The following letter is from the Peace Corp for friends and families of Peace Corp Volunteers. If you would like the complete address or any of the phone numbers I have removed below, please Facebook me or email me. Many thanks for all the well wishes and prayers!
January 2009
Dear Families and Friends,
Greetings from the
1. Irregular Communication. (Please see #3 for the mailing address to Peace Corps' office in
We suggest that in your first letters you ask the Volunteer to give an estimate of how long it takes for him/her to receive your letters, and then try to establish a predictable pattern of how often you will write to each other. Also, try numbering your letters so that the Volunteer knows if he/she has missed one.
Being a Peace Corps Volunteer is a rewarding experience; howev er, there will also be times when Volunteers may write home telling of their "war" stories. Letters might describe recent illnesses, frustration with work, isolation, lack of resources, etc. While the subject matter may be good reading material, it can often be misinterpreted on the home front. Volunteers have a wonderful support network in-country that includes counterparts and community members at their site, other Peace Corps Volunteers, as well as Peace Corps/South Africa staff. The Peace Corps’ highest priority is maintaining the health and safety of ev ery Volunteer. Peace Corps/South Africa maintains a medical unit in Pretoria with two full-time medical officers, who care for the Volunteers’ primary health care needs. If the Volunteer requires medical care that is not available in South Africa , he/she will be medically ev acuated to the United States . Fortunately, these are rare circumstances.
If for some reason your communication pattern is broken and you do not hear from your family member, you may want to contact the South Africa Desk or the Office of Special Services (
2. Telephone Calls. The telephone system in
The South Africa Desk maintains regular contact with the Peace Corps office in
3. Sending packages. Parents and Volunteers like to send and receive care packages through the mail. Unfortunately, sending packages can be a frustrating experience for all involved due to occasional thefts and heavy customs taxes. You may want to try to send inexpensive items through the mail, but there is no guarantee that these items will arrive. Even though many Volunteers choose to get local post office boxes, you may also use the following address to send letters and/or packages:
Name of Volunteer, PCV
U. S. Peace Corps
PO Box ****
****
Pretoria
It is recommended that packages be sent in padded envelopes or bubble envelopes if possible, as boxes tend to be taxed more frequently and might pose as a greater target for theft. For lightweight but important items (e.g. airline tickets), DHL (an express mail service) does operate in Pretoria . If you choose to send items through DHL, you must address the package to:
Country Director
c/o: U. S. Peace Corps
********
The phone number for the Peace Corps office in
We hope this information is helpful to you during the time your family member or friend is serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in South Africa . We understand how frustrating it is to communicate with your family member overseas and we appreciate your using this information as a guideline. Please feel free to contact us at the South Africa Desk in Washington , D.C. if you have any further questions. Our phone number is 1-800-***-****, ext. ****/*, or locally, ***-***-****/*.
Sincerely,
2 comments:
I liked it, you can find more Home Office Desks from spacify.
Hi Amanda,
I recently moved to SA for work. I'm former PCV from Namibia (96-98). Could you please email me the phone # for the PC office here? onamulunga at yahoo dot com. I'm looking for a recommendation on a dentist in Johannesburg and PC usually knows the good ones. BTW I couldn't find your email on your blog and there are 100's of Amanda Peterson's on Facebook! Russ
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