Staging

I was woken up by my roommate Kathleen at 11:30; our staging event started at noon. I didn’t even think to set an alarm because I figured I’d wake up at 10 at the latest. However, I clearly underestimated how tired I was! I quickly got ready and made it down to the lobby to wait in line, turn in paperwork, and then go into a conference room to sit for a couple hours while the other 55 people did the same thing. This took nearly two hours. The schedule was until 7pm. Since I woke up late, I also did not have time to submit the Wolof and AgroForestry tests online, so I did that during this time. Once everyone made it through, we were officially welcomed by our staging directors Amy, Abdul, and Jeff as trainees rather than just invitees. We were constantly welcomed by guests throughout the day as "part of the family."

We were also very fortunate because we had the deputy director, Carrie Hessler-Radelet, as well as the director of the Peace Corps, Aaron Williams, come to speak! Apparently, staging groups are lucky if they have just a single of those two to attend. Carrie is a RPCV (returned Peace Corps volunteer) who served in Somoa during the 80s and went on to have a long career in international development before her current position. Two memorable quotes that she shared was that the Peace Corps is "the toughest job you'll love," and it is the most "intense and transformative experience outside of marriage and childbearing." Aaron was also a volunteer in the Dominican Republic in the 60s. He discussed how now is a good time for the PC because of the current supportive administration (particularly with Obama having grown up in a developing country, and Clinton having visited every country that the PC is now active in), the bipartisan support in congress, and the fifty year anniversary this year and how it is an opportunity to implement the new vision and key strategies for the PC (while maintaining the original mission statement). Each were very inspiring and made me excited for my service.

I was particularly happy to hear that "new vision and key strategies" seem to hold true to critiques I had in my undergrad about the problems with developmental organizations, particularly exceptionally bureaucratic ones. For instance, an evaluation of the PC showed that countries with the most resources were not ones with the most "need" (using the human development index [HDI] as a means to determine need). For instance, Ukraine had over 200 volunteers whereas Ethiopia had only 60. Therefore, a major change is that as an organization, they were going to rationalize the number of volunteers in a country according to a country in need. Further, they were going to minimize the sorts of projects in order to maximize the impact of volunteers, although this is by maintaining six key sectors (Education, Environment, Health, Small Business Development, Youth Development, and Community Development), with a total of 40 different specific projects (i.e. I am in the Environment sector working on an AgroForestry project).

We also split up into groups several times to talk about safety, anxieties, aspirations. Tomorrow we meet in the morning to head to the health clinic for the DAY before going to the airport to fly out at 5:40PM on a direct eight hour flight!

All in all, staging was exhilarating despite the necessary logistics! I believe that it achieved its purpose is give us as trainees the "opportunity to reflect on one's commitment to service while orienting to the Peace Corps and general demands of being healthy, safe, and effective."