The Long Goodbye

Goodbyes can be awkward and emotional. Which is why I am not enjoying my current long and strung-out goodbye with the Dominican Republic. 

Leaving the U.S. for the D.R. was relatively easy. I was excited for a new adventure and I knew I would only be gone two years. Leaving the D.R. has been completely different. While I am excited to start the next chapter in my life, I am leaving behind not just a job, but a community. I have no idea when I will have the chance to visit the D.R., and since my community doesn’t have cell phone service (let alone internet), keeping in touch with my host family and friends is going to be a challenge. My neighbors have also realized that our relationship is about to change, and they can’t help but remind me constantly that I will be leaving them soon.

The goodbye started in November when my neighbors started to ask how much longer I would be living in the D.R. “Don’t worry,” I said, “I still have seven months left.” But worry they did. In December my host mom cried as I said goodbye before I headed home for a two week vacation. Kids have written me letters asking me not to leave and have also threatened to steal my suitcases. My project partners have asked me on several occasions to stay another year. To everyone who asks me to stay, I politely explain that while I love them all, I miss my family and my country, and that I want to live in a modern city. 

Some of the kids have gotten possessive of my stuff.

Yet, while I have tried to make the decision to leave seem like an easy one, the decision to leave was a hard choice to make. I seriously considered staying on the island for another year, but in the end America won. There is still a small part of me that wants to stay, so every time a student asks me to stay it is like a little knife it pricking my heart. In my dreams I take all my neighbors to America with me and spend all my time watching them experience luxuries we take for granted, like movie theaters, hot running water, dish washers, elevators, amusement parks, etc.

Something I am still trying to figure-out is what am I going to do with all the stuff I have accumulated over the past two years? My neighbors would like me to give everything I have to them. Even before people began to ask when I was leaving, they would tell me things like, “Susi, I like your shirt. Give it to me when you leave.” Now that my departure is only a few months away these requests have become more frequent. My 10 year-old BFF has threatened to kill me if I don’t give her my plastic storage container. I don’t mind giving my things away, but I am concerned that there will be hurt feelings if people don’t get what they want. As of now, my plan is to wait until the day before I leave to give things out that way I only have to deal with angry neighbors for one day.

My neighbors want my cat too - but he is coming with me!

As for what is next for me after Peace Corps, well I don’t have that figured out either. However, if I have learned one thing from Peace Corps it is not to stress. I know everything will work out for me, I just have to be patient. While I wait for my life to sort it self out my siblings and I are planning a trip across Europe to coincide with the end of my service and my sister’s graduation from college. Our tentative route is: Barcelona, Nice, Milan, Munich, Prague, Vienna, Athens, and Istanbul. If you have any recommendations or tips for our grand european sojourn be sure to let one of us know!

Snippets

 I am starting to get into a routine at my site. Literacy classes in the morning and afternoon, English classes in the evening, club meetings on Saturday. It is all very hum drum. So for this post I just have a list of some of my thoughts and things I have learned of late:

When I give someone my cellphone number I have to say it in Spanish, I get the numbers mixed-up if I try and say it in English.

My rock collecting buddies

Cruise ships have started to arrive in Samaná. The ships sit out in the bay, and from far off they make it look like new islands have sprouted up. They bring a lot of tourists into town, it changes the whole dynamic of the place. When I see the tourists I am reminded how much I stick out.

In order to get building materials to the library we need to widen the bridge across a huge gutter. Our solution is to fill the gutter, temporarily, with rocks. The process has been going slowly, so this week I went out with some neighborhood boys to collect rocks in wheelbarrows. I am sure I was quite a sight on the side of the road, just doing my best to keep up the notion that Americans are an odd bunch

I am at the point with my Spanish that I understand everything a comedian is saying up until the punchline.

There are mongooses in the D.R. They were brought over from India to get rid of snakes, Dominicans hate snakes, but that didn't work. Now they are dangerous rabies carriers. They have been known to kill small children. You don't want to mess with mongooses.

When I walk Romeo (my dog) people always give us a wide birth because here people only walk their dogs on leashes if they can't be trusted to run around without biting someone.

