How the Galleta Crumbles

When I initially began this blog, I thought of it as a way to document my Peace Corps experience, update friends, family and interested parties back in the States and, in doing so, give some insight into the life of a Volunteer. I have admittedly failed miserably in Year One to do this.

Like all volunteers, my service to this point has been a roller coaster ride full of ups and downs, highs and lows, peaks and valleys. Things in my first site left much to be desired and my lukewarm feelings towards that site and my work there certainly made for a lack of blog material.

Now I am about to complete my first calendar year as a Volunteer, am living in a new site and ready to give this blog thing another go. I’ll try to be frequent and substantive in my entries in the weeks and months to come.

So without further ado, here is my week in volunteerism in the DR...

After a nearly a month of getting to know my new community, learning names and faces and completing the second community diagnostic of my service, I was finally ready to get some classes and projects underway here in my new site. We had planned to start with English classes as, naturally, that is what the youth in the community seem to be clamoring over above all else. (Translation: Sex Ed and basic literacy can wait…I want to know what Vin Diesel is talking about in all those Fast and Furious movies)

I had spent this past weekend in the Southern region of the DR at a despedida for a volunteer friend who, along with an entire group of volunteers, are about to finish their service and return to the US of A. (Congrats y Suerte 517-08-02) I passed on a scenic brunch and free ziplining on Sunday to ensure that I would be back in my site and well-prepared for Day 1 of English class on Monday. This is where volunteer reality set in and things slowly began to unravel.

As I awoke and got ready to head to the local community center to give class, I was informed that there were a group of doctors in the community center giving free AIDS tests all day. Class canceled. So it goes. Doctors administering AIDS tests to the community for free is exponentially more valuable than my teaching basic English and playing games with Dominican youth.

No sweat. We’ll start Tuesday. Unless the key to the community center has been lost that is.

The key is typically kept in the colmado across the street. On Tuesday the colmado does not have the key. The president of the Junta de Vecinos does not have the key. Nobody seems to have the key. Class canceled. Again.

Key eventually turns up, as expected, and class begins Wednesday.

Had this series of events happened last December, a month after beginning my service in my first site, I would have been frustrated and concerned that this would be a recurring theme in the weeks and months ahead. Now, after having a year’s worth of experiences in the DR, the frustration never comes. I know for a fact that this will recur in the weeks and months to come. Shit like this happens here. Así es la vida.

As a volunteer, you are to plan for each class, practice, charla, etc, while knowing that things will never go exactly as planned. Something always comes up. Doctors come. Keys are lost. It rains. Students show up 50 minutes late (or not at all). Sometimes that's just the way the galleta crumbles.