Prepare Your Friends and Family Staying in Touch

Prepare Your Friends and Family

Staying in Touch

Anyone who has seen a Volunteer open a letter from home knows how much support comes from the families of Volunteers. Keeping in touch during your loved one's two years of service will be important to you both. In fact, families and Volunteers are encouraged to stay in touch with each other. Family members and friends are also welcome to visit a Volunteer overseas.

The following basic information covers communicating both on a regular basis and in the case of an emergency.

LETTERS AND PACKAGES

Before departure, your Volunteer will receive information about you can keep in touch during his or her years of service. The instructions will be tailored to his or her particular country. If you have questions about communicating with your Volunteer, you may call Peace Corps headquarters and ask for the Country Desk.

Your instructions will include an address for the initial 10-12 week training period. After training, you likely will receive new mailing instructions from your Volunteer.

Please check the guidelines before sending care packages from home. Weight, content, and customs restrictions will apply. There may also be prohibitions against sending food items. You should consider carefully before sending items of great value, too. Please abide by the suggested regulations in order to prevent the loss or delay of items.

Keep in mind that another country's postal system may take longer to distribute mail than the United States Postal Service. It is not uncommon for correspondence to take several weeks for delivery. For this reason, you and your Volunteer may want to number any letters you both write to keep track of your correspondence.

PHONE CALLS

Telephone systems vary from country to country, and both phone systems and access to a telephone may be different than you are accustomed to in the United States. Volunteers may have a phone in their home, or they may have to place calls from their place of work or a public facility. Other Volunteers make calls from a nearby town or a friend's house.

E-MAIL

Access to e-mail is becoming more common but is far from universal. Your Volunteer may or may not have access to e-mail during his or her service.

The reach of the Internet around the world is changing rapidly. In some Peace Corps countries, Internet cafés and computer access are common. In others, they are rare and expensive. Access may vary widely within a country, depending on the nature of a Volunteer's assignment and the community in which the Volunteer lives.

Your Volunteer's Welcome Book packet will contain more specific guidance for his or her country of service.

FAMILY EMERGENCIES

Parents should call Peace Corps' Office of Special Services (OSS) at any time if they need to advise their Volunteer of a critical illness or death of a family member (telephone: 800-424-8580, ext. 2254 or 2256; 24-hour duty officer: 202-638-2574). OSS, in coordination with the attending physician, will determine whether the situation is critical enough to grant the Volunteer special emergency leave, at government expense, for two weeks. Even if the situation does not fall under the guidelines for obtaining special emergency leave, OSS will inform the Country Director so that the information is passed on to the Volunteer as soon as possible.

VISITING A VOLUNTEER

Family and friends can make the trip to see a Volunteer in his or her overseas community. Visiting a Peace Corps Volunteer is one of the most exciting ways to see and learn about another country's people, cultures, and traditions. The cost of your vacation travel is your responsibility. The Peace Corps provides two vacation days to Volunteers for every month of service.