A chronicle of my experiences as a Peace Corps Community Organizational Development volunteer in Bulgaria.

Monday, April 10, 2006

Put Your Pencils Down!

The Foreign Service Written Exam was held at the American Embassy in Sofia on Saturday. I was registered to take the exam so I went up to the city on Friday to take care of some admin stuff at the PC office. 'Admin stuff' is sort of a code phrase for 'play with my fantasy baseball team' on the PC internet. I ran into a PCV I knew and we had lunch together. He was in Sofia to take the exam too so it was the natural topic of conversation during lunch. Although he had registered, he wasn't entirely certain that he wanted to take the test this year. We discussed the numbers and the odds for actually making it into the FS. Approximately 30,000 people register for the test and somewhere around 125 end up being offered jobs. Daunting odds by any definition. We split up after lunch but agreed to meet later for dinner. When I got in touch with him at about 7:00pm, he said that he was on his way home and had decided to wait until next year to take the test. Okay...only 29,999 people left in the competition. The odds are getting better all the time.

Bright and early Saturday morning I got up, showered, had breakfast and caught a cab to the Embassy. I clearly remember the days when you could wander into any US Embassy in the world by waving your passport and saying you were looking for information, directions, a cheap place to stay or help. There were usually a couple of very smart looking Marines in full dress uniforms at the door who would direct you to one office or another. The Marines may still be there, but now they're in full battle dress with kevlar body armor and automatic weapons. You don't see much of them because they're tucked away in highly impenetrable defensive positions. It's just a reflection of the realities of the time that the US Embassy is now Fort America and is as welcoming as a maximum security prison.

I had a letter from the FS directing me to report no later than 8:00am to the Embassy and when I arrived at about 7:30am I found a few other PCVs milling around in front of the entry/security point. They explained that we wouldn't be allowed in until 8:00am. It was cold and even though it wasn't raining, it was damp. A nice gesture would have been for the Ambassador to send out coffee and doughnuts to us, but because it was Saturday he was probably home in bed. Hey, he could have left someone a note. "A bunch of cold Peace Corps Volunteers will be milling aimlessly around in front of the entry/security point. Send out some coffee and doughnuts to them, will you? Oh, and I have a feeling that at least one of them prefers Boston Creams." See, that's what successful diplomacy is all about.

Promptly at 8:00am they began to process us through security five at a time. Large men in black uniforms guided us through bulletproof rooms, metal detectors and heavy fortress-like doors. We were told to surrender our cell phones and any other electronic devices. Our names were checked and double-checked against a list and we were, finally, escorted into the Embassy itself. It took about half an hour for us to clear security, and they were expecting us. I don't think you'd stand much of a chance if you just wanted to drop by and see the place. Your tax dollars at work in a highly secure environment.

The room to be used for the exam was set up and ready for us. Each of us was assigned a table and each table faced a set of windows with a magnificent view of Mt. Vitosha. Vitosha is still covered with snow and, with a bright blue sky behind it, was a very pleasant distraction. From the empty tables, I'd guess that almost half the people who registered decided to sleep in that morning. The two proctors said, "no talking", read the rules, distributed the first test booklets and we were off to the races.

Six hours later we were through. Well, it wasn't a straight six hours, there was a fifteen minute break. On the front of each test booklet, there was a Non-disclosure Agreement that had to be signed. This basically states that if I reveal any of the questions I will be prosecuted, denied employment in the FS, called several naughty names and made to wait outside without doughnuts or coffee for some indeterminate amount of time. I can, however, tell you that I spent several months brushing up on various topics such as history, economics, management theory, geography, the US political system, the US legal system and the US Constitution complete with all 27 amendments. I bought a study guide that gave me a course of action and I took it. I don't think that what I did could ever be confused with actually studying, but I did spend time reviewing these areas in a helter-skelter fashion. I can say with complete confidence that out of a total of 400 odd questions (some were very odd) I feel really good about my answers on four or five. By 'really good' I, of course, mean that there is a 50% chance that I guessed correctly on them. The other 395 questions are a crapshoot. I spent a great deal of time both looking over the US Constitution and taking some online geography quizzes. The single geography question on the exam referred to an area of the globe that was inadvertently omitted from the set of quizzes. I did, however, nail the Constitution question. There was also an essay which had to be written by hand. I was assured that handwriting doesn't add to or detract from your score. My handwriting started out at illegible and ended up being a series of squiggly lines that represent really insightful words and sentences.

The test results will not be available until the end of July. I think I've done fairly well, but whether that's well enough to move on to the next step won't be known until then. All in all it was a very interesting experience and I rode the bus home to Stara Zagora feeling very confident that I was the only one on board who could pick the 17th Amendment to the US Constitution out of a lineup. For the short period of time that I actually remember all this stuff, I intend to impress friends and acquaintances alike at every gathering and when I forget the facts...I'll just make stuff up.
Comments:
Hey Larry,

I was out walking today, a beautiful spring day here in NJ, and was thinking that you must be near the end of your excellent two years. So now I read that you're looking to continue in FS - just couldn't get enough, eh? Good luck in that endeavor. Be well.
Patti
 
Hi, I was out blogging and found your site. It certainly got my attention and interest. I was looking for Desk information and even though this isn't a perfect match I enjoyed your site. Thanks for the read!
 
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