Stressed out in the Peace Corps

I’ve got a big period of time to make up for on this blog, so I'm going to divide the past three months into three different entries: general work, the Medical Mission, and Women’s Week. Here we go…

GENERAL WORK

January: the holiday season had ended, and a new year had begun; it was time to start some new projects. I had been dodging the bullet of the imminent English class that they’d been bugging me to give for over a year, until finally they cornered me and I had no choice but to do it. Why wouldn’t I want to give an English class if so many people wanted it? I have many good reasons, here are a few:

1. It is nothing they haven’t learned before. They have basic English classes in primary and high school classes.
2. Its nothing they don’t have access to already. You can sign up for many independent English classes in nearby Nagua.
3. Its not sustainable. Once I stop giving the class, there is no one to continue it.

What it comes down to is that they just want to hear it directly from the American. They want to hear how I say things because their Dominican teacher might not pronounce things quite correctly. So you can imagine why I don’t feel this class would take priority over other things that are more important and that I would rather be doing, like sex ed for youth, who in the meantime are getting pregnant. Peace Corps also discourages English classes for these same reasons, saying it should really only be used as filler work if you have nothing else to do or are just getting started and looking to meet people, establish credibility, etc.

WELL, after all that bitching, the English class ended up being pretty fun, and the (dedicated) students I had in my class really seemed to enjoy it. I taught to youth and adults, generally 18 and up. I met some new people and had fun making different handouts and activities for them to practice with. There are two German volunteers in my site now as well, and one of them, Manuel, took on the younger class while I taught to the older students. The Peace Corps has a pre-made 16-lesson basic English course guide and we both just used that. I finished last week, and when Manuel finishes his class we will have a combined graduation. They’re bugging me to do a second level, but there are other priorities that I have that I want to do so I won’t continue. Manuel is planning to do the second level.

I don’t have any pictures from class, but I’ll make sure to take some at the graduation.

Speaking of the German volunteers, Manuel and Laurin arrived last September to work here for a year doing similar work in education and with sports. It’s a program along the same idea as Peace Corps though for less time, and the volunteers are just out of high school. They approached me before they moved in to see if this would be a good place to live and work. At first I was a little unsure about sharing “my site” with other foreign volunteers, worrying that they would be competition or that they would show me up, but before I knew it they had rented a place on the other side of town and had already begun their work, so I didn’t have much of a choice. As it turns out, we get along great, and have started collaborating on different projects (such as the English class). There truly is strength in numbers! It actually works out really well because this town is big enough so I focus my work in one neighborhood and they in another, and we don’t have to interfere with each other if we don’t want to (though we do and its fun).

Between vacations, the Peace Corps magazine, tropical storms, holidays, trainings, etc., I was out of my site for most of October through December, so I didn’t really get to know these guys until this past January. Once we had a few opportunities to talk we discovered that we get along really well, and decided to do a project together. At the end of January is the official International Youth Day. Together we planned an internationally-themed event for this day. We invited 70 youth and taught them about the different cultures they have represented here in their own community. I taught them things about the United States, the others about Germany, a foreign exchange student came from Nagua and taught them about Switzerland, and we even planned a Haitian unit as well. Unfortunately, the Haitians I invited didn’t come, they misunderstood and thought I was going to bring them to the meeting, while we were waiting for them there. This was a shame, because the Haitians are highly discriminated against here so we were hoping that by teaching Dominicans a bit about Haiti and where these people come from, they might have a better understanding of them and treat them differently. We still mentioned the bit about Haiti, but without the people there it wasn’t quite the same.

However, the rest of the afternoon went well. Another friend of mine, fellow Peace Corps Volunteer Lily who arrived this past fall, also came with some of her youth from a community about 45 minutes away. We all made typical food from each of our countries for the kids to try: I made apple crisp, Lily made PB’nJ sandwiches, and the Germans made German pancakes with Nutella. After teaching them about our countries we had them each make presentations representing each place and then played Jeopardy to see what they learned. It got a little rowdy in the end, but overall was a great success.


January also brought me a visit from Crystal! Since projects had started I did have to work, but we managed to go to a beautiful beach in the Samaná peninsula and spent a night with a few other Peace Corps Volunteers in Samaná city. She got to experience the day-to-day life in my site and meet many of my friends. I’ll let her tell you about it in her upcoming blog.

In early February I participated in a Medical Mission. More on that in the next blog entry…

Mid-February saw the next issue of the Gringo Grita magazine. Some of our staff members are finishing their service, so unfortunately this was their last issue. As usual it was a long and stressful week, but not without its share of laughs. I think we’ve got a pretty good issue this time. Here’s the cover, it’s a poor Peace Corps volunteer returning home after his service, take from it what you will:


Carnival closed out the month, celebrating the Dominican Independence Day on February 27th. This was my second Carnival experience here (you may remember last year’s entry, “The Ozzy Ozborne Incident”); luckily no animals were brutally murdered this time. This year they had more dancing and costumes and incredible masks made by the youth.
I dressed up this year. My costume was one that only I could pull off (literally), because I went as a Dominican. A Dominican schoolgirl to be exact, wearing the official public school uniform and doing my hair in their braids. People got a kick out of it. Here I am with Ada (not sure what to call it but a funny costume), and Jenny as a “china man”. I know this is an incredibly politically incorrect costume to wear, but before you judge her let me confess that this is MY costume. I actually bought it and wore it on Halloween (one of only two to choose from in the store), but political correctness doesn’t matter here. Hey, I call friends “Negro!”
Reylandi with some Carnival people:
Throughout January and February I had been working with the Mothers Club planning for Women’s Week at the beginning of March. That blog entry is also to come.

After two intensive months of lots of hard work, I just had to take a break. On March 17th I went again to Cabarete to visit Bianca and celebrate…you guessed it, St. Patrick’s Day! In probably the only place in the country where they celebrate it, it was a bigger event this year than last year, with a stage and lots of seating on the beach behind Jose O’Shays restaurant. It felt good to wear green and eat a hamburger with fries and hear Irish and American music, though St. Patty’s Day on the Caribbean beach never feels quite the same. Nonetheless, we had a great time. Here I am with Bianca (left) and Erica (right, a new business volunteer). We do not know the guys, they just jumped in the picture:


I've also started a mini girls group with kids from my neighborhood around 10-years-old or so. I have a kids book with five chapters that we are reading together, and other than that they play and dance. This day they decided to throw a girl named Emily a party to make her feel better because she was upset the day before. Too cute:

More to come soon…