home grown results

I’ll have to admit that when I was awakened yesterday morning at 7:15 am I was a bit bothered. The sun had just risen, meaning that the tin roof hadn’t quite yet turned my house into an oven. The whir of the fan was comfortable in both the breeze it provided and its ability to drown out the around-the-clock roosters. Despite my slumber caused by a full day of traveling, I had mustered to fix clean cotton sheets onto my queen-sized mattress the night before, and they were still crisp on my skin. I was cozy and protected under my mosquito net, which my kitty has begun to use as his own personal hammock; he seemed to be just as perturbed as I was by the unanticipated alarm.

It was two of my oldest Chicas graduates, Oda and Grissel, calling my name through the window as if not to wake me but with enough angst to get my attention. “Qué?”, I managed, hoping I could answer their proposition from my bed. “Háganos el favor,” – a common Dominican phrase literally meaning ‘do the favor’, and used when someone has to ask or tell you something and they make YOU go to them rather than the other way around. I debated telling them to come back later, but I knew that they were on their way to school so I figured it was important. I shooed Mio from atop of the mosquito net and untucked it, stepping barefoot onto the needing-a-sweeping cement floor and accepting an early start to the day. I opened the window and gave them a sleepy smirk, not even pretending that they hadn’t woken me up. “We need the charla paper you have of the woman’s parts. We are going to teach Gris’s class about female anatomy today.” And just like that, my slumber and annoyance vanished and I felt on top of the world; I was home.

“Where we love is home,
Home that the feet may leave,
but not our hearts.”

I just spent five days surprising and visiting friends back at Clemson University. Clemson was home for four years – a quintessential college experience that provided me with a sturdy academic career and a friend group I wouldn’t change for the world. Now that we’re each living a new chapter, it was refreshing to come back and catch up.

Carrie and I

Tiger family

My college roommates and I 🙂

My mom even surprised me!

“Travel does not exist without home….If we never return to the place we started, we would just be wandering, lost. Home is a reflecting surface, a place to measure our growth and enrich us after being infused with the outside world.”

After recognizing a pattern among a few of my friends, I reflected on my time here in the Dominican Republic. Am I happy? Do I take care of myself? Am I loved? Do I love?  Am I giving this my all? How am I helping? What am I learning? What’s not working? What should/can I change? Will I be happy to do what I’m doing tomorrow?

Most recent birthday party I attended…

…with these cats.

All in all, life here is pretty dang fulfilling.  So fulfilling in fact that I seem to be abandoning this blog 🙂  Every day is different and unexpected, which is both challenging and liberating. There’s a typical routine, but more often than not I diverge from it, and it’s satisfying to have the freedom to be able to do just that. My projects, in terms of audiences and themes, have been all over the place, and have recently been based around my knack for sexual education (local high school) and slight knowledge of marketing (goat group). I am witnessing and experiencing progress, not just in terms of ‘work’ but also in my level of integration within the community. Like I’ve mentioned before, I’m not just a Peace Corps Volunteer anymore, but also a colleague, running buddy, daughter, girl-with-the-WiFi, and trusty dance partner.

Sexual Education workshop at the local high school

High school parents at Sex. Ed. workshop

process of straining milk before pasteurization

cheese!

yogurt

The secretary of La Cabrita and I at an artisan market in the capital

What makes Peace Corps challenging, particularly for outcome-based folk, is that here results come slowly, and typically not in the form that one might expect. They are rarely grandiose in numbers, but rather moments that shimmer amidst frustrating dark ones; results are witnessing a slight but positive change in behavior and recognizing a signal of potentially sustainable progress…The family across the street not allowing the photographer at Reni’s graduation to take the family portrait until I was in it. A student in my environment course commenting that her backpack is now always full of trash because there are no trashcans at school and she feels bad throwing it on the ground. Oda and Grissel stepping up to share what they’ve learned about the human body with their class, striving to protect their own peers from an unwanted pregnancy and/or sexually transmitted infections.

