Possibly.

Now that my Caribbean Adventure is over, I think this blog might also be over. Reverse culture shock is going well. I've gotten over my compulsion to hide under the bed. I've eaten in several restaurants, driven on the highway, been to a shopping mall, gotten a new computer (and an ipod!) and haven't yet keeled over from shock. I even got to play some ultimate over the weekend. I almost keeled over from that, but that's an entirely different type of shock, more like, "Sprinting? What's sprinting?"

I'm cleaning out my childhood bedroom and trying to simplify my life yet again. Unfortunately, I probably won't be able to take only 2 bags weighing 80lbs to Yale with me, but I'm still trying to de-clutter my life as much as possible. Peace Corps taught me to do a lot with a little and that the most important things in life are what you do and the memories you make, not what you have or what you own.

And on that note, I thank you all for sharing this journey with me. You were all an important part of my Peace Corps experience. During the days, weeks and months when I was doing nothing to fulfill the Peace Corps' first goal, I know I could post here and at least do something about the third goal: helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

I am officially an RPCV. It still doesn't feel real yet that I've left Dominica. I feel like I could walk down the road here in Massachusetts and hitch a ride back to Petite Savanne. Maybe part of that feeling is true, because the village and my friends there will never be far from my mind or my heart.

I'm not quite ready to deal with my life post-PC. I feel like hiding in my bed and not emerging until next week.

My Wonderful Host Family

Originally uploaded by jadedisc I had lunch for the last time with my host family today. My host father insisted on taking a "family" picture. I am going to miss them so much. They were the highlight of my Peace Corps service. Among other things, they gave me a key to the bedroom that I stayed in during my homestay, so that I will always have a place to come back to in Dominica. I almost started crying then.

Click on the picture to see a really cute picture of my host sister Marissa and me. There are also some pictures from the drama camp that I've been working with for the past 2 weeks. I'll get more pictures of the actual performance soon from a friend who was in the audience.

My ticket got changed back. Although it's probably a good thing I made a big fuss over it.

Peace Corps screwed up my travel arrangements. I should say, Peace Corps St. Lucia, screwed up my travel arrangements. They reserved my ticket last week and then failed to confirm it, so the reservation went up in smoke. Of course, this being the busy season, the flight was full when they tried to re-book it. So instead, I now have to fly to Antigua first (on the regional airline that has more stringent baggage requirements than American Airlines does, 65lbs total vs. 105lbs), have a 5 hour layover and then fly to Puerto Rico and then onto Boston. And the kicker? These flights are on August 1, not July 31. And the flight to Antigua is about 4 hours earlier than the original one straight to PR, which throws off my departure schedule (eg. I have to bring Atticus to another PCV up north). Luckily it seems that everything will still be ok in the end, as long as my excess baggage gets taken care of and actually makes it on the plane. I think I'm more pissed off about this than I would normally be because I'm already stressed out about packing and leaving and returning to the States. It would be nice to not have the proverbial rug pulled out from under my feet every hour or so, but apparently that's too much to ask.

Shrimp and Sea Anemone

Originally uploaded by jadedisc This photo won second place in the photo competition I wrote about last week. My EC$20 investment paid off into a US$400 dive computer.

Sea Anemone

Originally uploaded by jadedisc As part of the continuing saga of dive fest, some of us PCVs got to try out underwater cameras from Sealife and masks with integrated computers from Oceanics. Click on the picture to see some of the shots I got today. I entered the best photo of the week contest for EC$20 because I thought some of the pictures I took were pretty decent, especially considering the visibility was awful due to an algae bloom, and it was the first time I've ever wielded a camera underwater. If anyone has US$800 and is wondering what to get me for Christmas, check out the Sealife website. =)

Watch Models

Originally uploaded by jadedisc Andrea and I modeled our watches in the PC office, so we'd have the pictures forever even if we sell the watches. Click on the picture for some more pics from the treasure hunt.

Below the cut is an email that my partner in crime, Andrea, wrote to her family and friends. She did such a good job (and I'm feeling quite lazy), that I decided to post it instead of writing my own entry. There will be more pictures once I get my flash drive to the Peace Corps offce to steal Andrea's pictures. My comments are in italics.

