How to overcome your anxiety about the long wait for Peace Corps

I continue to get messages from other Peace Corps applicants who are waiting for their formal invitations to serve. Everyone asks the question - since our wait has been difficult - for our most current status. Each time I wish I could respond "It's a GO!" But not yet.

We continue to check with the placement officer about once a month. The last time we checked was at the beginning of November when she wrote back the following:

I wanted to just give you an update on the medical approvals I’ve requested. I sent for medical approval for the eight remaining programs to which you could serve as a couple for the 2012 year. I’ve gotten three negative responses back so far. We have given the remaining five programs a reminder to give us their responses soon. I will let you know as soon as I hear back from the remaining countries. Thank you for the amazing amount of patience you have exhibited in waiting for your placement. I am keeping my fingers crossed that we will have some good news from the remaining five programs. Sincerely, (name not posted)

The issue again seems to be medical approval, but - from our perspective - it's difficult to understand what's holding the assignments up. But we've got to trust that the people in the field are more knowledgeable that we, and keep our fingers lightly crossed.

So how are we managing the wait? Our strategy is to continue to engage the placement officer by trying to keep our profiles in front of her. So I wrote back to her the following:

Thanks for this update. We are keeping our fingers crossed that at least one of the five remaining programs will accept us. It's been a long road, but I sincerely appreciate that you're pushing the portfolios out to prospective programs.

Our daughter returns home (permanently?) Monday after 3 1/2 years working in Cambodia, with her new, 9 month old baby. That's a great Turkey-day treat.

So that will keep our minds and bodies busy while we await the outcome of Peace Corps placement process.

In the meantime, I'm continuing to work on projects for our son's NGO, Human Translation. org. As you probably know, Northern Cambodia is really suffering from the flooding that occurred several months ago: Crops gone, roads lost, live stock decimated. My son has started a new relief fund, and we're managing the fund-raising. So far, we've raised about $25 K. He'll be returning to Siem Reap where his naturalized Cambodian NGO called Community Translation Organization (CTO), is trying to mount the relief effort. He'll be there during the month of December before returning to the states. The good news is that the 600 hectare reservoir significantly helped mitigate the flooding in the villages of Balangk where the organization is working. Unfortunately, two of the six canals that were dug from the reservoir collapsed during the flooding, but as the water recedes, they can be rebuilt by hand and there's a possibility that - with the right instruction - the villagers will be able to "dry farm" another crop of rice in the next few months. CTO has several grants from Australia Aid and the UN's work for food projects. So, with some more hard work, I think the villagers will make it through. But not unscathed. Part of the relief fund will be spent on restoring clean water and sanitation. It's a mess.


So, while we're waiting for PC's determination of a placement, we're relatively busy here. Judith is continuing to teach at a local college, and they've offered her another term, and I have financial work coming in too. So we're not sitting on our hands. Nonetheless, we're extremely hopeful that PC will find a place for us. We both feel that the skills we will learn will substantially help us achieve our own goals, and I'm confident that we have something to offer, where ever PC might send us.

Our health continues to be very good and our spirits could not be stronger.
We both wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. And thank you for your work on our behalf.

Sincerely, Tom

So is this strategy working? Well, we still have no more news, but I did receive the following back from the placement officer last week:

Tom it is great to hear you are both keeping busy. I’m very glad you and your family are able to help with relief efforts in Cambodia. Your attached photo is a real eye-opening---I can almost imagine the difficulty of living in such a situation.Thank you for you the update. I will be in contact with new information as soon as I can.

And why are we continuing to push on Peace Corps placement when we have this other NGO to occupy us?

The answer is pretty simple: Peace Corps offers a chance to learn more, to do more, and to build our skills in this important area of service. At the same time, it's just one avenue of service. And if one avenue becomes blocked, it's important to us to seek others. It's like any job that needs doing: you persevere until you find the path that works. There's no romance about it. You just do it.

One of my favorite "old" movies that we recently watched was 1958 production of "The Inn of the Sixth Happiness" with Ingrid Bergman. No doubt it seems terribly romantic - this woman applies to work as a missionary and is rejected over and over again. The missionary stuff doesn't attract me, but the real-life personage of Gladys Aylward is inspiring. She's somebody who wouldn't take "No" for an answer.

I have no inclination to be a missionary, but I do have a desire to make a difference in some of the places where I know my skills can be of use.

Meanwhile, we're settling in now with our daughter and her significant other and her baby, who have just returned from Cambodia after almost four years. Our son Tobias was here too, as well as our son Dagan with his two boys. It was the first time in a long time that we were all on the same continent, in the same country, in the same town, in the same house, at the same time. It was an overwhelming experience - chaotic, exhausting, and terrible fun. Who knows how many of these will be left to us?

