So … the Peace Corps medical clearance process can be a long one. Your first step is the medical questionnaire. From that, your medical tasks are assigned. For example: Let’s say, you had heart palpitations, before leaving the Air Force, in 1980. In 2016, you “could” find yourself with a medical task asking you to clear your heart palpitation issue, from 1980. People, I can’t even make this stuff up!

From the Peace Corps website:

“Once you have received an official invitation letter from the Peace Corps, you must undergo and clear a comprehensive medical and dental assessment before becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer.”

In my case, this time around, doing medical for my third time with Peace Corps, I needed to complete a glucose test for volunteers serving in countries with malaria. At the time, I was serving in Armenia. The country has no malaria and no glucose test for malaria countries.

The solution was to move up my COS (Close of Service) by two weeks, missing the final day of classes, Last Bell, and graduations for both my host sister’s.

I quickly returned, to Duke University, to complete the test. Today, after a mini nightmare of updating old addresses and email accounts, finding someone to actually “look” at my Peace Corps medical card and the authorization form, for the glucose test, (it took five attempts), … success was mine!

Now, it was time to focus on seeing friends!

First up, breakfast at Elmo’s Diner, with Duke Peace Corps friends. David met his wife, Champa, while serving in Nepal. When he retired from Duke, the two of them signed up to serve in Moldavia. Armenia was one of their vacation stops and we met up in Yerevan. Today, we were three RPCVs (Returned Peace Corps volunteers) meeting up again, in Durham, North Carolina.

Next, it was on to a late lunch, with my African and African American Studies Department family. From 2011, until my retirement in 2017, I was the Course Librarian for the Department. I attended every Introduction to African Studies class and every Introduction to African American Studies class. Then, I ordered (or reordered) books based on student needs. I helped with research papers, ordered films, and spoke about library resources.

My AAAS family is wonderful and it is always a joy spending time with them, as I did at my retirement dinner, in the above photo. –GGT