Even though it is still super hot here it is now starting to get darker earlier in the day. During the summer it got dark around 8pm but by "winter" it will be dark at 6pm. I don't like walking around much when its dark because the street isn't well lit enough to see people on the other side of the road, so I am not pleased with this new development.

Pato-1 Mosquito Net-0

I am a minor celebrity in my community. Everyone knows my name and even some people who drive through my community frequently. I do not know everyone's names which makes my notoriety a bit creepy at times. Still, it has its benefits. I am always being given food, and sometimes I am offered rides as I walk along the road. One time I even got to ride in an air-conditioned car, such luxury!
Pato likes to sleep on my bed. This is what happens when he tries to get on my bed when my mosquito net is tucked in.


A few months back I mentioned that there were government plans to bring water to my community and that potentially I could have running water by the new year. Unfortunately, that won't be happening. Turns out that government official who made the announcement was really the ex-governor, and the current governor nor the water ministry know anything about the program. No one in my community has heard anything about the project since it was announced, leaving everyone here a little more jaded about the the government and politicians.

Christmas decorations are up in my community and there are stores in town already selling decorations, even some very sad looking artificial trees.


I enjoyed being in the D.R. while the government was shut-down because I didn't have to hear all the talking-heads, but I wasn't able to avoid it's impact. I am due to receive funding from USAID by the end of the month for my community's library, however, due to the shut-downeverything is backed-up in the government, so I have no idea when I will receive my grant money. In the case of Peace Corps, 90% of U.S. staff were out of work while the government was closed. That means that applications for grants could not be processed, nor could new volunteer paperwork be reviewed, nor could a whole bunch of other Peace Corps programs operate. The effects of the government shut-down are going to be long lasting, hopefully we won't have to go through another one come January.

Yummy

My medicine to prevent me from catching Malaria, Aralen, tastes horrible so I have taken to eating it with peanut butter. I am reminded every time that my mom uses the same technique to give our dogs medicine, but hey, it gets the job done.

Death of an Animal

In one day both my cat and dog escaped from my house, and I saw a dog die.

Romeo now and a month after he was rescued

Now some readers are probably thinking, "Wait, hold-up, you have a dog?" The answer is yes. His name is Romeo (named after the famous Bachatero Romeo Sanchez), and he comes from a farm in my community that raises rescued dogs. The owner of the farm, a Canadian, thought Romeo would be perfect for me because he is afraid of Dominicans. He prefers people with white skin, yep, my dog is a racist. He was found as a puppy abandoned by the side of the road, with a bad case of mange that left him hairless, hence his dislike for Dominicans.

Romeo on the porch before he escaped.

Anyway, back to the story. On Tuesday Romeo and Pato (my cat) both escaped. Pato escaped first, through the back door while I was just about to close it. He can be such a sneaky little bugger. He came back around 11pm and was very hungry. Meanwhile, Romeo escaped while I was visiting a neighbor. I left him on my porch since he doesn't like being in the house alone, and he repaid me by jumping out of the porch via the side that only has chicken wire instead of metal bars. Another neighbor came running to tell me, and said he went running in the direction of the farm where he grew up. I went straight to the farm and when I called his name he came bounding out of the forest covered in burrs.

As we walked back home a dog crossed the street to bother Romeo. I threw some rocks in its general direction so it would leave us alone, and as it recrossed the street a truck came speeding by and hit the dog. The dog, which was probably only 25 lb., went flying up into the air and landed in the middle of the street, dead. I just stood there in shock and watched a man walk into the street and drag the dog to the other side. Everyone tells me that it wasn't my fault the dog died, including the owner, but I felt terrible afterward and I fear it could happen again as I walk Romeo.

The incident made me very upset about Dominican culture. No one ties up their dogs here, and everyone can tell you a story about a dog of theirs that was killed by a car; another dog died just last week. When I saw the dog die, I didn't hear any screams or cries or shouts, but I did see some people laugh. It makes me sad to think about how no one cares enough to protect their animals and that the cycle is going to continue. As with many aspects of life here in the D.R. the best thing I can do is lead by example.

