Disclaimer

DISCLAIMER

This blog is all words of my own and does not represent the thoughts, views, or opinions of the United States Peace Corps or the United States Government.

My Aspiration Statement

When a PCV accepts their invitation to the Peace Corps, they must write an aspiration statement on their goals and what they hope to gain.  This is mine.



A: The professional attributes that you plan to use, and what aspirations you hope to fulfill, during your Peace Corps service.

            I know that during my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer one important thing to remember while serving will be professionalism, and that remembering this while serving will help me reach goals.  While serving in the Kingdom of Swaziland I will adhere to the standards and policies of the country.  Respecting the country's policies as well as the policies of the school I am working with will help establish me as a professional, which will help with my engagement and interactions with my community.  By respecting these things I hope to in return gain the respect of those around me.

            Something I have learned that will help my professionalism during my service is remembering to be self aware as well as socially aware.  Being socially aware relates to being aware of others' emotions, experiences, and points of view, enabling me to create strong relationships with those around me.  Looking at these things will help establish me as a profession, which will then help in the success of the goals of my assignment.  Remembering to be self aware is also important, and this includes understanding my own emotions, strengths, limitations, actions, and reactions to things.  By keeping in check with myself about these things I will be able to grow safely and healthily, greatly expanding what I will be available to learn and teach.

            Being socially and self aware will also help me reach my goals as a Peace Corps Volunteer.  One of my largest goals is to integrate myself into the community.  I hope to establish relationships of trust and partnership.  Creating these types of relationships will aid in collaborating visions for the community, which will lead closer to the success of the visions. By enveloping myself as a member of the community I will be able to expand lessons for the prevention of AIDS/HIV.  I hope to come up with creative projects and lessons to help in teaching.  Not only do I want to share these with the younger population, but I hope by becoming an active member of the community I will be able to share with the parents and the older generation as well, which will help in encouraging the lessons taught at school or in youth groups/activities.  

B: Your strategies for working effectively with host country partners to meet expressed needs.

            Working with my host country partners will be imperative to the success of my assignment.  My host partners' input will allow goals to be catered to the specific needs of where I am working.  I took what was called a leadership course last year and I believe that some of the lessons this course taught about being an inclusive leader will help me work with my counterpart.  In order to improve the relationship with my counterpart I will need to be willing to be vulnerable, enabling me to take risks.  Even though I will already be taken out of what is seen as my comfort zone, accepting a vulnerability will let my counterpart and I work through questions that are seen as "hard," allowing us to delve deeper into things and therefore working out better solutions, finding what will be most useful and able to be sustained.

            Other strategies I will use to better work with my counterparts will be cultural self-awareness, active listening, and patience.  Being culturally self-aware will help me work with my counterparts because it calls for me to be aware of how my cultural identity impacts my perspective.  My perspective on things will be very different then those of my counterparts, and by being aware of this I can move away from being stuck in one certain line of thought.  Being aware of this reminds me to try to look at things from a different perspective, and my counterpart will be one of the most important people to help me do this.  Active listening will also help me do this.  Active listening means listening with a desire to understand rather than just listening to prepare a response.  This is a great tool to use because it closes a cap on cultural lenses we tend to find ourselves using when speaking with someone who differs from ourselves.  Using this technique will also help create respect between myself and my counterparts.   

            Growing up in the United States a "go,go,go" attitude is instilled into people at a young age.  Because of this, I think patience will also be a great asset to the success of my assignment.  I will need to have patience with myself and with others.  Sometimes getting things done can take a long time, but by having patience I will encourage my counterparts and myself to not give up hope if a project seems to be taking longer than anticipated.  Patience is also important because of the language barrier that will be encountered at first.  I think the most important reason why patience will be a good thing to use with my counterparts and my community is because building strong relationships does not happen in a night, and I will have to be patient to build trust which will lead to stronger relationships of working together.  

C:  Your strategies for adapting to a new culture with respect to your own cultural background.

          I am excited to go to a new country with a culture I have never experienced before.  I think the strategy that will be most useful to me is one that I have used often in the past, embracing things as they come along rather than assuming about them before I go.  This strategy has helped me get through many transitions in my life, including transferring to completely new schools multiple times as well as studying abroad in Granada, Spain for four months.  It is also a strategy that excites me and that I am very comfortable with.  I let go of assumptions and expectations of what I do not know, and instead go into a new space with a completely open mind to what might happen.  I have found this to work very well because inhibitions are let go of, offering the best kind of experience that can be achieved.   

            I will respect my own background by staying aware of it as well as staying true to what I believe.  Staying aware of my background will enable me to expand my perspective on things by remembering that people do not share the same background as I do.  By staying true to what I believe I will be able to do my job with integrity, and keeping my integrity will improve the way I work and projects that are done.   

            While adapting to a new culture another thing I believe is important to remember is that even if things are very different and seem uncomfortable at first, comfort levels will raise with time.  It is important to remember that even if things are tough at first, the rewarding experience will be sticking it out and learning from it, rather than running from it.  I think it will be useful while serving to embrace differences, using them to my advantage and viewing them as assets.  Different perspectives will aid in the success of my assignment.

d:  The skills and knowledge you hope to gain during pre-service training to best serve your future community and project.

            During pre-service training I hope to improve strategies on counseling.  Although I do have some skills in this area, I think strengthening them will greatly improve the work I can do in Swaziland.  I believe that counseling will be important to help people deal with the loss that the AIDS/HIV pandemic has caused, as well as then counseling on the prevention on these diseases.  Improving my skills in this area will aid in my teaching and guidance of persons of all ages and genders.