We sat around the table, made a toast to our recently departed cat Gus, and drank a bottle of 1981 Robert Mondavi Cab Reserve that I'd been saving for a special occassion since the time I worked there. (And it was still drinkable after 30 years.) A good time was had by all, and it was a Thanksgiving to be remembered.

Status on Peace Corps - October 17th, 2011

Thanks to those who send their encouragement as we await Peace Corps placement. This is an update of that process.

What's happened since the last post
At the most practical level, nothing has transpired: We still are awaiting for a placement.
But behind the scenes there has been activity at the DC headquarters, so our hopes have not been dashed, and we're still getting encouragement (from you and from PC).

Since our last posting we've sent emails to our placement person at PC.  The temptation, at this juncture, is the tap our foot with our hands on our hips and chide her with questions like "What's taking so long? ! ?."  In fact, many of our local friends roll their eyes at the delays.

But we have cordially requested explanations, and then when the answers we received didn't exactly match what we understood to be happening, we dug deeper (and deeper) to try to figure out what went awry. 

For instance, last time around (when they were placing couples) they submitted our portfolios to a number of programs in North Africa.  But there was something in our medical profiles that wasn't accurate.  In my case, it was a very slight allergy to certain kinds of sea foods.  In Judith's case, it was a limitation in the weight she could lift (nothing over 25 pounds).  As a result, (we believe) the portfolios were returned with a rejection for placement by these programs.

But the placement officer had no visibility into why we were rejected, other than a sort of blanket "because of medical restrictions."  She had no visibility, even, of what was in our medical portfolios.  And of course, because we also have no visibility into their records, we were really at the mercy of whatever the medical sector of PC had written about us.

So we went back to the PC evaluation nurse, got her on the phone, and "cordially" argued that there was something amiss. 

Poor Nurse!  We've spent so many phone calls with her, trying to get past the obstacles that she saw in our medical evaluations.  But, because we were pleasant - but persistent and insistent - she had begun to listen to us.  We'd overcome a number of these obstacles in the past, and each time she seemed just at thrilled as we were that our health "on paper" seemed to be "improving".  So, this time, she said point-blank, that probably the reason our portfolios were being rejected by the programs was NOT my wife's restrictions, but my incredibly minor food allergy to certain shellfish.

So, the long and the short of it is that I had to explain to her that I never died from this allergy, but merely had the usual problems people do when they eat something that their body doesn't like.  And since, in Cambodia and Laos, I've eaten things that Poor Nurse would probably not even consider as food (frogs, red ants, crickets, snakes, pre-historic-looking bar fish that stared at me with jaws filled with a mouth full of sharp teeth, etc.) and suffered only from the usual maladies of "bodia-belly" and other lower intestinal parasites, I actually laughed over the phone at her deep and sincere concern.  And I realized that absolute honesty on the medical evaluation forms is unquestionably a hazard if one really wants to go into PC. 

Fortunately, Poor (lovely) Nurse said "Oh! Well, I'll remove that restriction from your records!" 

Wow!  I felt like Kafka, in "The Castle", getting permission to move into the next waiting room. A victory! "I really am NOT a crippled, decrepit, lunatic with grandiose dreams of serving in Peace Corps. I'm just a healthy world traveler with something to offer!"

So Lovely (but previously misunderstanding) Nurse then went down through our entire medical records and said she would consider removing all restrictions.  It was like listening to a recalcitrant J. Edgar Hoover suddenly turning into Bobby Kennedy over the phone.

And I realized that she must have the most thankless job in Washington, DC: A job of rejecting hundreds (thousands?) of people who sincerely want to serve, but are not physically up to the challenge.  Her voice softened over the phone. Her affect of "sympathetic sternness" shifted in key, and it actually seemed as though she were thrilled to "white out" those restrictions.  A thankless job, being Nurse. How many arguments has she gotten into over the phone? How many people has she had to disappoint over her years as PC Nurse?  How many people have hung up on her "Bang!" after they lost their appeals?  What a thankless job!

So I said, in my most sincere voice, with a light ironic laugh, "Thankyou!  I really appreciate your special effort on our behalf."

And she said, quite simply, "You're very welcome.  I KNOW they want to place you. You had a placement, but the program got canceled.  I KNOW they are trying to figure it out.  You have real skills that can be useful!"

Wow! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU I was thinking.

Kafka, eat your hear out!

