There is so much information on the Peace Corps out in the world that you cannot possibly read it all. However, some of you may wish to try, and hopefully this page can get you started.
You can find the official word straight from the horse’s mouth at the official peace corps website. There are some resources for parents, and some information on the Worldwise schools program, a collaboration between volunteers and a US classroom that I will hopefully be part of. There is also some information on the Peace Corps in Guinea.
Of course, official information only gives you so much. A great community-built source of information is the Peace Corps Wiki. In addition to descriptions of what the Peace Corps is doing and where, it has excellent information on the application process, a timeline of known departures, and many other things. In relation to me, you may be interested in the page for Guinea, which has a ton of useful and fun information, including a link to the welcome book for Guinea (its under the map on the right sidebar). A more serious and bureaucratic look at the Guinea program can be found in the Inspector General’s reports (scroll down to Guinea).
A clearing house for all media news Peace Corps related is Peace Corps Online. Here you’ll find all manner of articles about the Peace Corps, it’s budget, what country it just left or just restarted, and, my personal favorite, how some volunteers have returned to Bolivia on their own after being evacuated.
A community source of information which I took great part of while waiting for an invitation is the Yahoo peacecorps2 group (you will need to create an account and join it). Its mostly people who are applying, but also some returned volunteers. It is also a way to get any questions you have answered fairly quickly. I recommend changing your settings to either receive no emails or receive them as a digest because it can be high volume.
Guinea Specific Information
An outdated but very useful site is Friends of Guinea. They have great stuff on phones and mail, as well as advice on visiting Guinea and even a Guinea email listserv. Don’t forget to check out the Guinea cookbook and the humor section. They also have a Friends of Guinea blog.
Finally, if you’d like to read some blogs from other volunteers, make use of Peace Corps Journals, which has blogs from all over the world. Guinea specific blogs are here.
I think that should tide everyone over. If you’d like to ask me questions about my experience its best to leave a comment on one of the posts. I may or may not be quick in responding, but I’ll do my best.
