Countdown to Myanmar Part 2: Legal Clearance

​Part Two of Peace Corps Clearance is Legal Clearance. All invitees must pass a thorough legal background check before departing for service. The process is really quite simple. When an applicant completes their interview they are mailed fingerprint cards. Once you receive your invitation, you take your fingerprint cards down to your local police station to have your fingerprints taken. Then you mail off your fingerprint cards and wait. Simple right? Well, in my own true fashion, somehow I managed to hit some hiccups when it came to legal clearance. No, not any hiccups like Peace Corps discovered I’m some criminal or something terrible like that. I received my legal clearance a month ago thank you very much! My hiccup came with actually getting the fingerprint process done. What should have been an easy 10-minute process became a 45-minute ordeal because I have what you call “bony hands.” So unlike all of the crime scene dramas you watch on TV, you don’t actually get your fingerprints taken with ink and paper. No, now they have these scanning machines, which digitally take your fingerprints and print them on your card. My fingertips, however, do not appreciate modern technology and it took not one, not two, not three, but three officials and one private investigator to get an accurate digital reading of my fingertips. At which point, all of the jokes about my “bony hands” and “look this girl is a criminal” seriously were starting to wear off (along with a good chunk of my skin I might add). With legal and medical clearance behind me, I am counting down the days till staging!