Since becoming scuba certified last August, the annual Dive Fest Treasure Hunt is something that many of us wanted to participate in. Stories of past Volunteers having won dinner out (a luxury for a PCV), bottles of rum, Dive Fest paraphernalia and other odds and ends had not only piqued our curiosity, but could have been one of the top three reasons to become scuba certified in the first place (exploring the beauty Dominica holds below water and adding a new sport onto our interests and hobbies perhaps squeaked out participation in Dive Fest).

Lesley and I were buddies...as we have been for many dives before: Tobago, Grenada, Carriacou, and a handful in Dominica itself. At first, she tried to chump me and claim another partner. Then, either out of guilt, pity, or a lapse in sanity decided that she would succumb. For $50 EC (about US$20), we got our equipment (BCD- buoyancy compensator device, a.k.a. "the jacket"; air tank, regulator/gauges, weight belt) and entry into the hunt and registered our team as "Club Beach Corps". During the debrief, we were told - along with the MANY ways that we could be disqualified - that there were painted rocks within a boundary worth different points. Blue = 10 points, red = 5 points, beige = 2 points, half rellow/half red = wild.

Everything seemed in tip-top shape...but it wasn't until I hit the water that I would come to notice that my jacket would leak constantly, which caused problems for my coming up to surface and trying to stay afloat. My mask also filled with water about every 2 minutes. And, because there weren't wet suits to use, the jacket I was wearing chaffed my right hand shoulder which has now scabbed over and is (hopefully) healing.

When we first went under water we were having a hard time finding anything for the first 15 minutes...then I saw something yellow and swam like a fish to it - ended up being an aluminum can. Instead of leaving it, I put it in the bag that Lesley was carrying to hold our booty. (I was trying out an underwater camera so she agreed to hold the bag.) A few moments later it was Lesley who saw something...which also turned out to be a yellow can, and was added to the bag (I think we were hoping to win the environmentally friendly prize at this point). I was a little distraught thinking that we wouldn't get anything but trash and wondering why we were having such bad luck. Moments later...I saw one. A blue! I ended up wandering a bit from Lesley (one of the rules was you need to stick to your buddy and if you surface without him/her you're disqualified) only to start panicking, and then found her soon ( I panicked as well and had swum back towards the last place I'd seen Andrea. This is why we make a great team. She'll wander and find the rocks, while I keep her in check.) to drop it in the bag. A couple minutes later, she found another blue one. Then we kept swimming around and subsequently found others including 4 reds and 2 beige (a total of 44 points). The last thing I found was a red/yellow wild.

We surfaced, 'cause I was running out of air. We couldn't have anything less than 500 PSI in our tank otherwise we would be disqualified - a full tank starts out with 3000 PSI. It's not typical for someone to use up 2500 PSI of air for a 35 minute dive at no deeper than 20 feet ( For comparison, I surfaced with about 1200 PSI left and the two of us usually use about the same amount of air on a dive. Even that was low because we had been panicking first about not being able to find rocks and then again about not being able to find each other.). And, there were only 7 minutes left of our time (we had 40 minutes in all). Swimming on my back 'cause the jacket wouldn't fill up with air and going slow 'cause I was tired from all the work and be sensitive to my shoulder that was troubling me.

When we returned to shore and divested ourselves of our equipment, everyone started asking each other how many rocks they had found. Dylan, the son of a divemaster who was helping to coordinate Dive Fest, was in a team with his mother and was going around counting everyone's totals. He and his mom had 31 points. The next group he talked about, who happened to be the reigning champions of the treasure hunt 3 years running, had 37 points. And, here Lesley and I were sitting with 44!

The big announcement: Lesley and I were the first place WINNERS of a Swiss Army Dive Watch each! To see photos of the event, check this site out the dive fest blog.

Yesterday we went to Jewellers International to see if we could exchange them for a woman's size. They didn't have such watches available. We did get the warranty card stamped and have both planned on selling them at face value since we can't use them. (it also will provide an extra cushion after being a PCV for 2 years)

Cathy and Anna - the other 2 PCVs that joined in the contest found a wild rock and won dinner for 2 at Sunset Bay Club resort. For our wild rock, Lesley and I won a case of Kubuli beer that has yet to be delivered, but will be consumed forthwith.

