Life has been pretty hectic here in the D.R. and the consequence has been my complete and utter disregard for my blog. I really need to do better because I have also fallen off with journaling so I need to keep one of these avenues of reflection going. I've been mia in reality since April so I'll give you the updates on my projects and what I've been up to.
April: At this point I remember being really excited from Deportes Para la Vida training, and in the middle of planning Soy Sana days. In the month of April, every Saturday, I hosted a Soy Sana/o day at the centro Comunitario for kids in my Chicas Brillantes and Chicos Superman groups. Those days featured breakfast, lunch, and a snack, condom races, nutrition charlas, learning body parts, Deportes para la Vida games, and a sit down chat to do manualidad activity. I had the amazing help of several of my volunteer friends: James, Norma, Jose, Diona, Caleb, and Joe: thanks! It was nice to have a couple of girls from different areas come to the conferences as well. I'm still working on my Spanish, but it I was determined not to let it deter me from providing information that youth in my community need, so I was happy and thankful to work with volunteer friends! PS for those of you who are planning to serve, building a community of volunteer friends is vital to your sanity, community work, and any camps you all may have to put on together.
I spent the end of April taking 3 boys to the Superman Camp in San Cristobal. It was 4 days of sleeping in a tent, eating a lot of viveres, participating in a lot of team building activities, and looking through the lens of my boys who (for 2 of them) had never left Santiago before. It was humbling and exciting. I also went down the zipline for the first time so it was sweet to get a brand new experience as well. From that conference I learned a lot about what I want my superman group to look like: from activities, to the overall goal of our group. I want them to challenge every stereotype out there: they are NOT tigueres (in the bad sense of the word), they are smart and go to school, they can cook for their moms, play sports without fighting, and talk about how men should treat women and what they can do to combat the staggering domestic violence numbers in Santiago.They are well on their way and with their graduation tentatively set for December 7, I am excited to see where the fall takes us!
May: May was extremely busy and I felt like I was not in my site as much as I wanted to be for the first 2 weeks. I started off May at the 2nd annual Conferencia Nacional para NNAs en Situaciones de Alto Riesgo. I served on the Planning Committee for this conference and we had been planning since February. It was really nice to see the whole conference come together, particularly the way the entire committee (made of up of volunteers and Dominican professionals) came together to support one another at the conference. For me, it was so important and refreshing to see Dominican professionals who are dedicated and doing good work at their non-profit organizations to have the chance to come together and brain-storm, plan, and participate in sessions designed to improve their skills, knowledge, and conscientious in taking care of themselves as they take care of others.
Then I went to Corps Forum, which is our form of volunteers getting together to plan conferences and events over 2 days versus having meetings all the time all over the place, which can lead to too much time spent out of site. Entonces, I was able to help with the planning of glow, and then I had to jet back to Santiago to pick up 4 of my Deportes para la Vida trainers in order to get to Cabarete for a day and a half of training. We spent the afternoon sharing and giving feedback on our progress with our trainings. We shared that we were having issues translating the curriculum in a way that our boys of Haitian descent could understand because oftentimes we are lacking a language in common. We received great feedback and offers of support, of which I will share those details in June. It was a cool experience because I was only PCV there and I was having a good time trying to "blend in". We were able to walk by the water at the beach (always an opportunity for reflection, appreciation, and thanks to god for the opportunity to just be), eat dinner at a restaurant (always a treat), and just hang out with my trainers. My work experiences with my trainers have been much stronger because of this experience. Finally, we spent the next day helping the Dream Project/DPV with their baseball tournament. The tournament was also a community event where local families could come and watch, play DPV games, face paint, and most importantly, everyone had the opportunity to take an HIV/AIDS test. Although the field was muddy, the teams still tried to play, many people were tested, and we had a really good time! It was an awesome event and I can envision us planning and executing a similar event in Accion Callejera!
I spent the rest of May in my site on mandatory lockdown for 3 days because of the presidential elections. Fortunately for me, everything passed muy tranquila in my community. I spent the end of May hanging out with my various groups and planning summer camps.
Of which, I will share in my next post tomorrow! I promise to be more on it!
Have a great day everyone!