            Upon being invited to serve in the Kingdom of Swaziland I have heard about many trials volunteers have encountered due to the emotional taxation the AIDS pandemic has taken, from my assignment description and from others who knew volunteers placed in similar situations.  One thing I hope to learn during pre-service training is how to take the potential surrounding devastation and turn it into something that can be useful to my purpose there.  The devastation there will have a personal effect on us volunteers, and rather than allowing the pain we feel and see around us have a detrimental effect on the work we are doing, I hope to gain knowledge of a way to change it from a negative to a positive to improve sharing our message and education.   

e:  How you think Peace Corps service will influence your personal and professional aspirations after your service ends.

            I think that Peace Corps will greatly impact my personal and professional aspirations at the end of my service by guiding me to a more specific area of study for graduate school and my career.  After graduating with my degree in English, I have discovered that I greatly want to expand my areas of expertise.  I want my studies to move on to a more globally conscious humanitarian path, and find a career that greatly involves serving others, which is why I am so excited to serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer because I know I will be fulfilling and learning about these things.  I know that I will learn a new way of living and expand my beliefs in this area while serving, which will help me choose a course of study.

            By living in what will seem to me a new world, I am excited to grow personally and professionally, which will undoubtedly happen.  Recently I have been trying to discover what direction my life will take me next, and what I wish to accomplish with my time, and I am grateful for the experience that Swaziland will give me in figuring out what my aspirations, both professionally and personally, truly are.  I am excited for the opportunity ahead of me to experience a new culture and to learn from it, on a personal level with the Kingdom of Swaziland as well as looking at in on a global scale.

            

A Month Before Departure

        In a little over a month, I will be on my way to Swaziland, Africa, to serve as a volunteer in The Peace Corps, and this is my first post to begin the adventure.  And an adventure really is what it will be.  I hope to learn a lot, about myself and about another culture.  I hope to learn about what I want my future to look like, what to study and maybe do as a career.  I know I am going to have fun, be scared, and miss a lot of people.  But I will also meet a lot of people who will change my life, and I hope to be a part of a change in others lives.

WHY?  
      Everyone around me wants to know why I am doing this.  So I will try to explain.  To me, in a lot of ways, it began with an idea my friend Elizabeth Mattuchio gave me.  In high school we started playing with the idea of joining the Peace Corps, saying that she would take photographs and I would write articles, and together we would send them to National Geographic.  Back then it was an idea that seemed interesting and fun, and perhaps something I really would want to do, but I can't say that I knew I would actually follow through with it. Liz and I graduated at different times, so our idea of going together faded, but in my junior of college I decided that joining the Peace Corps was something that I really wanted to do.  
    The idea of it began with Liz, but the joy of service started long before I met my best friend.  I started in youth group at The First Congregational Church in Rockport in the 6th grade.  I joined because Chelsea Picardo's, a close friend of mine, mother ran it, and I always heard about how much fun they had.  I believe this 6th grade youth group built on, and, in the 8th grade, our youth group (and close-knit group of friends in the rambunctious Sunday school class) was very strong.  Our leader, Mindy, began formulating an idea for our group to go on a Mission Trip, and we were all into it.  Our group of about 17 kids (I think) and the supportive adults, in a year raised 20,000 dollars to go to Pine Ridge, South Dakota, for our first Mission Trip.  Following this trip until after I graduated high school, I participated in each Mission Trip we went on, 5 mission trips.  It was great, and definitively a huge part of my life.   These trips included a whole bunch of fundraising and volunteering throughout the year, and then an intensive volunteer week in places of need.  You beginning to see why I am joining the Peace Corps?
      Service has been a big part of my life, and I know that another factor into my idea to join the Peace Corps was my lack of service while I was abroad.  I studied abroad in Spain, and while I was there I wanted to volunteer but just never found myself doing so.  This had a huge affect on me, I really had wanted to do while service abroad.  And on built the intrigue of the Peace Corps.  
      I returned from studying abroad with the intent to transfer schools, and upon completing this and settling down, I began researching what I had to do to make the Peace Corps a real possibility.  


      The Peace Corps is not something you can just jump into on some hasty decision, which I think sometimes is hard to see for my family.  It is really something I have worked hard for and have thought about.  I want to join so that I can satisfy my need for serving abroad, where ever else in the world this might take me in the future as well.  I am not joining AmeriCorps for a reason, I want to go serve abroad and then when I come back, take what I have learned and apply it to my home country.  Two years is a long commitment, but at the point I am in my life I need a long commitment to help me navigate to the next stage.  I feel that right now something short term would be used as a filler, similar to what my study-abroad program was for me in college.  Although it was a great experience,  I am looking for something more long term to help guide me on to the next step, not hold me over until hopefully some direction comes.  The Peace Corps IS my next step in my own search for direction, and it is an opportunity to do something amazing.  


When?
          June 5th and 6th, 2012: Pre-Departure Staging
          June 7th-August 2012:  Training
          August, 2012-August, 2014:  Service


Where?
         Swaziland, Africa.  :)  (More on the where in a later post)


What?
      Joining the Peace Corps..durrrr


Who?
   Me, Jessica Hope Randall I, born on June 17th, 1989.  Grew up in Rockport, the girl who went to 3 different high schools, and then technically 3 different colleges.  Graduated cum laude with a degree in English Literature.  The girl ready to go on an adventure, to learn a lot, to experience a lot of new things.  The girl who will miss all her loved ones and friends, but hopes they send her love and happy thoughts, and knows that she will visit everyone in their dreams.  The girl who will send postcards and who hopes to get postcards (and care packages of things I probably will need).  Who? Who knows.
                                                                                                       (Just kidding, I know.  It's ME!)