Call from Asia Country Desk Officer

I got a call from the Asia Country Desk Officer and it seems like I made the right decision to decline my invite to East Timor and request a new assignment. The staging for East Timor was cancelled until further notice. He said the situation there was getting worse and it was likely that they would not be sending anyone there in October. Now that this has been confirmed its time for more sitting and waiting. Let's hope the next invite comes soon...

Declined My Invitation to East Timor

It looks like I won't be headed to East Timor anymore. I declined my invite and asked for a new assignment. The situation there seems to be getting worse...

I called my Placement Officer and he told me that if I waited until they made the decision in July and it turned out that they were going to suspend the program there, I would not be leaving on another assignment until January sometime. I already gave my work notice and this situation is already causing some problems for me. So let's hope my new invitation comes pretty soon because this wait is is killing me.

East Timor Delayed

I got an email from the Asia Country Desk Officer saying that the Peace Corps Staging for East Timor has been delayed. Staging would begin on Sept 27, 2006 and I would be in East Timor by 10/1/2006. I am a pretty optimistic person, but the situation there does not seem be getting any better. I will more likely than not ask for another invitation to another country.

Passport Forms and Some Thoughts...

I Fed-Exed my passport and my DS-82 form for my government employee passport. As I write this I sit here and wonder if I will still be going to East Timor. Over the past couple of weeks it seemed like the political tension had died down a bit and the Peace Corps program would reopen in the country. But tonight I came home to read that there was some more protests and unrest on the independence day for the country.

It also seems that the volunteers that were there before the evacuation won't be going back. I have been keeping up with 3 blogs of volunteers that were serving in the country. I already knew that 1 of the volunteers already asked for reassignment and today a couple that was serving there decided not to return as well.

I pray that the people there are safe and do not have to go through what happened to them in the past under Portugese and Indonesian rule. I may never set foot in East Timor in this lifetime if I don't get sent there for the Peace Corps, but I am thankful that I was invited to East Timor to begin with because I learned a lot about a country I probably would never have heard of throughout my life.

Accepted My Invitation

After thinking it over for the past 2 weeks I accepted my invitation from the Peace Corps to go to East Timor. The situation there has not changed, but after speaking to my placement officer I finally made my decision. At this point the Peace Corps has no plans to suspend the program there so we (TL-6) are still scheduled to depart in early July. If there are any changes in the situation my placement officer said they would immediately contact us and let us know. If by chance the program was suspended, we would be given new assignments as soon as possible. So basically I'm headed to East Timor in early July at this point. Let's hope nothing happens in the tiny country of East Timor between now and September 2008.

Peace Corps Volunteers Evacuated from East Timor

I have been mulling over my invite to East Timor for the past couple of days. I have been reading a lot of other blogs from former to current volunteers that served or are serving in East Timor. It seems like East Timor has the highest Early Termination (ET) rate of any country that Peace Corps sends volunteers to. A lot of the people that get sent there become disillusioned with the work they are doing there and some of the situations that they are put into. One volunteer left after about 8 months because the language she was trained in wasn't the language that they used in the village she was stationed at. Another left because she felt like she wasn't doing anything there to help anyone after months of trying different projects that were turned down. It felt like a waste of time for her so she decided to leave. Another woman had a BS in public policy & an MS in education and she was placed into Health. After a couple of she just left as well.

Even though I read all these negative things about the program in East Timor I came to the decision this past week that I was just going to take the invite. I felt that since it was the newest program the Peace Corps had to offer it was just probably going through some growing pains and that possibly I could do something to help the program thrive in the country.

This ambition to do some good for a struggling program in the most third world/poor country that the Peace Corps can send you to was shot down this morning. I got an email from another girl that was invited to East Timor saying that they were evacuating all the volunteers and non-emergency government employees from the country due to the civil unrest occurring in the country right now. All day I have been searching news websites for updates on the situation in East Timor. I consider myself a pretty optimistic person, but in my opinion if they are evacuating people like that from a country, they are most likely going to suspend the program indefinitely.

I contacted my Placement Officer today to see what was going to happen with all the invites he sent out to East Timor, but he didn't pick up so I just left a msg. He is usually very quick to respond to any msg that I leave for him, but today I did not receive any call back from him. I can't imagine was he is going through right now. At this point I feel like I am going to ask for another invite and see where it goes from there. I truly do want to go, but I also don't want my time as a volunteer to be cut short due to the political instability in the country. I have been cleared every which way by the the Peace Corps (dental, medical, alcohol/substance abuse) so I can only hope for another invite to be sent to me ASAP.

Invitation to the Peace Corps

I came home to see that FedEx delivered my official invitation to the Peace Corps. I have been invited to East Timor as a Community Development Specialist under the Community Economic Development program. There are too many things running through my head right now to try and write anything at this point. I will have plenty of time to write these "things" down in the near future...

Country: East Timor (Timor Leste)
Program: Community Economic Development
Job Title: Community Development Specialist
Dates of Service: 13 Sept. 2006 - 12 Sept. 2006
Orientation Dates: July 5-7, 2006
Pre-Service Training: 9 July - 13 Sept. 2006 (in East Timor)

CONGRATULATIONS! You have been invited to become a Peace Corps Volunteer.

My phone went off around 5am letting me know that I had a new email come in to my Gmail account...It was from the Peace Corps letting me know that my application toolkit has been updated. So I got out of bed, turned my computer on, and logged into the Peace Corps website.

As of today May 2, 2006, I have OFFICIALLY been invited to become a Peace Corps Volunteer.

My invitation should arrive sometime today or tomorrow.

Invitation from the Peace Corps on its way...

I got an email about 30 minutes ago from my placement officer saying that results of my drug/alcohol assessment with the social worker were "favorable." As such he is working on my invitation to the Peace Corps, which I should receive sometime this week.

It has been a long and arduous process, which tested my patience to the limits. I am glad that it is over and I am stepping into the next chapter of my life.