The one about new years resolutions

Happy Holidays!

Christmas time (especially Christmas week) is basically the only time I’ve ever feel homesick in the past three years of living abroad. I knew what I was getting into when I signed up for this crazy Panama gig, but I knew it’d be hard. And it has been. I think of being home with my family, cutting down the tree, working with my ladies at the Elephant’s Perch, being in the refreshing and energetic presence of my amazing brother, and skiing of course! That said, I’m doing okay this year. We had a Christmas miracle arrive in the form of Shannon, Katie’s girlfriend and she brought with her Christmas joy and American chocolate and coffee! And tomorrow, I head to fly to Colombia on vacation! I will be exploring/hiking to coffee country with college buddies and my partner in crime, Krissy! 

Since it’s the end of the year and I’ve been binging on “Best of” podcasts and news articles, I’ve been reflecting back on my Peace Corps journey and how it’s now the third time I get to ring in the New Year abroad and as a volunteer. The years have brought much change – personally, professionally and spiritually and it’s been a pretty powerful thing to look back on. I dedicated 2014 to working on myself. In this very blog I wrote, “In 2014, I turned alone time into a coping mechanism for that discomfort. And at first it was awkward and the hardest thing I ever had to do was spend four, five or six hours alone. But, I’ve really taken control of it. I’m better at setting goals, holding myself accountable, being patient (still working on it). I have become the ruler of my own mind, which sounds maybe like a lame thing to work on for an entire year, but it wasn’t. It took 17 months of Peace Corps service to get here and yes, I’m still working on it, but my alone time is no longer uncomfortable and awkward, it’s a shiny new tool for my life toolbox.”

My goal for 2015 as I wrote was “This year is the year of expansion, pushing myself to the limits, growing from others, and truly giving host-country nationals the energy they deserve.” I believe that I did a good job on this one. I finished my service strong and I really invested in the people I lived with. I learned to rely on others, to trust my project partners, to speak up for my community. The year 2015 has been an amazing one – one that I am very proud of. The growth and accomplishments we achieved in my community were pretty remarkable. And now I’m in a totally new community and developing a new project.

For 2016, I’d like to focus on professional development. I have a wonderful set of personal strengths that I’ve honed over the past 30 months of Peace Corps. I’m more creative, resourceful, and comfortable with myself, self-aware. I’m a better leader, friend and listener. I’ve spent so much time becoming who I am and I know that I can create a strong program here in Panama. I want to develop a curriculum that I am proud of, but that also serves Ngobe communities in the best ways. I hope to make this year much less about me and more about dedicating my skill set to pursuing a noble goal – of bringing health education to indigenous communities!

And now the moment you've all been waiting for....my own personal “Best of 2015” lists!

Best Songs:

1) Hello by Adele

2) American Oxygen by Rihanna

3) Travesuras by Nicky Jam

4) Tokyo Sunrise by LP

5) Dearly Departed by Shakey Graves

6) Me Voy Enamorando by Chino y Nacho

7) Ginza by J Balvin

8) Yo Te Amo Tu Me Ama by El Alfa

9) Rechazame by Prince Royce

10) Lean On by Major Lazer

Best Books:

1) All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doer

2) Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

3) Room by Emma Donahue

4) The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

5) Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham

Best TV:

1) Transparent (Amazon)

2) The Mindy Project (Hulu)

3) Scandal (ABC)

4) How to Get Away with Murder (ABC/I love Shonda Rhimes)

5) (And the obligatory) House of Cards (Netflix)

Best Podcasts:

1) Serial

2) Slate Political Gabfest

3) Global News Podcast by the BBC

4) Radio Ambulante (Spanish language)

5) Huff Post Live Audio by Huffington Post

6) Ted Radio Hour

Top life events of 2015:

1) Climbing the 76^th tallest mountain in the world (February)

2) Graduating our first group of paramedics in Manzanillo (March)

3) Convincing all seven of my Commune ladies to come visit me, it was very special that I got to see them all during my service!!! (March)

4) Luis and Enriquito’s wedding (September)

5) Closing my service in the Dominican Republic with surprise guest appearance by the one and only Grayson Caldwell (October)

6) Watching Henry win Idaho State Mountain Bike Championships (October)

Goals for 2016:

1) Finish developing our Community Health Worker curriculum and implement it in 20 Ngobe sites

2) Read every night before bed

3) Journal/yoga/write more

4) Listen to more podcasts (double points for Spanish ones), read more of The Economist

5) Work on a political campaign (or get a really cool big girl job)

That’s all for now folks! I’ll write you next year!

