Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Facts, Fun & Firsts

The Dominican Republic is a country well known for its beautiful white sand beaches. It is also a small country – ensuring that all Dominicans live within a relatively short distance from any number of the aforementioned beautiful white sand beaches. This would lead many to the assumption that all Dominicans have been to the beach. That assumption is, regrettably, incorrect.

Can you imagine living in Florida, Southern California or any of the Hawaiian Islands and having never been to the beach? I cannot. I can hardly imagine being from North Dakota and not having traveled to Florida, Southern California, Hawaii or elsewhere to visit a beach and catch a glimpse of an ocean. Lucky for some Dominicans who have been thus far in their lives deprived of swimming in the large bodies of water that surround their country, we Peace Corps Volunteers have Grant Money and we like the beach.

This past weekend myself and 5 other Youth Volunteers who live in bateys offered their girls volleyball teams a weekend of facts, fun and of firsts.

On Saturday, we 6 Volunteers and the 36 young voleibolistas met at a nearby retreat center for a day of learning. We Volunteers led charlas, games and activities dealing with Good Sportsmanship, HIV/AIDS, Teamwork and Dehydration. Lots of facts. At our last Volleyball tournament two girls fainted due to dehydration so we thought we’d drop some knowledge on the importance of pumping your body full of water.

On Sunday morning we all loaded onto buses and headed to nearby Guayacanes, located along the Eastern coast and home to a beautiful white sand beach. We strung up a net and played volleyball in the baking Caribbean sun all day long. Lots of fun.

For some of the girls, it was their first beach trip. That alone made the day worthwhile. I often feel as a Peace Corps Volunteer that what I really do here is offer opportunities. Opportunities for my community members to meet and know an American. Opportunities for my youth to learn about things they otherwise might never learn about. Or for them travel with me to Camps and Conferences in distant parts of their own country they otherwise would never go. Or to take someone to a beach they live less than 50 miles from but would never have seen had a strange white guy not been sent to live in their community for two years.

The day was nearly perfect. The girls thoroughly enjoyed the surf and the sand. The Volunteers thoroughly sun burned themselves. I say nearly perfect because our beach day was on a Sunday – and Sunday is the day people here tend get drunk – and drunk men on the beach are attracted to 36 volleyball playing teenage girls and their 6 white friends like moths to a flame. We spent large amounts of time chasing away persistent drunk men with a Herman Cain-like tendency to sexually harass any female in sight.

It is incredible to me how comfortable I have become in the past two years at scolding people. From children straight on up to adults. I have no reservations telling someone to get lost or stop being such an ass. Two years ago I didn’t even know how to say such things in Spanish. Now not a day goes by without it. Sadly, being blunt and/or short with people is effective here. If you simply ask the drunk assholes on the beach to “Please, go away. We’re trying to hold an activity. Thank you.” they’re simply going to persist. But if you are to say “Seriously dude, go away! How many times do we have to tell you no?” they might just get the picture and go harass someone else.

As a male Volunteer, my life here is exponentially easier than that of a female Volunteer. Female Volunteers here, and I imagine in many (most?)) other countries, have to deal with copious amounts of sexual harassment each and every day. It’s gotta get exhausting. Not to mention ugly and degrading and gross. I knew it was tough to be a female here but after more than two years in this country, it took me one day at the beach for it to really hit home. Dominican men can be gross. Men can be gross. People can be gross. Why do people insist on being gross?

But side rant on the occasional ways of Dominican men and hardship of female PCVs aside, the event was a major success. Our girls learned, they played, they enjoyed themselves and some of them had a major life experience of seeing/swimming in the ocean for the very first time. That’s big. And it’s all because we offered them a simple little opportunity.

Our Beautiful Court

Lunch Break

Bumping, Setting and Spiking for the Tiguere Spectators

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Personal Development

October 28th marked the official end of my service as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Or it would have were I not extending my service and sticking around until June. While I and many others from my group have extended and, therefore, treated October 28th as any other day, a number of people did leave. Closing this chapter and moving on to a new, more American one.

I never expected that when November 2011 rolled around I would still find myself here in the DR. I didn’t expect to still be writing these blog posts by candlelight, awaiting the return of the electricity so I can type and upload it to the interwebs. For more than two years now the date, the numbers, 10/28/2011, have been so meaningful. They represented a goal. A milestone. And now it has come and gone with little fanfare.

This fall has been a strange one. September was undoubtedly my most busy and productive month as a PCV. It was followed by a major October slump. All peaks in Peace Corps seem to lead to an inevitable valley. And now November presents itself as another mountain to climb.

Aside from the return of numerous Peace Corps camps, conferences, trainings and more, I’m starting to finally start seriously looking towards my life post-Peace Corps. Attempting to do some personal development on top of the Grassroots development. This includes researching Grad School programs, filling out applications, writing personal statements and deciding where it is I want to live when my time in the Caribbean comes to a close.

America is big. It is home to many good schools. Lots of cool cities. How am I supposed to settle on just one place? Can’t people just commute from Denver to New York? Seattle and the Bay Area look close on a map. In the DR, mountains and cities and beaches and deserts are all just one uncomfortable bus ride away. I’m going from a country roughly the size of New Hampshire to a country in which New Hampshire is among the smallest of 50 fairly large states. America. It’s a daunting place.

An unfortunate accompaniment to applying to Graduate School is the GRE. Yet another godforsaken standardized test in the life of an American student which does nothing to reflect one’s true intelligence/abilities. It costs $200 and requires a fair amount of studying. Trying to study in what is easily one of the world’s loudest countries borders on tortuous. There is literally no where one can go to escape the noise.

I went to a large shopping center called Jumbo (think Latin American Target) last week to sit in the food court and take a GRE practice test. Jumbo is about 30 minutes away in the nearest city. It is glorious there. In the store I mean, not the city. The city, San Pedro de Macoris, is pretty awful. I sat amongst the bustle of people eating, shopping and getting wrapped up into the arms of commerce and even with all the noise and distraction, Jumbo provides a better learning environment than anywhere in my community. It's loud here. It's no wonder schoolchildren in the DR don't learn, they can't hear a god damn thing.

November 2011. Still here. Who woulda thunk it? This country certainly has a strange effect on people. They simply can't leave. And when the finally do, they suffer from chronic hearing loss. Seriously, it's really loud here.