The Pros and Cons of Moving Out

My New Home

I have never liked background noises. When I was a kid I would ask my parents to turn down the music down in the car, and I would get in fights with my sister as to whether or not we should have the radio on while we worked on our homework. This inherent dislike of background noises has made my life in the Dominican Republic, at times, difficult. People here like noise.  Music blares so loud it sets off car alarms. You can always tell when the electricity returns because immediately you hear the sounds of televisions and radios coming back to life. During training in Santo Domingo I would wake up at 6am to the sound of mass thundering through the speakers at my host-family's home.  While living in Monte Plata I would fall asleep to the sounds of the telenovela unfolding on the television of my neighbors. Being able to sleep despite all the noise has been one of my saving graces. Unlike other Volunteers I don't wake up in the night to barking dogs or crowing roosters (it is a major fallacy that they only crow at dawn). Still, while I am awake the noises Dominicans don't even notice can drive me up the wall.

I am therefore super excited to move out of my host family's house and into one with me, myself, and I. Sure, I will still be able to hear my neighbor's TVs and radios but at least in my house I will not have a television on maximum volume all day long, no matter if someone is watching it or not.

Here are some other reasons why my move-out day couldn't come soon enough:

• I won't have to listen to children fighting. I will still have to deal with it but I can kick the kids out of my house. Do you remember how you acted with your siblings and cousins between the ages of 8 and 15? There is guaranteed to be crying when all of my host-mom's grandchildren are at the house. I am also looking forward to not hearing arguments between kids and adults as often. There is so much sass in this country.
• I will have a private space bigger than a small dorm room.

  

  I'm looking forward to not calling this home.

• I won't smell the smoke the outdoor kitchen in my room or on my clothes. It never ceases to freak me out when I am on my computer and I begin to smell smoke.
• I won't be walking in on people going to the bathroom. Seriously people there is a door, close it. Or at least say something as I am walking in!
• People will not walk in on me in the bathroom - the door cannot be locked. Thank God there are curtains in front of the toilet and the shower.
• I won't have to strategize when I will use the bathroom or uncomfortably wait until it is unoccupied.
• I will always have toilet paper. I keep toilet paper in my room but sometimes you don't realize there isn't any toilet paper in the bathroom until it is too late.
• I will be able to cook for myself. Since moving to my site I have gained some weight, I attribute most of it to the food I have been eating for the last three months: carbohydrate, oil, and sugar heavy foods served in large quantities. I am hoping that now that I have full control over my diet I will be able to quickly loose the extra pounds - tight jeans in a hot country are not comfortable. Also, I am glad I will no longer feel like I am treating my host family like restaurant staff.
• I will have pets! My host family has dogs and cats but it wasn't the same as having my own pets. In part because Dominicans don't tend treat animals the same way we mostly do in the States. For example, aside from the occasional table scraps my host-family does not feed their two cats because the cats are expected to hunt down pesky mice for their dinner. Also, none of the animals are treated for fleas so they all have them. This means that nobody wants to pet them, let alone cuddle with them - including me.
• My new kitten! I told my host-mom I wanted a kitten and two hours later she comes in the house holding a sack with a kitten inside. The poor baby was so weak from hunger that the first few days he didn't even meow. He also has a big wound on his head but it is already starting to heal. I have decided to call him Pato, which means duck in Spanish, because he is my ugly duckling. 

  

  Pato!

Reasons I am sad to move out:

• My host-family has a generator, a luxury I won't have in my new home. Instead, I will be using my flashlight and headlamp more often. The DR has an electricity problem, in almost every community there are daily power cuts. My community is lucky because we have an electricity schedule, dawn to noon then back at 6ish until midnight. But sometimes things happen, like when a transistor blew up down the street, and we went without power for a day.
• I won't have the security of always having someone in the house. There has been a rash of burglaries at Volunteers homes so I am going to have to be on alert and maybe have someone house-sit when I am out.  I am also crossing my fingers that tigueres (Don Juan wannabes) won't be emboldened by my solo status to come knocking on my door.

Despite the decrease in security, the positives definitely outweigh the negatives. I am very much looking forward to Sunday when my move-out will be complete. Remember to come and visit!




One last thing, for those of you who have commented on my blog, sorry for not responding. I can't see to figure out how to post my own comments - sad I know. Thank you for all your kind words and support!