The Oughts

Navidad has come and gone. Actually, I’m told Christmas is celebrated up through the New Year so there are still a few more days left. Christmas Eve, Noche Buena, and not Christmas Day is the day with the most significance here. The Dominicans cook a large meal (what would normally serve as a week’s worth of food), spend time with family and walk the streets sporting their Christmas best. They also dip into some traditional alcoholic beverages, which turned the ordinarily pious evangelicals into inexperienced inebriates. Humor ensued. All passed by well and I got to spend part of Christmas Day at the beach with a couple of other volunteers. Not exactly a traditional Christmas, but who could complain about a day at the beach?

With that it is time to usher in the New Year. The new decade. This marks the end of what I consider to be my first complete decade. I lived through the 90’s, but was 4 when they began so I didn’t become mindful and aware of that decade until Grunge was out and Presidential indiscretions were in. With this past decade, which I’m told we are referring to as the Oughts, I was between the ages of 14 and 24. I came of age in the Oughts. These were my most formative years. The years of high school, college and early adulthood. The years that put me on a roundabout path to the DR.

I spent most of the decade in school and since then I have done a lot of wandering; taking one calculated step after the next to see the world while avoiding adulthood. I don’t know whether or not I should be concerned that the wandering will take me into a new decade and my late twenties. I’m comforted by Tolkien, who said, “Not all those who wander are lost”. I’m still wandering in a way, but don’t feel lost. I’m right where I need to be and don’t have to worry about the next step for another 23 months. The ‘Real World’ will catch up with me eventually, and I’ll have some great stories to tell it.

¡Feliz Año Nuevo!

¡Feliz Navidad!

The obvious beauty of the Caribbean surrounds me every day. The abundance of fruit trees, the white sand beaches, the dazzling sunsets and natural green everything. If I were here for a short vacation I would take note of each of these things and truly appreciate them. But as I am here every day, I too often fail to see and truly appreciate the physical beauty of my surroundings. On Monday I found myself in the back of my host family’s camióneta riding along the highway between nearby Hato Mayor and El Seibo with the Caribbean breeze in my face and for the first time in country, truly took in the impressive countryside and felt really at peace being here in the Dominican. I watched the clouds form over the mountains to the north and create a mystical haze over the conical lomas and the sun set behind us in an explosion of orange and pink and felt truly contented and at ease for the first time in the company of family and in my site.

We had our Peace Corps Christmas get-together hosted by our Country Director last Friday in the capital. It was a nice little break in a slow December month to meet up with other volunteers and eat some quality food. We had a Chinese dinner, which, while not traditional Christmas fare, was a more than welcome break from platanos y yuca. A small group of volunteers that live in the east made a pit stop in the beach town of Juan Dolio on the way back to our sites. I have been in the DR for 4 months now and had only been to the beach 1 time before this past weekend so I was due for some time at the playa. A day of sunbathing and sunburning was exactly what the doctor ordered after some recent stomach woes and a tranquilo month.

The holiday season feels very much unlike the holiday season. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it is still 80 and sunny rather than 30 and snowy. Maybe it’s the lack of Xmas music and movies. Maybe it’s the absence of Salvation Army bell ringers. It’s just not Christmas-y. After all, what is Christmas without 24 hours of A Christmas Story? I’ll be spending Christmas at my site with my host family, seeing how Dominicans celebrate Navidad, eating many apples, which are a holiday season delicacy here, playing Santa Claus for my family and hoping that Home Alone is on TV just once in English.

In the past few years I have spent much time and many holidays away from home but this will be my first Christmas away. Perhaps the most valuable attribute I brought with me into the country is imperviousness to homesickness. Not to say I don’t miss home, I just don’t suffer from homesickness. But even while not homesick, it’s weird to be out of the country and away from family and friends this time of year. It’s certainly helpful to have other volunteers here to share the holidays with and helpful to know that a New Year’s celebration is but a week away.

Happy Holidays!

Diagnostics

I know some out there are wondering what exactly it is I'm doing down here. I don’t know that I’ve taken much time to clarify. In all honesty, I’m still in the ongoing process of finding out myself. As a Youth, Family and Community Development volunteer my reach is quite broad. The list of potential projects is virtually endless. Right now though I have one specific task to focus much of my efforts on before tackling that endless list of projects.

These initial 3 months of service are dedicated to a Community Diagnostic. This is the time when we integrate into the community, build confianza, continue to improve our Spanish, attempt to meet everyone and work on a large presentation that will be our guide to projects and community needs over the next 2 years.

The diagnostic has many layers. There are interviews to be done with community members. Work to be done with community groups and organizations. Creation of community maps, priority matrices and seasonal calendars. Compiling of data to prepare the presentation and constructing a work plan for my first year of service.

Based on the results of my diagnostic, I will be better able to understand the needs of the community and the resources at my disposal to meet those needs. Doing this work and dedicating time to community integration prevents me from entering my site on Day 1 and thinking I know what is best for the community before I’ve even met with anyone. With the diagnostic I should able to better understand my community after 3 months and they’ll better understand who I am and what my role is as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

While that still doesn’t do much in explaining my role here as a Youth PCV and the types of projects I’ll eventually be doing, it does attempt to explain what it is I am to be doing (and not doing) in these initial months.

Knowing I have the diagnostic to complete is a necessary crutch to lean on. Not having multiple projects going on and having a flojo daily schedule can make one feel like they aren’t getting much accomplished and are doing a disservice to their community. The people here are definitely beginning to wonder when the gringo is gonna start doing stuff. I have to continually remind myself that these initial days and months are dedicated largely to the diagnostic and not get down on myself for not having classes, practices and/or charlas on a daily basis.

With the holiday season in full swing, time seems to be playing tricks. Days crawl by slowly while weeks elapse quickly. It makes little sense. It’s both irritating and delightful. This trend is sure to continue into the New Year.

Día de Pavo

Thanksgiving weekend has come and gone and I don't even know where to begin in describing how glorious it was. From the Olympic size pool with a high dive, athletic and non-athletic competitions and the greatest meal I have eaten in the Dominican to the talent show in the piano bar, cheeseburgers at the Embassy, sleeping 11-deep in one small hotel room to save pesos and the many shenanigans I will not list here, it was a fantastic weekend to say the least.

It was great to see the volunteers from our training group and great to meet dozens of other volunteers, finally putting some faces to the names I have already heard so much chisme about. Meeting so many other volunteers simply reinforced what I already know about the incredible and inspiring group of PCVs we have down here in the DR. The one downfall of Turkey Day is that it comes but once a year and we must wait 365 days to do it again.

After spending multiple days and far too many pesos in the capital, it is back to my site for the Navidad season, which I'm told has already begun. Christmas here is not a day but a month. An entire season. A time when everything slows to a crawl. Not exactly the ideal time to start many projects but certainly an ideal time to become better integrated into the community and with my host family. Also a good time to start teaching myself to play the guitar I bought before leaving the capital. I've always wanted to learn and there will be no better time period in my life to learn than in these next 2 years.

Between now and Christmas is when I hope to get the bulk of my Community Diagnostic done. There are more than 100 interviews still to be done with community members and community leaders. Plus, I recently fell ass-backwards into a role as basketball coach for a group of local muchachos, so I will thankfully be a bit busier than I was in the initial weeks. While the tiempo libre has been great and these first months are supposed to be tranquilo, I gotta get some volunteering done.