Paz, 

Bea

The one about my arranged marriage

HEYO!

I finally finally feel settled in and things are going well (for the most part). We wrapped up our last follow-up clinics (to bring medications to chronic patients with diabetes, epilepsy, asthma, high-blood pressure, etc) and then all the Floating Doctors staff was gone, just gone. They all go home for two months over the holidays and regular clinics stop, holidays are celebrated, the weather doesn’t get any cooler (womp womp) and Katie and I keep chugging along.

Our work is computer based and we might turn into zombies soon, so instead of becoming the crazy anti-social losers that many of you American office workers/software developers/aspiring writer types end up becoming, we take breaks. We’ve found ourselves in a pretty great routine these days. I would describe it to you in painful detail, but then I remembered one time reading a friends’ friend’s blog about being married and each month for the first seven months of marriage, she did a recap of that month of marriage – explaining in vivid detail what it was like to be married. I could not relate, but I passively enjoyed and digested her observations of living on top of another human and the routine they ended up finding together. Well, week 6 into my “arranged marriage” with Katie and I now totally understand what the purpose of those blog posts were – do you even realize how crazy it is to be sharing a life with someone who literally knows everythingabout you and is there for every second of every day and not even two months ago was a total stranger to me? It's insane. 

The Raffalongs (Bronwen Raff + Katie Long = The Raffalongs) Month 1 Update:

It’s us – the Raffalongs, sending an update after Month 1 in our arranged marriage! Phew! I know many of you have been holding your breath for our first update and we report with good news is that our arranged marriage has thus far worked out perfectly. We haven’t even fought yet, we haven't even gotten in little tiffs about who does more dishes (me), who fixes more things (Katie) and who hogs more covers (Katie) but shhh, don’t jinx it.

Our daily schedule

7:15*: Alarm goes off, snooze til 7:33, wake Katie up by turning over, go for a run on the beach

8:45: Breakfast – Katie makes the toast, I poach the eggs and make the coffee, we listen to the BBC Global News podcast

9:30 – 12:30: Work on the computer and just when we start to lose our minds, we alternate making lunch (typical options include: leftovers, vegetable/bean wraps, something with peanut butter)

12:30 – 3: More work or errands around town

3:30 – 5: Movement/afternoon activity – typically beach volleyball, sometimes substituted by swimming or paddling on the surfboard we borrowed from a friend

5:30 – 6: Decide what we want for dinner and bike to get ingredients

6 – 7: Make dinner - Katie specials include: omelets, sushi (!!), stir-fry; Bea specials include coconut Thai curry, papaya sticky rice and tuna mac n’cheese.

7 – 10:30: Play the ukelele, play brain-expanding trivia and/or invent mind-stretching games, spend hours picking out a movie and watch half of it before falling asleep

10:30: Lights out!

*If it’s a Tuesday or a Thursday, we exclusively speak to each other in Spanish.

Favorite meals:

5) Tuna mac n’cheese

4) Papaya sticky rice

3) Stir-fry

2) Anything with peanut butter

1) Coconut Thai curry

Favorite snacks: Papaya, popcorn, ginger cookies with peanut butter, shortbread cookies with peanut butter, oatmeal cookies with peanut butter, chocolate

Favorite games this month:

5) Trivial Pursuit

4) Sporcle

3) Use an iPhone to record ourselves making music with the ukulele and sending them to friends

2) Beach volleyball

1) Improv games

Popcorn flick picks:

4) Frozen (Katie’s first time!)

3) We Need to Talk About Kevin (highly recommended by Katie, in her words “The most visceral viewing experience I’ve had in a while”)

2) The Place Beyond the Pines (highly recommended by Bea, in my words, “Ryan Gosling, what else do you need?”)

1) Serena (not recommended by either of us, from the mouth of very own film critic Katie, it was “Pretty people, pretty country, pretty bad”).

