My new home, Bani

There is a lot of mystery that comes with being a Peace Corps volunteer; the country you will serve and the community in which you will live are decided by people other than yourself. After patiently and impatiently enduring the application process, after anticipating my country assignment, and after investigating which community I might be placed in -- I finally know what my two years will look like ! I can honestly say that my site has everything I wanted. There is so much to say about Bani and words cannot adequately describe everything that I learned/observed/experienced last week, but I will do my best to provide a mental picture of my new home!


Bani is located an hour west of Santo Domingo, where the dry terrain begins. It's still located in a green area, but you can tell that the desert is not far. There is a lot of cactus in the surrounding area and the mountains in the distance strongly resemble those in Tucson, Arizona. It's quite beautiful, especially when you include a view of the beach. You can see the ocean in any two-story building in Bani, as it's only about 3 miles from downtown (5-6 miles from me).

I live in a neighborhood, called Villa David, which is located about 2 miles north of downtown Bani. Bani noticeably has a lot of money (some parts resemble a high class American beach community), but Villa David and the surrounding barrios are very poor. I can only recount a few families in the neighborhood who own a car and I have not seen any homes with running water. That said, most roads are paved, and most importantly, everyone has been incredibly welcoming. I'm not sure they fully understand what this gringa is doing in their barrio (my host mom wanted to make a cake for my mom, and I had to explain to her that my mom lives very far from Bani), but I guess right now it doesn't really matter. I have told everyone that I am here to help youth in the community, but that first I need to learn and know its members.

I live with my Dona Migalina and her sister, son, and grandson. The whole family is very nice, and a little quirky too. Dona Migalina sells donated clothes from the states, and she has already given me pants and several shirts as gifts. She is the one in charge of the house, as she always cooks our meals and attends to everyone. Migalina is taking a sewing class at the technical center with her sister, Altagracia, so in their free time you can bet that they are making skirts small enough to fit a doll. Altagracia is a little crazy... she likes to take pictures with sexy poses and walk around in her bra with her pants half zipped. She is also the person I feel closest to in my house; we get along like sisters (though she is nearly 50 years old). The son, Alexander, isn't around too much and when he is, he is in his room watching tv or playing on his phone. His nephew, the grandson of Migalina, is just 10 years old and is really cute. He seems like a bit of a loner but he always plays with the neighborhood kids when they come by.

And oh my goodness, the neighborhood kids. They came to meet me shortly after my arrival in Bani, and since then continued to come by about once every 15 minutes. They love to compartir through reading stories, making snacks, and dancing. So... basically, they have already begun what I hope to continue. They are completely adorable and innocent, except when they dance. They still dance like Dominicans. One night last week they gave me a dance performance and, I swear, I saw 10 year olds humping the ground. I was appauled and in my head I repeated "cultural difference, cultural difference," but somehow it still just seemed wrong. Some things are hard to adjust to.

As poor as my community is, there actually is a lot going for it. A group of nuns is in control of the local elementary school, a home for the elderly, and a technical program to keep high school dropouts off the streets. I have the freedom to choose where I spend my time, and I hope to find a way to string together these three institutions so that they can support each other. That said, I feel very drawn to the technical center. The majority of students in the center are female, and the vast majority of these students already have children. I have been able to spend a decent amount of time with these students and I'm excited about working with them in the future. Vamos a ver!

Saturday, I guess my first small project with the kids began. We made 35 drawings to deliver to the home for the elderly. The next morning, Altagracia and I rounded up the neighborhood kids to deliver the drawings and it was quite a hit! The kids must have brought more energy than that place has seen in a while.

In addition to the community support, I have also found support in another Peace Corps volunteer. I am incredibly lucky to have another American in downtown Bani, and she also just joined PC in May! That means we have nearly two years to hang out and support each other in this crazy journey.

I forgot to mention that it only costs 3 dollars to travel from downtown Santo Domingo to Bani... so please, come visit!

So, there you have it. After buying a headlamp and crank flashlight, and expecting internet access once or twice each month, it looks like I will be living more comfortably than I had anticipated. I'm sure I will still confront my share of difficulties along the way, and even so, my new lifestyle will be challenging. The reality of my new situation hits harder than most of what I had anticipated, as reality always does. Much different to say something than to do it.

Now I am back in Santo Domingo for the week to wrap up training, get a local bank account, and swear in as a Peace Corps volunteer. Yesterday was full of interviews and tests -- our last roadblock before becoming official volunteers. Training has now ended; I swear in as a Peace Corps Volunteer in an hour and return to my site on Saturday.

This is my last blog as a volunteer-in-training! Two years starts tomorrow.

An end of sorts

After two weeks of hard work and equally hard good-byes, all 59 volunteers are officially back in Santo Domingo! We returned to the capital yesterday, providing one last weekend to hang out with our original host families and re-pack our things before a visit to our permanent sites on Tuesday.

As I said, the last two weeks in Constanza were packed with activities. One of the Dominican sayings we have been taught is that “Si vale la pena aprender, vale la pena celebrar,” or if something is worth learning, it’s also worth celebrating. We certainly followed this Dominican golden rule with friends, family, and training partners our last days in Constanza,

Each youth group that we worked with for the last month organized an activity to “celebrate youth,” and this included everything from mural paintings to talent shows. Two groups were scheduled to have a talent show so the Peace Corps Volunteers decided to prepare a special piece for the audience. We danced to Michael Jackson’s Thriller, expecting a big uproar, and instead the audience stared at us with the most stoic expressions I have seen in this country. They had no idea what we were doing. Our dance ended and we had that classic-bad-show-ending in movies where the audience is dead silent and every looks at each other awkwardly. Needless to say we learned a lot about cultural differences that day.

