To anyone who is still reading this blog: Thank you. Thank you for listening and reading during my two years of Peace Corps service in the Dominican Republic. I have been back in the states for a week exactly today, and so far most things seem normal. Peace Corps kept warning us about "reverse culture shock," which does happen every time I drink straight out of the faucet. However, home is home, and it is a wonderful feeling to be back here with my family and friends.

I miss the DR a lot already, and I know that will only continue to grow. But I am comforted by the fact that my two years there will be with me forever; guiding my conscious and ideals and always pushing me to do the best for all those around me. La Caya and all its people will always have a big place in my heart, and I will never forget how fortunate I am to have lived in that community and to have become a community member, even if it was for a brief moment in time.

No matter where I am or what I am doing, Cayera Soy, and I couldn't be happier or more proud to mean it.

On Friday, I will return to the US for the final time as a Peace Corps Volunteer. On Saturday I said goodbye to my community. Today, I feel anxious, excited, sad, scared, intimidated, relieved and happy to leave and start the next chapter in my American life. I know it is the next step, and like they say, all good things must come to an end.

The days leading up to my farewell in La Caya were emotional and busy. La Caya will actually be home to another Peace Corps Volunteer for the next two years. Claire, the new volunteer assigned to our community, will be working primarily in the school; training teachers, teaching some English and of course working with the students. Claire’s first visit to La Caya coincided with my last days there, so I had the opportunity to show her around town, introduce her to everyone and make her feel as comfortable as possible.

My community was so wonderful to me on my last days. At my center, they threw me a surprise going away party that I really had no idea about until a few hours before it was actually happening. People stood up and talked about how much they have grown to love me and how many great things I’ve done for the community. Eddy was there and spoke about how I am like another sister to the Nolasco family, and he even cried while doing so. They gave me a picture with the murals from the library and then a nice message from everyone in my center, and they also cut out stars and wrote personal messages to me. It was overwhelmingly special and unexpected, and I cried like a little girl throughout the whole thing.

Later that night, a teacher I have become close to, Arbania, had a farewell dinner for me at her house. All my coworkers from the center game, along with their families as well as Silvia and Angel. They setup the projector and showed pictures of me in La Caya throughout the two years, they had speakers playing merengue and bachata and the food was delicious. Again, it was such a special evening and I felt so, so, so loved.

Saying goodbye was harder than I expected, especially to Silvia and Angel, my friends from the center, Rosa and Lidio and of course, Francia. I mean, I knew it was going to be hard, I just didn’t expect it to be that hard. When I said goodbye to Angel, he just hugged me for a while and started crying. He and I have grown to become like brother and sister, and part of me can’t believe I’m not going to see him grow-up, or play basketball with him every day after lunch, or go mango hunting for a sweet afternoon snack.

I told everyone I want to visit soon, and this wouldn’t be the last time they would see me. I unfortunately don’t know when that will be, but I am hoping sometime I can figure it out to enjoy La Caya once more.

On Saturday morning, I said goodbye to my neighbors, Lidio and Rosa. Lidio and Rosa have become my grandparents here, always making sure I have eaten (no matter what time of day) and/or had my daily dosage of coffee. I went over to their house in the morning for my final cafecito, and cried again saying my final goodbyes.

Francia then drove me to the bus stop in Santiago. We talked the whole way about everyday life and plans happening in the future. I have been thinking about how I am going to have to readjust to life without Francia. During these two years, she and I have become our own family unit. She’s probably the best roommate I’ve ever had, and I will miss her and all the random things that come with living in her house more than I can really say.

La Caya will always feel like home, and as I wait in the Peace Corps office in Santo Domingo to go back home to a wonderful life and people I left behind two-years ago, I still can’t help but feel like the luckiest girl in the world. Because I now understand how special it is for someone to be a part of two different worlds, in two different countries, in two different cultures, with two different languages to call home.

Yesterday was my 26th birthday. It was a great day celebrated with Dominicans I love. There was an activity in my center promoting girls using technology, so I helped give two charlas in the morning and another one in the afternoon. In between, I went to Silivia’s for lunch and had my favorite meal -la bandera: white rice, beans and chicken (there are many variations of la bandera, but that one is my favorite). After lunch, Angel and I picked mangoes off the trees in their yard. After watching him (and yelling at him) climb a tree and then their eight feet high water tank in search of mangos maduro – or ripe, I couldn’t help but feel how much I am going to miss it here.

In the evening, I came home to find Francia making about 35 sandwiches, American style, which apparently means ham, cheese, mayonnaise, lettuce and tomato. She had invited our neighbors over and some of my friends who work in the center. Francia is seriously one of the most memorable people I have ever met in my life. About half of the guests last night were all the neighbor kids (all under the age of 10), and as she gave them each a sandwich she proceeded to lecture them about how these were American style sandwiches, and they better like them because it’s what people like Stacie eat, and since it was my birthday we all had to eat American food, and also if they ever go to Nueva York, they will have to eat sandwiches just like them.

It was just hilarious. The kids just sat silently in their chairs and stuffed their faces as fast they could. I’m not sure if it was because they truly enjoyed the American style sandwiches, or if they just wanted to get it over with so they could continue playing. In any case, it was really entertaining, and again I felt so grateful for all Francia did. I really love her with all of my heart and will very much miss her and all the daily surprises that come with living in her house.

All day I received phone calls and emails from Dominicans and Americans wishing me a happy birthday. I felt very loved and I am grateful to everyone for your kind words.

This is actually my third birthday celebrated in the DR, which makes me feel like I’ve been here for a long time. I leave La Caya a week from tomorrow and I leave the DR two weeks from today. It almost seems surreal. There were so many moments when I felt like two years would never pass, that I was doomed to stay on this island for the rest of my life. But now, with literally only days left, I can’t believe two years did pass by so quickly. I have learned so much during my time here, and am forever grateful to La Caya and all the people who live here.

I know I will be excited to return home, to be with my family, friends and Remi, and to once again start my American life. However, with so little time left I am already feeling nostalgic for future birthdays that won’t be spent sweating, speaking Spanish, eating a plateful of rice and beans and mangoes for dessert and dancing merengue and bachata. Yes, it’s a hot little island, but it sure has been good to me.

As a final project before my swearing-in group leaves this island (three weeks from tomorrow), a group of eleven of us got together to paint two rooms in an all-boys orphanage about 10 minutes away from La Caya. In two days we painted the two rooms were the boys sleep, including a mural in each room.

This project, although seemingly intensive, was actually put together in the last couple weeks by my fellow PCV friend, Brittany. She, unfortunately, had to take a 10-year-old boy from her community to this orphanage and learned from the director that they had been trying to hire someone to paint the rooms, but it was too expensive. Brittany thus organized 10 of her Peace Corps friends to make it happen. Amanda and Alanna used leftover grant money to buy all the paint and materials. Katie and Sarah used their creative talents to design and paint awesome murals. And fortunately for everyone, I still live with Francia, who generously let all of us take over her house and treat it like it was our own.

I honestly am still surprised at how much we accomplished in two days, but it does go to show; with the right kind of manpower, there really is nothing a group of people can’t do. Here are some pictures of our work. The older boys' room before we started.

Arya painting the primer, me scrapping the walls down before he gets there.

Repainting the walls blue and orange.

After lunch, in the kitchen, being candid.

The boys playing a game (that Arya, not pictured, was leading).

Sarah helping with the "Mango Tree Values" mural.

Alanna and a boy painting his hands for the wall.

Jean and Amanda painting the bee mural on the other side of the mango tree.

Have you ever been this happy to be painting funny looking lady bugs?

The environment mural, complete. It says, "We protect the earth. We care for the environment."

Brittany, Amanda and Sarah painting mangos. Katie on the other side finishing up the bees.

Above the bees, Katie writing, "We care for our community." Because bees are a community too. Get it? This was my favorite of all.

Katie painting the values inside the mangos, including honesty and solidarity.

Yesterday I went to my last girls’ group meeting, which I actually didn’t run. I have been trying for over a month to encourage my girls to take over the group themselves so they can continue the meetings without me. Yesterday, even though I attended the meeting, was their first meeting held without my guidance.

The theme was “are you a good friend?” and two of my girls, Yocairy and Ambar, lead the discussion. They gave real life situations about what a good friend would do if, for example, they knew their friends’ boyfriend was cheating on them. Or if they knew someone was saying bad things behind a friends’ back etc.

At the end of the meeting, Yocairy handed us all hearts cut out of construction paper and told us to go around one by one and talk about our best friend. Later, we would give the hearts to our friends with a brief message about why we love them. One by one, we opened up about the friend closest to us until we got Yenni, who started crying because she said she didn’t have a “best friend.” Sure, she has friends, but not that one person who is above all others.

Dominicans are not the best at dealing with emotional things (unless someone has died), and when Yenni started crying the room did get a little awkward. However, within minutes, all of my girls, especially the two leaders, started agreeing with her and told her how they understood where she was coming from. Validation. I was so proud of my girls in that moment, because although they didn’t rush over to hug and comfort her, they did validate her and her feelings just by saying, “yes we get it. We have felt that way too.”

My girls group has been one of my favorite projects in Peace Corps. When the girls come together and discuss real life situations that matter to them (like boys, their body, sex, women’s rights), I can’t help but swell up with pride. Especially, when one of us starts to cry and the rest of us do exactly the right thing by making her feel okay for feeling that way.

At the end of the meeting, I made all the girls get in a circle so we could have a group hug. I told them how proud I was of them and how they have changed my life and made my service what I was always hoping it would be. I told them how even though I am leaving, I will always believe in them and want to know all about their lives 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now. I knew at that moment that hug was mostly for me, because saying goodbye to good friends is never an easy thing to do. La Caya's Chicas Brillantes.

Stephanie giving a workshop at the educator's conference. The three-day conference was a great success, with 13 teacher and principles from all over the country learning how to improve their schools and train teachers with enhanced and affective teaching methods. Here I am with the cake to celebrate the end of the conference. Remember how important cake is here, and this one was delicious- with a plum filling!

Milady, Me and Albania (the two teachers I took to the conference from La Caya) with their certificates of completion and participation in the conference.

On top of the world. This is from my trip up the hill with Francia to the small community on top of the mountain ridge. Looking out from the hill at the Atlantic Ocean.

A donkey with a homemade saddle.

Francia's truck in front of a house in the community on the hill. Notice the solar panel on the roof of the house (how people get power, as there are no electric lines there). On the way down from the mountain, we would get a flat and have to find a pump like you would use for a bicycle to blow the tire back up. Luckily (and I'm still not sure how) we made it home in tact. Just one of the many times in the DR, I have been amazed something has worked out.

Mom and I in Samana during her visit!

Our backyard in the house we stayed at in Samana. Pretty nice living eh?

Mom and Jim at La Playita (the little beach), about four minutes walking from the house we stayed at.

Punta Rucia this last week. I went with about 15 other Peace Corps volunteers to squeeze in one last beach trip before most of us take off next month. Punta Rucia is a small community on the north coast of the island with some of the most beautiful beaches and scenic ocean views I have ever seen in my life.

And finally, this is Mercedes. She's the grandma (and also great-grandma) at the house I eat lunch at everyday. She's just one of my favorite people of all time, so I thought I'd share a picture.

Yesterday I finished the book, Stuffed and Starved: the Hidden Battle for the World’s Food System, by Raj Patel. It was a fascinating read about how uneducated and uninformed we are about the food we buy and eat. If you are interested at all in how the world’s food system works: from farmers growing crops all over the world, to the pesticides used, to the corporations that buy the crops and then sell it in supermarkets that are designed for us to only buy more, more, more, than I thoroughly encourage you to give Stuffed and Starved a try.

I bring this up, because yesterday, after I finished the book, Francia and I went to a community in la loma- the hills. It was about 40 minutes away, through a couple towns and then up a mountain. The community sits on the ridge of the mountain itself, and when we looked to our left (west) we saw the western part of the DR unfold before us. When we looked straight ahead (north), we saw the grand expanse of the Atlantic Ocean, and to our right (east), the green hills of the Cibao region of the DR. It was incredible. I felt like I was on top of the world, or at least the DR.

The community we visited doesn’t have running water or electricity. Most people have one or two solar panels on their roofs, which can charge a cell phone or run a small fridge for a few hours a day. All the water they use comes from rain. So if there’s a dry spell (like what we are experiencing now) everyday can be nerve-wracking. Francia is trying to help them build a small church, and maybe after an aqueduct. About a month ago, the mayor’s office of the nearest town (Hatillo Palma) promised money and resources to help with these two projects. Of course, when we went yesterday to take them up on their offer, they didn’t deliver. In fact, the man who made the promises wasn’t even in the office nor did he answer his phone all day. Typical.

As I sat there yesterday, waiting for Francia to finish up her business and while eating delicious bananas picked right off their tree, I started talking to three community members. The inevitable questions about me being an American came up and the conversation went something like this:

Man #1: Where in New York are you from?

Me: A state called Nevada. It’s really far from New York, like five hours in a PLANE from New York. It’s really different from New York.

Man #2: Five hours from New York?! But you still live in New York right?

(This is the point in the conversation when I try to give a quick geography lesson, by using elaborate hand gestures, about how the name of the United States is in fact, the United States, and that New York is only a state and a city of the United States, and how most people live outside of that state and city.)

Man #3: Nevada huh? It’s really cold there. Is it cold all year?

(They know this because nevada in Spanish literally means snowfall or snowcapped).

Me: Yes, it is cold there. Right now, there is snow on the ground. But no, it’s not cold all year. It is really dry in the summer. We only get 8-9 inches of rain per year.

Man #1: Nine inches of rain?! Very dry, oh my God! Nine inches? Are you sure? What do you eat? What can you grow with nine inches of rain?

At this point in the conversation, Man #3’s wife came over with a cup of coffee. Coffee they had planted and grown themselves, picked the coffee pods off the tree, took out the beans and roasted them and then ground them down to the dirt like texture to actually be able to make coffee. I took a sip and let the over-sugared, strong flavor sink in. I looked around and saw plantain trees growing, and Francia carrying a bag of tomatoes she had picked from someone’s garden and I honestly could smell the neighbor making orange juice. Only the freshest of oranges, plucked from the tree and then cut open in the same motion, smell that strong. The man asked me again, “What do you eat with only nine inches of rain a year?” And my honest answer was, “Everything.”

As soon as I said that word, todo - or all, I felt a singe of embarrassment. Here I was a guest in a community that has never known consistent electricity, or what it’s like to have abundance of water flowing endlessly from a tap in your kitchen. A community where what they eat is what they grow. And if it’s a dry season or a bad crop, then it’s a bad time for eating. There I was, telling them my home in the US gets only nine inches of year a rain, but despite this, I can still eat whatever I want when I want. The power of supermarkets.

Think about it. We all know, for example, that apple season in the US is in the fall, but are apples supplied year-round without fail? Of course they are. And as Stuffed and Starved taught me, most of our apples now come from South Africa, shipped over thousands of miles to supply a grocery store near you. Think about going into your average American supermarket in your average American town and only buying what is grown in the area during that season. I think we would find our choices very different from what they are today.

Living here, I’m starting to recognize significant changes within me, and my thoughts about food are definitely one of them. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always been a fan of food and always will be. What I mean is I’ve always considered myself an eater. You don’t have to tell me twice to come to dinner or to get seconds. However, living here, I have developed a new and intimate connection with food, that I’m not sure is possible in the states (unless you are a farmer, or possibly are already on the go organic! bandwagon). For example, mango season is upon us here in the DR. Every day, I look at the mangos growing on the trees around La Caya, and my mouth waters. The messy, sticky goodness of eating a mango plucked fresh from the tree is an insatiable experience, and one I am grateful for and very much anticipate enjoying before I leave in May.

In six weeks, I’ll be back to living my blessed and plentiful American life. I’ll walk into supermarkets and feel that sense of excitement knowing all the vegetables, fruit, bread, baked goods and products are mine for the buying. After reading Stuffed and Starved, I will now also feel some regret and inspiration for change in our food system. However, what I hope to remember most, and never forget, is what it meant to wait for a season; to watch food literally grow before you, and learn how Mother Nature and man can work together to supply a bountiful harvest. There are numerous reasons why Dominicans eat a limited number of things: plantains, eggplant, bananas, rice, beans, lentils etc. One of them is because those foods actually grow here. Imagine if those rules were applied to a place with only nine inches of rain per year.

Aside from the drama of the deceased thief that occurred on Friday, I have actually been fairly busy wrapping up my Peace Corps service. Since it’s a lazy (and hot!) Sunday afternoon, I thought I’d take some time to update the status of my life, if not for you, then for me.

But firstly, an update on the above mentioned deceased thief. No major updates as of yet, only that he wasn’t from La Caya, but did have every intention of robbing as many people as he could in La Caya. Apparently, all of his family lives in the US, including his parents and his five siblings. Silvia told me today that she suspected this because she noticed all the clothes he was wearing were, “de marca,” or brand-name clothes. It’s interesting how much you can tell about a person by the Nikes they have on their feet. Other than that, I don’t know his age or if he himself had any kids or a wife. And as far as the man who pulled the trigger, he is back in La Caya, resting. What everyone is saying now is nothing will happen to him because he was defending himself and his wife. I will update as I learn more.

As far as those other things I have been up to… Well, my mom and brother came to visit a few weeks ago, and it was awesome. Although their visit was short and sweet, I think we really packed in the sites of the DR and did as much as we possibly could in five days. They got to see La Caya and meet so many of the important people to me here. We had lunch with Silvia and her family, which was like my two family worlds colliding. We took a long walk around the farms that surround La Caya, and walked through town with everyone saying that my brother was handsome and my mom looked so young (true statements). After lunch, we headed off to Samana on the west side of the island (a six hour drive, which I totally misestimated to be only four hours. Sorry again Jim). Samana is gorgeous and well worth the drive, and we had an equally beautiful beach house to enjoy. It was so great to just have relaxing time, where all three of us could have a vacation and enjoy the fact that I do live on a Caribbean island. After a few quick nights in Samana, we continued on to Santo Domingo, the capital. There, Mom splurged and took us and three of my Peace Corps friends out to dinner in the Colonial Zone of the city. Although I’m sure there are grander colonial cities, it still is pretty impressive to be in the oldest city of the new world. To imagine where Christopher Columbus sailed in and called the Tainos, the indigenous race of the DR, Indians, and then subsequently killed off everyone and pillaged the land for all he could (but that obviously is different blog post for a different time).

After Mom and Jim left, I jumped immediately into my Close of Service (COS) medical appointments. I got a full body check-up, blood drawn, TB test, dentist visit, parasite check (I’ll let you imagine how they determine if you have parasites or not) and probably other stuff I am forgetting. In between all these doctor visits and blood drawing sessions, I had interviews with the Peace Corps Country Director and my immediate boss. I turned in some forms and wrote a few more documents that will be submitted to Washington telling them Stacie Marie Eliopulos really did serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer from March 2009 – May 2011.

After the medical appointments, I worked on the Gringo Grita, which is a bi-yearly Peace Corps Dominican Republic magazine. Basically, it is published every time a group completes their service. It was originally started when volunteers didn’t have cell phones, as a way to keep everyone up-to-date. Now, although technology makes things easier for all of us, the magazine still acts as an informant, and takes about a week, of five or six volunteers working in the capital, to put together.

That brings me to coming home on Thursday night and waking up Friday morning to the “incident.” Aside from that, this weekend has been great and relaxing (exactly what I needed). Next weekend, I am co-planning the first ever, Educators Conference. It’s a three day conference in La Vega (about 2.5 hours from me); in which volunteers will each bring teachers and/or principles from their communities to discuss how we can improve the Dominican education system, one school at a time. Ambitious? Absolutely. And worth it. We have five days to make it happen, and it will happen.

After the conference, I have about two weeks to wrap up things here in La Caya, including, hopefully, taking a trip to Santiago to get some supplies for the school. In mid-April we are shooting two episodes of the Telenovela that we have been working on for over a year-and-a-half. Less than a month after that, I will board a plane and come home. AHHHHHHH! Writing it all done, makes me scream in my head.

It’s been a crazy and busy couple of weeks, and it is only going to continue. But I figure right now it’s like running a race. You can’t start walking at the end. It’s better to die of exhaustion at the finish line, than to cruise on home without breaking a sweat.