Books on the proverbial coffee table this month:

5) Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shtenygart (pretty decent read about a love story set in the near future, not on my top ten list though)

4) La Ceguera by José Saramago (Katie enjoys, didn’t seem too enthusiastic when I just asked her...she seems lost in her work)

3) Serena by Ron Rash  (Good book, fatal movie)

2) Donde No Hay Doctor by David Werner (I can’t tell if looking up weird medical conditions at the one flat surface we have that serves as our kitchen table/work desk/coffee table counts as business or pleasure)

1) Room by Emma Donahue (comes highly recommended by both Bea and Katie, beautifully written from the perspective of a five year old boy trapped with his mother in an 11’ x 11’ room – that said, we do not suggested reading this book if you literally live in an 11’ x 11’ house with one other person)

Favorite questions:

5) ¿Que es eso?

4) What’s that sound?

3) Should we go to the beach?

2) What game should we play?

1) Do you want to build a snowman?

Favorite Words: Astronaut, Clinic, Game, Popcorn, Coffee, Trivia, Improv, Leishmaniasis, Sloth, Ukulele, Run, Room, Tiny House, Clos 

What we’re learning this month: Patience and acceptance

Other interesting facts:

- Longest time spent apart: 4 hours

- Spines Katie picked out of Bea’s foot: 3

- Back and forths on the volleyball: 29 hits in a row

Characteristics we realize we share: Disinterest in small children, love of running, taste in food, critical lens for analyzing international development, always thought the Disney “D” was actually a backwards “G,” musical talent (I'm getting there)!

Characteristics we don’t share: Love of dogs, sense of direction, pop culture/movie references, improv expertise

Gallivants: This month we’ve been to eight Ngobe-Bugle communities as super star interpreters for Floating Doctors clinics/follow up, we’ve also explored two nearby beaches and hope to add a few more to that list this week!

In summary - month one of arranged marriage is working out great and it’s all been happening so fast! I guess we really know now what people are talking about when they say time flies when you’re in love! Wish us luck in Month 2 :) 

The one with pictures of our clinics

Floating Doctors clinic in pictures:

Group of girls we met while conducting a public health survey, they are 3 of 12

Intake Bea taking vitals and history

Line for clinic is already out the door at 8am

Norteño, a Ngobe village

Peace Corps interpreter superheros!

Promted to Intaker #3

Next you'll be calling me Dr. Bea

The one with photographic evidence that I'm in paradise

My new site in Pictures: 

Kabob man on a Bocas street

Bocas is an eclectic mix of abandoned buildings and new flashy tourist places which makes for an interesting vibe.

The one about my job

Good morning from rainy Bocas del Toro!

This is a long update with logistical information about my work and job soooo read on if interested, if not, look at the pictures and have a very Happy Thanksgiving!!!!! I am thankful for all of you and sending turkey stuffed hugs to all of you. Insider tip from someone who’s already celebrated Thanksgiving this year – try making your mashed potatoes with skinned purple potatoes for a nice lavender color and richer/more vibrant flavor (or maybe that’s the whipping cream we added?). Happy cooking :)

It’s been a wild ride of three weeks and I’m finally sitting down to send y’all an update. These past few weeks have been a crazy mix of interpreting at multi-day roving health clinics in indigenous communities during for doctors working for my partner organization (Floating Doctors), trying to find permanent housing, getting the lay of the land in my new territory, moving every few days from one place to another (between dirty warehouse studio apartments, a half-constructed compound on a deserted island, a nice hotel called the Cosmic Crab, and hammocks hung underneath stiled houses in rural villages I haven’t spent more than four days in any one place since the end of October) and deciphering what my job here will be. I’ll cut to the chase, here is what you need to know about where I am and what I’m doing!

This is the partner organization I work with: Floating Doctors.

Floating Doctors’ mission is to reduce the short-term burden of disease and poor health in resource-limited populations through a network of ongoing health care mobile teams, and create long-term reductions through community development projects, education, and local capacity building. This means that they bring a roving medical clinic staffed by doctors, interpreters, nurses and clinic managers to 22 indigenous communities in the Bocas area (think small tiny communities with houses on stilts over the water in various mangrove islands). My job the past month has been to join them on these clinics to see what they do and how they operate, however, my job will be to create a sustainability approach to the work they conduct.

These are my responsibilities: Developing a curriculum for a Community Health Worker (CHW) Training (months 1-3) to be implemented in Ngobe-Bugle communities (months 4-10).

