Mandi Holmes is a Peace Corp volunteer serving in the Dominican Republic. Sherry met Mandi at our local “cambio” or Conversation Club about a month or so before Mandi left for the Peace Corp. Not only did Sherry like Mandi right away, but she was intrigued by her decision to join the PC. We’ve had other friends who had been in the PC, but we always knew them after the fact. Here was a chance to experience a PC adventure firs……secondhand. But immediately – while it was happening. Mandi has been kind enough to keep us updated with regular email reports, and now has consented to an interview. By the way, if you want to read more, her last “hogar” has a website: http://www.madelaes.org/ (although it’s in Spanish). And another volunteer has a blog – Gringa in the Campo – here – http://gringainthecampo.blogspot.com/. If you want to learn more about Dominican Republic, go to our website’s DR page here – http://www.learn-spanish-travel-spanish.com/Dominican-Republic.html (although I’m afraid it isn’t completely finished at this point).
Anyway, here are the responses of Mindi Holmes, Peace Corp volunteer in the Dominican Republic.
This is Mandi’s Peace Corp training group. Mandi is in the red shirt, closest to the center of the group..
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What made you decide on the Peace Corp?
Peace Corps is something I wanted to do since I was in high school. It was always presented as this really exciting, but kind of scary and challenging thing. I did it for the adventure and the oppurtunity to do something that I knew would change me.
I read in a book about the Peace Corps to never join only because you want to learn to speak another language. I never understood why someone would say that until I got here.
Did you have any choice about host countries or languages?
I was told at a Peace Corps panel discussion that you will not be considered for a Spanish speaking country unless you had at least 4 semesters of Spanish in college. There are so many Americans who already know so much Spanish that it causes the Spanish speaking countries to become a competitive pick to get. However, most Peace Corps applicants are also straight out of college. Because I had relevant work experience the recruiter told me that she could get me a Spanish speaking country if I wanted that.
However, the application does not allow you to choose the country or the language. You get to state preferences based on regions of the world only (so sometimes that leaves a lot of possibilities on what the language might be). Even once you get the official invitation over the phone, they only tell you the region. A few days later you get the invitation in the mail with the exact country and you get 10 days to decide if you will accept it.
A two year commitment is a long time. Do many drop out? Have you suffered from loneliness or homesickness? Does isolation caused by language problems make it worse?
ETing (Early Terminating) is a lot more common than I expected. During training and within our first month of being volunteers our group of 50 lost 10 people. However, we haven`t lost anyone else since then. I have heard that at the one year mark several people leave, usually. However, only 1 in 4 people who begin the application actually get to the point of arriving in country as a trainee, so at that point a lot of people are already lost.
Loneliness and homesickness are the biggest challenges that Peace Corps volunteers face because language impacts this, but also all of the cultural adaptations. Culture shock gets pretty big because we aren’t just visiting but having to make a life here, so it impacts where we live, how we live, and our abilities to do our jobs. So after loneliness the next big emotion volunteers talk about is frustration. But the good news is that I’ve become so much more aware of what little impact words actually have, that effective communication is based more on knowing the rules of the society you are dealing with. If I spoke in perfect Spanish but from an American perspective I could upset a lot of people, but knowing the culture rules gets me what I need even when I speak with incorrect grammer and a strong foreign accent.
The Dominican Republic is in the hurricane belt and the season is starting. Any worries?
None. Peace Corps has a whole Emergency Action Plan that involves different levels depending on the severity. If the rains are a small problem we are put on standfast and we are not allowed to leave where we are. If the situation gets worse we are consolidated, so we all have to get the closest major city (all planned out depending on our region) and we stay there until Peace Corps feels transportation back to our sites is safe.
How much Spanish did you know before signing up? How is your Spanish progressing?
Spanish in school was always a challenge for me, but I somehow thought learning it in a real world experience would make a difference. I took only the required amount of Spanish for my BA (level 3, but with a very easy teacher). However, I finished my Spanish requirements in spring of 2003, so it had been awhile. I was grateful for the Spanish Conversation Club for bringing my memory back on a lot of things.
