Aside from the drama of the deceased thief that occurred on Friday, I have actually been fairly busy wrapping up my Peace Corps service. Since it’s a lazy (and hot!) Sunday afternoon, I thought I’d take some time to update the status of my life, if not for you, then for me.
But firstly, an update on the above mentioned deceased thief. No major updates as of yet, only that he wasn’t from La Caya, but did have every intention of robbing as many people as he could in La Caya. Apparently, all of his family lives in the US, including his parents and his five siblings. Silvia told me today that she suspected this because she noticed all the clothes he was wearing were, “de marca,” or brand-name clothes. It’s interesting how much you can tell about a person by the Nikes they have on their feet. Other than that, I don’t know his age or if he himself had any kids or a wife. And as far as the man who pulled the trigger, he is back in La Caya, resting. What everyone is saying now is nothing will happen to him because he was defending himself and his wife. I will update as I learn more.
As far as those other things I have been up to… Well, my mom and brother came to visit a few weeks ago, and it was awesome. Although their visit was short and sweet, I think we really packed in the sites of the DR and did as much as we possibly could in five days. They got to see La Caya and meet so many of the important people to me here. We had lunch with Silvia and her family, which was like my two family worlds colliding. We took a long walk around the farms that surround La Caya, and walked through town with everyone saying that my brother was handsome and my mom looked so young (true statements). After lunch, we headed off to Samana on the east side of the island (a six hour drive, which I totally misestimated to be only four hours. Sorry again Jim). Samana is gorgeous and well worth the drive, and we had an equally beautiful beach house to enjoy. It was so great to just have relaxing time, where all three of us could have a vacation and enjoy the fact that I do live on a Caribbean island. After a few quick nights in Samana, we continued on to Santo Domingo, the capital. There, Mom splurged and took us and three of my Peace Corps friends out to dinner in the Colonial Zone of the city. Although I’m sure there are grander colonial cities, it still is pretty impressive to be in the oldest city of the new world. To imagine where Christopher Columbus sailed in and called the Tainos, the indigenous race of the DR, Indians, and then subsequently killed off everyone and pillaged the land for all he could (but that obviously is different blog post for a different time).
After Mom and Jim left, I jumped immediately into my Close of Service (COS) medical appointments. I got a full body check-up, blood drawn, TB test, dentist visit, parasite check (I’ll let you imagine how they determine if you have parasites or not) and probably other stuff I am forgetting. In between all these doctor visits and blood drawing sessions, I had interviews with the Peace Corps Country Director and my immediate boss. I turned in some forms and wrote a few more documents that will be submitted to Washington telling them Stacie Marie Eliopulos really did serve as a Peace Corps Volunteer from March 2009 – May 2011.
After the medical appointments, I worked on the Gringo Grita, which is a bi-yearly Peace Corps Dominican Republic magazine. Basically, it is published every time a group completes their service. It was originally started when volunteers didn’t have cell phones, as a way to keep everyone up-to-date. Now, although technology makes things easier for all of us, the magazine still acts as an informant, and takes about a week, of five or six volunteers working in the capital, to put together.
That brings me to coming home on Thursday night and waking up Friday morning to the “incident.” Aside from that, this weekend has been great and relaxing (exactly what I needed). Next weekend, I am co-planning the first ever, Educators Conference. It’s a three day conference in La Vega (about 2.5 hours from me); in which volunteers will each bring teachers and/or principles from their communities to discuss how we can improve the Dominican education system, one school at a time. Ambitious? Absolutely. And worth it. We have five days to make it happen, and it will happen.
After the conference, I have about two weeks to wrap up things here in La Caya, including, hopefully, taking a trip to Santiago to get some supplies for the school. In mid-April we are shooting two episodes of the Telenovela that we have been working on for over a year-and-a-half. Less than a month after that, I will board a plane and come home. AHHHHHHH! Writing it all done, makes me scream in my head.
It’s been a crazy and busy couple of weeks, and it is only going to continue. But I figure right now it’s like running a race. You can’t start walking at the end. It’s better to die of exhaustion at the finish line, than to cruise on home without breaking a sweat.
I have also been thinking about how I will miss writing blog updates about the happenings of life in the DR. Going home obviously has me thinking about what my next step will be, hopefully something interesting and adventurous enough where some of you would want to keep reading. We shall see where the roads lead us! Until then, I am running that race full speed ahead.
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