Patching up the gaps.

Given the time that I don't have, I need to do something expadite this blog.  So I am going to skip through all that I wanted to write about for my travels in Mexico; 12 months and 6 days in Spain, Western Europe and Morocco; an internship in Baja California; an internship with the SBA-OIT, and finally through all the toil of my application process (which I am considering up loading to the pages section of this blog) which ultimately brings me to today.  What is today? June 21, 2010 and am virtually no closer to knowing where I am going or what I am doing in the Peace Corps than I was back in 2005 when the idea became a tangible goal.  The message below was received today.

"Hello,

Thank you for the updated information, and congratulations on the award! I have passed your file onto the Placement team for further assessment. Since your availability is not until mid-September, it may still be a month or so before you hear from Placement. You are welcome to contact me at any time if you have any questions or concerns, or if you do not hear any news after one month.

Best,"

What are you thinking John?  I am thinking that at this point all options are still on the table.  When I received my nomination for Sub-Saharan Africa back in November, I was admittedly very disappointed.  Every effort that I had made for all of 5 years prior to that point in time was to ramp up my resume with more then enough experience in Spanish related items so that the Peace Corps would be stupid to consider sending me anywhere other then Latin America.  It would have been such a gross mis-allocation of assets, not to mention a waste of my time, that it would be inconceivable.  This was, as a good friend says, "another fuckin' growth opportunity".  The moral of this story was clear, the Peace Corps doesn't do "best fits" for anyone.  They operate on a "need" basis.  If you are qualified for a position, irrespective of what else you are qualified for, you could be the man for the job.    This was rather disheartening and my trust and opinion of the Peace Corps was badly shaken.  If I wasn't being sent to Spanish speaking country, we were now talking about the difference between hitting the ground running and spending the first six months to a year learning a new language with all social norms that go with it.  Everything would move slower.