So we hung up the phone.  And waited. And waited. And waited.

Then last month, as we were returning from a trip from Colorado, in the waiting area between flights, I got a brief email on my cell phone from the placement officer.  A couple who had been assigned to Central Asia had suddenly dropped out of placement.  "Would you be interested?  You'd leave in January or February! Can't guarantee anything. Have to send them your records. What do you think?"

Would we be interested? WOULD WE BE INTERESTED? I immediately key-in "Yes! Fingers Crossed! Hope to hear from you soon!"  And then Judith and I sat in our cramped airline seats, hoping the answer would be "Go!" and what we would Skype to our daughter in Cambodia who is returning home in November "You'll have the whole house to yourself!"  And trying to remember which "stan" is in Central Asia where the Peace Corps has projects.  And trying to keep our enthusiasm under control.

A couple of days passed.  The email was received.  "No! For medical reasons!"

Whose medical reasons?  What happened?  Why - if our medical portfolios have been purged of restrictions - have our portfolios been rejected?  The placement officer could not tell us.  But, she said, the next round of placements will begin in Jan. 

So that's where we are now.  We've made progress! But only to the next room within the Castle. 

Are we disappointed?  Yes! We never thought that trying to get into Peace Corps would be a career path, but here we are. 

Are we discouraged?

No! This is not a whim for us. This is a very strong desire for both of us.  A kind of calling. And maybe with some added fortitude we'll make it yet.

Besides, maybe it's time to talk to my congressman again.

Peace Corps Status - An update in August of 2011

A reader is interested in our progress with Peace Corps.  Today I'm writing from our house in St. Helena.  We are still awaiting an assignment - the "invitation" in Peace Corps parlance.
While we were in Thailand we finally received our medical clearance, and conducted our "placement" interview over Skype. The placement officer said that we would probably receive our placement invitation in May. We're still waiting.

The process of clearing the medical evaluations was particularly harrowing. First I was rejected because of hypertension. The nurse was kind in her call, but said my blood pressure levels were not within their guidelines.  She said I could reapply after it was controlled for a particular period of time.  So I returned to my doctor and told him of the problem.  He said "But your hypertension is under control."  He pointed to the last three readings conducted by his office, and though they were not within the levels PC had indicated, he showed me that, for a person of my age with my history, I was within the recommended guidelines of the medical establishment.  I asked him if he'd write a letter to that effect, which he gladly did. I was extremely grateful.  I then sent the letter onto PC as a fax (they don't recommend sending things by mail) and asked - cordially - for their reconsideration.  After several weeks, on Xmas Eve, of last year, the nurse called me up and said they would give me medical clearance.  We were ecstatic, of course.

We had planned a trip to Thailand and Cambodia in February to attend the birth of our daughter's first child, and we were looking forward to the Spring, when we anticipated that we would receive an invitation. Unfortunately, several weeks before we left, Judith received a call from the PC nurse.  Unfortunately, she said, Judith's back condition would prevent them from giving medical clearance. They were afraid that she would not be able to handle squat toilets or the rigors of possible assignment in a rural country with few medical facilities.  Judith was, naturally, disappointed and angry - not because she didn't believe they were concerned, but because they had misunderstood her physical capabilities.

Consequently, we both were now rejected, and it also made me angry and defiant.  As luck would have it, our son Tobias had been befriended by the former head of Peace Corps in Asia, and he graciously introduced us to him and his lovely wife.  We exchanged a few stories about our various histories and travels, and then I asked him if he any suggestions to overcome this obvious bureaucratic roadblock.  He said it might be a good idea to contact our congressman, Mike Thompson, and ask him to have his office "monitor" our process.  That's what we did.  We also went to two back specialists to confirm that there was no medical necessity for Peace Corps to be concerned, and forwarded letters from them as well. 

By the time we arrived in Bangkok on our visit, we'd received an email telling us that we had then been medically cleared for service.  We then arranged to have our placement interview with the Peace Corps placement officer while we were in Bangkok - awaiting our granddaughter's birth - over Skype.  The placement interview went fine, and we were told that we'd probably receive our invitation to PC sometime in May.

When May rolled around and we had still not received the invitation, I contacted the placement officer via email to check our status. Were we going to receive an invitation? Or had something else created a roadblock?

She wrote back that indeed they had found an assignment for us. But unfortunately, budgetary restraints had forced PC to cancel that particular program.  All assignments for the Summer and Fall had been made. The soonest we might expect a possible invitation would be January of 2012.