I first need to coordinate with Floating Doctors (hence attending all the clinics) to create specific project design, then draw up project timeline with deliverables for review by Floating Doctors utilizing existing educational resources, and then create detailed curriculum of the training course with take-home documents for trainees, and then create assessment tools, assessment plan and reinforcement plan. In addition to all that, I’ll recruit participants from target communities, coordinate the implementation of the training sessions and assess the effectiveness of the training strategy and I’ve got a year to do it with the help of 2 other Peace Corps Response volunteers, Katie (who lives with me) and Evan (who lives in the communities we will work in).  

This is the indigenous community we work with: Ngobe-Bugle.

Basically Panama is one of the only countries left respecting indigenous populations and granting them full autonomy over their regions. There are four main groups in Panama and the one in Bocas area is known as Ngobe-Bugle. They mostly live in stilted huts near the river and have their own area/land protected in a similar fashion to Native American reservations in the States. Personality wise, they start having children young and have many of them, women wear long gowns called naguas decorated with sewn-on geometric designs, carry their stuff in bright handmade shoulder bags made of natural fibers and known as kra, are generally reserved and timid people who are generally short and stocky. It’s a fascinating culture that deserves a post of its own so I’ll save that for another day, stay tuned.

This is where I currently sleep: A half-constructed compound in Isla San Cristobal

However, there is currently not many amenities and no reliable transportation on/off this particular island and the entire Floating Doctors staff will be gone for the months of December and January while five Panamanian men do construction on the compound sooooo Katie and I are currently looking for permanent housing situation on the main island Isla Colón.

This is where I hope to sleep by Thanksgiving: A cute tiny green house on Isla Colón

There are various islands here in the Bocas region, the main operations of Floating Doctors were on Isla Colón before they bought the land on Isla San Cristobal and it’s where most of the action happens. Katie and I have found a wonderful family who are renting a little green house in a cute neighborhood. Their family lives on basically ¼ of the entire block, so we’ll be taken care of both socially and for security purposes. They’ve been great to us so far, more to come on them too!

This is what I do for fun:

Go to the numerous beaches in the Bocas area and swim! I have also been reading plenty and would gladly take book recommendations. I have been playing lots of trivia with Katie who is my personal encyclopedia.

This is who I spent most (read: all) of my time with: Katie

Katie Long – The one and only, the world’s best Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served from 2005-07 in Honduras (which closed as a Peace Corps Post in 2013). She is from and lives in Baltimore and works in an urban park as the programs coordinator and Latino outreach. She is a homeowner, improv specialist, laugh expert, dog-owner to a cute lil thing called Louie, and game/trivia fanatic. We get along great and she is definitely my support throughout this weird and crazy transition. Katie plays the ukulele and we’ve already performed at the senior citizen home Floating Doctors works at once and are currently preparing our next concert series.

This is what I’m doing for Thanksgiving: Mixed culture Thanksgiving!

Katie and I are spending it at the compound and the Ngobe kitchen workers led by the British dentist kitchen boss will be making the FD crew a Thanksgiving feast (yes, we see the irony). Soooo Katie and I will be hosting a talent show and performing a parody song to Under the Sea explaining Thanksgiving history for the European doctors who make a majority of the Floating Doctors crew right now (will send recording) and our contribution will be a pumpkin pie dessert dip with ginger cookies (a Long family recipe) then thank our lucky stars that we’re moved and settled in – a beautiful thing to be thankful for!

In other being thankful updates, it’s yet another Thanksgiving away from home and I must say how truly thankful I am that we were able to celebrate Thanksgiving in October with my family before I left, love you guys, thanks for being weird. Wishing you all amazing Thanksgivings full of family, love, turkey and wine! Get (cranberry) saucy!

Xoxox,

Bea

The one about going to Panama!

Greetings from sunny Panama! In case you were concerned, let it be known that I made it!

After three and a half wonderful weeks of vacation at home with the family, I made it to Panama! A lot of people have asked me how “re-integration” was, but I don’t have a good answer, because for me it was never really re-entry, I knew I was just touching down for a brief visit with the family and then off on a new project, job, place, adventure. I loved being home and I was nervous that I would get there and say, “WTF am I doing, I don’t want to go abroad again.” I got to see Henry as a real teenage driving (with a permit), winning races left and right, and doing big kid homework I couldn't even help with. I had wine nights with my momma and bike rides with pops. I spent time with friends (mostly over good food) and time alone in the outdoors. It was perfect. I got to "re-set." So now, as I sit here on the porch of a beautiful hostel in my new home of Bocas del Toro, I am exactly where I am meant to be!

