What I Think I Know...

Image by jacqueline macou from Pixabay 

We met up with members of our Rotary clubs at the Union Terrace on Wednesday night.  There were are a lot of questions about our Peace Corps Service.  These are the things I know or think I know:

• We will be leaving Madison early morning on June 2nd to Philadelphia.  There we will have an evening and morning (June 3) orientation with our M32 cohort led by Peace Corps staff.  We will board a bus in the late afternoon to go to JFK to catch our flight to Seoul, South Korea and then on to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.  This we know as we have received our tickets and itinerary.
• In Mongolia, we will be serving in the English Education and Community Development. All of our M32 cohort will be serving in this sector.  We don't know what this will be like as each volunteers position is different.  More to come on this.
• When we arrive in Mongolia, we will spend a week in a hotel where we will have additional orientation and training.
• At the end of that week, we start our official 11 weeks of training which includes a language course which we will be tested on at the end of that period.  After passing the tests, we are sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers and we start our official 2 years of service.
• All members of our cohort will be assigned to secondary schools (high schools).  The secondary school sites have been selected, but we will not know our assignment until closer to our completion of training.  They staff will get to know us better and match us to our sites.
• For the first 11 weeks, we will be living with host families in order to immerse in the language and culture.  Thom and I will not be together as they don't want us speaking English to each other.  We will meet our host families at the end of our orientation week.
• All of our cohort will be living in apartments near urban centers.  Pre-covid, volunteers did live with host families during their service and some actually lived in Mongolia Gers (think yurts, but slightly different design).  Volunteers were placed in rural locations, but Peace Corps Mongolia has chosen to take a more conservative view of coming back off of Covid.
• We will be able to take two 50 pound suitcases and our carry-on with us.  We will be given a stipend to help with moving into our apartments.  
• Peace Corps volunteers do receive a stipend while serving to help with expenses.

This is just a little bit of what I think I know so far.