Identity

I have 11 weeks and six days until I board my final plane leaving from the Dominican Republic and return home to America. I have to admit- I am not sure how I feel about it yet. It’s only February, but I already find myself wrapping up my Peace Corps service: saying goodbye to people, writing my final reports about what I did in the last two years and preparing my resume for when I return. I feel like I’m in college again and I’m procrastinating the final paper of the semester. I know I have to do it. I know it’s the most important work of the entire class, but I just don’t have the motivation. I am not ready to attempt to sum up (in two pages or less) what my life has been, living and working in La Caya for the last two years. On top of all this, I am a bit uncertain about the person I will be when I go back to the states. My new identity that has been redefined from Dominican culture, Peace Corps culture and living out of the United States for two years.

Yesterday, while I was washing my clothes in the semi-automatic washer, I had a voiced internal dialogue of what a possible job interview will be like when I return home. I tried to think of the most off-the-wall questions an employer could ask me, and how I would respond in a timely and clever manner. There I was pacing around with wet and soapy arms, speaking in low tones to myself, pretending to be in another world far from here. My neighbors must think I’m crazy. But that’s nothing new. Sometimes I think they think I’m from another planet. It wouldn’t be that farfetched in some situations. 

About a month or so ago, I was talking to one of my former English students, a teenage boy, and he was surprised to learn I had a last name. I didn’t even know what to say. I laughed it off and told him, “of course I have a last name. I’m just like you, remember?” It’s kind of crazy to think that I have been known here in La Caya as only one name, or a variation of it: Esteicy, Daisy, Tracy, La Americana, Gringa. All of those names constitute my identity in La Caya, but never my full name. It’s like I’m Madonna or Beyonce or someone. 

I’m joking, obviously. I would never say I have that much celebrity status here or anywhere, and I hope I never do. However, it is interesting and mildly entertaining that all my relationships in La Caya have more or less been based on the fact that I am the American. No last name necessary, my identity is determined. I am different. I really am from that other planet. 

When Dominicans refer to the United States, they often just say, “pa’lla,” which is a lazy way of saying, “para alla,” or “over there.” The entire country of the United States of America can be summed up in over there. Like it’s a quick wave of your finger tips and there you are, over there.

Everyone has started to ask me if I am excited to go back to, over there, and if I’m going to get married right away. My identity here has been as the mujer seria- serious woman, but when I return home, the only logical place my identity should go is to become a wife. Maybe then I could have a last name.

I don’t mean to sound harsh about Dominicans and their views on marriage, because even though I don’t necessarily agree, marriage is the next logical step for any person my age. And to be honest, this is a shared view in the US as well. Dominicans are just placing their values on me, because they honestly want me to be happy. Happiness comes with a husband and a family. Having lived here for two years, I agree with that more than ever, but I’m still not in a hurry to make it happen.

My single-name identity that I have created in La Caya will be only a memory in a few months. I’ll return home and sit in job interviews, without soap suds engulfing my upper body, and I will try to explain how Peace Corps and the DR changed me. How it made me see the realities of our world in a realistic and sometimes cruel manner, how it gave me the identity I have now. I guess I’m just struggling with what identity I want that to be. What identity I choose for myself after this experience is over in 11 weeks and 6 days and I fly over the ocean to over there and see US soil beneath me.