Happy Birthday Jesus, Happy New Year, DST Our Centennial Year! Inauguration, Happy Black History Month, Happy Resurrection Day.....

Yes all of these holidays passed without so much as a blog, photo, peep, or whisper from me on here. Well, that's about to change as this is my current attempt to resuscitate my blog. Long story short, everyday has been jam packed since November, days became regular (as in while many things have happened but they were difficult to describe/didn't seem blog worthy), and regular access to internet allowed me to connect with close fam and friends thus lessening my motivation to track my service here. But many of you have begun to ask me to blog and so here I am again, trying to sum up the past 6 months. I will fail but trying is whats important here right?

Major events that have happened: missed Founder's Day at Howard (ooooooo-ooooop!) to send people from my organization (Accion Callejera) to an education conference....which goes back to personal sacrifices for the betterment of others.....attended some camps (Chicas Brillantes Mi Futuro Brillante, (Committee of Youth Leaders for our girls gender empowerment initative/Comite de Consejo Training, Chicos Superman Regional Conference, Deportes para la Vida Regional Conference, Dominican/Haitian Relations Conference) with awesome people, coordinated some camps (Chicas Brillantes Western Regional Conference , Children and Youth in High Risk Situations)  with amaziing, resilient and selfless people. I learned to seperate myself from a very toxic project partner and I surrounded myself with the amazing youth I've been blessed to meet yet.

In my community, my youth grew into the leaders they were always supposed to be, just blessed to have been a support in their process. Some leaders were not ready for the responsibility and left, but that ended up being a necessary and important lesson for the rest of us who stayed dedicated to Wandy (my youth leader who passed away in November's thunder storm flood while trying to save a young girl's life )

The Chicas Brillantes Western Regional Conference solidified some things for me so I'll be blogging about that soon, let's just say the events that happened at that conference inspired my next steps. (BTW check out our page on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chicasbrillantesrd)

I recently attended a Dominican-Haitian Relations Conference that allowed me to facilitate a lot and it took me back to my College Summit Rap Director days...it was tiring and fulfilling...creating intentions and striving to meet them, even if you have to adjust your charla/presentation in the very moment. That conference (which just happened this past weekend so some of this is very timely haha) just reminded me of the fact that whatever my next step is after Peace Corps; youth development/facilitation/mentoring of youth has to be a component; they make it all worth it!

So to be clear, in this Peace Corps volunteer journey you will have ups and downs. I heard that the ups and downs happen when you first get to your site, at the one year mark, and when you debate whether to extend or go home.... Yep they were right. Major emotions I've experienced: every last one over the past 6 months. In November I was absolutely devastated and overwhelmed after my brother (real) was in a nearly fatal car crash, my youth president dying in a flash flood storm while trying to save a little girl's life while also being recognized as the Featured Volunteer of the Month and presenting the story of my youth group to the entire PCDR administrative office. In December I was stressed with having jam packed activities, but blessed to have celebrated my birthday like 3 times with 3 different and special sets of people, gone to a resort with my triplet, and I got to go home and spend quality time with family and friends. In January I wanted to extend, in February I wanted to go home and started making plans to do such, March I was all over the place, and in April I finally found some peace....but I promise an extended story about that is coming soon :)But something that I learned in the journey is to enjoy every moment while I'm in it, make sure that any professional goals find a way to line up with personal happiness, and wherever I may find myself I already am all that I will ever need. These lessons alone, with the additional blessing of all the amazing people I have crossed paths with has made every moment where I doubted myself along this journey worth it. I am so much more resilient than I was when I came here in August 2011!!

Major lessons I've learned: Peace Corps is one big family, for better or worse...everyone will know your story even if they don't know you. I had to get used to the fact that people would come up to you and tell you info about you that you didn't tell them..... It's the way of life among PC Volunteers it's better to just embrace it and keep your sanity rather than try to buck against it.....trust me on that one lrl. I also learned that I cannot give away my whole world and leave nothing for myself... I am someone who was placed with an NGO in a large city with an 8-5 work schedule. I also had very high expectations of myself, worked hard since day 1 and so their expectations of me increased (which has been great except in the fact that workaholics don't always rest!) In learning to make more time for me, some people are not used to that and so this transition is a little difficult for them, but very healthy for me. So some things I've done for me, workout at least 4 times a week (this can be harder than you think when battling no water, no electricty, and no space in which to work out), eat lots of yogurt and mangos, sit down to drink cafe with my dona (host mom) EVERY day, hugh my host sister tight everyday and ask her how her day is so she never forgets someone loves her, BE MORE VULNERABLE && OPEN and LAUGH. It's been going well, just the mentally freeing choice of choosing me at some points when I could continue working has been great!