I have also been thinking about how I will miss writing blog updates about the happenings of life in the DR. Going home obviously has me thinking about what my next step will be, hopefully something interesting and adventurous enough where some of you would want to keep reading. We shall see where the roads lead us! Until then, I am running that race full speed ahead.

Today, the craziest thing of my service yet happened. A ladron – thief, was shot and killed down the street from my house. It happened at about 7:00 a.m. The story goes something like this: there is an older couple (mid 60s) who have spent most of their adult lives in New York. They recently came back to La Caya, about six months ago, to build their own Dominican mini-mansion. The house, completely made of cinderblock is two stories with a grand valet entrance, and in just a few short months it will be a gorgeous structure.

This morning, the couple apparently walked over to the house to check out the progress before the construction workers would return to start the day’s work. As they were walking around the unfinished house, the ladron was also inside, with a gun; waiting for someone to show up to rob them (this is the part of the story that slightly confuses me). He saw the woman, and pulled her necklace off her neck and started to run away. At this point, the woman’s husband, who also had a gun, chased after him and shot him dead.

When I woke up this morning, I could hear the chaos of the scene from people screaming in the street. I did not hear the gun shot, so I honestly thought someone had probably hit a cow with their truck or something (which can be as equally as big of a deal in some cases). I woke up slowly and finally after getting dressed, went downstairs to notice Francia and all of my neighbors outside staring and shouting at something down the road.

As I approached them, they immediately told me that a ladron had been killed. The body was laying face down right in the middle of the road, in front of the new house being built. It looked like he was shot twice in the lower back. Someone had laid one of the guns on his left side. His red graphic hat was lying precariously on its side a few inches from his head, looking like the wind could take it away at any time, and his white hoodie was blood soaked.

I didn’t get close enough to see his face. Partly because I don’t think I could have handle it, and also because the circle of people around the body was growing by the minute. I could tell as the news made its way up La Caya. Like a river going upstream, as soon as people heard, they came zooming down on their motorcycles to see for themselves if the story was true.

An hour and a half later, the police still hadn’t arrived. La Caya doesn’t have its own police station, so everything had to wait until the police from Mao (the closest big city, about 40 minutes away) showed up. When I first moved here everyone told me La Caya was safe and we didn’t need police, because nothing bad happens here. Until today, that statement has been more or less very true.

I have no idea what the dead man’s name was, his age, whether he had a wife and kids or what exactly his true intentions were this morning. However, I do know that he is now dead. And there is another man, much older than him, who killed him in front of his new, unfinished house. I wonder how often this man will look out his window, or pull into his new driveway, once it is complete, and think about how the body just laid there for hours.

Later in the morning, as my neighbors and myself tried to forget about it all, I told Francia how sad it was on all levels. She agreed and then said, “Well now thieves will know not to come back to La Caya.” I guess she’s probably right.

Here are some pictures from our event. Unfortunately, not as many women came as were expected or hoping for, but nonetheless, the girls gave their presentations and we ate lots and lots and lots of cake! I'm also putting some photos from Angel's 5th birthday... a roundup of the week, if you will. Enjoy!

Definitely worth it! Beautiful cake!Everyone practicing do-it-yourself breast examsYes, that's an over-sized drawing of a uterus, and yes my girls are explaining how it works. They are wearing their uniforms from school. This is the uniform for all public schools in the country.Finishing the evening, Ambar, Yoryi and Bethania tell the women in the audience that if a man loves you, he will never hurt you emotionally or physically. Hooray girl power!Angel, Silvia and Anyel respectively. Angel's 5th bday. Angel is pronounced like "On-hill" and Anyel is pronounced like we would say the name Angel in English. All of Angel's friends with "serious faces" at the party. Dominicans love those serious photos.Silvia's daughter Angelina with her son Anyel on the left. Siliva's other daughter Anjinet with her son Angel on the right. Angel and I with his cake.

On March 4, I celebrated the two-year anniversary of living in the Dominican Republic. Two years! Can you believe it?! March itself has been a month of celebrations: March 1 was Peace Corps 50th birthday, March 4 was, of course, my PC training groups’ two-year anniversary. March 4 was also Angel’s 5th birthday and on March 8, it is International Women’s Day. I didn’t do much celebrating for anything Peace Corps related, but tomorrow Silvia and the gang are going to roast a pig to rejoice in Angel’s 5th year of life (yes, a five-year-old gets an entire pig in his honor, and trust me he’s bragging about it). And for International Women’s Day, my girls group and I are going to have a soirée if you will, at the town clubhouse.

The affair is set to start at 6p.m. (hora Americana- or, on time) and my girls are going to give three different talks/presentations about 1)Women’s health issues, including how to do a self-breast exam 2)Self Esteem and 3)Domestic Violence. Each talk will hopefully be about 10 minutes in length and reinforce how lucky we are to 1)be women 2)live in a community where everyone is family and supports and loves each other and 3)not be men. After all this, we’re going to eat cake.

Cake, as I have learned, is an intricate part of Dominican culture. If you want to make any occasion formal, you must have a cake. If you want to officially commemorate anything, a cake is the proper way to do it. Again, I guess the same rules, more or less, apply in the US; it’s just that Dominicans are so much better about making things formal and ritualistic.

Long story short- I want La Caya’s International Women’s Day to be a formal, special occasion and so therefore I am buying a cake. A $3,200 pesos cake to be exact, which is roughly US $86- so it better be a dang good cake, because that’s about a third of my monthly PC paycheck (okay, okay, phew! I’m done with my money spending rant). Despite the cost, I figure with only two months left, now is the time to be spending my money on things like cake. Because the truth is, I don’t know if I’ll ever have this opportunity again.

Wish my girls luck! And celebrate Women’s Day at home- it is an international event after all. Pictures to follow, hopefully on Tuesday or Wednesday…

I have 11 weeks and six days until I board my final plane leaving from the Dominican Republic and return home to America. I have to admit- I am not sure how I feel about it yet. It’s only February, but I already find myself wrapping up my Peace Corps service: saying goodbye to people, writing my final reports about what I did in the last two years and preparing my resume for when I return. I feel like I’m in college again and I’m procrastinating the final paper of the semester. I know I have to do it. I know it’s the most important work of the entire class, but I just don’t have the motivation. I am not ready to attempt to sum up (in two pages or less) what my life has been, living and working in La Caya for the last two years. On top of all this, I am a bit uncertain about the person I will be when I go back to the states. My new identity that has been redefined from Dominican culture, Peace Corps culture and living out of the United States for two years.

Yesterday, while I was washing my clothes in the semi-automatic washer, I had a voiced internal dialogue of what a possible job interview will be like when I return home. I tried to think of the most off-the-wall questions an employer could ask me, and how I would respond in a timely and clever manner. There I was pacing around with wet and soapy arms, speaking in low tones to myself, pretending to be in another world far from here. My neighbors must think I’m crazy. But that’s nothing new. Sometimes I think they think I’m from another planet. It wouldn’t be that farfetched in some situations.

About a month or so ago, I was talking to one of my former English students, a teenage boy, and he was surprised to learn I had a last name. I didn’t even know what to say. I laughed it off and told him, “of course I have a last name. I’m just like you, remember?” It’s kind of crazy to think that I have been known here in La Caya as only one name, or a variation of it: Esteicy, Daisy, Tracy, La Americana, Gringa. All of those names constitute my identity in La Caya, but never my full name. It’s like I’m Madonna or Beyonce or someone. I’m joking, obviously. I would never say I have that much celebrity status here or anywhere, and I hope I never do. However, it is interesting and mildly entertaining that all my relationships in La Caya have more or less been based on the fact that I am the American. No last name necessary, my identity is determined. I am different. I really am from that other planet.

When Dominicans refer to the United States, they often just say, “pa’lla,” which is a lazy way of saying, “para alla,” or “over there.” The entire country of the United States of America can be summed up in over there. Like it’s a quick wave of your finger tips and there you are, over there.

Everyone has started to ask me if I am excited to go back to, over there, and if I’m going to get married right away. My identity here has been as the mujer seria- serious woman, but when I return home, the only logical place my identity should go is to become a wife. Maybe then I could have a last name.

I don’t mean to sound harsh about Dominicans and their views on marriage, because even though I don’t necessarily agree, marriage is the next logical step for any person my age. And to be honest, this is a shared view in the US as well. Dominicans are just placing their values on me, because they honestly want me to be happy. Happiness comes with a husband and a family. Having lived here for two years, I agree with that more than ever, but I’m still not in a hurry to make it happen.

My single-name identity that I have created in La Caya will be only a memory in a few months. I’ll return home and sit in job interviews, without soap suds engulfing my upper body, and I will try to explain how Peace Corps and the DR changed me. How it made me see the realities of our world in a realistic and sometimes cruel manner, how it gave me the identity I have now. I guess I’m just struggling with what identity I want that to be. What identity I choose for myself after this experience is over in 11 weeks and 6 days and I fly over the ocean to over there and see US soil beneath me.

Last Sunday, in my weekly girls’ club meetings, we discussed the difference between sex and gender. Now this can be a complicated subject in English, let alone trying to explain the difference between these two concepts with my basic Spanish vocabulary. But somehow, my girls group and I found a way. We always find a way.

The reason for this discussion/lesson is because I wanted to get the girls thinking about what is sex (male, female, our individual body parts ect.) and what is gender, moreover our gender roles (how society expects men and women to act)? I had them do a simple exercise where I put two pieces of paper on the wall, one with word hombre –man- written big on the top; and the other with mujer- woman. The girls had to come up with characteristics about both men and women, including physical features. It was fairly amusing, because at first they wrote only negative things on the man side and only positive traits on the woman side- which made me realize that we spend a lot of time in our weekly meetings man bashing. However, quickly I convinced them to be more objective about the issue and we continued on with the exercise. After we finished with a pretty fair list for both men and women, I then covered the word hombre with another piece of paper that said mujer and the same for mujer to hombre. Now all the characteristics that the girls gave to men were assigned to the woman and vice-versa.

The interesting thing (and what I was hoping for) is that even having reversed the characteristics, they were nearly identical to each other. For both women and men the girls said they are: intelligent, hard-working, beautiful/handsome, sensitive, jealous, deceptive and controlling. Some good, some bad for both sexes. The only thing, of course that couldn’t be interchanged between sexes was our anatomy (woman having breasts, vaginas and carrying babies and men having penises etc.).

The question then became, what defines you as a female? What makes you different from any man here in La Caya? Your gender or your sex? And just because you are a woman doesn’t mean you don’t have the same power, intelligence and flaws as a man. Just look at the lists.

There’s a common Dominican saying that translates roughly to, “Lock up your hens, because my rooster is out on the loose.” In training, nearly two-years ago, we discussed what it means to live in a society that believes in this kind of creed. The phrase has so many meanings that many viewpoints can be taken from it including: 1)don’t let girls out of the house because men are dangerous 2)if you want your girls to be kept virginal and pure you won’t let them go out at all 3)we can’t control men and men can’t control their urges- but we can control women, so keep them in the house.

I have heard this phrase used often in all kinds of different situations and circumstances. It breaks the ice when another unmarried girl is pregnant and it attempts to explain why some men would rather spend time at the local pool hall instead of with their families. But every time I hear this phrase it comes from the same people: women. Women are the ones justifying the poor decisions and behaviors of others. Is that our burden, as women, to always try to make those around us, especially our own family members, seem incapable of doing wrong?

I don’t know the answer to that question, or even if it is an appropriate question to ask. But I do know that Marimelba, who works at my center, had a baby boy seven days ago. I went to go see him yesterday at her house, and he is skinny and long- just like her and pretty much adorable. He’s “indio,” as Dominicans call it, or rather someone who is not white like European white, but not black and also is blessed with that wonderful thing called pelo bueno – good hair. I guess Dominican “indios” resemble Native Americans most in their appearance.

The new baby has no father. Well, he has one and Marimelba is claiming it’s a man who lives up the road from her. This man is vehemently denying it, either because it is the truth or because if he denies fatherhood for long enough, eventually everyone else will give up and he’ll be off the hook. Evading fatherhood is as easy as saying no.

Which brings me to Angel. Angel is probably my best friend in La Caya. He’ll turn five in March. He is Silvia’s grandson and also does not have a father. But like Marimelba’s son will be, Angel is surrounded by all of his family in every kind of relation you can imagine: aunts, uncles, grandparents, great-grandparents, great aunts and uncles, second cousins etc. Angel’s mom lives in Santiago and comes back to La Caya almost every weekend. Angel’s dad was the high school sweetheart of his mom who refuses to recognize him as his son. In the meantime, a.k.a. Angel’s childhood, he is being raised by his grandma and grandpa, Silvia and Juan Ramon who I eat lunch with everyday.

Yesterday Angel brought out a puzzle of the Disney Princesses (you know, Belle, Snow White, Cinderella). He asked Silvia if he could play with it and she gave him a quick, hard and loud NO! He opened it up anyway (which is basically how everything works with him) and poured out all the pieces of the table. A few minutes later, he and I both were putting it together. Silvia walked out from the kitchen and sort of went crazy. She grabbed all the pieces and shoved them into the box and then starting yelling how he is a boy and how boys can only play with boy toys and never with girl toys.

I tried to defend him; saying that Angel could care less what the picture was, because what he really enjoyed was trying to make the pieces fit together (which is a very stereotypical boy thing to do, in my opinion). But Silvia started to then yell at me a bit. She said that if you let a boy play with one girl toy, soon he’ll only want to play with girl toys, then he will only be interested in girl things (like cooking and cleaning) and after that he’ll be interested in what girls are interested in and that of course is men.

Moral of the story: by letting Angel play with one puzzle of the Disney Princesses, it’s a slippery slope right into Angel being gay. And if Angel is gay, whose fault is it? Silvia’s, because she raised him.

So no matter what, it’s somebody else’s fault. If the girls in my group don’t become successful individuals, it’s because men prohibited it. If Marimelba’s son’s father never takes responsibility, it’s because no one ever really expected him to, and if Angel were gay, it’s Silvia’s fault for letting him play with girl toys as a kid.

I like the part better when we can write our traits and characteristics on two pieces of paper, and aside from our physical make-up, we can really start to see not how unalike we are as men and women, but how similar.

Because the more we make excuse for ourselves, whether we are human beings, hens or roosters- the more we let crazy things happen like not letting a 5-year-old play with a puzzle. I’m pretty positive my girls group discussion about gender and sex didn’t accomplish great feats of change within La Caya, but maybe it started a few girls to think about the kind of person they want to be. About the kind of mother they can be (when they are ready and willing) and more than that, the the kind of woman they deserve to be. I’m right there with them, figuring it out as we go.

On January 27, 2011 my nephew, Dionisio Michael Eliopulos was born. As the first grandchild, nephew, cousin-to-be of my immediate family, we are all basically just gushing with happiness. A few days ago, I skyped with my brother and his lovely wife (the new padres) and I watched contently as baby Dion slept in his mom’s arms, stretching his own little arms and making facial expressions that presumably correlated with his dreams.

I’m so proud of the little guy that I have been telling everyone I see in La Caya about my new nephew. It’s interesting, because although everyone is happy for me and my family, I think they are a little taken aback about how big of a deal I’m making Dion to be. I mean, after all, he is just a baby, and any woman can have one of those. Right?

Which brings me to a conversation I had with Silvia, the woman who I eat lunch with most days. We were discussing how most Dominican women get c-sections (not because it’s necessary, but because the doctors can charge more for a c-section than a natural birth. It’s disgusting and degrading that they get away with it, in my opinion), and then Silvia began to explain how painful breast feeding is, with details I won’t go into, which led me to conclude that the best thing for all of us to do is to adopt 3-year-olds who are obviously already past the baby stage of life.

Anyway, I digress. As I brought the conversation back to my brother and his new family and how happy they are, she looked me dead in the eyes and started to tell me how I was getting old and needed to start having children. This conversation is nothing out of the ordinary, and usually I can just laugh it off, but Silvia was so sincere and so worried for me this time, that I had to do my best to reassure her that one day muy lejo-very far from today- I would have kids. She kept reminding me of how she is taking care of her parents because they are old now, and when she gets old; her kids will take care of her in the same way. I agreed, and said that I would of course take care of my parents when it comes time for that, and hopefully Si Dios Quiere, - God willing- I’ll have some kids of my own who will return the favor.

It wasn’t good enough. She continued to look at me with determined eyes and reiterated that I’m not getting any younger. She finished the conversation saying her second oldest daughter had a child when she was 15, and if she can do it then, than I surely can do it now. No pase na’ – Nothing will happen, or it’s not a big deal- she kept saying. But my mind was already drifting back to the detailed description of pain that apparently comes with breast feeding, the c-section and my sister-in-law’s 20 hour labor. Yep, that 3-year-old adoption option is still looking like the best option.

In other news, last weekend 13 of us went to an island off of the island we already live on. It’s called Isla Saona, and a Bekah, another volunteer working in the environment sector of the Peace Corps lives there. The Caribbean beauty of the island is unreal and unmatched (unless you’re comparing it to other equally amazing beaches in other parts of the DR). Bekah told us that Trujillo, the DR’s tyrant dictator put 12 families on the island in the 1950s to guard a prison that he also put there, and to protect the island itself from any invaders trying to take over (to say Trujillo was a paranoid man is an understatement). History says that eventually the original 12 families on the island killed all the prisoners (more likely killed some and let some go) and now, the 200 people that live on Isla Saona today are all related somehow to the original 12 families. That gives the phrase “todos son familia” – everyone is family- an entirely literal translation.

It’s pretty incredible how different all our lives as Peace Corps Volunteers are here in the DR. For Bekah, the only way she can get on or off her island is by a prearranged boat. Basically everything she needs, she has to bring with her from the mainland. There are a few small stores on Isla Saona, with basic needs, but let’s say if you run out of toilet paper before the next boat is coming, you better have a backup plan. The only drinking, non-salt water is rain water that the people collect in trash cans and other larger storage containers called tinacos, so you can imagine how desperate this could be if it’s a dry season. There are no roads, only three hours of electricity a day, from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., and no phone service of any kind. Bekah has a PC issued satellite phone that she can use to call in case of emergency.

For a long weekend, it was an incredible vacation, and I can see how tourists would call it “paradise.” But to live, day in and day out? I will say I really admire Bekah, because I think I would get over the paradise of living on a beach after about day seven and want to be able to use my cell phone without having to climb a tree to find service. See how spoiled even I am living here?! I’ll post some pictures of our weekend at the end of this blog.

One last thing: the other day I was talking to one of my friends here in La Caya. We were sitting on the side of the road in plastic chairs, watching the cars and people go by, when somehow we started talking about how many lives cats have. She said cats only have seven lives, and I told her that I thought they had nine. She sort of made fun of me and said maybe in the states where we have so many things, a cat would want to have nine lives, but here in La República Dominicana a cat only gets seven.

It makes me think about life here and how lucky I am to be going back to my other life in the states in just over three months. Is it that life here is harder and people grow up faster? Maybe I should ask Silvia’s daughter, who had her first child at 15. But at the same time, I can spend an entire afternoon here sitting in a plastic car, watching cars pass and feel productive.

I guess cats are just indecisive creatures and whether it takes seven or nine lives, eventually they pay their dues and are granted peace with death. Can you imagine living seven, eight, nine lifetimes? Living here in La República Dominica, I have learned that life is both very hard and sometimes very easy. And even though it’s nice to watch the cars go by for one afternoon, you can’t sit around waiting for your other six, seven, eight lives to present themselves. Yes, what I have learned from this country is that we as humans are blessed to just have one undetermined life.

Isla Saona Beach The "town." These are little business filled with stuff to sell to the tourists. But basically this is the town.

Bekah's view from her house.

Last weekend, 13 of my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers and me celebrated the love and marriage of another Peace Corps Volunteer, Cameron and her boyfriend Juan Manuel (or Tito, if you are really friends with him). It was a wedding, a moment none of us will ever forget and for me, it was one of my favorite experiences I have had yet on this island.

It started last Friday, when I met Jean, Amanda and Alanna in one of the big supermarkets in Santiago. The four of us along with four other PCVs (girls only) went a day early to Cam’s house to have an impromptu bachelorette party. After buying $4,400 pesos, or roughly $118 US dollars worth of food (we even splurged and bought chicken- fancy!), chocolate and wine- we made our way to Cam’s site, Jima Arriba.

