Change of plans

To avoid explaining my current situation multiple times and creating multiple versions of it, I am pasting an email that I wrote to my fellow PCVs.



As many of you know, I have had some increasing trouble with my back over the past four weeks. I have had trouble in the past with my back and I was beginning to feel all too familiar sensations in my legs and back. ( A little background info: 3.5 years ago I herniated a disk while in Costa Rica. I had surgery went back to Costa ica and applied for the Peace Corps. Five months later, it herniated again. I had to
withdraw my PC application and have a second surgery. I went to graduate school instead of Peace Corps and was hernia free for about 3years). Last Friday I had an MRI and I was on medical hold in the capital waiting on the results to come back. On Tuesday the MRI results showed that the disk had herniated again. The neurosurgeon that I saw here seemed to think that waiting on an operations would be my best option, so it seemed like there was a possibility for me to stay. On Wednesday we sent a consult to Washington to see if I should be medically evacuated to see a doctor in the states or if they agreed with the doctor here in the DR. They replied on Thursday that it would be best for me to be medically separated. Yesterday I went to Batey 9 and gathered my things and said good bye to my community. Tomorrow
(Sunday) I will fly back to the States.

Needless to say things have been a crazy whirlwind and quite overwhelming. I still have not completely processed the fact that I have herniated this damn disk for the third time, let alone that I am leaving the DR and the Peace Corps. However, it is in many ways relieving to have a clear answer and to know that this is the best route for my longterm health. I am ready to fix this thing and be done with it!

I wanted you all to know what a priviledge, honor, and blast it has been to know you all and share these past 12 weeks with you. In addition to being terribly fun and delightful people, every one of you are also incredibly admirable and inspiring individuals. I am very sad that I am unable to continue with you. However, I feel quite positive and bright about what lies ahead and hopeful to find a way to serve that is fitting with my health. I am truly grateful for having this time in the Dominican Republic. I mean my Spanish, bachata, and merengue skills are at an all time high and I can make my own tostones and pollo. What else did I need to learn in the DR???

I hope to return for vacation within the next two years and I would love to see you all then!

Best of luck, hang in there, and keep up the good work!

Katie Massey


P.S. If anyone knows of fun job opportunities in the states, please let me know.

Officially PCVs

Pictures from our swearing in ceremony.

No longer Americana

I finally got the complete chicken dinner experience. Here we are at the beginning, a step we never get to see in our chicken dinners in the states.



Bertania (the cousin that lives in my house) just held the chick by its wings and wacked it on the back to kill it and then stuck the chick in boiling water to aid in the defeathering process. Just a daily household chore.



Ready for cookin!



My little sister and brother. So adorable!



Three and a half days in Batey 9 and suddenly my future two years hasvesome texture and form. After not knowing where I would be and what my work and life would look like for the next two years, we have finally seen our sites and can now begin envisioning with a little more than just speculation.


My site:

There are miles of sugar cane fields and it is much greener and more beautiful than I ever expected. It’s hot and dry, which is actually a nice change from the hot and humid. I think I am sweating a little less here. Everyone is Haitian or of Haitian-Dominican descent. Creole is the dominant language. I no longer hear "Americana", but "Ameriquen" as I walk down the street. Though school and business is all conducted in Spanish, conversations with neighbors, friends, and family are all in Creole. Many families I visited spoke very little Spanish. These are often the neediest thereby making it all the more necessary for me to learn Creole. While there is very little community organization in Batey 9, there are several strong community leaders. It is extremely poor. The level of poverty here is, in my opinion, on a whole other level than the pueblos and even the isolated campos I have visited and heard of. There is an abundance of opportunities for public health initiatives and I am delighted to be in the midst of the most marginalized.

My family

My family here is really wonderful. My Dona, Rosa Helena, has a daughter (7 years old), a son (4 years old), and a cousin (18 years old) that live with her (It feels strange calling her my Dona since she is so young, so I will just use her name). Rosa Helena teaches first grade at the local school and teaches an adult literacy class. I feel very comfortable in the home and I enjoy the company there.

My work

The first three months of service are devoted to doing a diagnostic of the community. I will interview a sample of homes and then we will make a plan of action from the findings. Also within this time, I plan to devote myself to studying Creole (Que Dios me ayude!).
Though my work will not really begin until after the diagnostic, there are a few things I will be doing along with the diagnostic for the first three months. The first day visiting my site, I was asked to teach English to the sixth grade class and I agreed. This will be a great way to get to know the youth in the community and to begin collaborating with teachers. Also a volunteer in Batey 8 (just a few kilometers from B9) began a cement floor project in Batey 9. Since he will be finishing his service in a few weeks and does not have adequate time to complete the project, I have agreed to help him finish. This will be an excellent introduction to building projects so that I will be ready to go with my own when the time comes.
Public health challenges and needs abound in the Bateys in this area. It is exciting to think about the project possibilities, though at this point that is all that they are …possibilities. Hopefully, at least some of them will become reality at some point within the next two years.

more pictures!

