Last few months

Following COS conference, I only have about two and a half months left of my service. My last few months have been aimed at ensuring that the programs I have implemented are sustainable. These programs mainly include that the youth and professors at the high school continue to teach a curriculum of sexual education and promote further youth leaders to facilitate this in the school. It also includes that the women as health promoters of “Healthy Homes” continue to promote healthy practices in their community with home visits and talks in the clinic. I also hope that the income generation programs will continue to grow and flourish- the floor cleaning and soap initiative as well as the fruit and vegetable stand.

What will really be hard about these next couple months of saying goodbye- hopefully a see you later? I have also been bad about change of environment, I remember when I went off to college I was definitely more sad than excited to leave all of my friends and my home that I had built up to love more dearly than anything, but in the end college was amazing, I had beautiful, life-changing experiences there, made life-long friends and even more life-long memories.

As I look forward to my transition back to the States I am heartbroken to have to leave behind my Peace Corps family, volunteers that have supported me through the thick and the thin, always there for me to complain about the failure of community projects and jump up and down with me when I had successes. I’ve laughed so hard I’ve nearly peed my pants, I’ve been goofy, I’ve opened up, I’ve been myself, and I know that these wonderful people I will not find anywhere else. This family that I have built in unique. Even though others may try, outside of this world in the DR that I have built for myself, they may try to relate to my experience, they may try to listen really hard and sympathize with all of my experiences, but no one will get what I went through and how it so profoundly changed me as my fellow support and best friends- my Peace Corps family.

Not only am I sad to leave this support network where I get to join with this family usually once a month and call them on the phone whenever I want, I am so sad to leave my Dominican family. This family is one that has tested me, have showed me a whole another side of the world, the way the majority of the planet’s citizens live. They have shown incredible kindness and generosity that has only grown throughout my service. I went from being the new while Americana who could barely speak Spanish, to part of the family, friends, a confidant, a coworker. I hope I never forget the memories I have made here. The little things even. The way Daniela’s brow furrows when she talks about how women can do everything men can do. The way Paulina runs to grasp at my waist sprinting to meet me in the street every time I walk to her house. The way Chicha’s face softens whenever she is talking about our time together. I don’t want to forget any of it, in many ways I don’t ever want to leave. I joke with my community, ‘oh I can’t ever leave, and I’ll hide out in your house so I never have to go, it’ll be too sad, I love you guys too much’.

Although at times I really feel like I don’t want to leave and I know I will miss so much, I am so excited to get back to the US. As work has slowed down these last few months, I look forward to a new adventure. I look forward to hot running water, grocery stores stocked with 25 kinds of SALAD DRESSING, with my family and my friends back home that I so long to see. I know it will be sad, but I am ready, and excited for my next adventure and to bring everything I can fit in my memory about these last 27 months with me wherever I go.