I am on this crazy ride with the other three response volunteers who are wonderful: 1) Evan is a Panama Peace Corps veteran who has been our cultural guide. 2) Then there’s Shannon, a returned volunteer from Paraguay who is a HIV/AIDS specialist living in the nearest big town. 3) And I live with Katie (who's been my savior/guiding light/buddy/pal/roommate/friend/confidant/trivia master), a returned volunteer from Honduras (before it was shut down in 2012) whom I’ll be working with directly to develop modules for a community health worker training for a medical organization called Floating Doctors. We’re a motley crew, but we’ll work together in the best of ways!

So spark notes of my last few weeks: I landed in Panama City. If you all want to travel to a safe/beautiful/nice Latin American capital city – this is the one for you. I love it! It’s just a vibe thing because of course I can’t know every corner of the city in the four days I’ve been here, but it is such a fun and beautiful place to be. There’s a remarkable bike/running path along the coast of the sea where we’ve walked to get fresh ceviche, see Casco Viejo (the colonial part of the city that used to be a World Heritage site until the president built a highway around it), stroll and people watch. And we’ve been eating delicious food that I definitely don’t appreciate enough because I’m still on America mode. I’ve met a handful of wonderful regular two-year Peace Corps Volunteers who all stay at one hostel in the city and shared a beer or two over stories from the "comarca" or indigenous autonomous territories (more to come on that). And then, I swore in as a Peace Corps Response Volunteer and now I’m in my site in the northeast. Whirlwind!

Now that I’m here in my new site on the main island of Bocas del Toro (Isla Colón), it’s all sinking in. I currently live in a warehouse where the organization I work with, Floating Doctors (a roving medical clinic providing services to hard-to-reach indigenous communities), has studio apartments and a bunch of long-term volunteers living in them. However, they’ve been building a compound on another island (Isla San Cristobál) for the past year and it’ll be done this week. Soooo move in day is supposedly this Friday. We’ll see, but apparently the boss is hopeful. ¡A ver! Regardless, we move off this touristy island soon and then I’ll live on a remote isolated island (with internet, whaaa) and a bunch of other staff members. But then, all the staff (not me) get six weeks off for December-January so Katie and I will be living on the remote island compound alone – how cool is that? We’re looking into buying a kayak or two and then of course we’ll need to stock up on board/card games. 

Once we get the hang of the islands and how clinics are run and the organization functions, we will get started on developing a community health worker training for these local indigenous communities. More work updates to come as they happen, but for now, we’re just soaking it all up and enjoying the island life. So much more to tell you, but my internet spot for the day is closing! I’ll send another update soon, along with more information about Panama in general (Panama celebrates 4 independence days and one of those days was today so most things are closed all week) but until then, know that I’m alive, well and happy! 

XO,

Bea

It's time for PANAMA!

It's time to head to Panama. I'll no longer be a PCV in the DR, now I'm an PCRV in Panama! How do you like them acronyms? Stay along for the ride - I'd love to have you follow my Peace Corps Response work in Panama until September 2016. UEPA!

Things I'm nervous about: 
1) My Dominican accent, will anyone understand me?
2) Not having the right clothes. Last time when I touched down in the DR, I had enough clothes to last me on a 2 year camping trip, and quickly realized, it's tight and bright and fashionable, not camping.
3) Starting over and mentally being prepared to live abroad again for another year.

Things I'm excited about: 
1) Working with a medical organization to develop a community health worker training.
2) Seeing how Peace Corps works in another country and putting another piece of my international development puzzle together - how does the world and its complexities fit together?
3) Living on a chain of islands in Panama, cuz DUH!

On closing this chapter

Tomorrow I leave the island...

I’ve never had this feeling when leaving a place, especially a place that I have come to call home. I don’t have adequate words to describe it. Sure, I was sad when I left my family in the United States to come to the Peace Corps, but I always knew it was only two years. No, I didn’t want to say goodbye to my best friends who were going forth into the world in inconveniently disparate locations, but it wasn’t the same emotion as I’m feeling now, as I prepare to make the trip back in the opposite direction. Even if I do come back, it will never be the same, I won’t be able to spend days on doñas porches, lazy Sundays doing laundry and cooking with Luisa, Mondays on the beach, Saturdays watching Don Francisco with Mama Julia, hot afternoons in plastic chairs catching a breeze, evenings dancing with neighbors in the street. I won’t ever live here again. I say it over and over and it still seems like a distant thought, something I still have to prepare to accept, but it's happening now. Part of this finality seems like attending yet another funeral, as if my life were a person about to be boxed up and stuck in the ground, taken away for good. And yet, unlike a funeral, I got the opportunity to say what I wanted to those I will miss, I got to give them their last hug and parting words.  