The bachelorette party obviously did not include the average shenanigans of a bachelorette party in the states, but we didn’t need it to. After cooking delicious chicken burritos, we all sat in a circle in Cam’s small house, drank wine, ate chocolate (what else does a girl need right?) and sang old songs by the Dixie Chicks. We laughed about past memories we all share together, about the future that none of us are certain of and we heard the story of when Cam knew she was in love with a Dominican man.

The next morning, more PCVs arrived, including some males, and the general merriment continued. With fifteen of us in the house, we all took showers in shifts, ate in shifts, went to the bathroom in shifts; all so we could be ready in time for the party, later in the evening.

Tito, Cam’s now husband, planned and arranged everything for the day. The only thing he asked of Cam was to stay at her house and enjoy her time with her American friends. Cam had no idea what was in store for the festivities, only that she should wear a dress and be ready by about 8 p.m.

The event happened at the baseball field, romantically where Cameron and Tito first met. Tito had arranged everything: tables with flower center pieces, food cooked by his family and neighbors (including 20 chickens and a pig), beer and whiskey at every table and a proper wedding cake. It was so quaint and so homemade- it honestly could not have been better.

Cam and Tito had actually been married the week before in the city hall, only because to have the justice work on a Saturday costs $3000 extra pesos. So even though there was no formal wedding ceremony, Tito and his family made it feel like we were at the real reception.

It started off with a procession where all the guests lined up on two sides to watch as Cam walked into the small cement floored, open walled structure next to the baseball field where her husband was waiting for her. Then, the hired band/DJ talked for about 10 minutes about the special and unique love Cam and Tito share now and forever. The same man began to sing a romantic ballad to the couple, but Tito intervened, took over the microphone and finished singing the song to Cam himself. It was pretty magical.

Tito hired a photographer as well, and he took awkward pictures of the couple posed around the cake. To relieve the tension, all 13 of us Americans jumped into one picture sporadically to try to lighten the mood, but the photographer ended up taking about five minutes to arrange us ever so slightly around Cam and Tito. After pictures, we all danced- with each other, with all the other guests, with Tito’s family and friends. They played the typical merengue and bachata and even threw in some “American music,” which consisted of an 11 minute club remix of the Mama and the Papas, “California Dreamin’.”

Cam and Tito left made their escape early, as is the custom for all receptions in the world I think, and the rest of us Americans stayed to show off our Dominican dance skills until they were putting up the chairs and taking down the decorations.

All in all, it was such a feel good, happy, genuine occasion. To me, it was so Dominican, from the cheesy band to the procession of Cam and Tito, to the awkward photo guy. But that’s what made it so great and so heartwarming. Tito and his family worked so hard to pull of such a special night. Everything at the party said, “we love you Cam and Tito, we sanction this marriage and we will show you by killing 20 chickens, a pig, hiring a band, making decorations and doing everything we can to make sure your American friends feel comfortable here.” No one could have asked for more.

And now that they are married, Cam and Tito will begin the visa process so he can legally come to America in May. It’s kinda crazy to think about, especially all the changes Tito will encounter going to America (just to mention a few: he’s never been to a movie theater, like ever in his whole life. The first time he took a hot shower was at a hotel in Santo Domingo when he and Cam went last year to discuss the whole marriage thing with Peace Corps. Think about your average mall in America; think about your average Chili’s restaurant; even just think about how nice American streets are- all lined with paint and directional. What a change it’s all going to be for him).

So yes, like they say, the wedding is the party and the marriage is where the work is done. Cam and Tito will do this for a few months in the DR and then forever in America. And I, personally, cannot wait to hear stories about their wonderful life together and all the adventures to come.

"If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in the dark with a mosquito." - Betty Reese

I stole this quote from Tim Brown, who is a RPCV-DR (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer- Dominican Republic). I think it sums up so much of my Peace Corps experience, and it also serves as a reminder that no matter how big or small you feel, somehow, someway there is always a way to accomplish what needs to be accomplished.

Right now it is Patronales in La Caya. Basically, every town in the DR has a time of year when they celebrate the patron saint of the town. For La Caya, it is Nuestra Señora Altagracia, and for over two weeks every January, the people of La Caya celebrate the fact that La Caya exists. The town sort of transforms into a carnival, state-fair type atmosphere during these two weeks, complete with carnival type rides (that would make any person from the 1st world run away scared), street food and vendors selling toys, jewelry and other random knickknacks.

The point of Patronales is religious, and is meant to be a modest holiday where people take two weeks or so to pay homage to the patron saint of where they live. However, I feel like whenever more than two Dominicans gather together, it is always an excuse for a party. Or at least an excuse to open a beer or rum, pull up the neighbors car with a decent sound system and blast merengue. So yes, as you can imagine, there has been A LOT of that happening these last few weeks. I really am going to miss this country, seriously.

There are, however, some people practicing the religious part, and I know this better than anyone because I live next door to the church and the services starting at 5:30 a.m. are honestly not something I am going to miss.

Nevertheless, there is definitely a buzz around town and all the kids, moms, dads, grandmas, grandpas, creepy old men are dressing their best, getting their hair done and taking pride in this normally quiet, but great Dominican country town of La Caya.

On a completely different note: fellow PCV and my good friend Cameron is marrying her Dominican boyfriend in her site this weekend. A few of us are going to help them celebrate. I will update next week on all the happenings of the festivities.

On another completely different note: It’s literally DAYS now until my brother and his lovely wife have their baby! Every time my phone makes any kind of a noise I snatch it up in record speed in hopes it’s my parents calling to say our newest family member has arrived.

It’s a prime number year, and because of that, I am convinced 2011 is going to be great, or at least a drastic improvement from 2010. Not that 2010 was horrible, but it definitely had its challenges, and I am definitely excited and relieved it has ended. My brother and sister-in-law will welcome a new baby boy at the end of this month, and just with that 2011 might be the best year ever. My mom and oldest brother will (hopefully, fingers crossed) come visit in March, which I am already way too excited about. Remi too is thinking about coming for his 3rd, yes I said 3rd! visit to the DR, and on a personal note, I come home in 2011. I’ve been waiting for this year since 2009, and now that it’s here, I think I should take time to think about 2010, so I can truly appreciate 2011 in all its prime number glory…

Things I am grateful for/learned a lot from in 2010, and also things I hope to improve/change in 2011.

1) Science and Technology: because without them, and more specifically medical advancements, 2010 would have been a much worse year than it already was for my mom.

2) Airplanes: how great are airplanes?! And with this, the geographical location of the DR. Coupled with airplanes, the DR’s location was never far enough to get me home when I really need to be.

3) Family: for obvious reasons. Being away from my family, I just… well I love and miss them more than I can say. I have also learned that family grows and grows and never stops unless you are unwilling. Not only do I have my amazing, wonderful family at home, but I also really do have family here in the DR. Silvia, Juan Ramon, Angel, Anji, Mercedes, Masop, Francia, Lidio and Rosa- they have all taken me in as one of their own.

4) Remi Warren: why he puts up with me sometimes, I’ll never know. But I am really grateful, even when I forget to show it. The Warren Familia as well: they are the most generous, caring people on the planet, and nothing you could do would ever make you feel like an outsider with them.

5) Variety in Seasons: yes, having a “cold winter” in the DR makes me remember what cold actually feels like, and how happy I am I don’t have to live on this island forever. Why people would ever choose to live in this kind of climate is beyond me.

6) Ambar, Yociairy and Bethania: the three teenage girls who have made my girls group possible (and actually show up to most of my meetings). They have really made my PC service what I was hoping it would always be. They have impacted my life more than they’ll ever know, and I will never forget them.

7) The Dominican Republic in general: We all knew it was coming… the obvious statement of how “the Peace Corps changed my life.” Well, let’s be serious, it’s true. But more than that, the Dominican Republic has changed me and my life. I’m not the same person I was when I left in March 2009 and I don’t think I’ll ever be that person again.

I feel like the DR, Peace Corps; living daily life in a developing country has literally slapped me in the face. Whether it was from the heat, the lack of creature comforts from home, being sick way more than I ever could have imagined or just being away from all the people I love, especially my family- the DR has taught me a few things about this world.

Sometimes I can feel myself being negative, pessimistic about it all (okay, admittedly, I notice that about myself way more than sometimes). Pessimistic about people and their ability to follow through, about people’s intentions and expectations, about luck never being on your side and the rain never letting up so I can have a meeting.

The world, the DR, has slapped me in the face, because it has shown me how people outside of the 1st world live. It has shown me the cruelties and realities of life, of people being hungry and uneducated, and of people trying to take advantage of the system (yes, I am part of that system now and again) to help themselves and their family, because the government or anyone else sure as heck isn’t going to do it.

I have been witness to hilarity, joys beyond belief, awkwardness and unfortunately, some of the most depressing things about our human race. I feel like I’ve grown up. And the truth is I thought I was so mature and ahead of the game when I arrived back in March 2009.

That is my biggest lesson from the year 2010. Just when you think you know, when you think you’ve got it all figured out, everything around you changes. The clouds open up, the sun starts to shin and that meeting about buying books for a town library you were sure was going on your “doomed” list, actually happens. We as humans have much to learn from each other, and any country that thinks it’s ahead of the game has many of the same lessons to learn that I have. In the highly anticipated, prime number year of 2011, I hope to remember a few of the the things that matter:

1) Family

2) Friends and all loved ones- both new and old.

3) Being a humble and grounded person, because this world we live in sure has some things to show and tell us.

4) Kindness to strangers- especially those who look nothing like you and do weird things that are not part of your culture norms like show up on time or refuse to eat chicken feet.

5) Openness to everything: people, places, food, experiences (good or bad) and love.

6) Love. At the end of the day, at the end of my time with the Peace Corps, here in the DR, I just want to give love. Because I think we live in a circle, a hoola-hoop if you will. If you put love into your hoola-hoop motion, it will have no choice but to circle around you and find you once more.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks (well, more like month). The weekend after my girls weekend, I hosted a “Pre-thanksgiving” Party in my site for 22 Peace Corps Volunteers (PCV) and what should have been about 15 Dominicans, but was more like 30-35 Dominicans (who knows really), which in total was anywhere between 50 -70 people. But yes, 22 PCVs traveled from all over this country to come to La Caya, so we could cook an American style Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone brought their own ingredients from supermarkets in bigger cities, because La Caya isn’t exactly a thriving metropolis, and we cooked a true feast complete with two turkeys, mashed potatoes, homemade stuffing, cranberries, homemade mac-n-cheese, fried rice (what’s Thanksgiving without fried rice?), roasted vegetables and more savory dishes I’m sure I’m forgetting. We also made desserts, including pumpkin and chocolate mousse pies and Stef’s delicious peanut butter cookies.

The festivities were held at the one-and-only Eddy’s house, and of course he was an hour late to a party at his own house, but no one can deny that the man knows how to make an entrance. And when he arrived, he brought his own party with 10+ more people and made an announcement that if I would have told him there were going to be so many people there, he would have killed two cows for the party. I don’t know how we did it, but two turkeys (and lots of hearty side dishes) sufficed instead.

After our pre-party, most of us headed down to the capital to prepare for real Thanksgiving held at a country club for all 200 PCVs living in the DR, plus Peace Corps staff members, embassy families etc. Jean, Kaitlyn and myself were actually the ones who planned real Thanksgiving for everyone, and it was a lucha (fight). I could write a very long chapter about all the problems the three of us had the months leading up to the event, but really, it’s over with and it went well, so let’s move on with our lives.

However, on another great note, because we were the planning committee we were lucky enough to stay with an American family who were kind enough to open their homes over Thanksgiving. They fed us, did our laundry (with a real washer and dryer!), let us take long, HOT showers and gave us comfortable beds to sleep in. The bubble that was their house was amazing, and it honestly did feel like we were in America for those few days. Such a good feeling, especially over an American holiday like Thanksgiving.

Then I had the Encargados del Futuro, which translates basically to "bosses of the future", and is a youth conference put on by my sector in PC. It was three days, in a town outside of Santiago. Each volunteer brought two youths from their town to participate. The Encaragados conference focuses on all things computer and technology related, and so the presentations given were based on these subjects as well. It’s kind of an interesting concept, considering this country doesn’t even have stable electricity to run computers and all things technology related. But the conference does a great job of opening a few doors/windows/drapes into the enormous and never ending world of technology. My two youth had a great time, and even walked away with a new memory stick, t-shirt and certificate of completion.

When we got back to La Caya, things started back up right away, and this week I’m feeling it. My English classes are ending (finally!) and that means final exams for my students. If they pass my test, they will also get a certificate of completion (Stacie stamped and approved) which may even help them get a better job sometime in their future. My first level class had their test today and my 3rd level has theirs tomorrow. They are already asking me when the next class is going to start, and the truth is I’m trying to resist saying yes.

Today was also “Cholera Charla” day. What I was hoping to be a wildly successful event, with a great attendance was actually sort-of lackluster. At the Encargados conference I asked my two kids what we could do for the community before Christmas (something we could actually accomplish and succeed at). We all decided doing a presentation and drama about cholera would be the best thing- 1)because even though information has been spread in La Caya about cholera, nothing official has been done 2)we could organize everything in less than week 3)it’s something the community (you would think) is interested in and would attend.

For the last week, I feel like I’ve been running around like a madwoman trying to organize and get people to commit to coming to our presentation/drama. I handed out formal invitations to all the big wigs in town- Eddy the mayor, the director of the school, the people at church, teachers and the new doctor in our small clinic. As of yesterday, everyone was coming, and the doctor was going to help me give the presentation (as to make it even more legit, as it’s coming from a doctor). Alas, today was a much different story.

I woke up and it was rainy, overcast and COLD. Seriously, like really cold (for here anyway). I knew we were doomed from the start. By the time 4 pm rolled around, the hour we were supposed to start, we had about 20 school kids sitting in our audience and no one more. After almost an hour of waiting, that number doubled, with more school kids and a few adults, but no doctor, no Eddy, no director. Despite the disappointing turnout, I gave the presentation as animated as I could and then a group of youths performed a drama about what would happen if you get cholera and don’t treat it. Of course it was EXTREMELY exaggerated, but everyone loved it and I think it really brought the point home.

So despite looking out into the crowd and seeing only about ½ of the seats filled, I still would call the event a success, because we did it. I can’t control the weather, and I can’t control the way Dominicans feel about going out in the rain, although by the time we were supposed to start it wasn’t raining anymore- but the mud is enough to keep people away. But I can do my part to follow through on what I start. I was so proud of my kids up there, acting their hearts out to give their community a laugh and educate them about cholera.

A few hours later, two ladies from the church who were in the audience found me in the center and gave me a hug congratulating me on how successful the event was despite the disheartening turnout. One of the ladies grabbed me by the arms, looked me dead in the eye and said, “tu estas hacienda buenas cosas aqui,” – you are doing good things here.

Sometimes, no matter what happens, if it’s down pouring rain or beating sun, there’s nothing more you need to hear.

It’s the holiday season, especially in the DR. This year, my town has taken “Christmas spirit,” to a whole new level. Francia and Rosa (my Doña and neighbor, respectively) decided a few weeks ago to paint all the tree trunks in front of their houses (the houses are across from each other) white and wrap red ribbon around them. Francia and Rosa painted about 10 trees together, and even sprayed the leaves of one tree white to make it look like snow. Which cracks me up, considering the other day I explained all the different types of snow to my co-workers at my center as they honestly have no concept of what it is… “Well, there’s icy snow, fluffy snow, wet snow, dry snow, snow you can make a snowball with, snow that melts right away etc.” Rosa and Francia’s zest for decorating inspired many of our other neighbors, and now almost 1/3 of my walk up to town is entirely lined with white tree trunks wrapped in some kind of festive ribbon.

We won’t even get into the environmental problems associated with painting all the trees white. Why, you ask? Because I only have 5.5 months left in this country, and I’m learning that some battles you are never, ever going to win. And also, because everyone is so happy! Everyone really does have the Christmas spirit, and every day I find another house that has hung up Christmas lights on their door or front porch.

(An aside, cultural note: Many Dominicans actually do have Christmas trees. They are fake trees, but they are same as you would envision in the states. Dominicans, however, keep their trees outside on the front porch for all the world to see. I asked Francia why, and she said it’s so that everyone can enjoy it not just us. I mean, they’re not putting Johnny’s brand new train set under the tree outside or anything, but it actually is really nice to walk by houses and see their Christmas trees with lights and ornaments right there in the front for everyone to enjoy. Maybe when I’m home next Christmas, I’ll get two trees: one for inside and one for the porch.)

Last night, Eddy, our beloved mayor, hosted an evening in the park. The one park in town, just got a fresh paint job and is decorated to the max with ribbons, lights, garlands, all the Christmas specialties. The same as we drink eggnog during the holidays, Dominicans make a ginger tea. It’s kind of spicy and has entirely too much sugar, but it really is pretty delicious. Eddy made a huge vat of it, and gave out mini-bread pieces and had a guy BLASTING merengue. People danced, drank, laughed and enjoyed the official start of the holiday season.

I sat there, drinking my ginger tea, enjoying the simplicity of Christmas lights illuminating the park, feeling a bit nostalgic for home, but overall very grateful to be apart of this community called La Caya. It hasn’t always been easy, but with only 5.5 months of service left I can only soak it in. Soak it all in: the white tree trunks, the outdoor Christmas trees, the ear shattering merengue and the graciousness and kindness of all the friends and family I have made here.

Here are some pictures from the night:

The nativity scene Francia put in front of our house, complete with a manger and "biblical" looking pots.

The park with lights!

This is Dominican culture: people sitting in plastic chairs and motorcycles.

The blueish lights are the swings with lights.

Ginger Tea

Angel and his girlfriend dancing merengue. They stole the show for the night.

I had a moment yesterday that I will never forget. I was in a supermarket in Santiago buying things for my second annual “Pre-Thanksgiving Party.” The supermarket, called La Sirena, is more or less America’s equivalent of Wal-Mart. It’s almost as big and unnecessary, and if you need to go to one store to buy a)food b)paint c)a new stereo system d)a wardrobe e)a bike- well then, La Sirena is the store for you.

The second floor of the store is where all the clothes are located. A woman who works in my CTC is having a baby boy in February (PS- the father of the baby is refusing to claim his newfound parenthood, which is unfortunately a common story here, but for another day), and I bought a T-shirt for the upcoming baby shower. As I was riding the escalator down to the first level, I noticed a Haitian man standing nervously at the bottom of the stairs. At first I thought he was waiting for someone, but as I made my effortless exit off the escalator, it was obvious he was trying to figure out how exactly to ride an escalator and get up to the second level.

He soon realized the stairs he stood in front of were for coming down, and he quickly moved over to the up-stairs. Then his wife/girlfriend/sister/friend, a female, came over and the two of them watched the black grated metal appear from seemingly nowhere, to suddenly make steps before them. I continued to watch, as they both hesitated. The woman especially, would cautiously put her right foot forward a little, but then hurriedly move it back when it came time to actually take the plunge.

So, I did what anyone would do. I walked up on the other side of the woman, grabbed her hand and told her, “ven,” or come. She probably didn’t speak Spanish, but she also didn’t really have a chance to think about it, because I was holding onto her and we were already going up the stairs. She fumbled a little, but not much, and in less than two seconds she was standing next to me on the moving stair. The man jumped on right behind us, and they smiled and spoke in Creole to each other. When the stairs leveled out, she was a little nervous, but I kept hold of her hand and we both sort of jumped off the escalator together. The man got off and we shook hands and smiled at each other, and then I turned to my right and headed right back down the down side of the escalator. As they were walking away, the man turned around and saw me going down the stairs. We smiled at each other and waved, as if to say, “thanks, see you soon.”

I know it’s not much really, but I think it’s one of my proudest moments since I’ve been on this island.

After numerous cancellations for my girls' weekend, due to the cholera outbreak in Haiti and consolidation because of Hurricane Tomas, my girls' weekend FINALLY happened last weekend! Fifteen girls from my town participated, along with four from Las Plancetas (PCV Alexis), three from Janico (PCV Jean), four from Imbert (PCV Amanda) and one from Manzanillo (PCV Ayra). Our fair leader Alison also came to help everything run smoothly. The girls' gave charlas (presentations) about self-esteem, the environment and HIV/AIDS. We had a community trash clean-up followed by swimming and relaxing Eddy's beautiful house and pool. We all slept on the cement floors in the clubhouse of one of the mother's groups in my town. Amanda also gave an awesome charla about planning the future, and Alison talked to the girls about being on a national committee to help promote girls' groups throughout all of the DR. Francia, my doña, cooked all the meals for us, which was no simple task. Overall, it was a great, successful weekend and I can't say thank you enough to Francia, Alison, Arya, Amanda, Jean and Alexis for helping me out with everything.

