'Mountains, rivers, beaches and thieves': my final blog in the Dominican Republic.

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.

- 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

- 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.

- 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.

- 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

- 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

- 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.