One week down as a PCV living in my site in the northern province of Monte Cristi! Our pueblito (small town) of about 15,000 people is surrounded by rice fields and banana plantations and could not be more beautiful. To make things even better, we are only an hour away from a gorgeous beach.
I live with a wonderful host mother and her 6-year-old daughter in a cute little blue house.
My doña had to teach me how to do laundry this past Sunday because it is quite different from how we wash laundry in the States. I am fortunate enough to live with a family that has a machine instead of washing by hand. They have one machine, about a third of the size of our machines in the States, that washes the clothes and also “dries” them by spinning as much water out as possible. It’s a very easy process that ends by hanging the clothes out in the sun to dry. She even took me to a bingo group that plays down our street which I think will be a great opportunity for me to meet people in my community and integrate.
My doña’s sister is my school director, so I spend a lot of time with my director and her family. They have a beautiful house above a small hardware store, ferreteria, where we sit and talk most evenings after school. They have been so hospitable and the director has already called me her daughter since day one. I also spend a lot of time with one of her daughters. She took me out on the weekend to get our eyebrows done and then for ice cream after. Her family will do anything for me to make sure I am happy here during my service. Not only are they so welcoming and open, but also my community as a whole has proved to be very sweet.
These first three months we complete a community diagnostic of our sites where we conduct more than 50 interviews, community maps, seasonal calendars and more tools to assess the opportunities, strengths, threats and weaknesses of the community. The goal of the Peace Corps is to implement projects that will sustainably develop the area. In order to do this we must talk with the people and hear their voices instead of insisting upon something we believe is needed because of what we know from our own home and cultures. I have begun getting my face, my name and my purpose out in the community in order to start getting to know the people and work on my diagnostic. Since I am in a larger community, it was daunting at first to meet people. But these last few days I have met more than a dozen people that were all so willing to welcome me into their home or to sit on their porch and talk. Because of the open and loving Dominican culture all they need is, “Hola, saludos” and they will give up their plastic chair for you to sit down with them.
My school has been just as sweet and welcoming. The teachers are all so grateful to have me with them, even though I am only observing their classes for the time being. The students have greeted me with smiles each day, and word gets around that there’s an American working at the school named Alexandria. Although I have been asked many times if I’m from Venezuela. They also ask me every day to speak English with them, or they just tell me “Hello, how are you”, “I love you”, "My name is" and variations of “Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night”. After observing for only a few days, I am very eager to see where my work in the fall takes me and to finally get busy in the school!
It baffles me that in only one week living here I can walk down the street and hear kids calling to me yelling “Profe!” or find someone on our calle principal (main street) that I know. In the grand scheme of things, that is a big reason why we are here; to make those connections with people of a different life than our own.
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