Here are some pictures...

Ambar (from La Caya) talking about why it's important we were all together for the weekend... to be strong, awesome women of course. Arya, holding the poster.

The girls drawing different situations about what will happen if we don't take care of the environment.

A group presenting their environment posters.

The girls enjoying Eddy's pool.

Amanda's talk about 'planning your future.'

The girls listening, talking, participating.

All the girls with their certificates at the end of the weekend.

Me and my girls from La Caya

I’m working on “conversations” with my third level English class. Yesterday, admittedly I was not very prepared for our class, so instead of the usual powerpoint presentation I give about some random grammar lesson of the English language, I decided that my students and I were just going to sit and have one of those things: a “conversation,” if you will.

What it turned into was me asking them questions and them one-by-one answering (only three of seven showed up for class… must be the never ending cloudy skies we’ve been having these days). I had no plan for these questions, just what I could think of off the top of my head. Topics and subjects I knew they could answer and feel confident about doing so in English. After a few questions, I asked my three pupils to tell me their ‘dream job.’

After the initial few seconds when they put the word –dream- and then the word –job- together and realized what I was actually asking them, they still looked at me like I was crazy.

“You know, if you could do or be anything,” I tried to further explain. “What would you do?”

Pause.

Finally, Yaclerly answered and said that she would (in more or less conversational English) be an accountant for a big company.

I jumped at the chance to keep her talking about her dream job and asked her to tell me more about what kind of company she would want to work for. That part didn’t go over so well. It’s not that she didn’t understand my words, but that she didn’t understand why the company was so important. She kept looking at me like I was crazy, and I looked back at her like she was even more crazy. Finally I broke and started speaking Spanish again:

“What do you mean the company doesn’t matter?” I said, getting a little too heated. “What if you were an accountant for a big company that killed babies or something? Would you still want to work for that company?!”

She didn’t quite know how to respond, in any language. She just continued to say she would want to be an accountant for a big company, and it didn’t matter which company (preferably one with no dead babies on their record). My other two students agreed. Yocairy said her dream job was to be the CEO of a big, international company, no matter which one; and Alred’s dream job was to own his own business, and of course it didn’t matter what kind of business, just as long as it was his.

As my service starts to wrap itself up (I’m officially a senior in the Peace Corps world. My swear-in group is the next group to complete our two-year service), my mind is constantly drifting to my future and what I need to be doing now to get a good job when I am home in May. And for me, the company I work for DOES matter, because that’s where I’ll spend most of my time. Eight to nine hours of each day, at least, to be exact. How can it not matter?

But here, as I am constantly humbled and challenged by the Dominican culture- where you work doesn’t matter, because here, work is the last thing that defines you. Of course people respect others for their jobs, just the way we do in America. A doctor, a lawyer, an accountant, a CEO- all are professions that are admired, but people are not defined and limited by what they do. It’s just one aspect of their lives, and it’s certainly not the most important or time consuming. So really, if you are an accountant, which not every person in the countryside of the DR is, does it really matter what company you work for?

It’s funny how things still surprise me. How being here and living as much as I can like a Dominican, I am sometimes so aware of my own American culture. And even though I secretly am a bit jealous of my English students for not letting their jobs create their identity (which I think happens too often in the states), I think I’ll go for the balance of both. Because from what I read in the papers, just having a job in America these days is a blessing, and no one, I mean no one wants to work where babies are killed.

My girls' weekend has been canceled/postponed once again. This time for the hurricane that is coming. Oh wait, did I say hurricane? I mean tropical storm. Oh and the storm isn't really supposed to get here until Friday. But wait, what's today? Tuesday? And I'm in Santiago right now for consolidation? Yes, there is disdain and annoyance in my voice. Can you feel it?

Peace Corps divides the country into six different regions, and each volunteer belongs to a region based on where they live. Four out of the six regions in the country are being consolidated (including my own) in different places so Peace Corps can keep us safe and protected in case the tropical storm gets crazy and major things happen like all the roads are lost to debris, cell phone towers are destroyed by wind and Noah and his Arc have to rescue us from all the water that will surely engulf the entire island.

My region consolidates in a hotel in Santiago. And although it is sort of like a, "consolidation-vacation," because the hotel has hot water and I'll be with all my American friends; I can't help but feel guilty.

Guilty for ONCE AGAIN bailing on my girls. I know it's not my fault, but how do you explain to 15-year-olds that even though they have to stay in their communities if a disastrous crises happens, like Cholera or a catastrophic tropical storm, I, the American, am whisked away to a nice hotel in the big city where help, if necessary, can be seconds away?

Last night I was complaining/whining to my Mom about everything happening here. About having to cancel my girls weekend again, about a woman who recently passed away in my site, leaving many community members struck with grieve and despair, and about not being able to do anything for community if there really is a bad storm here, because I'll be in a fancy hotel in Santiago. She listened to me like she always does (have I mentioned yet, how amazing my mom is?). And it made me realize, that no matter how hard I try- I will always be separate from my community.

Peace Corps preaches to us about "integrating" into our sites. About becoming "one with the community." But the truth is, we will never be able to fully accomplish this, based on privilege. If this storm is as bad as Peace Corps believes it will be, people in my community are literally going to lose the roofs off their houses. Walls will fall in and water will take out buildings, crops and possibly farm animals. And where will I be? Sitting in a hotel, taking a couple of hot showers a day, using wireless internet and putting on a sweater because the air- conditioning is on so high.

I don't want to seem ungrateful for being a part of an organization that does make my safety and security a priority. I am. I get it. I understand why they are doing this and why it's important for all of us to leave our communities and be in one place in case of a serious emergency.

I just can't help but feel too lucky. Why was I born where I was born to the family I was born to? I know you can't control these things and life is just the way it is- because well, that's the way it is. And this is why I joined the Peace Corps in the first place- to see how the other 2/3 of the world lives. To come back to my American life with appreciation and gratitude that I could never have known otherwise and to give myself to a community in any way I can, even if everything I plan gets canceled two or three times over.

It's November now. The truth is, with the way my luck is rolling these days, this event might not take place until after the New Year. But when it does, and it will- this damn weekend is going to happen if it's the last thing I accomplish in my life - I'm going to tell every girl who is there that no matter where they come from or what their obstacles are, they can accomplish anything they set their hearts and minds to. Even if I'm lying through my teeth.

Because of the current Cholera outbreaks in Haiti, all Peace Corps Volunteers in the DR have to report to the capital on Friday for "cholera prevention training." What the heck they are going to tell us that 1)they haven't told us already 2)they couldn't tell us in an email or 3)through our cell phones. This is the reason we are "supposedly" given cell phones, for emergency purposes and to inform of us serious situations like Cholera in Haiti. But you know, apparently PC needs every single volunteer to come into the capital to tell us to boil our water and not eat clean vegetables.

And because of this new development, my girls exchange sleepover weekend, has been canceled. Postponed. I'm trying to stay positive. It has been postponed until the next weekend. Unless a tidal wave hits the island which honestly, is very well possible.

But I don't want to be like this. Yes, I'm annoyed. Yes, I sort of want to punch the administration of Peace Corps DR in the face for making a dramatic and seemingly unnecessary decision, but the point is there is Cholera in Haiti. People are dying from it and more are getting sick everyday. Please put your thoughts, prayers, vibes, rain dances (whatever you do) to help the West side of the this island to gain back its health and peace, while we're at it.

I went to the United States for a week and when I came back, one of my favorite shirts had become an insect’s dinner. And breakfast. And lunch. And probably dinner again that same day. Holes. Holes all along the bottom of all of my T-shirts, spread out through the cotton, looking like constellations in outer space.

Holes. That seems to be happening a lot in my life lately. My Yiayia (Grandma in Greek) passed away and that was the reason for my unscheduled and quick visit home. When anyone passes, especially someone who directly or even indirectly shaped your life, it’s hard to get them out of your head. Yiayia has been on my mind, weighing on my heart. Holes.

She is in a better place now, this I am certain. But you can’t help but feel the hole she has left behind simply by not being here on earth anymore. It’s like you are driving your car down a road with a dug-out pit in the middle. It’s construction work, and so there are caution signs, cones to prevent you from falling in and even a detour sign to help you find your way again. Plenty of warning. You see the whole situation played out before you and so you follow the detour signs. Even though you understand that you have to go around the hole, things are different; you’ve changed your route.

I keep thinking about how old she is in heaven. If you were alive for 98 years, are you 98 in heaven? Or do you get the choice to return to whatever age you want? Is she a little girl before she was married? Is she in her 30’s or 40’s when she was still raising her children? Or is she more like a formless spirit, meeting other formless spirits sharing memories about their time on earth?

This weekend I’m hosting a girl’s group exchange weekend with five other Peace Corps communities. This means that five other PC volunteers are bringing 3-4 girls each to La Caya to have a mini-camp sleepover. The girls will hear talks about the environment, self-esteem, planning your future and because it’s the night before Halloween- we’re having a HIV/AIDS Halloween party. How do those two things relate? I’m not really sure either, but it’s going to happen that way.

I’m filling in the holes to make sure this weekend will happen with minimal surprises. After I write this, I have to find Fran to ask her to cook for us. I have to secure a vehicle and a driver so we can go into Santiago so we can buy all the food and supplies we’ll need. I’m organizing my girls in La Caya to prepare a charla (or presentation) about their community and why it’s important for all the girls in the world to come together to be strong, courageous women.

Strong, courageous women. I know a few of those. And the one I’m hoping I can be is 98 or 12 or 37- years-old, watching me from somewhere- filling the hole I feel with all the strength she left for all of us on earth.

Yesterday I burned my leg on a muffler of a motorcycle. I was walking up to my center and Juan Ramon pulled over to ask if I wanted a bola, or free ride up into town. To save me from the heat of the sun, I quickly said yes and excitedly jumped on the back of his motorcycle, accidently skimming my leg on the scoarching hot muffler in the process.

The now egg shaped burn is on my inner calf and is a deep purple and black color with some blistering. I showed Francia last night what I did to myself, and after she stared at my leg for a second or two she finally said, "Well now you are a real Dominican, because todo el mundo, or everyone, has a burn from a motorcycle."

I stood up a little straighter after she said that, and agreed at least now, with the burn, I could always prove I really did live in the Dominican Republic.

I find myself wishing it would rain more… specifically around 5:30, coinciding perfectly with the “sudden” cancelation of my English class. It’s funny how cultural norms are often my God send. Like people’s resolve to not leave their houses when it’s cloudy out for fear that they will “se mojao” or get wet, as they say here in the Cibao region of the DR.

It’s not that I don’t like teaching English, well let’s be serious, that’s exactly what it is. After a year of teaching my native tongue four nights a week, I’m over it. And yet here I find myself again spending every Monday thru Thursday from 6 p.m. to 7:30ish p.m. teaching English. It’s not the time actually teaching that I dread so much, in fact that time is the most enjoyable. Interacting with my students, challenging them to do something they’ve never done before is both rewarding and most often entertaining (for example, teaching the pronunciation of the word “jewelry” has been great fun for both me and my students). It’s the lead-up to each class: preparing classes, researching new games and activities to use in my classes and being a strict and serious teacher (don’t you dare answer your cell phone in my class. I will seriously chuck it out the window. I don’t care if your cousin from “Nueva York,” just sent you a brand new iPhone with all of Daddy Yankee’s albums - I will break it).

As mentioned numerous times before, the DR has the WORST education system in all of Latin America. To be honest, the government should be put in an international courtroom for the disservice they are doing to their people. With no investment by the government on any level and only the richest of the rich able to attend decent private schools, the general population never has a chance to compete.

I see the perfect example of this every day in the new library in the center. Hoping to appeal to the middle- aged-kids, ages 10-15 or so, I bought over 20 young adult books. From Spanish speaking authors to even Roald Dahl’s books translated into Spanish. And even though most of the kids who come to the library are within the 10-15 age range, they barely glance at these books. The books they all read (and I know, because I sit here with them every afternoon), are the children’s books; picture books with simple words and beautiful illustrations. They pull these books from the shelf carefully, open them and read aloud (silent reading, as I’m learning, is not something that is taught here). We’re talking 12-year-olds reading at a first grade level. I try to encourage them to open a youth novel and attempt to read it, but they don’t understand the words or they get bored quickly and turn back to the picture-books.

Here in La Caya, there is only one school for all grades- Kindergarten thru 12th grade. Grades K thru Eight are supposed to be in the morning with hours from 8 a.m. – 12 p.m. and then the high school from 2 p.m. – 6 p.m. Unfortunately, by the time kids reach high school, the number has drastically dwindled as boys go work on the farm, girls get pregnant, families move away etc., and so a high school class usually has between only 10-15 students.

Every school in the DR pretty much looks and feels the same. Classrooms are cement boxes all painted the same boring two-tone green. Every school in this country is “Dominican peach,” as I like to call it. There’s no spice, no life to the color of schools inside or out. All the classrooms are overcrowded with rickety desks and old, damaged goods like blackboards from the year 1975.

Teachers, most often are overworked and underpaid. I’ve been helping a teacher in my school once a week since last school year, and she and I have had some good heart to hearts in the process. Last year she told me she averaged out her salary and realized she’s making about $40 pesos a day. That’s just over ONE American dollar. It’s criminal.

With teachers clearly not being paid sufficiently and never getting the recognition they deserve from the government or other community members, they are often unmotivated and to be frank, lazy. The kids are supposed to have a solid four hours of school a day (which obviously isn’t much), but usually that involves two recesses that are only supposed to last 15-minutes, but are never under half an hour and often turn into an entire hour. This means on average, I would say confidently that the average La Caya student spends about 2.5 hours a day in a classroom, attempting to learn.

And what are the kids doing when they are in the classroom? Having interactive discussions with each other and the teacher? Reading new and difficult literature? Engaging in science experiments that teach them about the world around them? Nope. They are copying things off the board. It’s one reason why kids can write but can’t read. They have been programmed from day one to just sit and copy. Kids come into the center and their homework is to literally COPY two or more pages, word for word from their text books.

In training, Peace Corps called it the “bucket system.” You put information into the bucket and it’s supposed to collect and amount to something. But it never does. It’s like putting sand in a bucket. Unless you make a castle out of it, the sand will always just remain in the bucket as sand.

Often I find myself thinking about my public education history compared to all the kids in the DR. I think about my high school or any typical high school in America. My own high school, Galena, with its nearly official size soccer field (x2), separate baseball and softball fields with lights, a regulation size football field with a track around it, two indoor basketball courts, a theater, indoor and outdoor eating facilities and that doesn’t even include the staff and the fact that the teachers went to an accredited university to actually become teachers.

I daydream about being able to magically teleport the kids from here to a school in America. They would be downright amazed by the luxuries of a typical classroom in the states. To be honest, they would probably be even more impressed with the bathrooms – running water that actually flushes the toilets leaving them clean and not making the entire compound smell like a latrine.

The teacher I’ve been working with at the school is one of those God sends I previously mentioned. She asked me to stop by her classroom today to show me a mural she’s working on. Outside of her classroom, she painted a giant tree (much like the one in my library) with grass, butterflies, caterpillars and other things to spur the imagination. I was so impressed she took this initiative on her own and did something to liven up the dull peachiness (of course she paid for the paint, paint brushes and all materials for the mural herself). She truly is a God send because she believes in her kids and goes above and beyond her duty to teach and encourage them the best she knows how.

More than a year-and-a-half into my service and everyday there are situations that humble me. As I pray for rain to cancel my English classes, the good teacher’s of this island, like my friend, are spending their own money to encourage kids that learning is the best thing they could ever do for themselves. Education - knowledge, knowing and retaining information - is after all, the one thing in life no one can ever take away from you.

Here are a few more pictures from my library. We have most the walls painted as we'd like, the shelves are in place (side note: this is not the way I envisioned the shelves, but rather flat against the wall, but this is what the people want, and I am here to give them what they want), hands have been painted across the room and I am currently organizing the books we've purchased into a basic color coding system. So far, we've bought just about RD $50,000 worth of books (or about US $1,400)! Next week, we're heading back into Santiago to buy even more books and finish buying other supplies, like children's games, a trash can, paint and a rug.

It's getting there, paso a paso, step by step. Thank You for your support and love throughout this entire project!

A view from the new blue wall with the books and Todo es Posible- All is Possible.

Books! With the ultra-modern color coding system

The view from the hallway coming into the library. You can see the painted hands, the map, the tree and the word Biblioteca - Library- on the wall.

The tree! With more butterflies and a rabbit. Ronny from my town did the painting, and as you can see- he is very talented.

A personal touch from Fausto, a teacher at my center. He painted two more outlets with the American flag, and two more with the Dominican flag.

1) A kid came into the center the other day and stared at me as I organized the new books for our library. I didn’t give it much thought, because every afternoon there is usually at least one La Caya kid in the library watching me, seeming to be amazed that I can function on my own. After a while, he tapped me on the shoulder and told me that his grandmother just got a dog and named it “Estacie.” It reminded me of a blog I wrote earlier about having La Caya babies named after me. I’m not even sure if this dog was named after me, but we do apparently share the same name. I guess a dog is better than nothing?

2) Today at Silvia’s for lunch, she told me that they found a huge toad by the fence early this morning and that their new puppy was afraid of it. Immediately the grandpa (who is 91) got up from the table without a word. He returned about five minutes later holding a rope with the huge toad (about seven inches long and four inches across) tied by its back leg. He brought it out like a puppet and laughed hysterically as I jumped back when it made a lunge toward me. Angel got home from school a few minutes later and when he saw the giant toad he was even more scared than me. This cracked Grandpa up even more, and he continued to puppeteer the frog in both our directions. Meanwhile, Grandma’s sitting on a chair about a foot away from Grandpa with a large kitchen knife, telling him if he doesn’t knock it off she’s going to kill the frog and him. Grandpa who’s hard of hearing didn’t catch on to her threats, and so he kept swinging the frog by the rope toward Angel, who was hiding behind Silvia’s husband Juan Ramon. Grandma’s trying to comfort Angel by saying things like, este sapo no hace na’, or “this frog won’t do anything.” And then continues by making apparent random frog sounds like, “plop, plop, plop.” Juan Ramon chimes in with, “yeah, but it will make the dogs sick, so don’t touch it Angel.” And by this time, all the rest of the animals at the house, the chickens, dogs, cats and guineas (I don’t know what they’re called in English, but it’s a crazy looking chicken thing) are going crazy and Grandpa just can’t get enough of it all. Grandma’s still waving the knife, Angel’s starting to cry, Juan Ramon is laughing and I’m sitting in the chair with my feet up in case the frog breaks loose from the string and comes after me. Finally, Silvia walks out into all the commotion and settles things down with one, two-letter word, YA. Which in this case would translate to “enough,” or “done.” Grandpa takes the frog away, the animals calm down, Grandma puts the knife on the table and order is restored. But for the rest of lunch, Grandpa kept telling Angel he was going to get the frog if he didn’t finish his food. Ahh, my daily life in the campo.

3) About two months ago, Francia got another puppy. This makes four dogs at our house now. This puppy, which only about two weeks ago was given a name – Pili – is probably the most annoying puppy on the face of the planet. It pees everywhere, it eats everything (including the trash in the kitchen and random chicken bones I find everywhere, which is perplexing and impressive at the same time) and it tears apart Francia’s outdoor furniture. You get the idea. On Sunday morning it was barking and going crazy at about 5 a.m. and I thought to myself, “man I wish that stupid dog would get run over or something,” as I threw a pillow over my face to try to block the sound. Well, be careful what you wish for, because yesterday morning, our puppy terror Pili, was run over by a car and killed. I have never felt more awful in my life, I swear to God. I feel like I caused her death and I just, I can’t believe it actually happened! And so I would like to end this blog and say to Pili that even though you drove me crazy, I never actually wanted you to get run over. But I know you are happier now, because all dogs go to heaven… Right???

