The mission of Peace Corps volunteers is to create an avenue for cultural exchange and to assist in developing countries need for skilled workers. For each of us the first priority is realized in relatively the same manner, but the second changes based on our qualifications and experience.
My second priority is environmental development. In order to work towards sustainability in this area I work in coalition with two regional organizations to plan informal environmental education. As part of our work all PCDR volunteers conduct a community diagnostic to determine the general facts of the community, the strengths and the weaknesses. I say PCDR because each Peace Corps country program is completely different and this is not necessarily the way it works everywhere. Although we already have an idea of what the community wants us to do – because they request us - this diagnostic helps us get to know the people and the true needs. Because I’m still getting to know this place my work will change over the course of the two years but this is how I have been spending my days lately:
6 – 7am Running and Yoga. I still don’t have a bike and I’m starting to notice all the white rice gathering around my waistline, so although I absolutely hate it I’ve been running every week day. I run before the tropical sun gets to high in the sky and before the trucks begin throwing the dusty road into the air. I feel great afterwards and I’m meeting more people because they see me run by everyday and love my running partner, San (pictured below). A few of the local girls have shown interest too, so maybe it will even turn into something bigger.
730am Breakfast. Fried egg over one of the following starchy vegetables – they call them viveres and there are countless varieties that they apparently never tire of. They include potato, batata, yucca, yautia and squash and we don’t have a meal without them. I don’t eat this for breakfast anymore as my family is now buying oatmeal, peanut butter and bananas and I imagine that my cholesterol was skyrocketing from massive egg intake. We also have tea with breakfast every morning.
8-12pm Because I’m still getting to know my community and defining my work here it’s hard to describe what I do everyday in a concise way. Basically I do whatever people invite me to but largely I am riding around on the back of a motorcycle supervising reforestation of private lands or meeting with community leaders to get to know the people in my 6 work communities. I work with an organization called Plan Sierra, Inc. that has been doing reforestation – mostly with Pine – and other environmental development activities for the last 30 years in this region. The dark green tree line in the photo above is all part of a huge pine forest that they are responsible for. Usually my project partner and I are visiting private properties to study how the recent reforestations of pine trees have survived. He is also an agronomist so we spend a lot of time visiting lime orchards, diagnosing diseases and recommending pesticides and fungicides, organic and synthetic, to the farmers growing your limes. I’ve also recently started work on my first book! A fellow environment volunteer and I are writing a curriculum for Peace Corps on how to use English language classes to teach environmental issues. We are super excited about having some sort of concrete project to work on and we hope to have it done by Thanksgiving.
Eventually my work will be almost entirely doing environmental lectures and activities in the schools and with community groups such as the women’s groups, youth groups, and neighborhood associations. I also hope to start an environmental youth group and a girl scouts-like club as we are severely in need of youth activities in my community.
12-2pm Lunch time! Lunch is the biggest meal here and everyone comes home to eat every day, and every day we have what they call La Bandera Dominicana – the Dominican flag – rice, beans, and meat, usually chicken and sometimes salad.
2-4pm In addition to using this time to hang out with my siblings and plan English classes I have been learning the business of limes! My dad grows, buys and sells limes for export to the United States and I have been taking advantage of the opportunity to learn all about the crop. Many days I spend bouncing around in the cab of a truck, riding hours up the dusty mountain road to buy limes. The other day I found myself parked, alongside three young men who have become my brothers and two Haitian workers, atop a truck load of limes. Turns out in order to buy limes you have to know how many there are… and so went the next two hours, and my freshly painted nails…counting limes.
4-8pm Teaching English….thoughts on world domination… Here at PCDR small projects that earn you confiansa –trust – and help you get to know the community are called quick wins. My quick win? Teaching English. When I applied to Peace Corps I told them that I would not teach English and I’ve spent a great deal of time considering the pros and cons. I’ve probably spent more time thinking about this than anything else since I’ve been here. I once believed that teaching English would just be a reinforcement of the idea that the people of the world, and specifically those from the Dominican Republic, need to learn English to be successful. I’ve since come to the conclusion that that me teaching English does not affect the reality that the economy of this country is controlled by the United States. The majority of large companies here, including those that process the sugar and tobacco are American and the two biggest money makers of this country are 1) Tourism (from the United States and European countries) and 2) Remittances – money from family members living in New York. My community is relatively well off and has the highest emigration rate to the States of any in the Dominican Republic. The people here have the things they need, and although there are still countless opportunities for education in every sector, they want more than anything else from me, to learn English. I am here improving my education and quality of life by learning Spanish and it would be silly to deny them the same while they are giving so much to me. And so, for better or for worse I am spending four evenings a week teaching English. We have a lot of fun with it, and eventually I’ll be trying out my new environmental curriculum on them!
8pm Dinner. Fried egg over starchy vegetable…always.
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