My Spanish is not progressing like it could. There are other volunteers who study every day and their Spanish is developing as a result. I, stupidly, keep thinking of studying as a luxury that I indulge myself in when I have time, which I never do. Time in Peace Corps is VERY different depending on the country and the site within that country and the type of work. Will, who did Peace Corps in Guatemala said he had a lot of free time. There are volunteers here who live out in the country and have tons of free time to study. My APCD (my boss) pegged me as a workaholic and put me in an urban site with an NGO, so I report to work on normal American hours. Then add that my APCD requires more from us than anyone else I have ever heard of in Peace Corps (extra sector trainings, annual plans and constant reports). So when I do get a moment to rest, I usually don’t want to spend it on Spanish. However, my sector is very unusual and most Peace Corps volunteers get more time than my sector does. And even in my sector, I have heard rural sites can get a little boring and they long for the business of an urban site.
Do you have a typical day? Is it 100% in Spanish?
As far as a typical day goes, my response to the previous question might have given some insight into how varied that can be. My day is typical of a Dominican in an urban setting, which is totally different from someone in a country/rural setting. As Peace Corps volunteers we live as the people in our community live, so we cook Dominican food (which can take a very long time), clean our houses in the Dominican style (which takes time) and wash our clothes like Dominicans (which can take 2 full mornings for one week`s worth of clothes).
My day is usually 100% in Spanish when I am in my site. However, trainings are in English half the time (half of our trainings are only PC and the other half involve Dominicans). I talk to other volunteers over the phone in English. And then at some sites there are Dominicans who know English and want to practice their English with a native speaker (which usually frustrates volunteers because we need to work on our Spanish. However, it is usually only in urban sites that there are people who speak more English than the basics).
However, the reason why being in Spanish 100% of the time won’t necessarily teach you Spanish is because of a couple of factors. 1. Dominican culture is all about saving face, so NO ONE will correct you regardless of how much you ask them to (unless you are dating a local, which is the reason the volunteers who have Dominican significant others speak the best Spanish). 2. Especially in the DR, there is a ton of slang and street talk. We had two 3rd year extensions from Spanish speaking countries (a volunteer from Hondorus and another from Equador) and both said that coming here felt like having to learn another language. And then that leads to 3. that by serving in a community where the people live in poverty, most of the people do not speak ¨correct¨ Spanish. It would be the same trying to learn English [where there was a pronounced dialect and/or subculture]. I´m learning to communicate in Spanish, but not the same Spanish a Spanish major in a university would learn.
You became ill with Dengue Fever while you’ve been there. How are you now?
Getting sick is all part of being a Peace Corps volunteer. I´ve heard getting sick constantly is all part of being a first year volunteer and it fades once we begin our second year.
The funny thing for me is that the last time I got sick was when my dad came to the country and I stayed with him at a resort. I ate a piece of steak for the first time in over 10 months and my body couldn´t handle it. I never realized how heavy a food red meat is until I stopped eating it.
Dengue Fever is mosquito borne. How are the bugs there? Are there other dangerous critters?
Mosquitos are the big threat between dengue and malaria. Other big illnesses all come from contaminated water or people preparing food with unclean hands (which is common when water is not consistant).
I know another volunteer whose apartment was taken over by bats, but bats here don´t carry rabies like bats in the US. Tarantulas are unpleasant, but can´t do any real major damage. There are many critters (especially depending on how rural the site), but few are dangerous.
Oh, some fish here are lethal, but that is more about contamination (they eat a poisonous coral and carry that poison in their bodies. But fishermen in the know know where that coral is so they an avoid fishing there.
In the US, even the poorest families have refrigerators (and cell phones and air conditioning). How is life without a refrigerator? How is the poverty level in DR? How are you dealing with it? What are your living conditions?
Dealing with poverty here is totally different depending on where you live. Living in a richer community is sometimes worse because then you get to see the contrast. As a result of my site change to Jarabacoa, I am now living in an area that gets tourists and has wealthy residents. However, my project is to work with the children who work on the streets, which is a result of living in such poverty at home that they need to help out or such an abusive situation that they leave.
I have a friend who is a volunteer in a rural site and she said she doesn’t think the people of her community even think they are poor. Usually people in the campo never leave the campo because they can’t really afford to, but they are happy with the life they have.
I wanted an urban site because I wanted to learn how to live with poverty in its most obvious and blatant form. However, I have to admit, it is really really hard. Sometimes I wish I lived in the campo and I actually asked my APCD about going to the campo when I was getting my site change. However, urban sites are more active and she thinks I´m a workaholic who needs to stay busy to be happy.
