So there’s just one more story to tell I suppose. Although I apologize for the huge gapping gap that is basically January - May. Those months breezed by with conferences, visitors, traveling, calling the US embassy to get the police to release Gaby and Guillermo’s car, graduations, and just a generally deeply rewarding life. Can I blame the blog silence on being burned out on writing after all those grad school applications?

First things first: Ruth. Ruth’s new doctors put her through some stellar treatment that got her arm surgery ready. It for the first time wasn’t oozing puss and sweetly sickening smells. But the surgery was put on hold until she completes 3 months on her new epilepsy meds. Jean, who will be living and working out of the capital in the Peace Corps office and was on the med mission and met Ruth, will help me out and keeping on top of the situation. But the plan is to do the surgery probably within the next month.

So let me back up and share a 2 journal entries

April 29th :

2 weeks from now I’ll be in Atlanta right about now, si Dios quiere. But I’m still here now, tonight, listening to a mouse squeak in the kitchen. Today was Honor’s day at the high school. What an joy to be a part of. Sometimes I feel so guilty for leaving. Like now is when I can really be effective. Now I know these people and they’re mine and I can see the way ahead. But I’m off to Boston, to my country, to be near my first family. What a blessing it is to say that. To love and be so loved. This is the hardest decision I’ve made. And I now chose it confidently for various reasons, but it still hurts. Sometimes I really do feel it, lo siento, and it aches. It’s hard to fully wrap around mentally. There’s just these moments where it’s awful and terrible. And I hate it. I will miss them so much.

May 9th:

Today is Monday and I leave on Thursday. Early morning. Three full days left here in my querido Imbert. I’ve never been able to imagine what this would be like.

I’m drinking some sort of celery tea because I’m pretty sure I have an amoeba, but I don’t want to call Peace Corps - afraid they’ll ask me to come down to the capital - stealing more precious days here. It really does taste like liquid celery if you can imagine that. But I digress because i don’t know how to write this. I have no reference point. There are moments where the splendor and novelty of America and her constant electricity, carpet, food variety don’t tempt me in the least. I think, “No, I’m happy here, thank you very much”. Because I’m not sure my life has ever been this fulfilling before. I’ve never felt so fully alive, so fully human before --- eating only seasonal foods from local earth sold by people out of their homes who know me and then there’s all these meaningful relationships with Dominicans and PCVs. In these past few days I’ve received an incredible gift from my community. Through words, gifts, songs, Bible Verses, jokes, and mangos, they’ve expressed not only how much they love me, but recognized my love for them. There is nothing I could want more in this world than for my community (wherever, whoever it may be) to know, to believe how wholly and fully I do love them. I am honored to be able to give and receive this great love.

Every time a group finishes their service, our volunteer staffed magazine, The Gringo Grita, prints surveys of the exiting volunteers. One of the questions is what do you hope to take back to American culture. One of the volunteers in my group poetically said, “refer to where I live as ‘my community’”. It’s true. It makes me smile. You’ll often hear a PCV talk about their town as “my community”. It’s sort of PC lingo, but it identifies where we live and the people who surround us there as a source of pride and of belonging. Can you imagine us in passing slip up and say “my community” instead of Atlanta/Corvallis/DC/Austin/etc.

When I hurt, thinking about leaving, it excites me to bring back these pieces of dominican/ PC culture.  

So now I am back. Doing what feels like is a whole lot of nothing, but it’s a good nothing: I fatten my dog up. I meet my grandmother for dinner. I watch my mother grow her tomatoes upside down. I am present when friends get married and celebrate birthdays. I call my sister, my aunt, and my cousins. I stop by my godson’s on the way to the Braves game. These are all good things. But nothing satisfies me yet like life on hispañola.