What I'm looking forward to in the next month: Seeing my family in less than 3 weeks, being the maid of honor in my sister friend's wedding, and having an awesome GLOW (Girls Leading our World) National Camp thats filled with all kinds of Q.U.E.E.N. empowerment and U.N.I.T.Y. :) I'm looking forward to working with the amazing group of YFCD volunteers in country and the awesome group that is to come! Wait and see!

Next time, hopefully sometime this weekend, I'll post the best of the best in photos of my service from the past 6 months. And I have a huge surprise!

Nos vemos en domingo!

Its been a little while

I think the last time I posted a blog about what I’ve been up to projects wise was when I actually started my projects. Oops. So what have I been up to in the last month and a half? I’ve had a lot of successes (gracias a Dios), some failures, a lot of great times, and immeasurable learning experiences. I am really only focusing on 4 Peace Corps programs;  I think they will be the cornerstones of my service and the most rewarding initiatives for my community.

Chicas Brillantes: The 3 girls that I took the regional conference in February have really been a blessing. They run groups whenever I have to go out of town for meetings  and show up for every single program. They  model positive participation, energize the other girls, and motivate girls to come to the groups as well. My chicas groups have been running pretty smoothly and I think the girls are really starting to internalize the information because I am starting to see a shift in some of their actions. Some of the girls who started out really shy and didn’t want to participate are now raising their hands, sharing personal examples, and leading the way whenever it is time to do a dinamica. Additionally, a couple of my groups like to continue group by either having a reading club or doing step. I am really excited for the next couple of months because the girls are more comfortable sharing information with me and I am becoming more comfortable speaking Spanish in front of them. A lot of them also want to study at a university so I am hoping to learn more about the college application process here in order to support my girls on their journey. Doesn't this sound so familiar =)

Chicos Superman: I originally started out with 2 groups on two different days but I ended up combining the groups so that I could have a good solid group of 15 boys. They are energetic and we are on an anti-tigere journey because we tend to focus on topics that help them realize that women can do anything men can do. (viva mujeres!) I am enjoying doing activities with this group because they love any and everything! I am pretty excited for the Regional camp because I am hoping to get more ideas about science and outdoor activities to do with them.

Deportes para la Vida: I’m totally in love with this program because it reminds me a lot of the College Summit Rap Director curriculum. I was able to take 5 people from my community/organization to the training in late March and I had a ball. I learned a lot about my community members which will only strengthen the confianza I have within the community and I think they learned a lot about as me well. We went through the entire program as participantes and also practiced facilitating the different activities in preparation for becoming entrenadores within our respective communities. This program totally engages youth in an exciting and energetic way, as well as teaches them about positive decision making and HIV/AIDS prevention. So the major plan with this program is to do summer workshops with all of my graduated Chicas and Chicos groups, as well as jovenes from my barrio. The goal is to train them with this program which hopefully opens the door for Escojo mi Vida groups in the fall. Si Dios quiere!

Yo se Leer:  In working with Chicas and Chicos groups, I’ve realized that there are a large number of youth in my site who cannot read. It is pretty disheartening and it has prevented some of them from participating fully in group at times. I am hoping to create a safe space where they can start to learn how to read. This is definitely a major focus of mine so I am taking steps now to create a program for the fall. I am planning to start working with my target population in May so that we can just do a short term class, they can get comfortable with me and the set up of the program, and then it will be full steam ahead in September. Again si Dios quiere.

Also, I just held my first mini conference which was basically a health day for the older girls in my Chicas group. The day focused on the girls gaining an understanding of the human anatomy, menstrual cycle process, DPV introductory games about HIV/AIDS, A.B.C.s, nutrition, step, and girl talk. It was a jam packed mini conference and the event was really successful despite my stress level at the start of the day being at an all time high. But that is why I am so thankful to have some amazing friends serving with me because my lovely friends from the health sector Norma and James came to facilitate the charlas, 2 of my Deportes para la Vida entrenadores facilitated 2 games, and  Caleb brought a rockstar from his community who dropped some knowledge on my girls. I am thrilled that my girls had such a great time learning about their bodies and ways to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS.  I am planning 2 more days in April as well: one more for my younger Chicas groups and one for my Chicos group. Now that I have organzied one event, I am focused on improving the success in all my programs to follow.

