We have entered our final week of Community-Based Training here in beautiful Constanza. We leave on Saturday to return to the capital and prepare to swear-in and move to our sites/new homes for the next 2 years.
It is muy agridulce (very bittersweet) to leave our mountain pueblo and the group of fellow Americans we have grown close with over the past month. At the same time it is exciting to reunite with the other trainees, swear-in as volunteers, see our new communities, begin our service and get to work. This past month in the mountains has been somewhat like a study abroad experience. We spend our days in class and our nights hanging out with fellow Americans in a strange, foreign land. Very study abroad. But the work aspect of service is just around the corner.
We are going out in a big way in our final week in Constanza. This is the week of Celebrando la Juventud (Celebrating the Youth). In conjunction with our local youth groups we are putting on a number of fundraising and community clean-up activities. Thus far we have put on a movie for the community, organized a domino tournament and cleaned the streets of two local barrios with more activities to come including a mural painting and basketball tournament. Hopefully some of what we do will have a lasting effect. One of the biggest frustrations of being a Youth volunteer is not being able to see the tangible results of service. Whereas Community Economic Development volunteers can see their business plans put into action and Water volunteers can see their aqueducts flowing, we have little in terms of tangible results. We teach, we educate, we have some fun and hope our efforts have lasting effects on the local youth.
While this week is busy and entertaining, it is also serving as a small glimpse into how difficult and oftentimes random working with Dominicans might be. For example, during the middle of the movie we put on for approximately 50 children and youth, the entire group began cheering and applauding midway through the film (when the Polar Express pulls into the North Pole) and promptly stood up and exited the building. Regardless of the fact that there was still an hour left of the movie, they just got up and left. The first hour of the domino tournament was somewhat of a disorganized shit-show as well with the locals not understanding we had a bracket and a system for who would play and when. They just sat down and went for it. Cultural differences can lead to frustration, but in the end it all worked itself out and was successful. A current volunteer came to visit with us a few weeks back and informed us of the difference between being right and being effective. Even if we don't always think what they are doing is right, we are raising money, cleaning streets and getting things done. Effective.
One of the single greatest accomplishments of my weeks here has been my integration into the language of Spanglish. It is the greatest language ever and seems to be the primary means of communication between volunteers in the DR. It's not quite English but certainly not Spanish either. It's great. In two years I will be more than fluent in Spanglish and foresee having trouble readjusting to life without randomly slipping Spanish vocab into English sentences and adding -ing to the end of Spanish verbs.
It's always hard to leave a place. We say our awkward goodbyes to our host families this week and our see-you-laters to all the fellow Youth volunteers. We've had somewhat of a love fest up here (in a completely platonic way) and have developed really great group cohesion that is hard to let go of but will be very beneficial throughout our service when we need ideas, support, resources, ears to complain to or shoulders to cry on.
Another downside of leaving is a return to life without frequent internet access. My posting will be far less regular in the weeks to come as I swear-in, get settled in my new site and figure out what type of internet access I will have out East. For now, I can prepare to close this first chapter of my Peace Corps days as a trainee and start the next as a volunteer.
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