So that's the current situation.  At this juncture we're not certain if we would accept an invitation after such a long trial.  We're not certain because it may be that the window of opportunity in our lives to do PC has begun to close.  I'm still very interested, as is Judith, but my business is starting to move again with many commitments, our daughter is returning from Cambodia with her new baby, and our experience with the bureaucracy has been so very mixed. 

Is agism the cause of these roadblocks? It makes one wonder. We knew the road would be long and difficult - and for our age, perhaps even more difficult than the assignments. But....
We'll see.

Peace Corps Calls Up Memories of East Capital Street in Washington, DC

5:30 AM. I stumble to the phone that has awakened me from a deep sleep. It's Peace Corps in Washington, DC. Somebody name Danielle Smith. They've received our medical forms, but -- on mine -- there's a problem. They had my SS# wrong, so I'd crossed it out on the forms and put in the right one. Now they want to know why. I told them the preprinted SS# was inaccurate. So they want me to fax them a signed statement explaining why I had changed this. Argh! Bureaucracies!

The voice on the other end is patient as I struggle to find my glasses and then careen through the house looking for something to write down their fax number. Finally she says "I'm sorry if I woke you or sumtin."I said, "It's okay! I had to get up to answer the phone anyway!"

Sumtin! The inflection of Ms. Smith's voice makes me remember the inflections of friends we knew back in DC in 1972. A flood of memories comes back, when we lived on East Capitol Street, ten blocks from the Capitol, on the edge of Lincoln Park.

 We lived on the top floor of a three story house amid brownstones, directly across from the park, where a large statue entitled "Emancipation" stood.  It was a statue of Lincoln reaching down to a slave. Every morning I arose early to move the car because the street changed direction to accommodate the influx of traffic.  If I slept late, my car would be ticketed and towed, and many a morning I arrived just in time to prevent the tow trucks from hooking up to our old Saab 96.

And every morning the park was the playground of greyhounds that ran the length of the green, chasing the pigeons that roosted everywhere.

Judith wrote a beautifully frightening poem about Lincoln Park during our time there. 

Our housemates were the Baycotts - an African American family with five beautiful young children.  They lived on the bottom two floors, and Mrs. Baycott took a special interest in Judith, who was nearing full term with our first child, Dagan.

The inflection of "somtin" by Ms. Smith made me start thinking of Mrs. Baycott and those beautiful kids.

One evening, as we climbed the stairway up through the house to our third floor apartment -- as we reached the second story loaded down with groceries -- our eyes were caught by a single brown finger of one hand wriggling beneath the door of the second floor bedrooms.  First one finger wiggling, then a second, then a third -- waving a silent hello.

Then there was a second hand, then a third, then a fourth, each hand wiggling fingers.  Before we reached the landing, five pairs of hands, fingers wriggling, shown beneath the old wooden door.  "Hello!" the fingers said. "Ssh! Don't tell Momma we're here doing this! Hello! Goodbye!"

In February of that year our son Dagan was born, and Mrs. Baycott daily came up to attend Judith and to see the new baby.  I recall how she sat in the chair by the third story window, baby between her hands, looking deeply into his newly opened eyes.  She was such a help, curious about the name we'd given to him, present but distant, somehow separated from us, but deeply engaged in our new adventure.

"Isn't he sumtin!" I remember her saying.  "He's such a beautiful boy!"

After Danielle Smith has hung up this morning,  I lay in bed unable to fall back asleep. I can't stop thinking about those old days more than 30 years ago.  Ms. Smith would be just about the age of one of those Baycott children, I think to myself.  All grown up. And it makes me wonder how their lives have gone, thousands of miles away, growing up in the nation's capitol.  Do they each have their own children now?  Is Mrs. Baycott a grandmother too?  How has life treated them?  Do they even remember us, the arrival of the new baby?  The chaos of our sudden departure? Did they ever wonder what became of us, just as I now am wondering what became of them?

For me, growing up as I did in the Midwest -- amid racial segregation and cultural stereotypes, in a middle class white family -- trying to emotionally navigate an era of riots and prejudice -- that moment on that flight of stairs so long ago was a kind of milestone of a personal emancipation. The barriers between us seem to break by the simplicity of their silent, waving greetings.  Were I to meet one of those grown up children today, I know my fingers would wriggle their own silent "Hello! How's it been for you?"

And then I would whisper "Don't worry! I never told your Momma! But then, I know she wouldn't mind either."

The Endless Peace Corps Application Process

Today Judith and I finally mailed off our medical clearance forms to Peace Corps. It was a process begun last March when we received the pile of forms from Washington, D.C. It was a relief to finally get each group of records into the SASE, lock it down with tape, and send each packet off as certified mail. The Post Office window clerk, seeing the address, put both hands together in a prayer salute and wished us luck.