My youth group decided to do a clothing drive, and we donated our clothing to an extremely needy area in the surrounding mountains of Constanza. We were all a little unsure of how the drive would go… another expression that Peace Corps loves goes as follows: “Give one man a fish to feed his family, but teach him how to fish and he will feed his village.” As Peace Corps volunteers we have signed on to help people help themselves, and not to just drop off some material possessions and leave - which is exactly what the clothing drive was all about. However, despite prior concerns, the experience was incredible. Obviously I am in complete support of the Peace Corps mission, but I have also learned about the role that short term volunteers can play in providing material possessions. The community we served was so impoverished that most of the children did not own shoes. Case in point: a young girl from the community came over to me at the end of the drive while the leader of the community led us in the prayer. She held my hand and smiled at me as we were wrapping up the activity, and I decided to ask her what she thought about all of this; she responded by asking me if I had five pesos. Lesson learned, money pays for the necessities in life. Providing communities with material possessions may not help in the long term but people need clothes, food, shelter.

Once the youth group activities had ended, we wrapped everything up with our families; I chose to do this by cooking. Everyone knows I am not the biggest cook, but compared to most Dominicans I am a pastry chef. My friend Kristy and I learned early on that baked goods are not part of the national diet, so we decided to show our family how to cook some of our favorite desserts. In the end we ended up baking a pumpkin pie, chocolate chip cookes, brownies, and an apple crisp -- and it was the perfect way to thank our families for everything they had done for us. It was pretty hilarious, the whole experience. Dominican women know how to cook amazingly, but when it came to these treats, the Americans were the experts. They soaked up everything we said to them - any advice we had for how to scoop cookie dough onto the baking pan or prepare a pie crust - and later shared this information with their friends. What a great way to end our time in the mountains!

Last but not least, our very last day was celebrated with a despedida, or good-bye party. The volunteers presented small presents to their families and teachers to thank them for everything they have done for us. It was touching and painful to see how attached this community had become to our presence, especially knowing that this happens once a year for Constanza. Of course the feelings of attachment were mutual; it was difficult to say good-bye.

It was most difficult to say good bye to Wendy, my host mom, but it’s time to move forward to the next part of this adventure. Now I am back in Santo Domingo, sharing a few other memories with my first Dominican family. Yesterday, after church, I was even given an amazing surprise: I got to see the ocean for the first time since arriving on the island! As usual, my family started to mysteriously drive somewhere after their church service, and instead of asking where we were going I thought I would enjoy the unknown. I sat in the back seat, having absolutely no idea what was happening, and all of a sudden I saw a blue horizon. We spent a couple of hours at the Malecon, an outdoor market right along the water, about 5 miles outside of downtown Santo Domingo. It certainly made me excited to live so close to the Caribbean blue for my next two years.

In training we learned that culture shock often translates in the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Up to this point, that claim seems to be pretty true. For a few days last week I was really missing the States. All I wanted was to see the Fall leaves, go for a run along the Charles River, and spend time with family and friends. Then at some point I stepped out of my nostalgia and realized that human connections, just spending time with people you care about, are the solution to homesickness. I still miss my friends and family back home, but I am constantly blessed by the comfort and support of my Dominican counterparts. Tomorrow I will be introduced to an entire new set of people - the ones I will be spending the next two years with… I look forward to the ups and downs to come!

In less than one month...

I'll be moving to the beach!

Yesterday was the big day when all youth volunteers found out the location of where they will be working and living for the next two years. There had been a lot of build up leading up to this day, and since coming to Constanza I felt pretty confident that I wanted to be placed in the mountains. Well in the last few days I started to have a change of heart and felt like it might be nice to live closer to water.

Yesterday morning we set up 25 chairs in a big circle, plus one in the middle. This chair was the hot seat -- we took turns, one by one, sitting in that seat and finding out our site placement. The first girl who went was assigned to a small campo right on the beach, working with MLB. Her site location seemed really cool and I immediately thought about how happy I would be to have her assignment. About ten people later it was my turn to sit in the hot seat... And, to my surprise, I was placed no more than 30 minutes away from her, also on the beach! She is by far the closest volunteer to my site and I am thrilled to have her as my neighbor!



So here is my assignment:

I will be living in a suburb of about 10,000 people called Villa David, which is located on the outskirts of Bani. Bani is the regional capital of Peravia, a province known for its diverse geography of dry forests and extreme humidity, abundance of mangos, and beautiful beaches. Specifically, Bani is a city of about 100,000 people, just 3 miles from Caribbean beaches, and an hour from Santo Domingo.



I only got a brief description of my job assignment but it sounds like I will be working at an elementary school and a technical high school teaching classes, organizing groups, and forming sports teams. Apparently my project partner is a runner, too... I'm so excited!

I get to visit Bani for the first time in a little over two weeks. We've got exactly two weeks left in Constanza, then we spend 3 days in Santo Domingo before a week long trip to our site placements. I am including pictures that I found on the internet... hopefully it actually looks like this!