A few questions about Peace Corps timeline

sugarhit

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I'm writing a novella in which the hero is accepted to the Peace Corps in Burkina Faso for forestry. I'm not sure yet what he'll be doing but that part isn't central to the storyline.

As for his conflict, he finds out that he doesn't have full dental clearance and has to rush to get that information back to the PC so he can still potentially leave at the end of summer, as planned instead of the following year.

A few questions:
  1. Would the Peace Corps send you to Burkina Faso in Sept/Oct?
  2. Would a dental records holdup be enough to delay your trip? If so how long would they give you to rectify?
  3. If dental records would hold up his trip, if he overnights or faxes the info to PC, would he still be able to go in 3-4 weeks?

Thanks so much.
 
Cathy C

Cathy C

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My nephew was in the Peace Corps in Gabon, West Africa for four years. I'll bet he'd know about timelines. Would you like me to forward your questions on to him? (He lives in New York now, so the answer will be much faster... ;) )
 

sugarhit

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Yes, please.

I'd really appreciate that.
 
Cathy C

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Here you go:

Lemme see what I can do about these questions:

1. Yeah, sure. I'm not sure exactly when the stages begin in Burkina, but September is a totally believable time. It's right as the rainy season is ending in the Sahel, so it would probably be a perfect time to begin a training. October is plausible too.

2. The only dental-related reason that would delay a departure for PC is impacted wisdom teeth. The character would have to have them removed (at his own expense!), as I did before PC would grant him clearance. I can't think of another dental condition that would delay departure. I think it took about a month for me to recover. You have to keep in mind that groups are invited to countries at most once every three to four months, so if the future volunteer missed the window, he'd probably have to wait another few months before he'd be asked back in the same field. Also, they tend to send one group a year in a given specialty, so there might not be another forestry stage until the following September. The December training group might be health volunteers or education volunteers. One thing that does happen frequently is that a volunteer misses a window for one country because of medical issue or unrest in a given country and gets invited to a different country. So a volunteer might, for example, be invited to a forestry program in Peru but miss that window and be invited to a similar program in Burkina once the condition has been rectified.

3. If he didn't have to have surgery (say if the diagnosis of impacted wisdom teeth was incorrect or correctable by simple extraction instead of surgery), he could definitely fax or overnight the info and get clearance in 3-4 weeks.
Click to expand...

Hope that helps! He also said if you have any other questions about the PC or Burkina, he'd be happy to help out. :)
 

sugarhit

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OMG, Cathy, thanks so much for this. I was just working on rewrites and wondered if you'd heard anything back.

I appreciate it so much from you and your nephew!
 
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