This week, the pieces of putting my library finally came together! I've been painting non-stop since Wednesday, and a few of the murals are done. Today, Yoryi and Ronny came to help me do my "La Caya" tree scene in the corner. I was really nervous about this mural and how it would turn out, but Ronny and Yoryi did the whole thing by themselves and I think it looks AMAZING. I'm going to let the pictures speak for me this time...

Ronny, Yoryi and I proud of our (their) work.

The La Caya tree mural! Almost finished! We're missing some more butterflies and flowers and all those pretty things.

Welcome! In Dominican blue and red.

Juan Ramon painting the wall blue. Such a nice improvement from the weird yellow cream it was before.

I painted this map all by myself (with the help of my computer and a projector). Above it says, "Our island."

I’ve been thinking a lot about my generation. Sometimes when I’m with fellow Peace Corps Volunteers, I can feel the future politician oozing out of them. It’s not that it’s a bad thing, only that in certain people- the quality of “diplomacy” is evident and intentional. For the most part, they are not crass, they are easy to talk to, they are persuasive, they make you feel important, they get things done whether through luck, skill and/or manipulation, and they drink a little too much. This goes for both males and females, and I often wonder if 30- 40 years from now, when I go to the Presidential polls in America, will I be voting for someone who lived on this hot, hot island with me?

One of my best friends is serving in Afghanistan. She wrote me an email a few months ago and asked when my “contract” was up. I read that word over and over. Sometimes I forget we are both serving our country, and that we each signed a piece of paper saying we would go to a place our government thought best to help the “poor” people there. Help them in such dissimilar terms.

It’s much different for me. My contract is more like a marriage. Call the divorce lawyers if you don’t like it, and move on with your life. (Also there is this small detail, where I am not concerned for my life at any given moment). Her contract is non-negotiable- it’s two years to the day (which most of us know, turns out to be longer), no questions, no sympathy, and no second chances. She and I are serving our country in two very different ways, and when I think about how we are simultaneously going though this, literally on opposite sides of the earth, I feel like a shmuck.

When she announced, over a year-and-a-half ago that she was leaving for Afghanistan, my dad offered to move her to Canada. I really don’t think he was joking. I will always love him a little bit more for that.

This week she wrote me an email saying a soldier in her unit died. To my understanding, she works in an office and doesn’t see combat often (Gracias A Dios). He was a hard-working, young man who was on his way up, she wrote. He was a good husband and good father to his toddler son. He was the brightest in his field and he will be missed. I am not sure of the details of the soldier’s death, only that like all deaths in war, it was unplanned and with regret.

She said how she didn’t understand why they were still there. They say the war is over, but it’s a joke, and how she can’t wait to get back home and be with her husband and see her friends. She called me her dearest friend and when I read her words, I cried. I cried for her and for the soldier’s family. I cried for everyone who has ever given their life to their country for a “greater cause,” and mostly I cried for the hopelessness of it all.

It seems like every article I read says that the Taliban is rising again. Couples are being stoned to death. Stoned to death! Is everyone aware of what that means? It means the alleged criminal is buried in a hole up to their necks (shoulders for woman) with their hands tied behind their backs. They do this so they are given a “fair” chance to escape from the hole. Then a circle is formed around them and the people throw rocks directly at their head trying to kill them. If the person can manage to escape and unbury themselves from the hole and cross the circle where the people are, they are forgiven for their sins. Obviously, this never happens. How could it?

These practices are still happening today, as in August 23, 2010. And we’re supposed to believe the war is over? My friend is supposed to believe that what she’s doing in Afghanistan will change that country? Apparently with violence comes the people’s need and want for democracy.

I can feel this war changing my friend. Through her emails, her words, I can feel her becoming someone she never would have become had she gone to Canada with my father. In some ways, it is good. She has experienced things that most of us are lucky enough to never experience, and she has turned them into her own motivation to improve her life, to continue with education when she finishes and to live a happy life with her husband. And in other ways, I can feel the desperation. I can feel her wanting to scream at the President and past- Presidents and every person who got us to this point, and ask them to give up their lives for their country.

Giving your life for your country. My generation is a part of that now. From the greatest generation to the Vietnam and Korean War Vets, now there is also Iraq and Afghanistan. Peace Corps has been around since 1961 and it would be ignorant to think that people have not died while serving in the Peace Corps.

In the DR, there have been six or more (I am not sure of exact numbers, but I believe it is under 10) deaths since the start of Peace Corps. The majority of these deaths were from car and motorcycle accidents. And although these people did not die by gun shot during a battle or an insurgent uprising- they did nonetheless die serving their country.

It makes me wonder what my dear friend sees and feels when she looks around at other soldiers in Afghanistan, especially those her own age. Does she feel like I feel? Does she think about how much people around her have changed, for the good and the bad? Does she meet people her own age and think about them running our country in 40 years and using their experiences as a 20-something in extreme circumstances to make all those future decisions?

Does it scare her? Or does it give her hope?

People are dying. She sees that every day. I see people sweating too much and killing themselves slowly by eating too much sugar and fattening foods. There are people in my generation who will never see either of our sides. Mine of Peace, hers of war.

They will sit in their air conditioning, drive their cars with insurance that is still paid for by their parents and blink quickly over headlines about death, war, extreme poverty, development crises, etc.

These are the people who have college degrees and are unemployed. They are fighting their own battles, I suppose- complete with a Starbucks latte in hand. This is my generation and of all three of these groups- who will define us?

War.

Peace.

Apathy.

And when exactly do we get to decide how it’s all decided? Forty-years from now at the election polls, I guess.

Over a year ago, my Peace Corps colleagues and myself decided to write a telenovela (or Latina style soap opera) to an already existing health initiative called "Escojo Mi Vida," or "I choose my life.". Escojo was started years ago by volunteers to teach Dominican youth about making healthy choices about sex, relationships, drugs, alcohol (etc.). Our idea was to write a 10 episode telenovela that would correlate directly with 10 lessons in the Escojo manual. This way Escojo groups all over the country could watch one episode every time they got together and discuss "real-life" situations as related to the telenovela characters.

This past week, myself and 11 other PC volunteers got together in Janico (fellow PCV Jean's site) to actualize the first episode of our series. With the help of a Peace Corps grant Jean and Amanda applied for for US $500, we filmed the first episode and 30 short scenes for a trailer for the whole series.

We worked with youth from Janico, and they did AMAZING. The worked hard, often shooting a scene up to 10 times. They were patient with us, as we spoke English, Spanish, Spanglish to try to figure out the best way to accomplish our goals. It makes me very excited to continue working with them and see how they grow during this process.

Tomorrow, all 12 of us have to go into the capital for a mandatory meeting with our Peace Corps country director and other potential Dominican sponsors. Rumor has it, if they like what we present, there is a chance our budget could increase to between US $25,000 - $30,000, with the 10 episodes showing on National television.

Here is the link to a teaser of the whole series (not the trailer, just a teaser) of what we did last week in Janico. Wish us luck for success and the time to make this project actually happen!

http://vimeo.com/14131319

This is an exact account of my day today:

-Hate: I woke up and decided I needed to do laundry. As soon as I put my clothes in the lavadora - or washing machine- with soap and water, se fue la luz- or the power went out. So I had most of clothes sitting in soapy water, waiting to use the power of electricity to be cleaned. (On a side note: Dominican washing machines are not at all like American style washing machines. You take a hose to fill the “washing” side up, it spins in two directions for 15 minutes, and then you take it out and put it in a spinner that sort of acts like a dryer, but basically it just spins the clothes really fast causing the water/soap/strange looking fluids to exit. Then the clothes are rinsed with non-soapy water, put back into the spinner and then presto! Hang the clothes up to dry in the sun, and they’re ready in 1-12 hours, depending on the sun’s intensity and whether it’s raining or not. But without electricity, it's just one big annoying process). So yes, the power went out at the most annoying time- as soon as my clothes were nice and soapy. I didn’t even bother to do the laundry by hand either- I just drained the soap, tried to rinse it out as best I could and left them in the machine. I’ll try again tomorrow.

-Love: I went to Silvia’s house for lunch and she had made my favorite: la bandera, which consisted of white rice, beans and chicken. After lunch, her, Angelis (her son), Angel (her grandson) and myself went down to the neighbor’s house and watched Angelis literally climb a 30-foot tree and cut down branches of lemoncia. Lemoncia is a crazy tropical fruit which is basically an over sized seed with a thin green peel. You break the peel easy with your teeth and suck off a pinkish, slimy and stringy substance around the seed that happens to be delicious.

-Hate: After lunch, I went to my center and met up with Fausto, Selsy and Mon (my coworkers) to go to Santiago to buy books and supplies for our library. Because Fausto is currently borrowing his brother’s car from the capital, we all decided it would be perfect to go and load the car up with as many things as possible.

And that’s what we started to do. After only one store, we had $23,000 pesos worth of books and supplies in our cart, and when I went to pay for it with the bank card I opened before I left for America, it didn’t work. At first I thought I forgot the pin number, so I ran to a bank (thankfully right across the street) to try to take money out of an ATM. I frantically tried every pin number combination I could think of, but nothing happened. Fausto came and found me and we dialed the bank “help-line,” where I actually spoke to someone in English. After being on the phone with this person for 15 minutes, going through security checks to make sure I really was the person I was claiming to be, he tells me he can’t tell me my pin number over the phone.

Immediately Fausto and I rushed down the street to a branch of the bank that was still open and waited in line there for at least a half-an-hour, because there is NO SUCH THING as customer service in this country. After waiting for what seemed like forever and me glaring at the girl who had two customers ahead of us who she had not yet helped, she asked us what we wanted and then informed us that the pin machine was broken.

We scrambled again, walked back up to the store with our $23,000 peso bill already rung up, told Selsy and Ramon we had to go to another bank in a mall about 15 minutes away. Traffic was horrible, so it took us about 40 minutes to get there, and when we finally did the teller tells me I need my passport to do anything to the account.

I stared at her in the eyes for a few seconds and just started crying. I showed her my Peace Corps ID (which has my passport number on it) and tried to explain what had already happened and how I just need to change/know the pin number so we could go buy our books. The head boss lady felt sorry and took me into her office where she again went through security checks with me, looked at her computer for five minutes without saying anything, and then told me that the account was never setup properly in the first place and would never have worked anyway. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, so I just asked what I needed to do to make it start working. She said I had no choice but to return with my passport and basically re-setup the account.

There was absolutely no book buying done. We left the bank somber and I felt so embarrassed, angry and annoyed I barely spoke.

-LOVE: On the ride home, almost in complete silence, Mon tells Fausto to pull over at a convenience store type place so he can buy water. He comes out with two beers instead. He hands one to Selsy and I with a smile. I ask him what these are for, and he says so that I’m not sad anymore. And although I am NOT a proponent of drunk driving, Mon and Fausto share a beer in the front and Selsy and I share one in the back, driving toward sundown with the windows down and meringue in our ears.

-HATE: After dinner, I go upstairs to take my nightly bucket bath and there is the BIGGEST, UGLIEST-looking tarantula I have seen yet on this island, just chilling on the stairs. This thing was as big as both of my hands put together. I screamed, scared all the dogs and Francia, and then made her kill it with a broom that she broke in half during the process.

Oh well, I guess you win some and lose some…

Today, like most days, I went to lunch at Silvia's house. After being there for maybe a minute, she called me over and told me quietly that her daughter, Anji, wants to marry an American for money - Casar a negocio - a business marriage, she said.

Anji is willing to pay up to $7000 for a fake marriage that only needs to last between 3-6 months. However, and Silvia was very specific, there needs to be pictures taken of the couple at a hotel or something, making it look like a real wedding.

If Anji can secure a "business marriage," then she can immediately take her four-year-old son over, get citizenship and then send for her parents and brother and sister to come live with her in Nueva York. The American "husband" has to do nothing more than mark his signature: first for the marriage certificate and then again for the divorce papers.

In the back of my mind, I've always sort-of been waiting for this day. I don't really blame Silvia or Anji for asking me. It's just the way things work here, and if anyone can help them with this, it's the American girl who eats lunch with them everyday.

Part of me wishes I really could find a responsible American male who would do this for their family (I can't believe I really feel that way. Man, I've been in this country way too long). But of course, I know this isn't going to happen, and although it seems easy enough, things like this are always more complicated than originally anticipated.

I guess in some ways, too, it breaks my heart. Yes, the DR has its problems and corruptions. And I will be the first one to complain about the heat, but for the most part, people do live a happy life here (in my campo at least, here in La Caya). And yet, everyone is so quick to forget it and go. I think about how different Anji's son's life will be if she takes him to America. Yes, he will have more opportunities for education, for work, for all those things everyone knows are important.

But what about him being able to ride a horse down the street at age four? What about him going to school with seriously 15 of his cousins? And seeing his grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, second-cousins-twice-removed etc. every single day? Or being able to walk down the road by himself to the corner market to buy a treat without worries? Or being able to take a machete (which is about as tall as him) and attempt to cut into a mango. They sure as hell are not going to let him do that in kindergarten.

Yes, America is great. As most of us realize, it is the land of plenty, and we are blessed to live there. But at what cost is it worth it? Marriage for money? Giving up everything you know and love, including your country, your language, your culture, to have the "American Dream?"

I told Silvia I'd try to find someone for her. I said that partly to appease her and partly because I meant it, or wanted to mean it at least. They've done so much for me, it's the least I could do for them.

What does it mean to be a woman? What does it mean to be a young girl turning into a young woman? How does a young, confident powerful teenage girl become a positive and strong woman when living in a culture of machismo? What happens when you’ve been told something your entire life and then in five days, you get completely opposing information that makes you question everything your parents, grandparents, aunts, cousins and friends have lead you to believe?

Camp GLOW. Two words to change your life.

A girl sees her first tampon, her fear vanishes and she learns it WILL NOT take her virginity. Girls find out at what age they are supposed to have a pap smear, whether they are sexually active or not. A presentation is given questioning their diet and they start to understand that all the oil, sugar and surplus of carbohydrates they eat on a daily bases are not part of healthy diet. They openly discuss peer pressure from boyfriends and friends to be sexually active. They are given condoms like candy. They weigh the difference between unrealistic women on TV and themselves. A woman with AIDS stands in front of them without fear and tells them she has been living for 10 years with AIDS and is happy. Then she points to a girl in the audience, one of them, and says she is her daughter. A group of teenage Dominican Haitian girls, who live in a Batey, give a presentation about discrimination. In five days, girls become best friends with other girls who are taller, shorter, fatter, skinner, richer, poorer, different skin colors - and then cry when having to leave each other.

All of this happened at Camp GLOW. I was lucky enough to be there to witness it. I was even luckier to have had the opportunity to bring girls from La Caya so they could experience it.

Last week I took three girls from my community, (just for fun, see how you would pronounce these names) Yocairy, 15, Yoryi, 16 and Geormy, 14, to an all girls’ camp about an hour southwest of the capital. GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) is a Peace Corps international initiative created to empower young women to take charge of their lives, no matter their circumstances. GLOW originally was started by Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) in Romania in 1995. Today over 20 Peace Corps countries participate in GLOW activities and camps, including the Dominican Republic.

Our GLOW camp was a five-day retreat with 18 volunteers, 20 different communities and 57 Dominican girls between the ages of 12 and 20 representing these communities. Each day was a different theme with correlating charlas (the Dominican word for presentations) about the theme. For example the first day was “I am healthy,” and thus everything discussed that day had to do with keeping your body healthy (from eating right, exercising to getting regular pap smears).

I helped with the charla, “Know your body,” on the first day to encourage the girls to literally know their body. We actually gave each girl a hand mirror so they could, ahem, “explore” if you will, on their own. As we discussed the anatomy of a woman’s body and how we can take care of ourselves, it became apparent that many of the girls had been lead astray about what was and was not true about our parts.

As the week continued, breaking old believes and stereotypes became an objective for all of us Peace Corps Volunteers. The word “mitos” or myths was used over and over to question what exactly the girls were raised to believe and if those beliefs are true or not.

In one activity, we gave each girl a speculum tool for a pap smear and discussed that pap smears check for cancer and are important for ALL females to have once a year after the age of 18, whether they are sexually active or not. Later we decorated the speculums like birds so the girls would always think of them as birds and not be intimated by them when they went to the doctor for an exam.

We showed the girls what a tampon is and how it fits in a female body. We then discussed how neither a pap smear nor using a tampon will take away their virginity.

We had a “fiesta de condones” or a condom festival, where the girls had to practice putting condoms on plantains. Now this may seem grotesque for even our American culture, but in a country where over half of the population is under 25- teenage sex is not something to be squeamish or ignorant about.

On the third day, we had a panel of six professional Dominican women (a civil engineer, a TV and Radio journalist, a psychologist, a librarian, a business owner and a young Dominican-Haitian college student who traveled to Mexico) come to the camp to talk personally with the girls about how they came to be successful.

One Peace Corps Volunteer (who has an AIDS Support group in her town) gave a presentation about people living with AIDS. She shattered myths about being able to contract AIDS by holding someone’s hand, or washing your clothes with someone who has AIDS (yes, these are common beliefs). She then asked the girls what they would do if they knew someone had AIDS and was being discriminated against. They all said, “we would welcome them,” “we would be their friend,” “we would do whatever we could to help them.”

“Great,” the volunteer replied. And then she introduced them to an extremely well-dressed and pretty middle-aged Dominican woman. When this woman stood in front of the girls and told them she had AIDS, the girls’ mouths dropped in surprise. Then this well-dressed woman pointed to one of the girls in the audience and said the girl was her daughter (the daughter does not have AIDS). Many of the girls, including the daughter, started to cry. Later that day, my girls came up to me and said they thought the woman was a doctor and was going to talk about how NOT to get AIDS, not a woman who was already diagnosed and living with AIDS.

Myths and beliefs broken by living examples. It honestly doesn’t get much more impactful than that.

My personal favorite charla (presentation) was about discrimination and was given by five Dominican-Haitian girls attending the camp who live in a Batey. Batey’s are communities in the DR that were created by sugar cane companies. The companies would bring in the cheapest labor they could find (almost always Haitians) and provide minimal housing and amenities. These communities became known as Bateys and today, they still exist even though now most are supported by the DR government, not the sugar cane companies. The Dominican girls of Haitian decent went around the room and asked their peers to honestly answer if they believed “mitos” about Bateys. One of these myths was that people eat each other. A few of the girls in the audience were brave enough to raise their hands to say they used to believe it. The girls then shared individual testimonies about a time in their life they had been discriminated against because of their skin color.

As I looked around the room, I could see the girls watching their peers as just that. Peers. Friends. Someone the same age as them with many of the same hopes, dreams, fears and feelings. They weren’t watching each other with foggy glasses clouded with myths that the world has placed on them, but with their eyes wide open, taking in their surroundings and the people around them for what exactly what they are: people.

I was at this camp watching everyone around me grow and explore, I couldn’t help but feel the same way about myself. It’s funny how the simplest things are always the most impactful, like just being able to play Shakira’s World Cup song on repeat and dance your heart out. How having a real moment with someone, doesn’t involve anything with technology or fancy things. It’s just conversation and the opportunity to be open to something different, something you’ve never thought of before.

Being at Camp GLOW reminded me of why I joined the Peace Corps. It wasn’t for my resume or the bragging rights to say I did it – I took a bucket bath almost every day for two years, I deserve all the hot water I want. No, it was to be involved with something bigger than myself. I want to spend the rest of my life giving girls and boys around the world the right to choose their own world. To be able to look at their own circumstances and question if the life they want to live, the person they want to be, is the person they are now.

I think sometimes, we as humans take for granted how great change is. And how on any day, any normal, any boring or especially significant day, no matter how old or young you are, you can make the choice to be whoever you want to be.

I also posted pictures of the week on my picasa website if you are interested...

After being “standfasted” in the capital for three days, I am finally back in my site after my wonderful American vacation. Standfast is what the Peace Corps calls “lockdown” due to various factors, such as strikes, violence and in most cases, weather. I arrived to Santo Domingo on Thursday morning to a cloudy and drizzly day. Thursday night, I thought God had sent Noah’s Ark once again to save us from the flood.

It was a crazy amount of rain, and because of it, all of us Peace Corps Volunteers who happened to be in the capital were stuck there until Sunday. With intense rain like that, Peace Corps will take no chances of traveling. During the rainy season, streams turn into rivers which turn into lakes which happen to cover a good portion of the highway. What should be a couple hours driving, can literally take days.