So, here's my question: "Anyone wanna buy a Swiss Army Dive Master 500M watch?

Click to read more about Dive Fest 2007.

Dive Fest continues for us later this week with a pub quiz night and two dives where we get to try out Sealife underwater cameras and the Oceanics "Datamask" Heads Up display.

As a camp counselor, any activites having to do with theater or acting was never my strong suit. I always made sure that Lucky didn't put me in the paper bag skits scatter or basket weaving, but that's an entirely different story. So, acknowledging my weakness, I call upon the expertise of all the current and former camp counselors who read this blog to help me think of some theater games appropriate for ages 6-12.

And now the countdown begins.

I realized that I didn't post much during June, mostly because *gasp* I was actually busy. June was mostly filled with teaching computer classes, going to meetings, planning for the drama camp later this month and going to farewell brunches. Oh, and attempting to get back in shape so I can start playing ultimate asap. I expect July to also be fairly hectic with dive fest and the drama camp on the agenda, not to mention all the pesky details about having to pack up and say good-bye to the past two years of my life and this tropical paradise.

I have slowly started to pack and/or give away a lot of the stuff I have accumulated over the past two years. It's amazing, and slightly disgusting at the same time, just how many material things I own. What happened to joining Peace Corps in order to live the simple life? That's right, I got placed in the Caribbean, not some tiny village in the middle of the desert or the jungle. Still, I think PC has given me a hearty appreciation for making do with what you have. I have this fear, however, that I'm going to go back to the States, walk into a Target or a shopping mall, and that sentiment will be lost amid the bright colors and sounds of hearty American consumerism. I'm counting on the fact that it will help to be broke and (soon) to be in tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt.

Staring Contest

Originally uploaded by jadedisc 1) Belle Marche: I'd forgotten to blog about this before. A belle marche is like a walk-a-thon back in the States to raise money. In this case, my school raised money to paint the school exterior. We (me, all the teachers, some parents and about 70 students) walked from our village to another village 6 miles away, visited a farm, had a sea bath and then walked back. The total isn't in yet, but I think the school raised a hefty sum.

2) Wavine Cyrique: a waterfall that falls into the ocean, the only one of its kind in the Caribbean, or so I've been told. Yesterday, I hitched up (in the pouring rain) to the village with the waterfall to meet some other PCVs. It took me 3 rides to go about 10 miles and 4 rides to go back. In between the rides, I walked quite a bit and got soaked in the process. Getting to the waterfall involved climbing down the sides of of a forested cliff using ropes and ladders. We got very wet and muddy, but if you check out the picture, I think you'll agree that it was worth it.

3) EC75 Community Partners Lunch: Now that PC is cracking down on the budget, we had to find a new way to celebrate the end of our service with our CPs. Before, PC used to pay for a lunch for us and our CPs. Instead, we (and by we, I mean mostly Andrea) threw together a last minute potluck today, which was quite successful. 3 of my CPs came and my landlord/school principal brought his family, which was a nice surprise.

Click on the picture to see more pictures of my adventures.

So what I thought was going to be a full day turned into a practically empty day. That's ok, because now I get to watch the second episode of Pirate Master, a pirate-themed reality TV show filmed in Dominica. Last week's episode was awful. If it doesn't get any better, I'll be very disappointed. At least the previews I've seen for Pirates of the Caribbean 3 look decent.

I only have 2 months left in the Peace Corps, and an amazing project just got dropped on my doorstep. I happened to meet Ron Green, the chairperson of the Southeast Environment and Tourism Development Committee yesterday at the Peace Corps office. Ron wears many hats, and president of SETDC is just one of about two dozen, which include everything from member of Parliament to on-island trainer for PC pre-service training.

Ron asked me to come to a meeting of the SETDC executive that evening at Jungle Bay to discuss the implementation of a UNESCO-funded project to create a guidebook on the trails and wildlife of the southeast region in Dominica. In addition to the guidebook, which will be written by Dominica's leading ethnobotanist, Arlington James, with the help of selected youth who live near the featured eco-tourism sites, SETDC will be partnering with the philantropic branch of Expedia.com to determine how the communities of the southeast can use tourism as a way to perserve the World Heritage Site.

