The List

I realize this blog won’t be posted until after I have left my site… but, today, November 7, 2009, my last Saturday in my site, I felt inspired to detail the things that I will and will not miss about this country.

I will NOT miss
-the stares
-the disrespectful attention from random men
-the unpredictable power
-the unpredictable water
-the dust
-the indirect communication
-the hand-out mentality
- motorcycles when I’m not on them
-the men who yell about baseball, politics, anything and everything else right outside my house
-the metal door across the street that scratches on the pavement
-the pigeons
-my money problems
-people thinking I have money and talking about that belief quite openly with me
-being constantly on my guard when not in my site
-pre-paid phones and calling cards
-the politics and the politicians
-feeling helpless
-feeling like I am not allowed to or shouldn’t express how I truly feel
-watching deep-rooted inequality on a daily basis
-watching adults treat children with disrespect


I will miss
-the clouds
-the weather
-sitting in rocking chairs
-interacting with animals and children on a daily basis
-watching Dominicans crack themselves up
-the fried food stand
-the music
-the dancing
-the fruit (and the juice)
-“red” flavor soda
-most of the people in my site
-most of the PCVs I’ve come to know
-the beach and the fish
-visiting people in their homes

I am (and have been for awhile now) been full of so many different emotions. Sometimes I’ve felt incredible highs, and other times it’s been the opposite. It’s “bittersweet” to be ending service, as many of you have suggested to me, and I guess that’s the right word… It’s an emotional rollercoaster. I’ve had a few personal challenges to deal with at the end that have made the highs and lows seem even more dramatic:

-I was burgled. In October someone (or some people) broke open a metal gate on the front of my house, bent it back and were able to slip inside. My wooden door had had a bad handle for a while and opened easily. They went straight to a drawer were I had been storing DR$58,000 pesos, about US$1600. I went to the bank many times to deposit the money as it had been raised and then took it all out just days before it disappeared. It was the money to purchase the land for the library/community center and we were finally about to purchase it. I was lucky enough to have a friend with me when I realized the money was missing (a few days after I realized the gate had been bent). The thief/thieves took nothing from my personal items, not even any jewelry that was located in a box just inches from the money in the same drawer, which convinced me that he must have been someone who knew me and was just looking for cash. It still stung, and telling the leaders of my community was a pretty sobering experience. (I applied for a grant last minute to help get DR$50,000 of the money back).

This experience obviously complicated what was already becoming an increasingly complicated time in my service. I was up to my head in debt at the hardware store and have since had to come to grips with the fact that I will have to leave my site with 2 large debts: that to the hardware store and that to buy the land. (The debt at the hardware store is the result of major miscalculations on the part of my “engineer” who had admittedly told me early on in the project that he wasn’t good at calculations…)

-My library/community center inauguration took place on October 31. It was attended by a large part of the community and it was a wonderful celebration of the work that we did together. I presented a number of the community members with certificates recognizing their hard work and they presented me with 2 plaques and the fact that they’d decided to name the library after me and had painted my name on the front wall, just under the name of the center. I was very touched and managed to enjoy myself very much despite all of the commotion. It was a little disappointing to not see as much support from Peace Corps as I would have liked, but in no way did it spoil the day.

The fact that we were able to achieve so much so late into my service also added emotion to my life at that point. I spent a month and a half being pretty much the only person in the community who had an idea of what this project was going to be and having any faith that it could be completed before I left. When it was all done (believe it or not, most of the larger projects were completed in the last 48 hours before the inauguration) I could hardly believe how everyone had come together and gotten it together in time for our celebrations. When I turned it over officially to the community during my speech at the inauguration I got a little choked up. How could we have done it so fast in the last few moments to even have anything ready to be turned over? And how could it be time to do that anyways? I got choked up again when my Escojo group presented me with their plaque. They said such wonderful things about me, and I was full of so much love for everyone. I wasn’t the only one with tears in my eyes.

