Written on November 5, 2009
I know that it has been a lifetime since I have written and so much has happened since Times in Constanza. I am finally at my site. I have been here for not even a full week yet. My campo is really beautiful and everyone is really supportive and hospitable. I have already met tons of people and youth and I meet more every day. But before I get into that, just a quick recap of the last 5 weeks of my life.
My time spent in Constanza was great. The night before it was time for us to go, we had a despedida where the volunteers and the community gathered together for a farewell party. It was a really fun night with food, music, and tears! I am really going to miss my host family there and allof the amazing people that I met. But I also know that I am going to visit them whenver possible so that makes me feel a bit better. Swearing in was the next big event before finally moving into our sites. It was a really nice ceremony which in a way, made all of this real. It marked the beginning of another step in our peace corps lives. We are no longer trainees. We are no longer following a structured schedule, and we are no longer all together. Everyone is at their site, marching to the beat of their own drum. This still doesn’t feel quite real to me. Once again I am in twilight zone mode where it has yet to occur to me that I am going to be living and working in this community for the next two years. The same thing happened to me when I got to constanza. It wasn’t until half way through week 2 that I realized the reality of this all. I’ll admit, it was quite a scary realization. But somewhere between swearing in and now, I have falllen back into that surreal life mode. I expect that sometime next week, reality will strike again.
So now I am sure you are all curious about my campo. Well, it is about 30minutes away from Santo Domingo (by car), 2 hours away by public transportation. It Is really green with lots of fruit trees and greenery everywhere. Every house has a nice back yard with avocado, coconut, cherry, platano, mango, and orange trees. It really is pretty amazing. Some people have entire land plots (un parcel) where they grow just about every fruit or vegetable you could think of. Walking by the house one would never imagine that behind it, there is land that stretches out hundreds of square feet. There is one main road in my community which is mainly occupied by motoconchos. I am close to a river, although right now it is just emptiness. It fills up during the heavy rainy season and becomes really dangerous because it interferes with the road that people take to enter/exit the community. There is a cancha (basketball court) for the kids to play, but other than that there is no other recreational outlet for the youth. But hopefully that will change soon.
The youth of my campo are all really excited and motivated to get projects started. They are all really excited to learn english especially. The girls are also enthusiastic about forming a volleyball team. I already got a solid 10 girls that want to play so Volleyball should begin in 1-2 weeks, si dios quiere, as they say here in the DR.
My main focus/purpose these first three months however is just to get to know my community and integrate as much as possible. I am responsible for conducting an assessment of the community to identify its priorities, strengths, and needs. It will also help me get better acquainted to the people and will serve as my baseline to identify future project areas. Once I have completed my diagnostic, I will have a much better understanding of the communities needs and priorities, which will allow me to work alongside them effectively.
There is so much work to be done and so many people are depending on me. Sometimes it is a bit overwhelming. On top of that, trying to adjust to a totally new and different environment with new people and customs, is no easy task. Luckily, everyone has been super supportive of me. But still, even with that, its just hard sometimes. Life for me right now really is a rollercoaster. Even though I expected this to be difficult at times, I guess I really didn’t know what to expect or just how difficult it would be. Just being around my host family is bittersweet. On one hand its great because they’re great and do everything to make sure that I feel comfortable and like part of the family. But on the other hand, I sit outside the house with my host mom, my host sister, and my other host sister who has a 7month old daughter and talk and listen as they drink coffee, eat crackers, and look over store magazines for specials and it makes me think of my own family back in the states and how much I miss everyone. I am really grateful Peace Corps gives us cell phones and that I have a powerful signal where I am so that I can talk to my family everyday.
As for everyone else who perhaps didn’t know that I I have a cell phone, now you do so I hope that everyone will get a calling card and call ! I even have texting.
My schedule here is so different than our schedule at technical training. Every day I wake up about 9am to 2 little girls who just wait for me so that I can play with them. Nicol and Nicauri are 7 and 9 but they are two main reasons why I wake up and my day starts off so well every morning. Seeing their smiling faces and the excitement in their eyes when they see me just makes my day. I always bring out some markers and paper and we draw together usually for 2 hours until it is time for them to go to school. Then I usually eat lunch, talk with the host family a bit, and then walk over to one of the neighboring houses to talk to people who I havent met yet. After that I will come back home, sleep for an hour, read over some diagnostic materials, and then visit some more houses and just chit chat for 2, sometimes 3 hours at a time. Then I return home again, read a book ( currently reading “Como agua para chocolate,”), or write in my journal. Sometimes some girls will stop by and we’ll sit in the galeria and talk or walk around the community. Everyone is so sweet here. I never leave someones home without them giving me a bag of fruit or some sort. Today I received “jagua.” Yesterday it was bananas . I wonder what tomorrow will be.
Well that’s a recap of how life in the campo has been. Today has been a pretty good day so far. Although Nicol and Nicauri are in the mist of an argument so I didn’t get my double dose of happiness this morning. Hopefully tomorrow things will be back to normal. Also, tomorrow my host sister and I are going to do some exercise. We are supposed to leave at 7:30am. We’ll see how that goes! I hope everyone is doing great and that life is treating you all swell! I really do miss you all!
Love Valerie
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