-cultural experience.
Still, if I had to choose one cross-cultural experience, it would have to be my time in Africa. I spent the best part of summer 2008 in a small Jewish village in Uganda. Uganda is home to roughly 800 natives whose great-grandparents, without ever having met a Jew, decided to join the tribe. It was Africa, it was a community in which my parents would grudgingly let me volunteer, I had to go.
I met with the headmaster of the primary school my first night there. During our conversation, he casually mentioned “So, you will be teaching Hebrew.” Shocked to learn I would not be teaching my native English, my next words were something along the lines of “Okay…can I start tomorrow?”
Hebrew had been taught by the headmaster, who taught himself to read and write the language. My first day, he walked me to our first class, and then just left me. He left me with 5 grades to teach. I volunteered myself to the high school later, totaling seven classes. I had never really taught, and did not know the level of proficiency of any of the classes. Their resources were fundamentally lacking, there were certainly not enough “Hebrew Primers” to go around.
So I improvised. I tested the classes on the Hebrew letters, vowels, and words, discovering where each class was. From there, I created my own lesson plans. I found a beach ball, and used it to teach words such as “you,” “me,” “they,” “have,” “the,” “ball” “under,” “on,” “table,” “outside,” “tree,” etc. One week in, the students were starting to build simple sentences. But my time was limited. So every day after class, I had each student write one word he or she wished to learn. I incorporated these words into my lessons. I requested a notebook from the headmaster, and in it wrote lesson plans and the students’ requested vocabulary words, so that he could continue to teach not just reading and writing, but comprehension of a relevant vocabulary once I left.




Essay #2

Motivation Statement
Peace Corps service presents major physical, emotional, and intellectual challenges. You have provided information on how you qualify for Peace Corps service elsewhere in the application. In the space below, please provide a statement (between 250-500 words) that includes:
1) Your reasons for wanting to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer; and
2) How these reasons are related to your past experiences and life goals.


It seems stupid now, the silly fantasy of a naive little boy. I always wanted to be a superhero, always wanted to save the world. I saw Peace Corps as my chance, work in a developing country for two years, do my part, and that would be it. So, like Batman before me, I started to train. I’ve tried to learn everything about everything. I took courses in creative writing, drawing, nutrition, kinesiology, African history, Latino history, world music, music theory, and teaching. I joined America Counts last year and was a math tutor for minority students, I joined the campus Wushu club and learned martial arts, I volunteered in Africa, and took up a musical instrument. That was the plan, spend college preparing for my time in the Peace Corps, for my big adventure as a hero, as part of a larger group of heroes, and spend two years saving the world. But the plan, it lacked a fundamental understanding of what makes a hero.
It’s cliché, you know? To be a hero, Spider-Man had to lose his Uncle Ben, Batman had to lose both his parents, Superman lost his entire planet. I never understood, not until I lost Albert. He was one of my best friends, he couldn’t afford college, he wanted to be a doctor, so he joined the army and became a medic. All he wanted to do was laugh, to live life, he was never a kind stranger but a lifelong friend to everyone he met. He was a medic, all he did in Iraq was save lives. And they took his life, we lost Albert when his vehicle was hit by an “improvised explosive device.”
I get it now, it’s not some fun adventure, it’s not a game, the stakes are real. If you’re going to save the world, if you’re truly going to make it a better place, you need to keep working at it. Saving the world doesn’t end after a two-year stint as a volunteer. I get it. I finally understand why Superman calls it the “Never ending battle.” But I’m going to argue that. For all his battles, Superman’s only made more enemies, hell-bent on killing him, threatening his city to do so. To battle, to fight, only creates more fighting, more intense fighting. It creates wars, and it kills people like Albert Bitton.
It’s a struggle, a never ending struggle. We all need to talk, to argue, to conquer our differences with dialogue, not weapons. And I will spend the rest of my life struggling, struggling until the fighting ends. I’ve always wanted to be a superhero, so it’s time I stop training and start doing. So let my struggle begin, the never ending struggle, it starts, not ends, with Peace Corps.