Community Based Training is COMPLETED! We are all happy to pass this chapter and to get ready for the next. Monday we get our official placement sites and then Tuesday we leave to visit them for five days. After that we swear in as Peace Corps Volunteers and off we go to our sites....all by ourselves. It is somewhat frightening, but inevitable and part of the experience. Here are some more pictures from CBT.




Playing duck duck elefant (I couldn't remember how to say goose).



Reading to kids at the school.
The books for the library that I was working to get actually did arrive. Just in time, the day before we left.



Yes, that is me breaking the ground with a pico.



This is our little test garden we made in training.





At the beach our last weekend of CBT. We had so much fun jumping off you would have thought we were at a theme park.

Second photo is from the beach we have been going to on the weekends, Salinas. This is the salt flats at sunset.

Top pic is for my MCH lovers! This is in my neighbors front yard and its a common site. Pigs and goats and chickens running around are as common as dogs and cats in the backyard.

Thanks so much for all of the Birthday wishes. It is wonderful to know that you all are still thinking about me!!!

This week we have been covering youth sexual health. Peace Corps Dominican Republic uses an integrated life skills approach that covers a range of topics including self esteem, communication, negotiation skills, reproductive organs, STIs, and family planning. The program is called Escojo Mi Vida ( I chose my life).

Though we have not officially received our placements, we all have a good idea of where we are going. My placement, unless something changes, will be in Batey 7 or 9 in the province of Bahoruco. Bahoruco is in the southwest peninsula, the poorest and hottest part of the country. A batey is a community that has been set up around a sugar cane company. They are typically characterized by a larger Haitian population, a higher HIV/AIDS prevalence, greater poverty levels, and a plethora of public health challenges. My project partner or counterpart is World Vision, an international NGO. I am excited about my placement thus far as it presents many opportunities to work with Haitians, learn a little Creole, and get my hands dirty in one of the neediest places in the country. My only concern is that creating my first garden is going to be a bit more challenging in this desert-like climate.

After two weeks of emotional recovery, I am now able to openly say that I had scabies. Though it was awful disgusting, and incredibly terrifying, I can say that it was not as bad as I imagined scabies would be. Needless to say, I beg all to pray that it does not return! My poor Dona was mortified. Literally, she was more upset and distressed than I was. I have no clue as to how I got it. Though the families I have lived with are very poor by most of our standards, it does not mean they are dirty. My Dona cleans more than I would EVER think of cleaning my own home. It’s crazy! It is like the equivalent of spring cleaning twice a week.

New developments:

I have become a professional mosquito killer.

As I walk down the street instead of hearing hissing noises and “Americana!”, I now hear “Hola Kati”. This is incredibly gratifying and warming to my soul!

We have two new volunteers with us who transferred from Bolivia. One of them is also from North Carolina and will be placed very close to my site. I am excited to get to work with her and we are happy to have new members on our shrunken, but still strong, team.

We just finished our third week of CBT and have two more weeks to go. This week we built a garden, cooked with green leaves, visited a nutrition center, and learned about training Health Promoters. Since I am the only advanced speaker in our health group, my Spanish classes are very flexible and all my assignments are applied work in the community. I have been working with a Doctor in the area on a small study on youth in the campo. For this I am conducting focus groups and interviews with teens in our little town. So far it has been really fun and interesting. I have also been working with the same doctor to get more books for the library here, which I believe we have accomplished.

While there have been many cultural adaptation lessons since I have arrived, one in particular stands out. Everday someone here tells me, Kati, estás gorda! Literally, Katie, wow, you are really fat! It is usually someone in my family, my Dona or one of her daughters or grandchildren, but last weekend the neighbor said it too! No one is saying this to be mean nor are they meaning that I am actually fat. What they mean is that since I have been with them I have become healthier or more filled out. They say that when I first arrived that I was just a skinny little thing with sunken in cheeks and now I am prettier and healthier. In fact the fat comment is usually followed by them saying that I am also far prettier than when I first arrived to their campo. Needless to say, despite their good intentions and my understanding that Latinos call people by their physical characteristics, coming from my American culture, this statement just does not sit well with me. Not only was it difficult to find that looking fat is a desirable thing but I also found it a little impossible considering my continued GI adjustment process. After being annoyed and frustrated for a few days I decided that it was time to just laugh about the situation and realize that this is a great example of cultural collision. I really thought that southern mamas liked to fatten people up, but I had no idea. The joy that Dominican Donas get from plumping someone up, or at least telling themselves that they are, is far greater than any southern mama has experienced.