Luck! How we've needed it these last five months as we navigated the forms. One might suppose that they would have sent a cohesive package of forms, numbered and lettered, with the appropriate check-off lists to make certain everything was there.

And indeed, the materials they sent could be seen as having once had a sort of maniacal order. But it must have been at some distant moment in the past. Perhaps back in the 1980s or 70s or 60s.

Unfortunately, as the forms currently appear, they are a hodge-podge of requests for information, each request clearly devised by a separate internal entity within the medical establishment of the Peace Corps offices.

On some level I imagined it would be like going into the Army. But now I suspect the Army must have the medical process down to a science, using their own physicians. How else could we have built us such a large military?

By comparison, the Peace Corps medical forms process would seem archaic at best. Were Peace Corps to fight a war by drafting Peace Corps recruits, the processes of getting everyone through the medical forms would, in itself, eventually cause us to suite for peace.

For example, we are responsible for getting the various doctors to fill out the forms precisely, and for paying those doctors their going rates for their services. Imagine trying to fight in Afghanistan if each soldier were required to go back home and have his/her doctor complete a half-inch sheaf of paper forms. Then, when the whole examination process is complete, the soldier was required to pay up out of his own pocket.

Peace Corps does provide a small remuneration, but we haven't gone through that process yet. The reimbursement amounts listed are small, I'm afraid. So I'm really hopeful that we don't end up being eliminated because of some minor issue with our health. Then the whole process would seem like a waste of money.

So how bad was the overall medical examination process? Not too bad!

The basic exams are pretty simple: A physical exam, providing an immunization record, a few blood tests, an eye exam, and a dental exam.

Thereafter, the unique medical history of each applicant is queried with specific tests, based upon what the applicant has revealed in his/her medical narrative that was a part of the in the initial Peace Corps application.

For instance, I have high blood pressure, and I identified that I had this condition on my initial Peace Corps application. This led the medical screening staff to request more specific information, and a separate form was enclosed which need to be filled out. Likewise, I used to faint when I was younger -- a condition called Vasal Vagil Syncop. I used to faint whenever I became overly stressed, and my blood pressure would suddenly descend. The condition is harmless, but this too had to be explained by a specialist, even though today I no longer experience this condition.

But for a young person - someone who has not yet suffered tribulations that life inflicts upon each of us - the medical screening process would probably seem pretty straight forward. By comparison, for older applicants -- 50 or greater -- the battery of tests and proofs tend to multiply. Colonoscopy, Electro Cardiogram, additional blood work: All to prove that you are in fact alive and will not succumb during deployment.

The worse part for me was obtaining the past medical records from a hospitalization more than 10 years ago. I emailed, phoned, faxed -- but to no avail. Finally, they told me that I actually could not have my own records. According to their rules, only a physician could receive copies, and only if I were physically present at the time the hospital faxed them the records. That entire episode of record retrieval took four months to work out. Then, after my doctor gave me the records, I had to go to a local specialist who could review the old records and vouchsafe that I was still alive and unencumbered by the old ailment.

Some requests for information related to illnesses or conditions that I experienced back when I was 15 years old. Peace Corps wanted to be certain that I was no longer afflicted. Puberty? Don't even ask!

Unfortunately, those medical records -- and all the people who treated me back then -- have long since disappeared. And so, after speaking to the medical coordinator back in Washington, DC, it was recommended that I simply enclose a "personal statement" explaining the circumstances.

We were very lucky that our own local doctor, Barry Brown, was so patient and understanding with us. When he first heard us talking about going into the Peace Corps more than a year ago, he smiled and shook our hands. His encouragement has certainly made the whole process much easier. Over and over again we traipsed through his examination rooms as we tried repeatedly to complete the endless medical clearance processes. Each test resulted in one more question, which required more tests, etc. By the end of it I'm sure even his nurse Erin was relieved to see the end of us. We can't thank them enough for their good will, patience, and professionalism.

But what will we say if we still don't get into the Peace Corp?

During the midst of all this coming and going to the doctors' offices we received a notice that we were taking too long, and that if Peace Corps did not receive our completed forms by July 8th, our applications would automatically be placed on hold.

Argh! July 8th was yesterday! Our medical packets shipped today! What now?

We'll have to wait and see.

And if they reject us because we're too "feeble and frail"?

Oh yes! They can still reject us!

Stay tuned. We have been told that -- now that we have sent the medical forms -- it will take them up to six months to process them. That puts us into December.