Wednesday, May 05, 2010

One step closer

I got my black diplomatic passport yesterday.  It still feels cool to me, even though all it really gets me is to go through the shorter line at the airport, which has never really been a big issue to me anyway.  But I guess it means I am one step closer to moving to Nairobi.  I also have a tentative "packout" date scheduled, when the movers will come to my apartment and pack up all my stuff for me and ship it to Nairobi, but there is a good chance that that will get postponed if some of my other paperwork, which seems to have gotten stuck somehow, doesn't get done soon.

Otherwise, I am just toodling along in my rotation in the Food for Peace office, which I am enjoying way more than I ever expected to.  Besides having what seems to me one of the friendliest staffs at USAID, their work is much more interesting than I had thought.  Of course it doesn't hurt that I've gotten to go to a couple of meetings at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, the big palace-style building next to the White House (although it just looks like a regular old office building on the inside).

One more week, and then I'll be down to my last rotation before I leave, on the Somalia desk.

2 comments:

Valentine401 said...

I have a few questions about USAID and I hope that you can answer them.

1) Do you have to have your masters?
2)Is it difficult to get in?
3) Do you know and agriculture FSO's?

I am going into the peace corps and have started thinking about a career with USAID, but I have not found much info (other than the USAID site)

thanks

AidWorker said...

I do have my master's, and it was a requirement for my job. As for whether it's difficult to get in, I suppose it depends on your perspective. USAID is hiring more now than they have in a very long time, so it's much easier now than it used to be. Lots of people are applying though, so it is quite competitive. From my point of view, it's not that hard if you're qualified.

There is one agriculture FSO who was in the same orientation class as me. They don't seem to be hiring as many Ag people as other technical specialists, though.