Finally, on Sunday the ban was lifted and we could all be on our merry way around the country. After being gone for a month from my site, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I arrived yesterday to find everything pretty much normal. My neighbor painted their house (Dominican peach as I call it) and my Dona, Francia, got a new small flat screen TV. Yes, a flat screen. We are living the high-life here.

I spent most of the day yesterday in my house, cleaning up and unpacking. My neighbor Rosa came over to welcome me home, and insisted I come over and eat leftovers from lunch. It was such a blessing, because I was hungry and didn’t have any food in my house. After dinner, Francia caught me up on all the latest gossip. I went to bed with mosquito bites and sweat dripping down my back, and felt like both were normal.

As I walked up from my house this morning to my center, I ran into the usual characters and as I expected, they all told me the same thing:

“Pero tu eres mas gordita:” You are a little bit fatter. They said, as they grab at my stomach as if to prove it to me.

Normally this comment bothers me, I mean- it would bother any American, let’s be serious. But today, I just smiled and replied with an enthusiastic smile, “Yo se, Yo se!” I know, I know. “Yo comí mucho pa’lla,” I ate a lot over there (over there, referring to America).

I think about how these same conversations used to bother and offend me when I first arrived. In training they told us to expect things like this, but until someone tells you to your face that you are fatter, you never quite know how you will feel about it. Now, I sort of relish in it. I understand now when people tell me I’m fatter; they are not insulting me, but complimenting me. As if to say, “hey girl! Good for you for eating. We are blessed to have food and if you have it, you dang well should eat it!”

This afternoon I am in center just catching up on being gone. After about an hour of sitting here, Mari called me into the office. My coworkers, Mari, Selsy and Fausto, had bought soda, crackers, cheese and salami. This kind of a snack on a regular day really means something big is happening. I looked at them puzzled and said what’s this for? They all turned to me and said, “Because you’re back.”

I gave them each a hug and thought to myself how being fatter has never felt better.

Tomorrow I am leaving for Santo Domingo. Tuesday, I will be on a plane and on my way to America. Although it’s only been about six months since I’ve been home, I am ready to go back. 2010 has already proved itself challenging in more ways than one, and what I need more than anything is some time with people I love. I’ll be home for longer than I anticipated (about a month), and hope to spend most of my time there hanging out with my family, especially my mom.

The last couple weeks I’ve been in my campo, my site trying to wrap things up and get things organized for when I come back in July. I gave my English classes their final exam, found the three girls I will take to a girls’ camp at the end of July and yesterday it all ended with a three hour meeting. Well actually, it was only about an hour and a half, but it started an hour and a half late so I still think it counts as there hours. Dominicans are not on “hora Americana,” or American time- as I insist with all my students that my classes start at 6 p.m. Hora Americana! Which means, don’t show up at 6:30 and expect me to be sitting there patiently waiting for your arrival.

The meeting went surprisingly well. We discussed changes that need to be done to the center, a few new people who will be added to our “management team,” and once again, discussed plans for the library. I tried to encourage my team to start without me during this month while I’m gone, but they didn’t want to do that at all. It’s a little disappointing that they don’t want to start on their own, but the library also gives me something to focus on and look forward to doing when I get back.

And just as the meeting was coming to a close, they had mandar-ed (a Cultural phenomenon of being able to send people to run errands for you) someone to bring us snacks- soda, crackers, cheese and salami. The snacks were in honor of me leaving… which seems a little ironic- but I also left my center last night feeling accomplished and content. A feeling I admittedly sometimes wish I felt more of here. Whatever the snacks where for, I think it really is a good idea to throw people a mini-party or something when they are leaving- it makes them want to come back.

On my way home I ran into Silvia. I eat lunch with Silvia and her family almost every day. Silvia takes care of her parents, my grandparents as I refer to them here. Her mom, Mercedes is in her 80s, and her dad Masop celebrated his 91 birthday at the beginning of June. Silvia and her husband Juan Ramon have three kids and their own house, but every morning the whole family goes over to the grandparent’s house to feed Mercedes and Masop, clean the house and take care of whatever needs to be taken care of. Despite Masop’s age, he gets up every morning, climbs the hill behind his house and takes care of his cows. The man gets up faster from chairs than I do. He is in incredible shape. They are all so loving and wonderful to me. One day, almost a year ago, I told Masop that I really like bananas. I am not joking you- almost every time I eat there (which is pretty much every day that I am here in site) Masop saves a banana just for me.

Anyway, so I ran into Silvia on the street after the meeting and we started to walk back to the grandparent’s house. She invited me to come over and have dinner with them, and I told her that she had already fed me lunch that day, that she didn’t need to feed me dinner too, and that I have food in my house to eat. She just looked at me and said, “Yes, but you don’t have soup.”

I thought about it for a second and just nodded. She was right. I had food at my house, but I didn’t have soup. I followed her to the house and had soup with the family. It was a sort of fusion between chicken broth and Top Ramon. It was simple and delicious.

Sometimes I think about my life here and I don’t know what to feel. There are moments when I honestly can’t wait to get off this island and back to my previous plentiful American life. And then there are moments when I think about how good life is here, despite how hot it can get. I am living as complex as I allow myself to live. I can let all my worries get me down, I can think and stress about the future and daydream about overpriced delicious coffee drinks that are found on every corner back home. Or I can let it go and just say yes to a delicious yet basic soup dinner. I understand that I probably won't ever live this way again or have these kind of choices, and so for now I am grateful. I am grateful to be in the in between. Excited when a meeting goes well and lucky enough to get on a plane and see my family back home.

Dominicans have a way of staring. They do it with no shame or regret. If something or someone is strange or puzzling, they have no qualms about sitting two feet away and just staring. When I first got here, over a year ago, it made me feel uneasy. How could it not? It’s that feeling you get when you think someone is watching you, but in reality someone really IS watching you.

Now, a year later, when Anna Maria, Eve and David visited, they told me I stare too much. On more than one occasion, Anna Maria hit me across the arm to wake me from my trance of staring at random strangers. Mostly, I stare at other white people. I find myself removed from them, wondering what they are doing in the DR and if any of them will leave the tourist parts of the island and see how the “real” DR functions. Anna Maria and Eve promised they would help me get my “social skills” back when I come back home. Another year left, and I will have to take them up on their offer.

Today, a nine-year-old boy sat down at the same table as me in my center and played the usual staring game. By now, I’m use to it and just carried on with my tasks as if he wasn’t there. We talked for a few minutes at first- I asked if he passed his grade and he said yes. Then he pointed to my nalgene water bottle and asked me to bring him one back from America the next time I go. I smiled and said “vamos a ver,” or we’ll see. He then asked me if he could read a book from the library.

The current state of our library is dismal, and is what so many of my generous friends and family from back home donated money to help me fix. The boy asked me if he could read a book and enthusiastically I told him he could read any book he wanted!

He picked out a large children’s picture book with some writing and set it on the table. Now it was my turn to stare at him. He scanned the first page for a few seconds, making mental notes of the images and the colors. He looked at the two or three sentences at the top of the page for less than 10 seconds and then flipped on to the next page. After repeating these actions four times or so, I asked him if he was reading the book.

“Oh, I don’t know how to read,” he said matter-of-factly.

Surprised, I asked him if he was joking. He told me no, and that he didn’t know how to read. I asked him how old he was again (nine-years-old) and how he just said he passed his grade and will be moving on to the next grade next school year.

Now he looked at me like I was the crazy one. “Well yeah, I passed, but I don’t know how to read,” he repeated.

“So what do you do in school then?” I asked.

“I write some and then read a little from one book called Nacho.”

“But you don’t know what this says?” I asked pointing to a word on the page. “Do you know what the different letters are?”

“No,” he said again.

I tried to give him a 2-minute lesson on how each letter makes up a different sound and how they combine together to form words that we then can read. He seemed interested and said that his teacher never told him that. I tried to continue, but quickly realized how over my head I was with trying to teach him how to read in one afternoon. Soon he got distracted and went to play a game on the internet. I hate to admit it, but I felt relieved.

As he politely left the table and put the book back on the shelf, he left me staring at the place where he was just sitting. A year later, and things like this still shock me. This nice, well-mannered nine-year-old boy has been pushed through school, going from one grade to the next, without ever learning how to read. Kids like him are everywhere in this country and unfortunately will probably graduate high school without ever being taught to read.

The make it through just staring. They stare at the blackboard all day at school. They stare at their teacher and copy everything he or she puts on the board into their notebooks, without ever realizing what exactly they are writing or learning. Most kids can write, because they’ve been taught to write the letters- but if you were to ask them to point out the letter “S,” or the letter “C” they’d never be able to do it.

So when something or someone different comes along, they just continue to stare. They have never been taught to question or to wonder why things are the way they are or how things can be better. Of course, this is a general statement and of course there are many smart Dominicans who have educated themselves.

But in my small town, with limited money and limited resources, most kids will never get that chance. How do I wake people up from this staring trance? As I feel myself fall into, how do I resist it? This country needs a wake-up call, and maybe teaching one nine-year-old how to read, how to resist the staring, is a way to start.

First things first: all of the money for my library has been donated! Thank you to everyone who donated money, helped spread the word and/or supported my cause! Because of all of you, my Peace Corps grant has been filled, and giving my community of La Caya a library is one giant step closer. I could never have done this without all your help and support, and my gratitude is literally as big as this island.

Now, we are waiting for PC in Washington DC to send a check to our PC office in Santo Domingo. Once this happens, I will open a joint- account with my project partner and we will then start the process of buying all the books and supplies we need to make this library a reality.

I will keep my blog updated with the library’s progress. Hopefully within a few months, La Caya will have the small but need library it deserves! Thank you again!

Second: Remi and I returned home victoriously from our five-day mountain hike up Pico Duarte- the Caribbean’s highest mountain peak. It proved to be a long, hard and at times strenuous hike, but well worth the fight. It was beautiful, and it felt pretty incredible to be in the mountains again. Surprisngly for both of us, a lot of the trail reminded us of Nevada and California- more specifically where those two worlds collide: the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

The DR is an incredibly diverse island, and even on our five-day hike we witnessed this at great lengths. There would be times when we would be climbing at about 5000 feet and the air would be hot, the dirt dry and the smell of sagebrush (no lie) would linger. It honestly felt like we were hiking around Lake Tahoe, and after our day of good hiking, we could head over to T’s for some delicious tacos. And then, the trail would drop over a thousand feet in altitude and as we climbed down, we would be walking through a swampy kind of Caribbean wonderland, all the while being shaded by bamboo trees. At these moments, it felt like monkeys could be flying above us searching for fruit in the tall trees.

The trail continued like this for all five days, up and down, up and down. It felt like we climbed about 10 mountains before we actually got to Pico Duarte. It took us 2.5 days to get to Pico Duarte and then 2.5 days back. I never would have thought it would take just as long to get back as it did to get there, but seriously with all our ups and downs, I believe it now.

The five days were as follows: the first day we hiked 18 kilometers, the second day 12k, the third day 26k, the fourth12k again and the fifth 18k again. Everyday we would end at a different camp ground along the trail, which had old wooden houses with open fire pit stoves in them for us to sleep and cook in. On the third day, we actually climbed up to Pico Duarte and back down again to our campsite in the “Valley de Boa.”

I actually thought the hardest days were the second and fourth, because they had the steepest ups and downs, even though they were the least amount distance-wise. However, after we finished the second day, we ended in the Valle de Boa, which is a vast valley with a river skirting the edge. The valley is at the base of La Pelona, which is the mountain you must climb before you actually reach Pico Duarte. The valley was beautiful, and we stayed there two nights, as we summated Pico Duarte and returned to the valley in one day.

Climbing Pico Duarte on the third day was great. It took us about 5 hours to get from the Valley to the statue of Juan Pablo Duarte, which looms over the peak. The view from the top of Pico was spectacular and breath taking to say the least. You stand up there, the wind blowing, the Dominican flag soaring, and you see all the mountain ranges laid out in front of you. We were lucky enough to be there on a clear day, before the clouds rolled-in in the afternoon. It was almost scary, to be that high and to know how far down the bottom actually is.

I haven’t yet mentioned our guides. Although the hike can be done without guides, we took the advice of other PCV’s and hired a guide, Tony, 50-something-years-old) from Mata Grande- the town where the hike began. Much to our demise, Tony insisted that we needed two guides (him and his 70-year-old brother) and a mule. The mule was a great idea, because it carried our bags up and down the mountain, and Remi and I only had to bring a daypack each with us for water and snacks and such. Although Remi and I really didn’t need two guides, now that it is all over with, I wouldn’t trade them for anything.

The brother, the 70-year-old, literally drank rum and smoked the ENTIRE time. Not joking you, climbing the mountain, going down the mountain, at camp, the guy always had a cigarette and a flask. And his cigarettes were not regular cigarettes. He hand rolled them all… with lined paper. Like paper you use in school, out of notebook. No filter, no nothing, just tobacco and lined paper. On the third day, he followed us up Pico Duarte on the mule, while Tony stayed back at camp with our bags. He always gave us a head start and when we were about ½ way up La Pelona, I could smell his tobacco and I knew he was coming.

Both Tony and his brother were skinny, toothless, Dominican country men. They had spent most of their lives in those mountains and knew them like the backs of their hands. Tony cooked dinner for us every night, which consisted of rice and beans or rice and lentils. We ate salami and cheese for lunch and after our day was done hiking, Tony would treat us to burnt coffee or over-sugared hot chocolate. It was great, I wouldn’t have wanted it another way.

The guides loved Remi too. As most of you know, Remi is quite handy in the great-outdoors, and he proved this to me and our guides without having to speak any Spanish. The first night he and I froze in our sleeping bags, because we didn’t have a sleeping pad or anything. The next night and all that followed, Remi made us mattresses out of pine needles and soft fern branches. Tony told me we should sell them to people.

At our second campsite, there weren’t enough chairs around the fire, so Remi built one out of three sticks, old rope he found on the ground a rock. Our guides couldn’t get enough of it, and each sat on it with amazement. The third night, Remi was bored and so he literally welded a spear out of an old tent pipe he found on the ground. The guides kept looking at him and then telling me what he was doing in Spanish. It was pretty hilarious, because even though Rem speaks no Spanish, the guides were impressed with him to say the least. The entire five-days they kept looking at him like, “what crazy thing is he going to do next?”

We finished the hike on the fifth day with flying colors. Remi and I beat Tony, his brother and the mule almost everyday. Tony told me it was rare to have people who could out-walk him in the mountains. We climbed to the top of Pico Duarte (and several other small mountains and hills along the way). I can now check it off my list of “must-dos” while living in the DR. And if you ever find yourself in the DR, looking to climb the Caribbean’s highest peak, go to Mata Grande and ask for Tony. Tell him the guy who made mattresses, a chair and spear sent you.

It has been a few weeks since I’ve updated. April has gone quickly and it has helped by having two wonderful visitors from the good ol’ US of A (one of which is still here). My good friend Kerrie came for her spring break during the last few days of March and into the first few days of April. Kerrie is a sixth grade teacher back home, and also my traveling partner for life. We met while studying abroad in Brighton, England in 2005. Both of us actually went to UNR, but we never knew each other until we met overseas and lived down the hall from each other in our flat.

While Kerrie was here, it was actually Semaña Santa, which basically means “Holy Week.” It’s the week before Easter, and the entire country of the DR has the week off to spend time with family and go to church. Although, some people actually do this, most people spend the week drinking too much and acting crazy. Kerrie and I decided with all of this in mind, the best way to celebrate Semaña Santa and her visit to the DR would be to head to the one and only, Cabarate. Cabarate is a magical place on the north coast, which is more like America and less like the DR. Imagine a mini version of Miami Beach. Before we got there, I told Kerrie that it “wasn’t real life.” This statement was proven true, as we walked around and saw white people everywhere, went into shops and spoke English with the owners who were ex-pats of some English speaking country, ordered food in English at restaurants and ate generally more American favorites, like gourmet pizza, chicken wings, gelato ice cream and fries than I’ve had since returning home last December. Joining us was also a few of my Peace Corps friends, which made the week that much more enjoyable. Together, we journey along the North Coast, from Cabarate to Gasper Hernandez, where fellow PCV Alanna lives, to Playa Grande (a beautiful, huge stretch of beach) and back down to Damajugua- where the famous 27 waterfalls are. Although being in Cabarate, or the north coast in general, wasn’t real life, Kerrie did experience real Dominican life by riding on the “guaguas.” The guaguas are the Dominican term for any kind of vehicle that can hold more than five people. Mostly, however, the term guagua is used for buses and vans. We rode in nice buses with air conditioning, old vans that were literally rusting away and bigger vans that were meant for 15 people or so and crammed 22. There’s nothing like sitting in a two-person seat with five people, one of which is a very large woman holding her young granddaughter, the other an older man, with a sack full of chickens squawking as loud as they can. I’m not saying Kerrie got the enjoyment of squawking chickens, but I am saying it happens. The second-to-last day Kerrie was here, we stopped off the road to Santiago in Damajugua. Damajugua has the 27 waterfalls, which, FYI, was started by a Peace Corps Volunteer in the 80s (the PCV was actually a Kennedy, yes from the Kennedy family). He turned the 27 waterfalls into a tourist destination, where people can jump down or go down natural waterslides. Since then, the site now offers a full restaurant, a bar, a gift shop and all-inclusive resorts shuttle people in by the hour to enjoy the activities. Peace Corps Volunteers have been returning to the site since the Kennedy volunteer established the business to help with development. Basically, it’s awesome. And basically, you feel like you’re in a scene from Jurassic Park, climbing waterfalls, jumping down them in a beautiful, majestic Caribbean jungle. Kerrie left on Easter Sunday, but it was an awesome week filled with friends, good food and adventures- the way Kerrie and I do most of our traveling experiences together. A few days later, the one-and-only Remi arrived and much to my luck is still here. He’ll actually be here until May 24, and the month of May is literally filled with our adventures. I am excited.

When he arrived, we went straight back to Cabarate and I got to enjoy another weekend of unreality. When I was there with Kerrie, I saw a restaurant on the beach that let you pick out your own lobster and eat it. As cliché as that is, the lobsters were HUGE and it was reason enough for me to want to bring Remi back the weekend he arrived into country. Remi did in fact very much enjoy the over-sized lobster and after our weekend at the beach, we headed down south to Santo Domingo for a few meetings I had in the Peace Corps office. Remi got to see my world in Santo Domingo, including the Peace Corps office, the restaurants I frequent most when there and he also met more volunteers. We’ve spent the last couple weeks in my site, enjoying the laid back life of the campo. Two weekends ago, we went back to Damajugua and did the 27 waterfalls again. It was just as good the second time for me, maybe even better, because we had just had a lot of rain, so the water was rushing and the slides were fast. This week, I’m wrapping up my English classes and some other activities I’ve been doing in my town, like helping one of the teachers in my school a few times a week with her kindergarten and first grade class, because come Saturday, Remi and I will be hiking Pico Duarte. Pico Duarte is the highest peak in the Caribbean. It will take us 5 days to summit and come back. Although I’m nervous, because I’m out-of-shape, I also can’t wait. I read about Pico Duarte in a traveler’s guide of the DR before I left in March 2009. I brought my bulky hiking boots with me just for this occasion. It's been over a year since I have wanted to do this. I cannot leave this island before hiking Pico Duarte, and I will update you next week, when we are finished and exhausted.

Dear Friends and Family,

I write to all of you to humbly ask for a favor. About a month ago, I applied for a grant through the Peace Corps office in Washington D.C. to help turn an unused room in the computer center I work at into a library for my community. Currently, there is no kind of library in my small Dominican town of La Caya. Yes, the school has books, but there is no place that any member of the community (no matter how young or old) can freely read a book.

The Dominican Republic has the second to worst education system in all of Latin America (only Haiti ranks lower). People here know what a book is, but more often than not do not see how much they can benefit their lives. Help me to change this. Help me show my community-- from the four-year-old who is learning the alphabet, to the single mom who loves Spanish romance novels (but has to go into the big cities to get these books), to the 85-year-old woman who wants to read about religion-- that discovering this information through books is as easy as walking to our center.

The Peace Corps grant I applied for is for just over US $4000. My community is donating around US $1000, by fund-raising for 50 books, providing the space and labor to install shelves, paint the walls and transform the now barren room into a one-of-a-kind space for our community.