I have the next 2 months to wrap up my Chicas and Chicos groups (of course I am trying to plan an awesome graduation for them as well!), plan my summer Deportes para la Vida camps, attend some conferences with my jovenes, and of course continue to explore this beautiful country by visiting other PC volunteers!

And finally...how am I doing personally? Well we all know I am an over planner and I am results oriented. but even with the impressive org (I mean I even have an org issued email address) I'm still learning to take everything one step at a time and do things my way. I'm also happy to have gotten started on my projects in my community because it is helping me grow more comfortable with Spanish. I've also done a bit of travelling over the past month and half and I have gone to 6 different friends' sites. I've been to the beach, celebrated graduations with friends, participated in the events of other volunteers, hosted volunteers in my site, and I've spent more time getting to know the amazing trabajadores of my organization.

I've caught myself reflecting on a question my triplet Ashlee asked me 2 months ago...am I present in every moment? I was unsure at the time of that skype call which probably meant no then. I had been so anxious about what my service would look like, how I may never ever get Spanish, and just caught up in over planning. But now, I truly feel as though I am living in every moment. I am genuinely enjoying my time here, I laugh often, let things roll off my back more easily, go out more, forgive more, and accept/embrace everything for what it is an amazing space to be in. I plan, but I am not tied to the plan; I am more flexible and accepting of the fact that nothing is certain. If nothing else, that has been a great lesson I've learned here while in the D.R. because I've become more at peace with just letting things be.

And since I am speaking about my personal world, I would like to thank all of my family and friends...in the States and here in the D.R. I am a better person for the people who helped me become who I am in the States as well as for the people who continually challenge, love, and help me shift out of my comfort zone here in the D.R. This Peace Corps experience is all about the people you meet and I am positive that I have developed even more life long friendships here in the D.R. which I am thankful to God for.

A Shift in the Triple C

The Triple C are the programs I planned to start implementing now that all trainings and diagnostic periods have come to pass. In reflecting with my APCD and Extreme Needs specialist, I realized that what people say is no joke. My first month in country was the absolute hardest…and then my first 2 months in site were an absolute nightmare. My first month was hard because I didn’t know how to communicate AT ALL, I was trying to get used to an 8-5 training schedule again, and then I was also trying to figure who I could kick it with in my group (glad they all turned out to be great people!). And my first 2 months in site…lets just say I’m glad it’s a blur now because I really just remember spending time looking at the walls wondering how I was supposed to integrate into my little camp barrio and my impressive org. You don’t really express those things via blog while its happening but now that I am starting to hit my stride, I can look back and confidently say that if you at least make it past those periods, you have a good fighting chance to at least….make it to the one year mark. Older PCVs always tell me that that will be another hard mark in my service. Vamos a ver.

                Now back to the Triple C. Chicas Brillantes: girls empowerment program. Chicos Superman: boys empowerment program. Construye Tus Suenos: business empowerment program for youth. These programs would target the major groups that I am interested in working with at my community center.  Going to the Chicas Brillantes Regional conference with 3 motivated girls was the signature to success in signing people up for all of my programs. The girls walked around all of the barrios with me to tell youth about their experiences at the conference and encourage people to register. Specifically, they reached out to their extended network: friends and cousins which was a great way for me to meet more people in the community. Since I’m partnered with an org, I’m more of a 9-5 volunteer which is a pretty different experience than the usual Peace Corps volunteer. So instead of having just one Chicas or Chicos group, I have a different group every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. As a former teacher, I actually think I work well under this set up because I get to plan, facilitate, reflect and continue to make each session better and better. Sorry Wednesdays and hooray for Fridays truly getting the best that I’ve got.

                Anyways, Wednesdays Chicas group had over 20 girls in attendance ages 7-13 (my younger group). They were pretty excited and I had 2 of the girls who went to the Chicas conference with me there to co-facilitate and reiterate my point anytime my Spanish completely failed me. They also stayed to help with the Chicos group which was a lot smaller and the activities were a lot more active but the girls jumped right in. I’m so excited for the girls because I am definitely watching as they step up as leaders, which warms my heart because this is exactly why I signed up to serve, to share opportunities for youth to step into their leadership potential. I was on such a high Wednesday as I finished prepping for my first Construye Tus Suenos class with my youth group. 

