Right: Rita and Amy, African artifacts at PC Resource Center, magnolia tree on the way; below and above, DC rooftopsI spent the afternoon at the Peace Corps Resource Center (PCRC) in Rosslyn, VA today. It’s a good sized office with a room full of computers, printers, scanners, fax and phones. It has a library of useful brochures and information. Amy, a RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer) who served in Azerbajan, greeted my PCV Ukraine friend Rita and me. We had a little tour, noticed the great wall posters and photos and displays of artifacts, mostly from Africa, and spent time at the computers.
The Peace Corps offers many benefits to RPCVs, and the Resource Center is there to help. These include employment counseling and job placement support ; noncompetitive eligibility for government jobs; extended health benefits for 18 months after service; and terrific education and graduate school opportunities, especially great for young volunteers, most of whom are recent college graduates or just a few years out of college.
Graduate school opportunities are fantastic. Scholarships, academic credits and stipends are available from PC “partners.” PC has more than 100 partnerships with schools from Boston U to Tulane to Northern Arizon
a University. These are unique opportunities to combine the experience of PC service with a graduate degree. I know several volunteers from my group 36 in Ukraine who plan to take advantage of these programs.
Getting to Rosslyn and back to Georgetown was half the pleasure. It was a rainy day, in the 50s, not warm, but many trees are in full bloom, the white and pink cherry trees and the magnificent magnolia trees pretty against a gray sky. We also saw lots of full forsythia bushes at their peak. Clouds of yellow in some places. I love the way spring moves from yellow and pink to red and purple, from daffodils and cherry blossoms to brighty tulips and iris. I can see why artists of all ages and places found the season irresistible, took out their brushes, and filled their canvases.
I also discovered it’s easy to take the new “Connector” buses from Georgetown to Rosslyn, easier, faster, and cheaper than a regular bus or the metro. So that was a good experience, too. Along the way I stopped to see my friend Esther at the Federation of State Humanities Councils, because it turned out the office was just down the street from the PC Resource Center. The degrees of separation between people around the globe seems to get smaller and smaller.
It’s a pink and yellow world in the nation's capital now, which makes these explorations a pleasure. It's the little things in life that matter sometimes. Not that our global anxieties are far from our thoughts, but that the beauty that surrounds us, and the little adventures we take, keep our spirits up.
The Peace Corps offers many benefits to RPCVs, and the Resource Center is there to help. These include employment counseling and job placement support ; noncompetitive eligibility for government jobs; extended health benefits for 18 months after service; and terrific education and graduate school opportunities, especially great for young volunteers, most of whom are recent college graduates or just a few years out of college.
Graduate school opportunities are fantastic. Scholarships, academic credits and stipends are available from PC “partners.” PC has more than 100 partnerships with schools from Boston U to Tulane to Northern Arizon
a University. These are unique opportunities to combine the experience of PC service with a graduate degree. I know several volunteers from my group 36 in Ukraine who plan to take advantage of these programs.Getting to Rosslyn and back to Georgetown was half the pleasure. It was a rainy day, in the 50s, not warm, but many trees are in full bloom, the white and pink cherry trees and the magnificent magnolia trees pretty against a gray sky. We also saw lots of full forsythia bushes at their peak. Clouds of yellow in some places. I love the way spring moves from yellow and pink to red and purple, from daffodils and cherry blossoms to brighty tulips and iris. I can see why artists of all ages and places found the season irresistible, took out their brushes, and filled their canvases.
I also discovered it’s easy to take the new “Connector” buses from Georgetown to Rosslyn, easier, faster, and cheaper than a regular bus or the metro. So that was a good experience, too. Along the way I stopped to see my friend Esther at the Federation of State Humanities Councils, because it turned out the office was just down the street from the PC Resource Center. The degrees of separation between people around the globe seems to get smaller and smaller.
It’s a pink and yellow world in the nation's capital now, which makes these explorations a pleasure. It's the little things in life that matter sometimes. Not that our global anxieties are far from our thoughts, but that the beauty that surrounds us, and the little adventures we take, keep our spirits up.
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