This project cannot start until ALL of the money has been raised. I know times are tight in America. I understand that donating to a library in the Dominican Republic may not be your first priority, but please help me to do one small thing to better the lives of the people of La Caya, Dominican Republic forever.

If you are interested, copy and paste this link:

https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=517-356

-OR- go to www.peacecorps.gov, click on DONATE NOW, type my last name ELIOPULOS into the search bar (you may have to do this twice) and my library will come up.

Thank you so much, and seriously, I do live on an island- COME VISIT!

-Stacie

Dominicans crammed into a back of flatbed truck waiting to be taken home. Imagine seeing this on a highway, the truck going over 60 MPH and the people passing around beer bottles. Yes, it does happen.

Mercedes (in blue) walking back to her house with Cha Cha and Cha Cha's grandson.

People sitting on top of and inside the dugout in the baseball field watching the commotion.

Yesterday my town played host to all neighboring towns for the start of Holy Week. Every year, a different town within the providence is chosen for this event. Whichever town is picked, people from all the other towns are supposed to walk there- in what I would imagine to honor Jesus' passion. Although it would have been crazy for these people to walk all the way to La Caya, many of them did start a mile or so out, or even half a mile and walk up to town. A pretty incredible feat, given that Dominicans hate to walk and it was ridiculously hot yesterday.

I have never seen my town so full of people. The one street leading into town was packed, with cars, motorcycles and people. Most of them I had never seen before. They all walked up to where the baseball field is, and there there was a tent set-up where the religious ceremony was happening. Although the purpose of the event was religious, most people were there to socialize.

The biggest thing, in my opinion, however that happened through all of this, is that the Grandma of the family I eat lunch with left the house to see what all the festivities were about! As I was walking around, being stared out for being the only American among all these people, I saw Mercedes (Grandma) walking down the street with her oldest daughter, Cha Cha. I instantly lit up inside and started to zig-zag my way through the crowd and was almost burned by a motorcycle exhaust pipe in my hurry. When I finally made it through the labyrinth of people, Cha-Cha saw me and gave me a huge smile as she simultaneously pointed to her mom walking through the crowd.

"Mama," I cheered! "You are here! With all these people. Are you okay?"

"Imagine!" Cha Cha answered. "We were sitting in the house and she (Mercedes) said she wanted to see all the people here, so I said, let's go! And look! She actually left and here we are together!"

I gave Mercedes a hug and Cha-Cha one too and I can't tell you how excited Cha Cha was to be walking around with her mom. Cha Cha then told me that it had been over a year since Mercedes had left the house.

Over a year! Mercedes has quite a few health problems, and she tires easily. Although she has energy to be awake and even do a few house chores, she doesn't like to leave the grounds of her house, not even to walk down the street to the market. Yesterday was the first time in over a year she's ventured further than the fence beyond her house.

It was an incredible moment to be apart of. Mercedes and Cha Cha only walked around for about 10 minutes before Mercedes wanted to go back home, but the energy and happiness that was beaming from Cha Cha left me feeling so content. As the hundreds of people in the street rested from their walk up to La Caya, in my mind there was only one person there whose walk really mattered.

Time is starting to pick up. It's already edging toward the end of March, which means April is almost here, which means May is almost here, which then means I not only have a year and a couple months in country, but also a year in my site. There's a quote in a song I really like- something like, "If I can just get through January, February I'll March on through April and May." There is serious truth to that.

Last weekend I had a new Peace Corps Volunteer come visit me in my site, to see "how I live." I did the same thing last year at this time while I was in training, and my volunteer visit over a year ago was enlightening in numerous ways. It showed me that I could have an independent life on this island and that public transportation did not mean I was going to be involved in a drive-by shooting (which actually realistically still could happen, I'll keep you posted). It also showed me, that with time (a year) I could be confident and living a happy life here in the DR.

I wanted my new volunteer (Channler, 22, from Wisconsin) to have similar feelings when he left La Caya and headed back to training in Santo Domingo. I did my best to show him my town (which of course, took about an hour), introduce him to people, take him to my center, sit in on my English class, tell him realistically what he can expect from working with Dominicans, the best treats to buy at colmados (small grocery-like stores that are everywhere in the DR) and how wonderful it is to heat up water on the stove to take a hot bucket bath.

We also went into Santiago and met Karina, another PCV who closes her service (COS) in May. She also had a new volunteer visiting, and we took them around Santiago to the touristy spots and the not so touristy spots. We took them to Sushi for lunch, which I think at first they were nervous, but turned out to be a great treat (as it always is for us PCVs). We went to a real grocery store, which is a must-do in my opinion (PS, grocery stores are amazing, and truly show America's wealth. All that food in one place and every decent sized city in America has at least 10-15 in ONE city. Blows my mind). We bought food to make tacos that night, and by the end of our city visit, Channler told me he is going to ask that his site be close to Santiago.

It was a good weekend, and it helped me to reflect about everything I've been through this last year, everything I have accomplished and everything I have yet to do. I felt like my site was on the boring side for Channler, but that's also my life here. I work at my center everyday, but there is a lot of downtime. To pass this downtime, I will go sit in a plastic chair in front of the biggest colmado in town and watch people walk or drive by. It's what everyone else does, and Peace Corps preaches at us to "integrate." And let me tell you, that is integrating.

This week my center decided that we need to start six youth groups. I've been talking about youth groups since September, but now the government affiliate (the office of the First Lady) has mandated that each center starts at least six youth clubs. These clubs include: Chess, Health, Environment, Reading, Theater and Science. I have been put in charge of the Environment, Health and Science clubs. I'm a little nervous about starting all of these clubs at one time, but if my team is finally motivated to do it, I'm not going to oppose it.

A strange cultural difference is how formal the DR can be. For example, when we decided to start these youth groups, I had a vision of us going to the school and announcing the clubs to the kids and telling them to come to the center and sign up for which ones they were interested in. However, as I have learned, that is not how it's done here. Yesterday, myself and the people at my center sat around and hand-picked kids from the community to be in each club. For me, this was difficult, because Dominican names are crazy and although I do know a lot of the kids here, I will admit that I am not the best with their names. So I had kids in mind, and instead of using their names, it turned more into, "you know, the kid who lives around the corner over there. He has the thing on his head? You know, that kid."

Another culture difference, Dominicans are NOT shy about using physical descriptions openly to define someone. Although me saying "the thing on his head," would not be politically correct in America, here it just describes someone, so there is no offense taken. Another example, people in my town will tell me I'm getting fatter all the time. They don't mean it to be mean, and many times when they tell me I'm fatter they are actually complimenting me, because I must be eating well in their country. Still, my American upbringing can't help but feel slightly offended when these comments are made. I'm getting more used to it though, of course as time goes on.

Anyway, we hand-picked these kids to join the club, and now hopefully they will actually show up and we can START these clubs. I am most excited about the Health club, as I want to use it mostly to talk about sexuality and sexual decisions. No one here ever talks about this with the youth, but then 13-year-old girls in my community run off to get "married." Hopefully we can educate the kids about the environment along with trash clean-ups every week. As far as the science club goes, I'm hoping to do basic experiments like alka seltzer and diet coke. Any ideas for any of these clubs? Please don't hesitate to share!

The bosses from the First Lady's Office also came out to my site to check in on how things were running. I got in a fight with them about painting a map mural of the DR on the wall. They said all the centers were "institutionalized" and need to look the same. My mouth got the best of me and I told them that all the centers look boring, and if this is supposed to be a place of education, how does a map hurt that image? At this point, I don't even care. Once my grant money comes through, I'm buying paint and painting a map of the DR on the wall. They can blame it on the American if they really get angry.

In other news, my friend Kerrie from Los Estados Unidos is coming here TOMORROW! She'll be here for the week and I am so excited. We're going to spend a few days in my site, and then head up to the North Coast and enjoy the perks of living on an island... a.k.a the beach!

Yes, things seem to be picking up. And just as the song said, I got through January, February and now I'll March on through April and May.

To be honest, I have been down the last week or so. I'll blame it on the dengue fever I'm currently recovering from. They tell me that one of the final signs is a case of depression. I thought at first maybe it was being here one year and questioning what it is I've really accomplished, and what I will accomplish in the year ahead. Thinking about projects I started and never finished, or projects that started and ended due to lack of interest. Am I ever going to feel like I really did something for my town? Like my two years here was worth it for the people who live in La Caya and myself? Am I wasting my time here? Have I gotten everything I can in being here and now this next year I'm doomed to boredom and disappointment? How will I know if anything that I've done or will do is sustainable? If a single mom names her child after me (Estesy- as they call me), is that my new definition of sustainable or self-preservation? Maybe the later is more important to me than I ever could have guessed. All these feelings, all these questions and doubts- don't worry, they're not me, it's just the dengue talking.

On Wednesday I'm starting morning English classes. I've been avoiding it as long as I can (and being sick with dengue for a week actually helped that situation). But alas, I can avoid it no longer and so basic English classes will start in the mornings twice a week. English is another thing that sort of depresses me. I feel like it's all I do. I know that if it's all I did for two years, my town would think I did a great and wonderful job. I struggle with English, because although I know why there is so much interest, I can't help but think it's all kind of pointless. What happens after I leave? Nothing. English stops and the majority of my students will not take classes in the nearby town where there is an "English learning center." And the reality of them learning English with me? Some key phrases, grammar and vocabulary- but as I have learned- language learning comes with total immersion. One girl in my class actually asked me this the other day. She asked, "you've been here a year and you speak Spanish now, how come I don't speak English the way you speak Spanish yet." I asked her what language she had just asked me that question in and when she left class what language would she speak when she walked through the door?

Is that how my entire time here is going to be? Once I officially leave in May 2011, my time and my work here will be as insignificant as my English classes? Man, I'm good at feeling sorry for myself. But don't worry, it's just the dengue talking.

Even as depressed as I want to be, God works in mysterious ways. Yesterday, as I took my daily walk up to my center in the morning, a strange and curious thing happened. A bus-full of Americans all wearing matching T-shirts that read "Heath Corps" started to unload into my school. I felt like I was looking at the inside of a fish bowl, watching these Americans unload suitcases full of pharmaceutical drugs, tables, chairs and other supplies.

I sort of stood there like a deer in the headlights, not really sure how to approach these people or what language to speak to them. Finally I made eye contact with a nurse and I asked her what they were doing. She was just as surprised with me as I was with her, and she told me they were staying at an orphanage in a nearby town and were hosting a medical mission today at the school for La Caya. Eventually I found the people in charge, introduced myself, told them my story and asked if I could help. I spent the rest of the day translating from Spanish to English, mostly in the pharmacy. I even got a free sack lunch which consisted of a stale peanut-butter sandwich, an apple, a bag of chips and a gatorade. Everyone complained about the sandwiches were stale and the apples were soggy, but I thought everything was delicious.

I never really figured out how they ended up at La Caya. I asked the people in charge, and they didn't even really seem to know. But I met some great people from all over the states, taking a week off from work or spending their spring break from school helping where they can in the DR. I felt really tired after the day. Maybe because it's the first time I've worked a FULL day since I was in Jimani, but that sounds kinda pathetic, so I'll just blame it on the dengue.

Yesterday was good for me. It gave me hope in the random and unexpected. Even though things can seem mundane here and like I'm not doing much to change them- random Americans can show up and help 300 people in your town in a way you never could. It's humbling and inspiring. Not just because of their work, but because of the relationships I've made here and my understanding of how things work here as well. Yesterday, as I walked around the school, a few of the old woman grabbed me and told me I was "their American." I could feel them being proud of me. It was like bringing home a good report card from school. My community members left yesterday exactly at noon even before they had their prescriptions. When this happened, the nurses and volunteers looked at me as to why they would do this- it made perfect sense to me. "Well, it's lunch time," I told them. "Of course they're going to leave. Aren't you hungry?"

So maybe I'm not changing the world one English class at a time. Of course I am going to be bored and disappointed at some points over the next year, and maybe a baby will never be named after me... but I'm here and I'm living. I'm trying and surviving and am blessed in more ways than i could ever count. Even if I have to take a nap during the day because sometimes, it all gets to be too much- no worries, I'll just blame it on the dengue.

Today is the anniversary of my one year in country. Thinking about it now, I can't decide if it went fast or slow. Some moments went unbelievably fast, while others seemed to have crept by at a snail's pace. I heard a volunteer talking about how time passes for volunteers and I think he pinned it perfectly, "the days go slow, but the months go fast." Is that even possible? Sure, because anything is possible in the Dominican Republic. And with that in mind, I think I'll just take a few minutes to reflect the changes I've seen within myself over the past year.

1)I feel uncomfortable standing for too long in social situations. - Yes, I am serious. Dominican culture insists that you sit. So no matter where I go, or what I'm doing, I am always offered a chair. If you go to someone's house and stand for too long, they start to look at you strangely, especially when they've already offered you a chair. And I would never dream about turning down a chair once it's been offered to me. I mean, come on, that's like social suicide.

2)I am more assertive yet more passive - All of us volunteers have discussed this- how since coming to this island we feel meaner. I can feel myself being more assertive and aggressive when I want something, I hear it in my voice and I see it in my actions. The things I do on this island to get my way would never in a million years be acceptable in the states. For example, when I walk into a colmado (or corner store), the first thing I do is edge myself right up front with whoever is waiting to be served, start yelling at the person behind the counter for what I want, and if necessary even banging my fist a little on the counter to rouse attention. It's not rude here, it's how it's done. I can't imagine myself going to a supermarket back home, walking straight to the cashier and saying in this language, "Give me 3 tomatoes, a bag of pasta, two cloves of garlic and a gatorade. Hurry." Without the slightest thought of a please or thank you, mind you. And this I have noticed, has transferred into my professional life. It's not that I want to be a mean and aggressive person, but when everyone else is communicating with each other in this way, you have to keep up.

Oppositely, I do feel more passive, because being here has been the most humbling experience of my life. Much of that came with not knowing Spanish or this culture, and when I first got to this country, especially to my site last May, even trying to buy a tomato from the colmado was extremely intimidating. I found myself (and still do) in situations I would never put myself in, because either I don't fully understand what is being asked of me, or I don't quite know the right way to say No. Sometimes I wish I could put a spell on my entire town so they could all speak and understand English for one day- then we could talk and they could really see that I do know what I'm talking about, that I am educated, that I do have experience, that I am passionate etc. In the meantime, I still am finding my inner Spanish voice. I know it's in there and everyday I can feel it slowly emerging.

3. Sharing is not a choice, but a way of life - I am continuously amazed at this culture and its people's ability to share. Today for example, Mari, a co-worker at my center, had a mint that she was willing to break in half for me if I wanted some. It doesn't matter how big or how small something is- there is no mine in the DR. This is a habit that is wearing off on me, and one I hope will continue after I leave here. What good is that candy bar, cookies, soda, gum, if you have to eat it all by yourself?

4. There is no place like America - I have always known this, but after living in a foreign country that is just that, foreign for a year, my old way of life never seems to lose its appeal. Being here and never really feeling like I fit in, makes me understand how immigrants in American can spend 30 years in the US and never learn English, and why in New York City, there is a Polish section, a Jewish section, a Greek section, a Dominican section. As people, we get comfortable and want to stick with what is comfortable, especially in uncomfortable situations. I'm proud of myself for being uncomfortable for a year. Proud of myself for putting myself out there, even if it means I will always be an outsider. But I'm also grateful, that in 14 months, I will be able to return to my home country, with my American values and ways.

5. Dang, it feels good to be a woman - I have always been proud to be a female and up to the challenges of it, and being here and seeing woman in a more "traditional" role- only helps to appreciate who I am and who I am not as a woman. Moreover, how lucky I am to be an American woman- where being 24 and unmarried doesn't make me a spinster. Further than that, I do have a new appreciation for Dominican woman and how hard they work for their home and their children. When I think of the word selfless, I think of my own mother and Silvia, the mom of the family that I eat lunch with everyday. Her whole life is consumed around her family, everything she does, literally everything, is for them. It is her lives work, and it is a beautiful and noble thing.

6. Family - I have always known how important family is and how you yourself can be defined by your family. Being here and being surround by other families that are not my own, but who have opened their doors, their hearts and their kitchen tables to me- has put a new perspective on my life. I have realized in my own life, if I can serve this world to do good and to make my family proud, than I have accomplished everything that is possible and important for me.

And so, what I would really like to say in this self-reflection blog entry, is thank you. Thank you to all my freaking coolest friends on the planet, Corinne, Remi and his family, everyone from church, all my aunts and uncles, my two amazing grandmothers, and especially my wonderful family - Mom, Baba, Jim, Mike, Meghan and everyone else who has supported me over this last year. Thank you for packages, your emails, your thoughts and prayers. It has not been an easy year, and it has been one filled with challenging and wonderful surprises. I am so grateful for all of you, and even though I only have this blog to say it- I love you all and can't wait for you to come visit!!!!!!

I have thought for awhile now about what I would write about my time spent volunteering at a relief hospital in Jimani, on the border of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Every day I was there, there seemed to be something unbelievable, shocking and unexpected both in good and bad ways that will leave me thinking about this experience for the rest of my life. I feel different now than I did before I left. I feel more grateful for my life. I feel sad and frustrated with cultural and language differences. I feel depressed knowing no matter how similar people can be, there seems to always be two distinct groups: those giving the aid and those taking the aid. I feel hopeful for change and reconstruction- not just of a city, but for the people living within that fallen city. “Haiti is alive!” is something my short eight days in Jimani taught me, and although I would like to include every detail as it happened while I was there, the following are a few of my stories, in hopes to share a better understanding with anyone who is interested to know.

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On my second full day, I had a breakdown. It was sunset, and as the hot, dry day slowly turned into the cool night air, I had to pull away from everything and walk out into the desert alone. It hit me-the death, the despair, the destruction this earthquake had caused. I had been trying to ignore it since I arrived. Trying to ignore the obvious hurt and suffering when you see a 12-year-old or a 60-year-old with an amputated arm. These people had lost everything. Their homes, their schools, their businesses, their family. And now they were the lucky ones, because they had somehow managed to get to the Dominican side of the border to a hospital that was staffed internationally with doctors, nurses and volunteers.

At first the tears were inconspicuous and controlled, but after one fell down my cheek and attempted to wash away the dirt and sweat that was embedded in my pours from the day’s work, they soon flooded out of me with no control. I didn’t know if I was crying for the eminent loss that was everywhere, or the fact that we had just spent the whole day separating family members from patients- telling everyone that only one family member was allowed to every one patient. I watched as patients were given a choice between their family and their doctors. I, along with my Peace Corps peers were not the least bit surprised when patients chose not to break up or separate their family, and instead of waiting for a needed surgery, boarded a bus to go back to Haiti. When the American doctors, nurses and volunteers were puzzled over this choice, or worse indifferent, I couldn’t help but feel ashamed.

I guess as Americans, we are taught to take care of ourselves first, especially when it comes to our health. That if what you need is an operation to live, then of course it will be your first priority. Not everyone in the world thinks like Americans. There are those that would never put anything first before their family. Not themselves, not their success, not even their broken leg, which without surgery will probably never heal correctly. And so we watched and helped the process, as women, men and children with metal rods sticking out of their legs, elbows and arms boarded the bus to return to Haiti.

Crying alone in the desert, I was in a squatting position, stabling myself with my hands in the dirt. Enough, I told myself. I walked back over the pediatric ward, which was a converted chapel on the grounds. I went back to help finish the job- to continue telling these people only one family member could remain. The moment I entered, a young Haitian woman made eye-contact. I didn’t have the guts to look back at her. And as I walked up to another volunteer telling a translator the same repeated message, the woman grabbed my arm and shook her head telling me without words that I didn’t need to cry. I finally made eye contact with her and she smiled. I said in Spanish, “yo se,” or “I know.” Not because she spoke Spanish, but because English just didn’t seem right.

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This process of cutting our numbers did not happen in just one day, and there were even some patients and family members who were more than happy to leave the hospital grounds. Two women in particular, could not have been more relieved to go back to their home country.

A child to each of the women, their number was actually five. While staying at the hospital, they had taken in an orphaned boy whose supposed father was in Port-au-Prince waiting for him. The two women, each holding their own toddler had been protecting the boy while he recovered in the hospital and had promised to take him to his father when they all returned to Haiti.