Besides learning about the project, I was also excited to meet and talk to Dr. Alexandra Burton-James. She is a slightly eccentric Dominican woman who has, among other things, served as Secretary-General for the Dominica National Commission for UNESCO, worked with the national steering committee for COMPACT and now works as a consultant for the sub-regional UNESCO office in Cuba. During this project, she will serve as the liason between UNESCO and SETDC. It was refreshing to converse with her and Glenda Raphael, co-manager of Jungle Bay, and be reminded that, even in this male-dominated society, there are intelligent, accomplished women who are working just as hard, if not harder, for the development of their country, and who also understand the need for environmental perservation.

I'm not really sure what help I will be able to provide to SETDC in the next two months, except perhaps to renew interest in SETDC and generate interest in the project within my village and village council, but I now know more than ever that this is the type of work I want to do: sustainable development, environmental development, whatever you want to call it, helping communities in developing countries help themselves, while also perserving the environment.

Congrats to Wellesley's Class of 2007!

Especially the Whiptails. Welcome to the wonderful world of alums! I expect updated contact info appearing in my inbox soon.

and a very happy birthday to my dear mother!

Kate

Originally uploaded by jadedisc This picture of Kate, our CD, was taken during the conference's closing ceremony. At this point she was relating a story about her daughter, then 10 years old.

Kate was helping the custodian to clean up after a World Culture's Day event at her daughter's school. She was the only parent left. Her daughter and a friend passed by the room, and Kate heard her daughter's friend ask, with some disdain, "Why is your mom cleaning?" Her daughter replied, with a sigh and a shake of her head, "She was a Peace Corps volunteer."

On the second day of the conference, Kate gave us an analogy for the two different types of RPCVs that exist in the world. One type is the "trophy". These are the people who see their PC service as one distinct part of their lives, a trophy to be put on a shelf and taken out only for bragging purposes. The other type of RPCV is the "parquet floor." For these people, PC is an intricate part of who they are as a person, helping to shape and define their lives. If that piece labeled "Peace Corps" is missing, the entire pattern is thrown off.

For me at least, these two interludes by Kate were by far the things that I will remember most from the entire 2 day conference, besides the skinny dipping with the bioluminescence, of course.

I'm slowly making myself obsolete in Petite Savanne. I found out yesterday that CCF (Christian Children's Fund) approved a grant that my school principal wrote almost entirely on his own. My only contribution was teaching the teachers about project writing. I'll also help them write their work plan, but the rest is up to them. The village council, surprisingly, has taken their computer project and run with it. We're slightly behind schedule right now, but it's not their fault. Again, quite surprising. It feels good knowing I can leave here in two and a half months, but work will continue and new projects will continue to emerge.

Apparently that's how one of my fellow Peace Corps volunteers described me. Maybe he's right. I just got my Advanced Open Water certification after what added up to only about 7 hours of diving and reading the manual. I just decided I was going to go for this cert last weekend. I got to go to 120 ft on a deep dive, then played with a compass for the navigation dive. I'd like to get the rescue diver cert before I leave, but I'm not sure I'll be able to fit it in. The instructor with whom I did the advanced course remarked at the end of the day that he'd like to do the divemaster course with me, which is the first step to being an instructor. I guess professional diving can be my backup career if this whole international development thing falls through.

Thanks for all the good wishes for my birthday! I had a whole birthday weekend filled with scuba diving, hanging out with other PCVs, and other various amusements. We did a night dive for the first time, which was amazing,; lots of sea creatures that you don't normally see during the day. I'll have to do that at least once more before I leave. We then watched movies and ate junkfood at a PCVs house who lives closer to town than I do. A two tank dive on Saturday rounded out the diving. I debated coming back home on Saturday, but Cathy and Anna are just so much fun that I ended up sticking around their villages for another two days. All in all, a successful 4 day celebration.