See, it really is a beautiful thing that Peace Corps provided for me. Trouble is, IT’S NOT EASY! This really has been the toughest job I’ll ever love (at least I hope it was) for so many reasons! Some were so very simple to predict: poverty, living in poverty, isolation, losing touch with people back home that matter so much to me, etc. (Those also ended up being the easier ones to deal with.) Some I could have never predicted and suppose no one can ever be prepared for: watching Dominicans commit violence against Haitians, having to explain to people why they can’t receive a stove, coping with repeated deaths in the community, dealing with large quantities of cash, going through a burglary with my community, helping other volunteers through the loss of their pets to various causes, etc.

I have tried, through these blogs, to keep you involved in my service, or at least aware of more or less what I am doing. But, I know you are all intelligent enough to know that some things can never truly be explained; they had to be lived. I lived them, and now they’re almost over, and I can’t really explain this part as well as I used to be able to explain the annoyance of the loud music in the capital or the excitement of riding on motorcycles. The more that these culture differences became more of my life it was harder to know what to write or how to write it. Some of you might notice that frequency with which I wrote, the uniqueness, and the length of my entries beginning in May of this year was significantly changed. May and June were incredibly difficult months in my service. I didn’t want to write dark entries telling you all of my struggles and the struggles I watched a lot of my friends go through as well. This pattern kept up pretty much until now. Things have gotten better, and then worse again, and then better. It’s been a pretty dramatic roller coaster since May, but if it hadn’t been, maybe I wouldn’t feel and know in my heart that it’s okay for me to leave.

That’s why the list helps. At first the “things I will not miss” side was easier to write. (When I got here I couldn’t believe the heat, or the bugs.) But lately the “things I will miss” side is easier to form. I am ready to be home. My adventure is coming to its end and I’m okay with that. In order to be okay with that though, I need to remind myself of the challenges I have faced here, and not just the heat or the bugs, although they’ve been memorable, but the bigger picture ones as well. When I go home and do something nice for my mom I can feel pretty confident that her friends won’t all run over demanding I do them the same favor, and making me feel bad about me if I don’t. I can be pretty sure that the kids in my neighborhood will be allowed to go to school even if they don’t have a pencil, and that the cops will show up to investigate a crime within a week of it being reported (and that they will have gas in the car.) These are the things that have worn on me-caused me stress, and I’m ready for them to be in my past.

I’ve aged. (If they think the presidency ages people they ought to look at Peace Corps volunteers! When I got here people used to guess I was 16, 17 years old. Now I get asked if I’m still in my twenties! And the darkness under my eyes is a lot more pronounced than it used to be. I know the sun has done a lot of damage to me, as I’m sure the high-fat, high-sugar diet has as well.)

It’s hard to say how else I’ve changed: I am a lot more experienced… (Like that’s saying anything.) I know its cliché, but I know myself much better (I think living alone for 2 years forces that.) I am comfortable being alone (although I still like being around people, and a little noise everyone once in a while.) My standards are lower, probably for many things. But this isn’t necessarily such a bad thing; picture your reaction walking into an American fast food place and being told you can order whatever you’d like. Now picture what mine might be like (some of you know from first-hand experience what this reaction is, and this from a person who only used to eat fast food on road trips!) Speaking of road trips, I get carsick with the AC on and the windows up-I need the fresh air on my face. I like a little bling every now and then. I finally got my nails done Dominican style and I must admit, I really like them! (They have designs!) I think I’m more patient with some things and much less so with others. (I can’t really elaborate on that one.) I’m much more resourceful, and think my abilities have grown. (Even though I sometimes can’t believe it, I guess I was able to get some cool shit done here.) My Spanish has gotten much better, unfortunately, it came at the cost of my English. (Seriously, please help me to communicate with you when I get home!) I’m much less willing to do something physical if there could be a man around who could do it better or faster than me. (Like lifting or carrying stuff, although I think I’m still insulted when men assume I can’t do these things.) Here’s a good one for all of you- it doesn’t take as much to crack me up. (I laughed the other day at my hands. You had to have been there for me not to sound so crazy, but seriously, I laughed at my hands.) Probably the most important of all: I appreciate the people in my life so much more now, but I think I also expect more from them than I used to.

I guess that’s just to name a few.