Hey everyone, my name is Colleen Paxton. I am a student at Lees-McRae college in Banner Elk NC. I want to enter the peace core right after I graduate and want very badly to help. I have a question though, I am planning on getting married before I enter PC and so is my husband. Any ideas how a to-be-married couple should go about applying?

Hello my name is Jeremy Ferrell, RPCV Paraguay 2000-2003. My project was Agroforestry extension working primarily with subsistence farmers in reforestation and soil conservation. My experience helped guide me where I am today working on Renewable Energy Projects at ASU Energy Center and teaching "Biofuels Technology" in the Appropriate Technology Program at ASU.

On Monday I went to hear the Dalai Lama speak at Atalanta's Centennial Park. It was an amazing experience to hear his simple yet powerful messages of compassion towards others and promoting inner peace as a step towards world peace. A highlight for me was when the Dalai Lama spoke of reaching out to other nations to show solidarity and mutual understanding. He cited the Peace Corps as an exceptional example of this and commented how there should be more Peace Corps Volunteers doing this work.

My name is Kevin Sykes, and I'm a Junior Sustainable Development major at ASU. I'm very interested in joining the Peace Corps, but I don't know what focus area I will be able to help in. I'd be interested in hearing experiences of volunteers on here. How do people usually go about paying off their loans if they are off in the Peace Corps? Is there generally some postponement of payment or do people just have to figure something out?

Loans can generally be deferred. It depends on the loan--for instance the Perkins Loan can even be partially forgiven when you finish your Peace Corps service. As for the Stafford--the subsidized version can be deferred and the unsubsidized version can have only the principle deferred (you will have to pay the interest while a volunteer). There are ways to work out paying the interest that allow you to be a volunteer. As for what a person in Sustainable Development can do in Peace Corps--well there are a wealth of possibilities. It depends a lot on your concentration and your experience within and outside of your university work.

People who are planning to get married before entering Peace Corps, but want to go ahead and start the application process are very welcome to do so. There is a place for applicants to indicate they are planning to get married on the application form; and as long as both applicants check that box and indicate each other as their proposed spouse, then Peace Corps will treat the two as a married couple during the application and placement processes. NOTE: a couple must be married for at least 6 months before arriving in country.

I'm Robert Eller, and I was in China 6 from 99-01. Lived there three more years, married my sweetheart (not student) and now teach World Lit. to high school hooligans, work on my ASU MA, bang on drums, kayak and fish, and focus on being a new daddy. Well met.
Knew a few married couples, and most had good experiences overall--but often treated as one unit rather than two individuals--plus having the guy be the one most spoken to. Overall, though I commend you on that. My wife and I went to Hainan Island for a honeymoon.
For China, we did TEFL and a limited-time-only environmental ed program. See if there's anyway you can get credit for your service in terms of MA credits, internships, language prof, etc. I got the state to give me four years' salaray exp for my service, which saved my wife and I upon return to US.
Peace Corps opens a lot of doors, and it was the single most important thing I've ever done.

In my opinion, I'd say don't join if you think you're going to drag the heathen savages out of the third world and save the planet. They're more likely to save YOU.

In a very real way, a PCV will finish his/her service and realize that a large portion of the benefits belong to the PCV him/herself--a fact which can seem, in a way, kind of odd or unfair when he/she thinks about the altruistic reasons he/she joined Peace Corps. Even though you set out to change the world, you end up finding that the experience will change you--usually for the better Of course, you will hopefully have a very positive impact on the people you meet and work with/for as a volunteer; but there is no "saving" of the native peoples going on.

Hey, I'm Allison, and I am a recently Returned PCV from Lesotho, serving in the education sector from '05-'07. I taught ESL in a secondary/high school in a very rural setting. Feel free to be in touch if you have any questions about anything...I'd be glad to help if I can. I have a livejournal, and you can flip all the way back through it if you want to read what I posted during my service, although I didn't have any sort of regular internet access, so it was sporatic: englishnerd-7.livejournal.com