           Now I should probably give you all a background as to my youth group. This group was formed in October by the Spanish volunteer in my community to give to me once I got to my site. So in my first month (November) I shadowed him as he gave the youth leadership roles within the group and discussed several topics like self-esteem and positive communication. By the time December rolled around (where community members are only ready to celebrate) the Spanish volunteer was ready to pass the group to me so that he could proceed with his own interests. The only hitch with this was that I was only supposed to be integrating in my first 3 months, not taking over an established youth group. My hand was in a mini cast, I could not write anything, and my Spanish learning was almost at a halt so this was a horrible time to take over a group. Nevertheless, I wasn’t really given a choice so I did all of the Peace Corps integration activities with the youth group as a means of getting a feel for the community, a better understanding of youth needs and how I could support them, as well as a chance to learn more about the individual members of the group. This turned out to be a really successful process. I partnered with Carrie, my fave Santiago vol to help me facilitate my last meeting with the youth in January. At this meeting, we had the best youth attendance I had ever seen, we did a lot of team activities, I stressed the opportunity that they all had to become better leaders and learn whatever they wanted. So after explaining all of the Peace Corps D.R. programming initiatives and programming that they could participate in, expressing that we could do them all over 2 years, but I wanted to know what would interest them most to begin with. Almost unanimously (and this was led by the guys) a lot of people wanted to go through Yo Soy Ingeniero (a technology/math course) and Construye Tus Suenos. So, the Yo Soy Ingeniero program needs a lot of materials, and expensive materials. There is an AT volunteer who is working on creating start up kits for the program so I automatically thought that that program would come second. So that left construye and I walked around to tell the youth about the choice to start with this program. To be fair, we had not had a meeting for 2 weeks due to my 3 month training, participation in the 50^th anny, and the Chicas conference.

                So after a not so short story, imagine my disappointment when after translating all the words I needed to facilitate Construye, writing everything out on cartulina, and practicing….only one girl showed up, my Chicas girl to be exact. Frustrating, humbling…and I was left without an idea as to how to proceed. I had planned this out so that I could teach the entire Construye manual considering the times where I would be in Santo Domingo helping to plan for the conferences I’m interested in taking more youth to. I learned later that it was a hot day and no one wanted to climb the hill to go to the community center. There are some days when I don’t want to climb the hill so I could empathize but that didn’t lessen my disappointment much. But after meeting with my APCD and extreme needs specialist on Thursday, they assured me that I was off to a good start and that Construye requires a lot of math skills, which I know a lot of my youth do not have….so I’ve decided to postpone Construye and focus on Chicas and Chicos at the community center along with having a small group of girls who are in my Chicas group do Yo Se Leer because they do not know how to read. They have some learning difficulties in the regular D.R. setting so I’m hoping a small group with one to one tutoring, their own manual, and lots of positive encouragement and reinforcement will help them. I’m happy with this shift in focus and I think that is the name of the game as a Peace Corps volunteer. You just keep throwing spaghetti at the wall trying to figure out what will stick. I’m just starting out my service (in terms of throwing spaghetti) so I’m excited to figure out what will stick as well as to see if things may stick under different seasons (once I know more Spanish, once  I build a better relationship with more people in the community, after April when there seems to be less job opportunities available). Plus I'm building strong networks with a lot of women in my community and they are really urging me to start a womens group so I am going to learn more about the Somos Mujeres women's initiative in the D.R. I'm excited that a lot of things are falling into place!

                I had been working over the past month to really establish myself at the other site in my org so its nice to also start programs at the community center as well. I have a great relationship with my jefas at both sites and I’m continuing to work on building positive relationships with as many employees as I can. This has probably been the most intimidating experience of all as a PCV serving with a well established non-profit because both org sites are used to a million volunteers and I definitely have had a hard time communicating with them in comparison to other volunteers. Which leads me to my next point, in reflecting with my Peace Corps jefas, I realized that I struggled in my first 2 months partly because of all the comparisons that people made of me to other volunteers and how I was expected “to be.” Not being able to communicate denied my personality the chance to shine through so I just appeared more reserved and shy than I actually am. But the truth of the matter is that I am nothing like the other volunteers and I once I learned to ignore comparisons and focus on just being me, some of my anxieties started to fade and now my friendships are growing…slowly but hey I’ve still got 2 years =)

IST, 50th Anny, Chicas, and Planning...que chulo!

Like I said in my last post, I knew it would be awhile before I could write another blog post. The past month has been crazy and full of a lot of different events, of which I will briefly write about. Also my 6 month anniversary of being in the Dominican Republic is tomorrow (seriously this time is just flying by) so hopefully I will be able to post a blog about 60 things I´ve learned in the D.R.