These two pics are from the volunteer visit last weekend. This little beach was only a fifteen minute walk from the volunteer’s house. Though the beach was rocky and the water not as clear as others it was still a nice addition to her site. I love the food here, but I must say I was beyond pleased by our first non-Dominican meal. Peanut butter and bananas, yogurt, and a coca cola zero.

My Dona´s grandbabies and me

My Dona and her gandbabies

One of the potential projects we can undertake during our service is chickens. I never realized how complicated it is to care for and keep chickens producing yummy, nutritious eggs. These pictures are of us building a chicken coop for the local chicken man. It was more of a team building exercise than anything, but hopefully the hens will get to use it a bit. Outside of the gallos (roosters/cocks) that have good fighting potential, most chickens here roam free.

Cock fighting is extremely popular in the DR. Cocks that have good fighting potential are often the only ones kept in coops and are just let out for training. Cocks fight naturally. There can only be one rooster in a a little herd of chickens (I realize I am not using the correct chicken word here) or they will fight till one dies or is seriously injured. Above is a picture of two cocks from different houses. They put them down and they just went after one another.

Last weekend we were able to make up the volunteer visit that the rains and hurricanes canceled the week before last. Another volunteer and I went to Nizoa, about an hour and a half from where I am currently located. As much as I have enjoyed my Doña´s cooking, it was really nice to give my tummy a break from Dominican food. It was also helpful to see how a volunteer lives and know that at somepoint I will be able to chose and prepare my own food and create my own little home.

Last week in training we were learning about the community diagnostic. The first three months of service are devoted to conducting a community diagnostic. This entails going house to house, drinking lots of coffee, sitting on porches, and compartiendo with your vecinos in order to gather information (a baseline) of your community through informal interviews. Also this week for my Spanish classes I did a little mini investigation of home remedies. Some were somewhat boring (teas, aloe vera, etc), but there were plenty that did not fail to disappoint and proved to be quite......creative! It was a fun project. This week were are going through the nutrition curriculum and learning how to start community gardens and build chiken coops.

A few of my favorites or highlights from the week.........

Realizing that when my Doña says the milk is leche de la vaca, that she doesn´t just mean it is cow´s milk, but that it is milk straight from the cow next door! It´s actually not too bad.

Going for a walk and having little kids accompany me along the way. Returning to my house drenched from the rain storm that caught me and my Doña reprimanding me for forgetting my umbrella. Then eating warm arapa with fresh cow´s milk with the rain still beating on the roof.

Going running at 6 am before the bachata gets going and there is quiet in the campo.

Pausing on my runs and walks to climb up to the sanctuario (Pictured in the last entry) to get a good eyeful of the sunrise over the mountains.

Sitting with my host family and them getting a thrill out of teaching me to talk like a Dominicana.

Helping the kids in my house with their homework and seeing their eagerness to learn.

All the lechosa (papaya) that my Doña gives me!

The joy of getting to the internet.

Dancing on the porch to the bachata and merengue that is faithfully playing from the colmados with the kids


Sorry for the lack of fotos. I forgot to save them to my disk at home. Next time!

There is a little sanctuary in our little pueblo. It took roughly 20 years to build and is all of stone. It sits on top of a little hill and has a beautiful view of the mountains and ocean. The little sanctuary in itself is pretty remarkable particularly considering it is in the middle of no where.

Beach trip last Sunday

El Campo

am really enjoying the campo. Thus far it has been such a breath of fresh air.My family here is more than wonderful with me and the living conditions are higher than I expected. I have a toilet that flushes and sometimes a shower that flows!

My Dona has 2 adult daughters who live in little and unfinished houses behind hers. Between the two of them there are 3 kids, who for one reason or another seem to love me. It’s nice to be loved. I constantly hear “kati, Kati”. Though its nice to be loved, I sometimes wish it came with a bit more personal time.

The water situation is much different here, for whatever reason. I am not sure if it is the time of year or if we are just here at a good time and were in SD at a bad time, but unlike Santo Domingo, we have water every day. It seems to be abundant and its amazing what a difference it makes in all areas of life. Every thing from taking as many baths as you want, flushing the toilet, cooking, and drinking water

Our group has lost three people. We have gone from 11 to 8 volunteers. Each left for different reasons. The eight ofus are in good spirits though. We are all encouraged by the warmth and beauty of the campo. Our little visit to the beach on Sunday was also uplifting!

September 9, 2008

This has been my Spanish class for these first three weeks. Los Tigures! Once we leave for Community Based Training (CBT), we are just with our technical groups so our Spanish groups change.