Most days in the Peace Corps, I don't really know what I'm doing. I struggle to find meaning in ten minute conversations with neighbors about the weather, their families or their farms or in a two hour workshop where most people are falling asleep and won't remember the information I'm trying to pass on.

But on rare days, like yesterday, I get a fleeting sense of the big picture. Walking down the second floor corridor of the primary school, I paused before entering the computer room, which was only just recently a dim storage room full of old textbooks and broken desks. For that matter, it's still not a computer room. For one, it doesn't have any computers in it. We're still in the process of transformation, but that's the big picture: the process of transformation and the part that I played in it, however small.

I just got an email with an attachment called "The Inside Story", which from what I gather, is some sort of internal PC newsletter, since I can't find it online anywhere. I just wanted to say that Liz R, the PCV in Cambodia that I referred to in the previous entry, and I are both in it. She's even on the cover in a picture with the rest of her training group at her swearing in ceremony. I'm 5 pages in, as part of a story about Dominica's Peace Corps Week project. Ah technology, it's a small PC world. No pun intended.

No, not the Earth Day kind of greenness, but happy Earth Day to everyone anyway!

I'm referring to green in terms of new-ness. A friend of mine is at the end of her pre-service training in the inaugural class of PCVs in Cambodia. Reading her blog is like flashing back to the first few months of my service, especially when she writes things like, "to put it all in perspective, I remind myself that one month of unsettledness is short compared to 2 years of service." I can feel her excitement and optimism, which is generally what PCVs are supposed to feel at that time and what, I suppose, I felt when I was in her position, getting on the plane to Dominica almost two years ago.

Just as I'm trying to wrap up here, she's just starting her adventure, and I feel a little jealous. If my early COS request is approved, I have a little more than 3 months left of my own service, aoproximately the same amount of time my friend just spent in training. Even if it's not, I'll still be back in the States by mid-August, less than 4 months from now. Grad school will be an adventure, but definitely not the same kind or caliber. I sometimes wonder what my experience, what my life, would have been like had I waited for my original assignment in business development that was to leave in January of 2006. More often, I wonder if I've made the most of my experience here. I think I have. Of course, there are things I would have done differently had I known (learned more of the language, hiked more mountains, etc.), but isn't that always the case in retrospect?

Hammering

Originally uploaded by jadedisc. This weekend is Global Youth Service Day. The primary school received another Disney Minnie Grant for the day, this time to help build the school's computer room. Overall, this day wasn't as successful as the one we had last fall. We got about the same number of youth volunteers (50), but there wasn't as much work for them to do. There were also several time conflicts and some teachers could not be present. One teacher is getting married to the son of another teacher this afternoon and the reception is at the school. We were still able to get some painting and decorating done. One of the desks was finished. Two more short ones will be built next weekend, and the rest of the painting will be finished in the subsequent weeks.

The local news station did send someone out to film a segment on GYSD, but several government ministers who had said they would be present, did not come. Andrea, my fellow PCV, and Patrick, our Peace Corps APCD, came to help and see what was going on, but the village councillors were absent, with the exception of Laurance who came to help build the computer desks. I'm glad the pomp and circumstance is over and we can really get down to finishing the room starting next week.

Cricket on the beach at sunset

Originally uploaded by jadedisc. Easter Monday = Beach Day in Dominica. The entire country was at the beach that day. I went with my entire neighborhood to a beach north of St. Joseph. As Hans said, they just left all the old people at home with the roosters and goats. There was a cookout, playing in the water, cricket and then impromptu drunken wrestling in the water after the cricket. Check out the action by clicking on the picture on the right.

Winner for Bun Eating

Originally uploaded by jadedisc. I'm trying to get rid of this backlog of photos I have on my camera. The day after I got back from the States was sports day for the primary school, so I joined them a little later in the day, after sleeping in and recovering from the trip.

Bun eating is a favorite sporting event for all Dominican schoolchildren and some adults. A bun/pastry thing is suspended from a string at mouth level. Without using hands, whoever finishes his/her bun first without letting it fall wins. The kid in the picture to the right won among the younger kids.

Click on the picture for more of sports day, including cricket, rounders, sack races, lime and spoon and tug of war.