Almost second year, already second site

So I have this tradition. Every holiday I take some time to reminisce about what I was doing one year ago on that same day, in order to reflect on how things have changed in just 365 days. For the first time in, well, possibly ever, I could not remember what I did for the 4th of July last year! I think I was in Arizona, preparing for my best friend’s wedding, but could I have been in North Carolina? Has this year been so full, so overwhelming, that I completely forgot what was happening a mere year ago?!

Time is an interesting concept. Right now it feels like time is dragging, yet I also can’t believe I have lived on this island for almost an entire year. Month 11 is going to go blazing fast, too, because I’m starting back at 1.
In just three days I will be moving. Referred to as a “site change” in Peace Corps lingo, I am moving from my urban barrio of 12,000 to a campo, a small community, of just 1600 people. This decision is the result of months of build-up (believe me, you don’t want a site change if you can help it), of lacking community support to security incidents, that combined made my decision easy. Out of respect for the amazing youth I have met I requested to move nearby Bani so that I can continue to work in my old barrio a few times each month… so Las Tablas it is!
Las Tablas is only a 30 minute guagua ride from Bani and is located, well, in the middle of the desert. It really feels like I have moved to a Dominican version of Tucson, Arizona, except I am lucky to remain just a few miles from the ocean. I have only been to Las Tablas twice, each trip lasting about 5 minutes, but from what I can tell this campo has plenty of discotheques, a few colmados, several hundred homes, a huge baseball field, and thousands of pigs, dogs, mules and other farm animals. I am both excited and apprehensive about the fact that my biggest threat to security in Las Tablas will be the tarantula… ugh. Despite any future encounter with my worst enemy, I can honestly say that I am thrilled to get the opportunity to actually live the “Peace Corps experience.” My house was a little too nice, Bani a bit too luxurious to really merit Peace Corps living. Now I’m back to how it all started when I arrived in country. Host family. Dominican food. No running water. No privacy.

So, one month with a host family and performing a mini-community diagnostic, then a two week paradise in Portland, Oregon. By the time I return to the DR I will have been in country for exactly a year. Another important date in which I will reflect on what happened just 365 days before.