The Peace Corps’ sent my invitation to serve on July 27, 2017 via e-mail. I no longer obsessively checked my email like I did the first few weeks after my interview. I popped in randomly only to be disappointed by the lack of updates. My check-ins were getting further and further apart.
Which is why I almost missed my invitation to serve!
I sat down at my desk on a late Sunday night. I checked my email, thinking it would be full of spam yet again when I saw it…
Congratulations! You have been selected to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer, pending medical and legal clearance. This letter is your formal invitation to serve as a Community Health Advisor in Madagascar departing February 25, 2018. By accepting this invitation, you are taking the next step toward joining hundreds of thousands of Americans who have answered the call to service and made sustainable change in communities around the world. Here’s what you need to do within 3 calendar days:
- Review all assigned materials. Please review the assignment-specific information sent to you via email previously, as well as the Peace Corps Volunteer handbook.
- Respond to your invitation within three days:
See that second bullet point–respond to your invitation. It was already Saturday, July 29th at 11:45pm. Did this really mean I only had 15 minutes remaining or my invitation would be rescinded? I don’t know, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. But by my getting my invitation so late in the game, meant that I had absolutely no one to talk to about it. Except my coworkers. Who think I’m crazy for wanting to join the Peace Corps anyway.
Trusting my gut, I responded to the accept link in my invitation. And that was that. On August 2, I got inundated with the first set of tasks. Getting my fingerprints done and sent off to legal was Step 1. The next step was getting my Peace Corps passport and all that entailed
You see how ‘pending medical and legal clearance’ is bolded in the original offer? Medical clearance is no joke–and with only two months (60 days to be precise) to complete the tasks, it’s a race to complete on time. More on that to come later
Shout out to the Killers Deadline and Commitments