Now for the specifics: life without a refrigerator isn´t terrible because the culture works with this in mind. Colmados (neighborhood stores that sell everything you need) are everywhere. They have cold cases, so you can buy cold drinks, yogurt (depending, it can be a luxury item), and milk (same as yogurt, liquid milk is a luxury). Usually the cold cases have soft drinks. But this is where everyone buys their fruits and veggies. Because everyone gets their fruits and veggies there, you only buy what you will eat that day and buy more later. No one stores food in their fridge.
Colmados are also a result and an answer to few people having cars. Only the upper class drives to a supermarket, buys all their groceries, and then take them home and store them in a frig.
I have to admit though, I loved how my host family in La Victoria had a fridge because my doña would buy liquid milk and yogurt for me. I really haven´t adapted to powdered milk. Plus, Peace Corps medical really advocates women eating lots of yogurt because the humidity here impacts our Ph balance and women need yogurt to prevent yeast infections.
Another aspect of poverty here is taking bucket baths. This is a direct relationship to the lack of water and having to have a certain level of wealth to have the reserve water resources that allow you to use water more freely. Even when people own a tenaco (the reserve water source), it is still cold water for most people. Now that I live in Jarabacoa, up in the mountains and the coldest part of the country, my host family here has a water heater. It is a huge luxury and they are wealthier than most because they own their own colmado. However, the water is only hot for 3mins and then it is freezing again, so it isn’t an American exerience. In fact, I prefer heating water on the stove and taking a bucket bath.
You’ve been there 10 months. What are your best experiences so far? Worst?
I’ve been in country almost 10 months, but I’ve only been at a site almost 8 month, however most of us think of ourselves only as having gotten through the first 6 months in country. So we are still at the point that we are treading water and we don’t want to admit how long we have been doing that for. Otherwise, we would feel like more should have been accomplished.
That said, the best thing is knowing that I have made it almost 10 months in this country. That is an accomplishment! As for a moment. the best moment was at 7am the day I was moving from my site in La Victoria. My favorite little girl came to my apartment before she went to school because she wanted to take one final walk and have one final conversation with me before I left.
The worst experience was having my project partner scream at me, steal my keys and refuse to return them, not allow me to leave the hogar and all the other horrendous things she did to me constantly, then have my APCD say she didn’t want to look at a site change quite yet because she thought we could work the situation out. Thank God I got through that. That was not a normal Peace Corps experience.
Have you seen much of the country? (Or will you get to).
I’ve seen some of the country, but because I had to make a decision to. My APCD is rigid about people only taking 2 R&R days a month, but that makes travel difficult when public transportation between sites takes half a day to a full day.
I have seen Miches, Punta Cana and La Romana in the east, I have seen 2 towns and 3 Bateys (the worst poverty where Haitan immigrants live) in the South. I have visited one urban (la vega), one rural site and one town in the cibao (the middle region of the country) and I have been to Boca Chica and Juan Dolio, the beaches near Santo Domingo.
However, I have seen a lot for a volunteer at this point in service because I made it a priority.
Any advice for others that are thinking about joining the Peace Corp or similar venture?
Peace Corps is a completely individual experience. The sector (type of work), the country, the region of the country you live in, as well as the size of your individual community all impact everything that makes the experience. Even two youth volunteers in the DR in urban sites, working with the same NGO will have entirely different experiences. So for anyone who wants to do Peace Corps, listen to what RPCV have to say, but don’t believe that that will be your experience.
I do believe that the experience challenges you to become a better `person. It is so hard that you have to become a better person to get yourself through it. But that was exactly what I wanted, to be challenged on a level nothing had ever reached before.
Has this been a life changing experience?
Yes, and I’ve only just begun. I have a year and a half to go!
I´ll try to get you some pictures, but I can´t send any right now. The sad thing is that I don’t know how to get my photos from iphoto onto my memory stick. But even if I did, I don’t have enough room on my memory stick at this moment anyway. Give me a few months and maybe I´ll have something worked out.
I do have better access to internet now, so if you have any other questions just send them along!
paz,
Mandi
The final group for swearing in. Mandi is just left of center. Can you find her?Tags: Dominican Republic · Learn Spanish · Learning Spanish · Peace Corp · Travel SpanishNo Comments
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