For the first hour, as the five of them waited for the late bus to arrive, they were happily enjoying the shade of an old, big tree. With no warning, however, this all changed and one of the women started screaming at the top of her lungs at one of the translators. Her eyes were wild and fierce and no one needed to speak Creole to understand that something had just gone horribly wrong.

The translators are a group of 18 Haitian men, also victims of the earthquake, who either had family at the hospital as patients or had found themselves at the hospital with no family or work. Many of them spoke English, Spanish, French and of course Creole- or some combination of these languages. They “volunteered” as translators, and worked with the doctors and nurses to help them with patients. In all honesty, without these 18 guys, the hospital would never be able to function.

One of the translators had been helping me all day with guarding the gate to tell incoming visitors they only had until 4 p.m. for visiting hours. As the two of us stood there in the beating sun, the woman’s anger intensified and she directed it toward the man next to me.

“Tell me what she’s saying,” my voice started to panic.

He hesitated. “She’s not saying anything,” he finally replied in accented English.

“This woman is crazy, do not listen to her.”

“Well just tell me what’s wrong. Why is she screaming? What’s wrong with her?”

“Do not worry,” he said again. “This woman is crazy, she is speaking crazy things.”

I am not a mother, but the way this woman exploded out of nowhere, could only lead me to believe that she was doing everything she could to protect her family, including the orphaned boy. After another translator came over, he finally told us that the woman was in fact protecting the boy because other people (patients, family members, visitors) in the hospital had threatened to steal him and sell him. This is why the whole family was so happy to leave in the first place. They were going back to Haiti to find the boy’s father before he could become another victim of child trafficking.

Once this message had been translated from Creole to Spanish to English and then back to Creole, the boy became the top priority. But these women did not have any kind of papers for him, just their word. They had spoken to his father via cell phone, had made a plan to meet him in Port-au-Prince and then bring him to the boy.

In this moment, I noticed how my thinking had changed. How when the frenzy was happening not because we realized people wanted to steal this boy for profit, but to find papers to make it “okay” for him to travel with these women– I just wanted to get the keys to a pick-up, tell the family to get in and take them across the border myself. The formalities of the situation seemed ridiculous and completely unnecessary. The bottom line was that this boy was unsafe in our hospital and these women had without a doubt saved his life. Why were we putting up a fight about “proper documentation” when once they crossed the border, that paper would mean absolutely nothing anyway?

After more deliberation, waiting and translating it was finally decided the boy would travel with these women without papers (because in reality, the papers never existed and never would exist). A few more hours of waiting for the now very late bus, the family of five finally boarded the bus and went back to Haiti.

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That night, I found myself wondering to the pediatric ward. It had been a long, hot and hard day, and what I wanted most was just to talk with someone about nothing, even if we didn’t have a language in common. The moment I walked into the converted chapel, there were two young patients (12 and eight) who were practicing counting in Spanish. The 12-year-old had a notebook and had written down 1-30 in Spanish and was teaching his eight-year-old bedside neighbor. Without asking, I sat down on the edge of the 12-year-old’s bed and started counting with them. They never missed a beat and we counted all the way to 100 in Spanish together. After this, he wrote down 1-30 again and I knew he wanted to learn to count in English. We started again, and counted 1-50 this time in English.

Both these boys were in the hospital for broken legs. How severely, I am still not sure, but I do know they both had surgery while I was there. As we continued counting, I told them I wanted to learn to count in Creole. We started to count 1-10 in Creole, and every time I would make a mistake or mispronounce a number they would stop, slowly say the number and exaggerate the pronunciation as to make sure I really understood how to pronounce it. They were so serious about teaching me how to say things correctly, and more often than not I would mess-up they would laugh, sigh and start over. It made my life. By this time, another girl, about 10-years-old with stitches that made a crown around her head came over and started to help as well. For the next hour, we all practiced counting in three different languages as other kids, parents and family looked on and smiled at my incorrect pronunciation of Creole.

Every day after this, I made a point to visit these kids (my kids, as I came to call them) at least twice a day. When I would walk in for other reasons, either to bring food or ask the doctors and nurses questions, they would stop me and quiz me on my Creole number skills. Through everything, seeing them became the best part of everyday.

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There were other good things that happened though. One day, about mid-afternoon, I was frantically running around the grounds doing whatever needed to be done at that moment, and I randomly heard the strumming of a guitar. It was coming from one of the giant tents where the patients were, and I quickly ducked inside to see if my ears had heard the correct sound (when the hospital first opened after the quake, the patients refused to stay inside buildings for fear they would collapse again. Because of this, three large tents were erected to serve as wards where the patients were housed). Inside the tent, was a group of misfits: two of the translators, family members, a few patients that could walk, an American nurse, the Spanish team psychologist and fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, Leeann. I walked into the tent to see the two translators, Olsson and Stanley leading the group in a jam-session. They sang in Creole, French, Spanish and English. The words were simple.

Haiti is alive. Haiti no se murio. The same in French and Creole.

I have never seen a smile like I did that day on Olsson’s face. Olsson’s mother was a patient and he initially came to the hospital with his father and mother to get help for his mom. Soon it was discovered that he could speak fluent English and he started to help the nurses and doctors translate with other patients in the same tent as his mom’s. The previous day, when we had limited every patient to have only one family member, Olsson technically should have been forced to leave, because his dad served as the one family member to his mom. However, Olsson took to everyone’s heart and even the doctors and nurses did whatever they could to keep him at the hospital.

Olsson led the group playing the guitar, along with Stanley, another translator who lost 10 members of his family in the quake. We all clapped in unison and alternated the message, “Haiti is alive!” in the four different languages. It didn’t matter if you spoke all four or none; the point of the song was hope. As I watched Olsson, Stanley, patients in their beds or standing, family members, doctors and nurses sing these words at the top of their lungs, the tears poured out of me again.

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The 18 translators had the toughest job out of all of us. Not only were they victims themselves of the earthquake, but they were obviously translating all the needs, hurts and ailments to the doctors and nurses. Think about this. Every time a patient had a question for a doctor or a doctor for a patient, they had to ask it. They heard all the pain, all the suffering and in return they had to tell their fellow Haitians news and instructions from the doctor. When a patient had to have an arm or leg amputated or something similar in devastation, the doctors didn’t tell them, the translators did

One translator, Valentin, left an impression on me that I will never forget. Before the quake, Valentin was a lawyer in Port-au-Prince. He spoke fluent Creole, Spanish, English and French. At lunch one day, a group of us were talking about him and one of the doctors said, “I told Valentin that if I play my cards right, one day I’ll be smart enough to be the translator and he’ll be the doctor.” To say this guy was impressive is an understatement. He had come to the hospital initially because his daughter had been injured in the quake. Soon, however, his abilities were noticed and he quickly became the lead translator.

This day with the translators and Valentin started off wrong. One of us Peace Corps Volunteers decided to go into Haiti (we only have two rules in Peace Corps and if you break them, you are immediately administratively separated: 1) wear a helmet while riding a motorcycle and 2) don’t go to Haiti). Despite this, the temptation for all of us to go over the border was pressing, to say the least. Jimani is literally right on the border and crossing it is not like going through US airport security on your way home from the Middle East. One of us did decide to go, but that’s a whole different story for a different time.

The person who left was in charge of the translators. Their job was to basically keep them happy. This day, unfortunately, they were not happy. At about 10:00 a.m. I got news that the translators may or may not start a revolt against the whole place. I raced outside to the tents and was faced with angry men telling me they were hungry, nobody would feed them, and that they had worked all night and now had to work all day. I agreed with them and told them that we were going to have a meeting that night at 7 p.m. where we will implement a new schedule and make sure the translators could come eat upstairs, with all the doctors, nurses and other volunteers.

The hospital itself was two stories. The first floor served as the ICU, operation rooms and PACU (Post Anesthesia Care Unit) units. The second floor had rooms were the volunteers, nurses and doctors slept, a kitchen and a common room with four large couches were all these people, including all of us Peace Corps kids, could eat and rest.

At 7:00 p.m., Valentin led his group of translators up to the second floor of the hospital where they expected to have their scheduled meeting. Seven o’clock was also the time of the nightly meetings with all the doctors, nurses and volunteers. The man running the show, we’ll call him Steve, called these nightly meetings and thinking Valentin and his fellow translators didn’t belong, kicked them out immediately.

Feeling disrespected and unappreciated, the translators blew up. By this time, they were outside of the hospital in front of one of the patient tents. All of us PC kids were trying to calm them down, telling them that Steve was a moron and didn’t know anybody who was actually volunteering at the hospital. We tried to tell them it was a misunderstanding and that they were in fact allowed to be upstairs just like the rest of us. Valentin looked me dead in the eyes when I tried to personally plead these words with him.

“This was NOT a misunderstanding,” he angrily and intensely said in English. “We are nothing to these people.” And then switching to Spanish without any hesitation, “Nosotros somos perros. Nosotros somos perros. (We are dogs. We are dogs).” And then back to English, “We are not people to them. And you will never understand it, because you are a white girl. What do you know about us? Nosotros somos perros. Perros.”

He never blinked while he said these words to me. He looked me straight in the eyes and never faltered. When he finished, it felt like my stomach had swallowed my heart. I had no words to say to him, because what I really wanted to say was that he was right.

As much as I wanted to disagree with him and even convince myself that I should disagree with him, what happened sort-of blew my mind. The people running the hospital, the people in charge of the whole operation of helping the Haitian people had shown racism does exist in charity.

I believe the entire circumstance was an issue of skin color. At 7:00 p.m., the room had been scanned to start the nightly meeting with doctors, nurses and volunteers. The people who looked different obviously did not belong there and had been kicked out without any explanation or questioning. Valentin was right. They had been treated like dogs that were not welcome inside the house. These people didn’t care, and what did I know- a white girl- about any of it? As much as I could pretend to understand and sympathize, how could I ever really know what it is like to be one of them? Yes I could see the pain and suffering that was happening all around me, but would I ever be able to feel it?

The Spanish psychologist said something to my friend Leeann that hit home with both of us, “these people lost their family, their friends, their homes, their schools, their work and now they come here and they lose an arm or a leg… what hurts worse?” Valentin was right- how would I, a white girl, ever really understand that?

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The next morning, the patients and family members had a church service in the open space in between the tents. Gathered in a big circle, they sang and chanted Haitian church hymns and folk songs. The truth is, I still don’t really know what kind of songs they were- just that as soon as one would start, every single person, no matter how old or young knew the words.

It made me think about my own culture. During Katrina, when thousands of Americans found themselves in a similar situation as Haitians do now – what song did they all sing in a circle? Did everyone know it? Or was it sectionalized and esoteric in a way? Maybe there is something to be said for a national religion. If nothing else, it brings people together through song.

For the last three days I was there, church would happen every morning. Valentin was the leader. Along with other doctors, nurses and volunteers I stood in the giant circle with the patients and family members and would do my best to follow the Creole songs. As we all sang, danced and clapped, I felt like I belonged and the tears would come again, everyday without fail. It didn’t matter that I was not a victim of the quake. I was there, along with all the volunteers trying to help- and that’s what people needed most.

At church, in these moments, you could see people’s true happiness; it was like a glimpse into the person they were before the earthquake. The men and women that could walk would dance in place to the songs and kids and adults on crutches or in wheelchairs would come out from their beds and smile as they watched, sang and clapped. People waved their hands in the air to praise Jesus and God and to thank them for giving them life. Through everything: the hurt, the pain, the suffering- they were still grateful for life. Being a part of this, I have never felt more proud to be associated with such a dignified group of people.

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There are so many other things that happened, day-to-day tasks that we (Peace Corps Volunteers) were all assigned to, like feeding the patients and family member three times a day, providing an updated daily patient census for the doctors and nurses, keeping the translators happy, translating at any random moment from Spanish to English for anyone who needed it, carrying blood bags to and from the hospital, going into town to bargain for wood from the local hardware store to build shelves in the pharmacy, moving patients from the tents to the hospital for surgery, working with amazing people from all over the world, among others. The stories above were just a few that stood out in my mind that I wanted to share. If you have actually made it this far and read the whole thing- the most important thing to know is that HAITI IS ALIVE. And it’s the people in these camps- the kids I counted with, Valentin, Olsson, the women dancing during church to praise God and the doctors, nurses and volunteers from all over the world spending their time to help, that is going to rebuild Haiti. HAITI IS ALIVE and I for one am excited to see it grow.

Last week I went into the capital for various reasons, but one of them was because a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer married her Dominican boyfriend. She has been dating him since about the time she arrived in country (Summer 2008) and will finish her Peace Corps service this May. Although I’m not sure if she always dreamed of having her wedding in the Dominican Republic, marrying him now helps to ensure that she can take her now husband back to the states by May or soon after May.

Peace Corps Volunteers marrying Dominicans happens much more often than I ever imagined, and I know this will not be the last marriage I celebrate before I leave in May 2011. It’s strange, because being here has brought marriage to my attention in so many unexpected ways. PCV’s are marrying Dominicans, PCV’s are marrying each other, young Dominican girls are running away to “marry” older Dominican men and even me, as an American woman, am asked repeatedly from Dominican men to marry them so they can come back to the states with me. The list of goes on and on….

There is a girl from my town named Noemi. She took my first English class and did fairly well. Well enough that she passed my test to move onto the second level of English starting this week. Noemi, however, will not be taking my second English class, because one night in the middle of January, she went out and never came home the next morning. In our American culture, this of course would cause worry, but most people would probably assume she was causing some trouble and stayed out all night with her friends. Here in Dominican culture, it means only one thing: marriage. Noemi never came home that night because her older (I still have yet to discover how much older) boyfriend picked her up and took her to his house, which means Noemi chose him over her family and is now officially “his woman.”

Have I mentioned yet that Noemi is 13-years-old? When Noemi decided to not come home that night, it told everyone, her family, the community, the school, that she was a married and had given everything in her old life up. There is no piece of paper, no legal document needed to prove this. She left and never came home. A 13-year-old girl married, dropped out of school, living in a nearby town with most likely a man at least 10 years older than her.

This is marriage in the Dominican Republic. Noemi is not the first and she definitely will not be the last.

But what about a Peace Corps Volunteer marrying their Dominican boyfriend or girlfriend in a hurry to take them home to the states? In this situation, you have two people who love each other (hopefully) but really live in two different worlds, although for a brief moment in time their worlds are one on a beautiful Caribbean island. When the time comes and the PCV is supposed to return to their previous life in America, I can understand the pressure to make arrangements so the relationship does not have to end. I respect this and admire it in some ways. If you love someone, you should do whatever it takes to make it work. Even if that means uprooting them from everything they now, bringing them to a place where, most likely there are very few other Dominican –Americans (let’s say everywhere outside of New York City and Miami) and telling them to start a brand new life in a place completely new and foreign. What’s the difference between this situation and Noemi’s? Legality? She gave up everything too, is living in a new place away from her family. Granted it’s not America, but in her mind if she loves this man, she is just as noble as the American and Dominican signing legal documents to make one of them a legal citizen.

Last week, Angel, the three-year-old boy who is apart of the family I eat lunch with daily asked me why I don’t have any kids. He was actually fairly perplexed by it, because why wouldn’t I? I am the same age as all the other women in town, including his mom, who have kids. It only makes sense in his mind that I would have kids. And plus, if I did, it would be someone else he could play with. What is most important about his question, however, are a couple of things, 1) Angel was not the first little kid of the week to ask me this question. My neighbor girl, who is either three or four, a few days previous, asked me the same thing. Why I don’t have kids? Do I want kids? 2) Neither one of these little kids asked me if I had a husband. Just kids.

I can’t help but feel liberated when I tell them no- to both the kids and the husband question.

When I tell them that I’m 24 and still don’t have kids or a husband, that’s when the old ladies of my town start to worry. They tell me I need to start having children so I’ll have someone to take care of me when I’m old. I agree with them and tell them I hope to have kids one day and even a husband (Si Dios quiere or God willing), but on my own time. That never goes over well. They just remind me that my time is slipping; I’m already 24 (practically ancient, really) and if I want to get a good man and have kids, I need to get started.

I guess it’s the rush that gets to me. Noemi, at thirteen-years-old, volunteers rushing to marry Dominicans in order to finish paperwork and me feeling the pressure to procreate before my body parts stop working properly.

Being here and seeing marriage in ways I honestly never had before thought about, gives me so much appreciation for my life. And every time a three-year-old or an older lady ask me about marriage, or even a Dominican man asks me to marry him for a visa, I will take great pleasure in the simple word, no.

Quick Update: Francia just told me that Eddy, my resident "drug dealer," and her half-brother who is also running for mayor was investigated by the Federal Police to see if he really did have ties with drug dealers.

Apparently, two men from town (who happen to be the head guy of my center and the dad of the family who I eat lunch with) who are both coincidentally named Juan Ramon called the Feds to have Eddy investigated. I mean, I can understand their suspicion, but it also so happens that both Juan Ramon's support the opposite political party from Eddy.

Anyway, they called the police, the police showed up to Eddy's house- the "Mountaintop Mansion," as my Peace Corps friends have called it- and searched Eddy and all his workers high and low. They took a passport from someone (not sure who) and a few other cedulas (which is basically a Dominican ID card).

Francia spent most of the mid-morning and afternoon praying up in her room. I could hear her sort of chanting, but I had no idea what she was really doing. Turns out, she was praying everything went well during the investigation.

Well, God answered because the police did not find anything at Eddy's house. He was cleared and is now currently blasting his own personalized themed meringue campaign song, which translates into something like, "For your neighbors, for your friends, for your family- Eddy is the mayor for everyone."

I mean, I can't say I blame him. If the whole world thought I was a drug dealer and found out I really wasn't, I'd also blast a song telling them to vote for me for mayor.

Today I thought seriously about moving out on my own. To my own wooden house with cracks in between every plank, a zinc roof, cement floors and a latrine in the backyard. My own Dominican dream house...

I came home this afternoon, after spending the weekend in the capital (Santo Domingo) and Santiago to an empty house. Francia "salio," or left, as my neighbor told me. Who knows when... yesterday? Friday? This morning? 5 minutes before I arrived from my motorcycle taxi ride? Yet the house still seemed to have the air of abandonment.

I walked up the stairs to my room and noticed cat poop and throw-up on the floor, the floor-mat and the bed where the guard sleeps outside of my window. "Well I guess cleaning never hurt anyone," I thought to myself.

I walked back down the stairs, unlocked the downstairs part of the house to the kitchen and found moldy fruit being invaded by a nation of fruit flies in the sink. Dirt and leaves had blown in from the open windows to leave a general cover of grime on the counters and floor. "Well, I guess cleaning the whole house never hurt anyone," I thought to myself now.

I went to do laundry, since we had power and water at the same time, and found the semi-automatic washing machine to also have a nice layer of dirt in the bottom of the machine. I cleaned the washing machine in order to clean my clothes, and then the work began.

Washed a load of clothes, my sheets and a defected floor-mat. Swept and mopped the floors upstairs and downstairs. Disinfected my entire bathroom. Came downstairs and did the same to the kitchen counters and the stove. I was too lazy to clean the downstairs bathroom, but I did scrub the kitchen walls, because as the clouds parted and sun shone through the windows, there was a ridiculous amount of grease splotches on both walls by the stove.

Finished laundry and swept a part of the outside patio. Moved my air-drying clothes to follow the fleeting sun, when all of a sudden the water faucet (where the house is, what's that called?) exploded. It was like the Tivoli Fountain in my front-yard. I ran over and tried to put the PCP pipe back together, which had rocketed off from all the pressure.

I failed miserably. In attempts to put the already jerry-rigged pipe pieces back together, I basically took a shower instead. The entire front of my body got drenched in the downpour. It was hilarious. I tried again and drenched myself even more. I decided I was a fool for trying to do this alone and ran through the water and my yard to my neighbor's house, and with water dripping down my face asked her frantically to come help me.

After a little bit more of a struggle and some more direct facial water shots, together we eventually fixed the water geyser. By this time, the grass and the dirt had become flooded to become a swamp and a mud-pit.

I told my neighbor, Lidia, thank you very much and how sorry I was that she got her clothes wet. She just smiled and said she was going to change anyway so not to worry and she was always there for help. She patted her now wet jeans, laughed and walked away, and I knew that she really did mean that she would always be there to help me.

I decided after this moment, that a dirty house that would never truly by mine was worth a good neighbor who would always be there to help control the floods.