“Closure” is the word Peace Corps throws around at conferences, workshops and casual conversations. “How’s the closure going? Make sure you get closure, it will help you readjust to life back in the United States.” Yeah, I guess that’s the word for part of this feeling, but equating it with something neat and tidy like closing a chapter of a book doesn’t come close to what I feel. One emotion I feel is profound astonishment, the same feeling I get when I watch a Manzanillo sunset from the top of my host mom Wendy’s roof looking out over the place I where I have had extremely challenging times and gotten through them...looking out over the place I’ve made a home and life for myself in...where I've loved people so much it hurts...trying to soak in the complexity of the feeling of awe bubbling up when I look over town.

And on that same roof, looking out, I also have a feeling of completeness, it was the same vantage point I experienced at the beginning and thought to myself “There is no fucking way I am going to be able to do this.” It always seems impossible until it’s done. The overwhelming sensation of “done” keeps hitting me over and over. I wish I could bottle up all the sunsets I have left and be able to open up each bottle of sunset and drink it when I need this feeling of deep satisfaction. I’m on this other end of this crazy ride, I did it! I try to make the contentedness last. But then there was an exhausting week of inevitable goodbyes, tears, parting words, celebrations, dinners, hugs and explanations. I had to keep reminding myself to just power through, hold on to it while I could, “drink it all up, Bea, it’ll be over all too soon.” 

And then I left. And now I have to remember that the sun will continue to rise and set here without me. My students will graduate from high school and if they’re lucky, they’ll move to the city and get a degree. My women will continue their lives, adding grandchildren by the handful. Some will probably die before I have the chance to come back. Life continues even if I'm not ready for it.

But I feel whole.

I have labored over the past two years to bring change to a small community in the Dominican Republic, but that was only on the surface. I have struggled with problems I never knew existed much less how to solve. I have had my beliefs and moral compass turned around so many times it was often hard to see which way was up. I’ve been pushed to see right as wrong and wrong as right and now believe there isn’t an absolute definition of either. I understand another culture in the deepest of ways. I have learned to be more extroverted, outgoing and open. I’ve become a better person, a stronger individual, a more worthwhile citizen of the world. I’ve had so much shared with me from people who had no reason to love me at first. When I leave on Thursday, not all of me will come with; a part of my heart will forever stay in the Dominican Republic with people who ended up changing me.

Thank you sincerely for following along on my journey through the Dominican Republic. Stay tuned for the upcoming dispatches from Panama and as always, I send my love! 

Xoxox, Bea

My women's group in Copey presented me with a framed plaque to thank me for two years of hard work and spoke beautiful words complete with a personalized prayer.

My final goodbye lunch with my Copey family. On the menu: Goat(!!), potato salad, rice and beans with beer for dessert

Goodbye dinner with some of my paramedics. On the menu: Pasta and potatoes with white sauce and oatmeal cookies for dessert...mmmm

My host mom and dad in Manzanillo celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary with a blowout wedding. Wedding night! On the menu: pork, potato salad, eggplant, potato lasagna, cake

Then it was my last night and we started to prepare a stew (me and momma Luisa)

y goodbye from the neighborhood. On the menu: Chicken stew with avocado cooked a la improved cookstove

Goobye from my original host family from the capital I went back to visit. On the menu: Bollos or tamale like things 

Me saying goodbye to baby Eudis. On the menu: baby drool

On big news in my life!

Happy Monday! 

I would like to let you in on some exciting news!!! I have been invited to extend my service with Peace Corps in Panama! I accepted a position with Peace Corps Response, a branch of Peace Corps that sends Returned volunteers (who completed their original 27-month service) on high-impact, 3 to 12 month assignments to provide targeted assistance in places where they are needed most. I will be developing a community health worker training for an organization called Floating Doctors. Currently, the medical relief organization operates a health system in 22 indigenous communities in the islands called Bocas del Toro in northern peninsula of Panama (by the Costa Rican border), but they do not have local health workers involved with them and hence they're trying to develop a robust curriculum to train locals to be in charge of their own health care. This is an AWESOME opportunity! I get to expand on what I have been doing here with Trek Medics and my women's group to provide a solid deliverable for the organization and build-capacity in marginalized indigenous communities. 