The week before IST, I had a horrible headache and my stomach hurt really bad...moral of the story, I was stressing out about our 3 month In service training. At this training, we present with a community partner what tools we used to find out information about our respective communities, the information we found out, and then what programs/initiatives we planned to use to support our communities and/or institutions. Of course all of this would be in Spanish and we needed some kind of creative component. I stressed myself out unnecessarily because everything turned out great.

I ended up taking my host sister Mari with me and we had a great presentation (which we practiced together beforehand) which ended with us stepping (my creative component). Once that part was over it was all uphill. I had a great time connecting, reconnecting, and appreciating the other 13 youth volunteers that I came in with as well as our trainer Emily. I really grew a lot just from learning more about their sites, their perspecitives on some things I´m going through, and the unplanned time where we got to just sit and chat. Unfortunately, the stress piled on again when I realized that the D.R. YFCD program is about its business'seriously there are so many programs and initiatives that we can choose from to implement in or communities. It is a blessing and a curse because I love choices but I can also be overwhelmed by them.

I´m happy to say that (for better or worse) I will start with Chicas Brillantes (girls group focusing on building self'esteem), Chicos Superman (boys group focused on self-esteem before they become tigueres), Construye Tus Sueños with my youth group (business class), and Deportes para la Vida (kinesthetic way to learn about HIV/AIDS) in the community center. For my boys group (where the kids live and work on the street) I will start with English and math/science classes (using a technology manual). It was hard to narrow it down but these are the programs that I feel I can use to support as many aspects of my communtiy and organization as possible. I cannot do everything and I cannot help everyone, especially with my growing Spanish skills. So unfortunately, I will not be able to offer a women´s course (Somos Mujeres) or Escojo mi Vida but I´m dedicated to making sure that the courses I do start are well prepared, informative, and fun!

So onto the 50th, I helped out on the Hospitality team which literally meant that I smiled at all of the RPCVs. We all know I can do that pretty well. Diona ran into a Black RPCV from the 80s who took us to dinner and was an amazing source of inspiration and motivation for me. If you ever see this, hi Gail! We also ran into 2 women who had become super close friends during their service and remained that way 30 years later...that was such a sweet thing for us to see too! I met tons of RPCVs and got to meet some current PCVs as well so everything was pretty good. I was also able to take a picture with our current Peace Corps Director Aaron Williams who served in the D.R. from 1967-1970. All in all the experience was inspiring and humbling because these are the RPCVs who paved the way for me to have the opportunity to serve here.

I had to leave the 50th anny early in order to pick my girls and take them to the Chicas Brillantes Regional Conference in San Francisco de Macoris and it was so worth it. We got on the guagua from Santiago to San Francisco and met up with another volunteer and her girls. Thankfully our girls instantly clicked and that positive first encounter led to a million more over the course of the conference.

Chicas Brillantes is the D.R. form of a larger worldwide initiative which stands for Girls leading our world. The Chicas brillantes program focuses on building positive self-esteem, team building, girls learning about their rights, and learning about their bodies and sexual health as well. I posted a ton of pics on facebook and the weekend was filled with team building activities, making the women´s reproductive system out of a play doe like substance, reflection activities (for example each girl stood in fron of mirror and had to describe what quality and feature they loved best about themselves), kinesthetic activities demystifying rumors about HIV/AIDS and of course step. So I led a trust walk activitiy and introduced step to the girls which they loved! I was so happy that Vicki challenged and helped me share the history behind my sorority and step so that the girls had a better understanding. So I´m excited to continue that initiative in my community. And it was great to meet other volunteers and work with them in a group, we all came together and really worked as a team to deliver a great conference. One thing that I love about conferences here is that they are completely volunteer planned and led which means that whatever skills, strengths, and talents volunteers bring to the table is what we present. que chulo! P.S. for those of you wondering about the chicos...their conference is in April and I will take 2 boys si Dios quiere.

I just finished applying for a grant to support my Chicas Brillantes and Chicos Superman groups. Hopefully all goes well because I start almost all of my programs this coming week. I am definitely feeling a little pressure when it comes to planning, but I began with the end in mind (meaning I know the graduation dates and what topic we will be covering each day) and the girls that I took to the Cicas conference are super excited to help lead the program. I´m hoping that most of the programs I implement end up with some kind of multiplcadore component where it can continue even after I finish my volunteer service. So wish me well as I try to plant some seeds over the next few months!