The People I Will Miss

I have grown to find so much support in my fellow volunteers and in my Dominican community family. The countless times I have cried to my volunteer friends on the phone just when I was having a bad day or the sheer exhaustion and frustration of living in a culture different from my own was also difficult. I could not have done this without my volunteer friends. I know that going forward they will truly be the only ones that will really understand my experience and what Peace Corps has meant to me. And even though I am so incredibly excited to go back into the land of technology and proximity to many of my US previous friends, I will miss these people dearly and know that no matter what changes, I will always be close to them.

After COSing in October I was lucky enough to use $2,000 of my readjustment money for a trip to France, Belgium, and Greece for a little over 3 weeks before returning home on Thanksgiving morning. I traveled with one of my best friends Herel and we had a lovely time, but it was really hard even adjusting to European life.

The hardest part was missing everyone I had left behind in my home for 2 years. My dominican family was still in the campo, living in extreme poverty. and hopefully better for my presence, but long-term affects are difficult to determine and sometimes impossible to find. I felt as if I had betrayed them in a way. Here they are opening their homes, sharing their food, their stories, their trust with me- and I depended on them for emotional and physical support. I could not have made it through this experience without their support, yet here I am leaving them to stay in their tin houses, living day to day hoping they get food. I am going back to running water, food security, house security, going back to my countless clothes and unnecessary appliances. A couple months after leaving I still feel these pangs of guilt, especially as I take out my credit card to buy yet another seemingly unnecessary thing, but if anything I have learned throughout these last two years that happiness and fullfillment in life is definatly not based on material possessions, but more

so on the love and support you have from others. I hope I never forget these lessons I have learned from my Dominican family and that I will never take for granted the beauty of human interaction and support and the powerful disregard that is applicable to physical possessions and consumeristic greed.