I leave the DR on October 1^st and negotiated for four weeks of vacation at home before heading down to Panama at the end of October. I’ll be there for ten months, back to the homeland by August! Am I excited? Of course! I know it was the right decision for me to have made, and now that I made it, I am content to know that it’ll be my next move. Panama will be ready for me in time, I just get to enjoy my time left here. So that’s what’s up for the next few weeks and the good news for you, dear readers, is that you won’t have to say goodbye to my mensajes just yet, you get a whole other year with me and my musings!

This week, let’s take a reflective journey back to the beginning. These are short, selected excerpts from some of the most important entries I’ve written in the past two years and tell a tale of my growth and transformation over time. Enjoy!

August 20, 2013: It all began

Hello friends and family! For some of you, it's been quite a while since we last spoke and you might be wondering what in the world I've been up to. Well, I'm currently sitting in a hotel in Georgetown, DC as I prepare to depart for 27 months of service with the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic! The last few weeks have been a crazy mess of packing, spending time with friends and family, and saying the inevitable goodbyes. Everyone has been asking me how I feel about leaving. Well, I feel great! I am nervous and excited and everything in between. I'm a bit anxious but I suppose that's to be expected. I'm trying not to over think the process.

August 28, 2013: I'm convinced I'll never learn Dominican Spanish

My family is super patient with me because Dominican Spanish is tough! When we are all together for meals, I hardly understand a word of their chitter chatter. Dominicans tend to drop the “s” off of every word and condense important words to speed up their speaking. Not to mention the millions of words from Spain that are unrecognizable here and vice versa. According to my host family, I can manage the language well...but little by little I will pick up Dominican words, and against my will, the accent.

October 28, 2013: I arrive to Manzanillo and realize I’m in over my head

To date, training has been pretty fun and very rewarding as I've spent everyday with fellow Americans and on a strict schedule learning technical health skills I knew I would be applying someday soon in the vague future. Since arriving in Manzanillo, I've been the only American around which leaves me exhausted and brain dead from continuously sticking my hand out and introducing myself to crowds of strangers and thinking in another language. The lack of schedule has given me an abundance of free time with which I've gone on runs, done yoga, read two books, sat on doñas' porches and drank more coffee than any human should ever ingest (even more than during finals period in college). It's now up to me to make my own schedule but its proving difficult when being new in town doesn't exactly lend itself to knowing where to go and who to meet. I'm not worried about finding my groove here though, I'm cut out for awkward small talk!

February 4, 2014: I reflect on the passage of time

Time here is not measured or kept in minutes, but in how many chairs one can add to add to a growing group on the street and how many stories you share with friends in a long, lazy afternoon. This is a country where yelling from across the house is the only way to call someone’s attention and whispering should never be done. One can scold a friend’s child herself, or take said child for a walk, motorcycle ride, or ice cream at any time of day without warning. I can show up at a neighbors, friends, grandma’s or the mayor’s house unannounced, and if I don’t stop by at least once a day, I’m in trouble. The sum of these small parts creates a beautiful reality - one I am thankful to be living.

May 5, 2014: I get a bike!

Now that I have my bike, it makes traveling around my town, visiting doñas and running errands so much easier. I don’t know how I survived so long without one.

November 13, 2014: I’m over the hump!

I’m at this really awesome in-between point in my service. I’m over the hump of my first year and well into my second year. It’s particularly awesome because I’m at this crazy moment where the old volunteers (who swore in a year before me) have left and now the new volunteers (who swore in a year after me) have moved to their sites and are starting the long daunting process of integrating, starting groups, teaching women and youth, and navigating professionally in totally distinct culture. And here I am, settled in and chugging along.

January 5, 2015: I recap 2014

I had a really great 2014! I overcame hurdles I once thought impossible, grew professionally and personally, and learned more about international development than I ever could have working in an office. A lot of the work I did was for my community, yes, but a lot of the work I did in the Peace Corps last year was for me. I’ve had what I consider to be a successful service so far, I’ve graduated my women and youth groups, constructed many improved cookstoves, begun to implement an emergency medical system, and taught a few English classes. I’ve checked off the boxes Peace Corps set for me. But I did a lot for myself too. I learned how to dance bachata, grew to like children (a valuable skill that was at first met with much resistance), practiced hours and hours of yoga and meditation, exercised daily, took beach days and visited friends around the country, found myself a Dominican family, read fifty books and learned all the words to Miley Cyrus’s new CD Bangerz. To me, these are accomplishments that deserves celebrating in addition to my professional achievements.

