Peace Corps Application Timeline-March 2008

March 7th, 2008

I received 3 emails today that I will paste below. I edited the emails, to remove personal information.

1st Email

Greetings from Pretoria, South Africa,

We are excited about your accepting our invitation to join the Peace Corps Volunteers who currently are serving in South Africa. In many ways Volunteers share a common experience adjusting to a new social and workplace cultures. At the same time, because Volunteers are unique and people in the communities and organizations where Volunteers live and work are unique, it is difficult to accurately communicate what your experience will be like. In the end there is one dictum that has been true for Peace Corps Volunteers for 45 years-the Peace Corps experience is shaped by what you are prepared to make of it.  In order to assist you in your preparation for coming to South Africa, I would like to invite you to have a dialogue with Volunteers who are living and working in many different parts of the country. PCV Central is a site maintained by Brendon Bond, a Peace Corps Volunteer in South Africa.  Go to PCV Central at http://pcvcentral.invisionplus.net/. This is the first screen you will see.   After you login, you will find many other areas that are invisible to the general public. It is in these restricted areas, as shown below, that you will find resources and other discussion.   Under Incoming Volunteers you will discover dialogue between Volunteers in South Africa and South Africa Group 17 Invitees-WHO ARE NOW in Pre-Service Training in South Africa.  So you are only the third group to be a part of an experiment. What I expect is that you probably will ‘hear’ common themes and occasionally quite opposite views.  That will be a true reflection of the Peace Corps experience. Warmest regards, Country Director

2nd Email 

Hello Sherry,
My name is ?, and I’m in SA-16. Along with ? (from
SA-15) and ? (SA-16), I help run PCV Central. I’m emailing you with your registration information. PCV Central is a website that will allow you to get into contact with
volunteers currently serving in South Africa. You can browse through the forum for incoming volunteers, where previous classes have already asked a significant amount of questions and gotten a wealth of replies. If you have a question that hasn’t already been asked, feel free to ask it! We’re a pretty friendly and generally helpful bunch-
and we are extremely excited for the new batch of volunteers coming in. To access the website, go to http://pcvcentral.invisionplus.net/ 
You will sign in with the name ? and your password is set to ?. Please change it immediately upon signing in. If you have any trouble, or have any other questions, feel free to ask me. See you “just now” (which in South Africa speak is actually “a very
long time from now”)

3rd Email

Sherry, Thanks for sending in your resume and Aspiration Statement. Julie

March 1st, 2008

I submitted my Aspiration Statement and resume to the country desk today.  I posted my Aspriation Statement in another post in case you want to read it.