International Women’s Day
March 8th marked International Women’s Day and to
celebrate that day fellow Volunteer Phoebe arranged a sort of field trip for
the volunteers living in the eastern region working with Chicas Brillantes
girls groups.
10 Volunteers and teenaged girls from our communities
boarded a bus early in the morning and headed north to Salcedo, the home of the
Hermanas Mirabal. The Mirabal Sisters are cultural icons here in the DR. They
acted as revolutionaries who stood up to and were eventually assassinated by
Dictator Rafael Trujillo before his downfall.
We visited the museum their former home and learned about
their lives. We watched a movie (a bad one starring Michelle Rodriguez) telling
their story. And we were fortunate enough to hear from the one living Mirabal
sister, Dede, who, at age 89, came out of her house, graced us with her
presence, answered questions from our girls and inspired us all.
Our girls learned about strong, brave, inspiring Dominican
female leaders and met a real life Mirabal sister and Dominican celebrity. A
very empowering International Women’s Day.
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| Posing with Dede Mirabal outside her home in Salcedo |
Deportes para la Vida
I’ve organized and facilitated a number of Deportes para
la Vida events in the past year and after my final 5-day training in March, I’m
just about ready to pass the baton for this initiative on to other volunteers.
The training, the fifth in which I’ve attended and third
in which I’ve facilitated, was a success and we certified another 37 people to
teach the DPV course in their communities. Since December 2010, 36 PCVs and 98
Dominican counterparts have been trained to teach the DPV curriculum. In just
18 months, well over 1,000 Dominican youth have learned to prevent, combat
against and educate others about the spread of HIV/AIDS through this program.
It’s been very cool to see this program start just 1.5
years ago and expand rapidly into a highly successful Peace Corps initiative.
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| Newest group of Deportes para la Vida Trainers |
Camp Superman
Speaking of last camps and baton passing, I organized,
facilitated and attended my final Campamentos Superman. The Peace Corps boys’
gender empowerment initiative has also grown rapidly in my time here. What once
was a summer camp is now a year-round initiative with a series of
American-style camping trips and Volunteers working with boys groups in their
communities.
These camps have provided many highlights throughout my
service. Some of the highlights of these last two camps include seeing a number
of Dominican boys experience the ocean for the first time in Las Galeras,
Samaná, and watching boys overcome their fears to zipline through the trees at
camp in San Cristóbal. Also in San Cristóbal, Volunteers and boys alike passed
through an insanely fun, challenging and muddy obstacle course. The pictures
are all kinds of epic.
Again, it’s been great to see this initiative grow in my
time here and I’m excited to see how great it will become in the future.
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| My Superboys Alex, Raudy & Kikel on Playa Rincón |
Sirve Con Fuerza
My second trip to Peace Corps’ annual girls volleyball
tournament. 10 teams. 60 girls. 1 champion. We played lots of volleyball and
learned valuable life lessons about gender, nutrition, proper condom use and
more. I am proud to announce that the 6 girls from my community of Batey
Cachena won the championship versus the favored-to-win team from Batey Las
Pajas and went home as champions.
SCUBA
As I’ve been very busy above ground, I’ve been sure to
reward myself with some weekends under the sea. A former Volunteer friend is
interning at a SCUBA shop in the beach paradise of Las Galeras, Samaná. She has
arranged a number of SCUBA ‘camps’ in which we PCVs have been able to get SCUBA
certified for ridiculously low prices. In late February, I spent a 4-day
weekend camping on the beach and learning SCUBA basics. In Las Galeras, we are
able to suit up and walk right out to a coral reef – avoiding the costly boats
and gasoline altogether.
Just last week I returned to seek my Advanced
Certification. Now that we had the basics down, we could just dive. We returned
to the reef. We dove at night. We dove to depths of 35 meters and
explored a sunken cargo ship. It was an awesome weekend and I am
now certified to dive anywhere on earth.
SCUBA certification – yet another perk of Peace Corps
service on a tropical island.
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| The home base of SCUBA Camp. Life is rough. |
That’s a quick rundown of the happenings here in the DR
over the past 3 months. If I should disappear again anytime soon, please refer
to my friend Dory’s blog, 27 Stories. She’s an incredible writer and does a brilliant job
of capturing the emotional roller coaster of Peace Corps life. While my blog
has devolved into little more than monthly recaps and stories of what I do,
hers does a good job of explaining what we go through and how we feel. Check it
out.