January 10, 2015: I learn to accept discomfort

Peace Corps is a two-year exercise into the depths of discomfort. In 2014, I turned alone time into a coping mechanism for that discomfort. And at first it was awkward and the hardest thing I ever had to do was spend four, five or six hours alone. But, I’ve really taken control of it. I’m better at setting goals, holding myself accountable, being patient (still working on it). I have become the ruler of my own mind, which sounds maybe like a lame thing to work on for an entire year, but it wasn’t. It took 17 months of Peace Corps service to get here and yes, I’m still working on it, but my alone time is no longer uncomfortable and awkward, it’s a shiny new tool for my life toolbox.

March 16, 2015: I find simple joys

Sure there are times when I’m frustrated here, but more and more lately, I find myself smiling. Just finding these beautiful moments and grinning to myself like I’m the only one who’s been told a secret. I have my own inside jokes that light me up inside and I spread an outward grin. Sometimes my grin comes out when I’m eating rice and beans and thinking to myself "Damn these are tasty", or when my little adopted daughter calls me Beita, which means “Little Bea,” an affectionate derivative of my name. It appears on my face when a doña gives me coffee and already knows I take it without sugar, when I learn all the words to a bachata song and sing it out loud to amazed spectators, when I spend the entire month of February memorizing the words to the DR’s national anthem and get it right just in time for Independence Day! I smile when watching kids invent baseball games with plastic bottles and dirty socks, being told I'm a good dancer, not feeling awkward at 24-hour funerals,  realizing how fully I can express myself in Spanish and being called a tiguera. For these and so many more precious small moments everyday, I smile.

May 12, 2015: I become a reader

Books are an integral part of my service. I love the mornings, my time to sit on the porch with a cup of coffee and read while simultaneously watching neighborhood kids play baseball in the streets, the chicken lady slaughter her daily dose of pollo and feel the sea breeze. I wasn't much of a reader before Peace Corps, but this is the best quality reading time I'll ever have in my life so why not pick up a hobby!

June 8, 2015: I find the love of my service

I don't like children. When my brother had friends over when we were younger, I looked for any excuse to leave the house. Babies make me cringe and I don't have patience to teach the alphabet. All that changed with Gisaury...

June 16, 2015: My students die in a tragic car accident

Yes, today was better, every day it's getting better, it’s been three days. I don’t know what tomorrow brings, but I’ll be okay, humans are resilient, especially in the face of tragedy, we all just need our time, there's no one right way to grieve. We were a community before, but we’ve come together now, and will emerge stronger. We have to, for Enmanuel and Yunior, we will. I hope the visions and nightmares of that night go away, but there are some sights that cannot be unseen. Instead I’ll try to remember their smiling faces, tiguere spirits and raucous laughter because that’s what they deserve. May they rest in peace.

August 3, 2015: I feel grateful

When you’ve watched community members struggle to put food on the table, or give away everything to help their children go to school, you will learn that the world is a far more complicated place than you ever could have imagined. You will understand how fortunate you are to be able to live and serve in your community and appreciate everything you left behind to be able to do so. You will appreciate the phone calls you can make to home, the laughter of a child, the deliciousness of a homecooked meal, the beauty in human connections, the love of a family and the endless sources of joy in the world. After serving in the Peace Corps, nothing you look at can ever again be seen through the same lenses. When you milk your first cow for fresh milk, see your first live birth, and teach a child to say please and thank you, you will understand the simple things that make life so very worth living.

September 2, 2015: How I changed during my service

Physically: I’ve got better flow, shave my legs and wear lipstick. I can wiggle really good and my butt jiggles more. Practically: I’m better at sweeping, killing spiders, reading and speaking Spanish. I spend less time washing my hair and more time drinking coffee. Personally: I can take on the world! I love this country with all my might, I’ve build my self-confidence and taken risks and I certainly learned to appreciate the moments when I transitioned from surviving to living to loving my life here!!!

So there you have it, a journey from then til now. I can’t thank you all enough for following along and I can’t wait to keep in touch and see what the next year abroad brings!