Brigada Verde (Green Brigade) students at International Beach Clean-Up Day

The beach of Barahona, where there seems to be more trash than sand.

Reni and I at her graduation

high school graduation

my family.

These kinds of results are heart-warming and significant, but they are also the ones that are most difficult to communicate or validate with others. Their attainment is as sweet as it is complex, and can be accomplished regardless of a Peace Corps’ service. They don’t occur within a given environment actually, but rather where the individual that accomplishes such results is in his/her element; where there is a feeling of both ease and motivation; when feet hit the floor once a challenge is accepted; where she is at home.

“Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.”

home sweet home

I’ve moved!  It’s been just over a week since I packed up my belongings from my host family’s house and settled in to my own.  I’m paying RD$2500/month for a 3 bedroom house with a kitchen, living room, and indoor bathroom.  There’s a great patio out back that needs some grooming, but I look forward to having a garden and putting up a hammock 🙂

my house!

I live right across the street from a small colmado where I can buy almost all the essentials – eggs, toilet paper, coffee, garlic, etc. – and I live less than a five minute walk from La Cabrita.  My new neighbors are phenomenal and have already helped me in ways that I couldn’t have imagined.  There’s always people sitting outside nearby, willing to chat, help, and share or try food.  In particular, my community partner Nibia has provided me with a variety of items (most of which were free of charge) to make my house more homey -the dining room table/chairs, two plastic chairs, the table in my kitchen, curtains, bathroom decorations, a fan, sheets, and a chalkboard.  I’m also sure that I’ll never go hungry, as so many people have stopped by to give me bananas, plátanos, lunch, dulces, coffee, melon, yuca, and so on.

living room

I feel very safe, and since living on my own, my quality of life has definitely increased.  My host family that I was staying with was wonderful – they cooked excellent food, did my laundry, and helped me transition into the community – but they were older and also quite religious, which was a bit limiting.  Living on my own allows me to come and go as I please; I can eat what and when I want.

kitchen

While my independence has been reinstalled, being a doña is not the easiest.  In addition to preparing breakfast, lunch, and dinner, the women here are expected to sweep and mop their house daily, and to always have juice or snacks on hand for visitors.  It’s also common to bring a plate of the food you’ve made for lunch over to your neighbor’s house – I receive a variety of facial expressions when I share my couscous, omelets, or peanut butter/banana sandwiches.  Overall, it’s a fair amount of work to ensure that my house is always spick and span for visitors, but having my own space makes it all worth it.

bathroom – no running water, but still fully functional!

In other news, I’ve had two successful women’s group meetings.  In the next meeting, we hope to establish a name and a directiva.  So far, their first priority is to get a community center built where we can hold meetings and workshops (the women have had opportunities to receive courses and workshops from various organizations, but since there’s no physical location in which to hold them, they don’t come).  I’ve also helped to get a group of jóvenes motivated to form a formal youth/sports group.  We’ve also had two meetings, and are in the process of applying to the program Courts for Kids to get a basketball court built in Pescadería.  Now that classes have started again, the participation in my English class is deteriorating.  However, the few students that do come get to enjoy more individual attention and also coffee, as we’re now holding class in my new house.

bedroom

In terms of La Cabrita, we’re focusing our efforts on obtaining the sanitary registration to be able to start selling in supermarkets and marketing.  Thanks to my friend Jenn Winkowski from Clemson, we have a brand new logo that, in addition to the label, we plan to use on future marketing materials like brochures, signs throughout the community, and T-shirts.

new logo – thanks Jenn!

Last but not least, I’ve got a flight booked to come home (11/23-12/02 so mark your calendars!)  I couldn’t be happier with my site placement, work that I’m doing, and new living situation, but it will be great to come home, visit with family and friends, stuff myself with turkey, and take a break from this darn heat!

wearing a “tubie” after a got rollers put in my hair – if you’re lucky, you’ll get to see this face in November!