With a week left the panic of leaving has well and
truly set in and I get a little twist of dread in my stomach when I think about
leaving this amazing wonderful place that has been my home for the past year.
Its not that I don't want to, or am not exited about going home because I
definitely am; it’s more the thought of saying goodbye and leaving my life, the
people and things that I love here.
Here are just a few things that I will miss (bear in
mind that this list just scratches the surface!)
I will miss:
- Swimming with
the boys in the river then making tostones next door.
-warm evenings sitting outside on the pavement on plastic chairs chatting and watching the world go by.
- Fires on the beach, snorkelling and lying on the warm stones a the sun sets.
-warm evenings sitting outside on the pavement on plastic chairs chatting and watching the world go by.
- Fires on the beach, snorkelling and lying on the warm stones a the sun sets.
- I will definitely miss the crazy guaguas where big
women in curlers shout at each other, complain about their husbands and gossip
while their tiny children perched too close to the open door stare in awe at
the Americanas pulling funny faces at them
- I’ll miss mental things on motorbikes (best so far:
4 live goats)
- wearing flip flops all day everyday and not worrying
about taking a rain coat or a million layers... 'Just in case'
- Shooting stars and lightening bugs
- Shooting stars and lightening bugs
- Riding in the back of the truck in the sun
- I'll miss hanging out with the boys next door,
cooking, playing cards, making juice and just laughing with them.
- My mosquito net
tent over my bed
- Picking bananas
and mangoes for breakfast
- Watching the sun
set from the roof.
- Knowing everyone
I pass in the street and knowing that they are brother of so and so who owns that
colmado or platano field and who has two kids in school etc.
- I'm going to
miss kids yelling 'Aleeex' where ever I go and their cheeky smiles like they have always just done something really naughty!
- I will definitely
miss my secret midnight tostone snacks on the roof
- I will miss
Cristina’s cooking and amazing chat
- I will miss watching awful (but amazing) tele
novelas next door with Mota and paying dominoes with Jesus
- Crazy loud music
blasting from every corner
- Sneaky past curfew
trips to the juice stand
-Dominican sayings, weird words, heated arguments and indecipherable accents.
-Dominican sayings, weird words, heated arguments and indecipherable accents.
- I’ll miss the
creepy hissing, marriage proposals and declarations of love from gorgeous Dominican
men
- Being rescued
from barking dogs by one of my first graders
- I'll miss the
crazy hot, busy, beautiful Haitian market in Barahona.
-lying on the roof in the hot night listening to the music from the bar.
-lying on the roof in the hot night listening to the music from the bar.
- I’ll miss sitting chatting and playing cards under
the mango tree in Mota's yard
- I will miss speaking Spanish everyday. I love the
feeling of being able to laugh and communicate with people in a different
language.
- I'll miss cute little Daniel next door and the night
guard’s crazy children
-la Hoya clothes market every Tuesday
-la Hoya clothes market every Tuesday
- Antertainment (Ruth understands)
- Jorge and Altagracia at the colmado
- Lizards (even
the ones that you discover in your bed)
-feeling like your part of one big crazy, disfunctional family
- I will miss our little house underneath the mango tree
-feeling like your part of one big crazy, disfunctional family
- I will miss our little house underneath the mango tree
- I will miss
living with the best PT partner ever
I will miss falling in love with something different
everyday. The more I think about it the more things I think of that I will
miss. I don't know how to describe or convey how I feel and what I've learnt
from this year. I have made so many amazing friends, learnt a whole new
language and been a teacher. I have survived the sun, learnt how to make pretty
dammed good Dominican spaghetti and gained another sister as well as half a
dozen brothers. I’ve been a translator, fallen in love, sung in assemblies, and
met people with some pretty amazing stories to tell. I can tell the difference
between platano trees and banana trees and can wield a machete fairly aptly.
I've seen bits of dead animals that I never want to see again and milked cows
with Luis at six am. I’ve managed to avoid Dengue fever, malaria, parasites and
chikenguña, climbed the highest mountain in the Caribbean, and perfected the
mosquito slap. I have learnt that life is better without the internet and when
you can shout down the street or through the fence instead of sending a text. I
have been neighbours with Hatian refugees and families who survive on fifty
pesos a day and I will never stop being amazed by people’s generosity and
kindness.
However it hasn’t all been sunshine and rainbows.
There are a few things that I am not going to miss about living here including:
anti-malarials, sweat, mosquitoes, 'ppppssssttttt', sweat...again, sun cream, 'Dame
un...', Flip flop blisters, giant spiders (especialy the ones you find in yoir bed when you get back at 10.30 and have to extract in the dark because there is no power) and cockroaches, lack of power
and lack of rain, yappy dogs, raw chicken smell in the market...
Like any country the DR is far from scraping the
surface of perfect and during this year I have been confronted by a lot of
problems, uncomfortablenesses and frustrations.
Mota's grandson said it best, when I asked him what he
thinks of when I say 'the Dominican Republic' he replied 'I think of mountains,
rivers, beaches and thieves'. This is a beautiful, amazing country with so much
potential but issues such as corruption and insurmountable economic inequality
stop people from living the lives they deserve, and stops this country from
becoming what it should be. There is so much money thrown at tourist resorts, stolen by politicians
and business owners that there isn’t much left for the majority of the
population. Its frustrating to see a country where there is the economic capacity
to develop yet those in power are allowed to steal from and bend the system at
the cost of those at the bottom.
So, as well as having some fantastic, amazing,
wonderful experiences this year has also hammered home some hard truths. By
living in a community I have started to build a picture of how corruption not
just at the top but through every layer of government means that people aren't
getting what they need. I know that the public health care system could have
paid for a boy in school to have eye tests done if the money from the health
care budget hadn’t been spent on the last election. I know that the family next
door who live in a wooden shack and who survive on fifty pesos (seventy five
pence) a day don’t have to but the lack of money being channeled into social
welfare means that they are trapped. At the same time every third car on the
road is a brand new 4x4 and all over the country huge resorts and mansions hide
behind tall guarded gates. The money is there but the majority don’t see it.
The thing is, I know that it is the same in every country to some extent and
all over the world the rich are getting richer while those at the bottom are
kept firmly at the bottom.
People of African/ Hatian origin make up a huge proportion
of the population of the DR. In fact 73% of people are mixed race, 16% are
White European and 11% are Black (information published by the last census
meaning that these statistics don't cover illegal immigrants the majority of
whom are Haitian). Yet when you watch TV every single presenter (and I mean
every single) guest or politician has light, almost white skin. At a recent
talk we went to in Barahona the president showed up. On the top table out of
about twenty people one man had darker skin and there was one woman. How can
any government hope to provide a fair and representative service if it doesn’t
reflect a fair cross section of the population? A government of middle aged
white men is going to end up making policies that are wanted by wait for it...
middle aged white men!
So yes, this year has been the best, most difficult,
challenging and amazing year of my life. I have experienced things both good
and bad that will stay with me forever and met people who I will never
forget. I have realised how small we are in the world but how no matter how
small you are or how much money you have you can still be happy and make a
difference to peoples lives if you want to. I now know how lucky we are in the
UK to have the opportunities that we have but I have also seen how 'development'
has meant the loss of so many good things. The warmth, generosity and
togetherness that I feel living here is like nothing I have experienced before.
I know through experience that the world is a really, really difficult unfair and
a very frustrating place but that there are good things and good people around
every bend and if you haven’t learned and experienced that then you can’t change
anything.