Last night when I arrived home my family was setting up for a birthday party for my Dona’s (we call our host moms “Dona”) four year old granddaughter. There were so many kids and so much noise! Wowzers!

So our volunteer visit has been cancelled. We all showed up packed and ready to go visit a volunteer in the field only to find out that it has been canceled. Many of the sites are inaccessible due to flooding. It has been raining ALOT. At night the thunder is unlike any I have ever heard. It honestly sounds Jurassic Park or thunder that one would expect for the end of the world. Kind of cool! So, we are all just sort of hanging out here at the training center. Today and tomorrow we will just be doing a good bit of hanging out. Hopefully we will leave for CBT on Thursday.

September 4,2008

These are the other volunteers that live with either a sister or daugther of my Dona. I guess we are sort of cousins by adoption. The rocking chairs here are incredible!

Me with a few of the family members.

From what the Peace Corps staff has told us, this is an unusual hurricane season for the DR. Not that there are necessarily more hurricanes than usual, but that it is rare to have so many hurricanes heading for the DR so close together. Though often very wet, I have been safe and sound. Hopefully Ike will veer away from Hispanola all together.

We were planning to visit a volunteer in the field this weekend, but it was cancelled due to all of the storms. Such a bummer! We have really been looking forward to getting out of the city and seeing a good tangible picture of what we may be doing. Hopefully, we will be able to do it next week. I believe our Spanish teacher felt bad for us, because we were able to convince him to take us to the store to buy groceries for rice crispy treats. And guess who was nominated to be the principle chef ……ME! I love to bake, but my experience isn’t too extensive and I loved that I was entrusted with this very important task. All came out well.

I definitely came in to the DR ignorant of the water and electricity situation. The electricity goes out daily and usually multiple times a day. In lower middle class barrios like the one I am living in, water would normally run once every 3 to 5 days. However, for some reason there have been more difficulties lately. My house did not receive water for nine days last week. The people have learned to adapt to this and on the days that water comes lots of buckets and barrels are filled. They also use barrels to catch the rain water, which we have had plenty of lately. While I such expected conditions in rural areas, I did not expect things to be so in the capital city. There are plenty of theories of why it is so bad and I would imagine that there is truth in each of them. The infrastructure is unable to keep up with the rapid growth in Santo Domingo, only about 35% of people actually pay for electricity or water, companies that sell generators would lose a lot of money if things worked as they should, and political neglect are among the top theories.

I really appreciate your emails and updates! Until next time!

A few fun sights in my barrio and some updates:

The other day, while on the porch, there was a man driving a donkey that was pulling a cart with 2 mattresses. So wonderful. People burst into song constantly. You can hear the neighbors singing from their house. People also play music very loudly from their homes, literally for the whole neighborhood. People dance meringue in the street at 8am (no lie). I really think someone should come up with a Domincan musical. I mean people here really do burst into song and dance while they cook, work, plant gardens, and sit on the porch. Its like life really is a musical here.

I am so glad to have a bit of Spanish under my belt. We actually have quite a bit of advanced Spanish speakers here. I am in the “good Spanish but needs to Dominicanizarlo” group. They say that people do not speak Spanish here they speak Dominican. Needless to say, there is much to learn.

We had a volunteer to visit us the other day at training. She is a retired, older woman and lives in a very rural area. Someone asked her if she was able to keep up with the news and I loved her reply. She said that in the states she was addicted to the news, loved to keep up with it. But then, here, she just lost touch with it and has now realized that it doesn’t really matter. If she knows that there is a disaster somewhere, she can’t do anything about it. If something ridiculous is going on in politics, her opinion doesn’t change anything. She commented that there is plenty of news and things to worry about within her own community, things that she has stake in and has the ability to change. On that note, I hate that I am missing out on the elections!

I will work on getting some pictures up, but until I can get to a decent computer and connection it may be a bit difficult.

CONNECTED!

I am beside myself! I have been deprived of internet for three days and now, finally, I am connected! It feels so good. Like I am not too far away from you guys. :)

It has been a whirlwind so far. We are in training from 8 til 5. Training takes place at Entrena, a beautiful little oasis in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the city. Here we have heard about Peace Corps policies, Dominican culture, our medical care, and Spanish. We have recieved three of the ten vaccines and have already begun our antmalarials. No bad sideeffects yet. I sleep under a mosquito net, mi mosquitero, and it´s kinda fun. Takes me back to fort and tent building as a child :).

The Peace Corps staff has been amazing so far. Incredibly warm and comforting. They continue to tell us that the DR is the greatest place to be a PC volunteer and they do not seem to be equivocating themselves :). Safety has been the biggest theme so far and it appears that my RPCV freinds were correct in saying that I would receive the best medical care I have ever had in the PC.

We stayed with our families for the first time Friday night. They are truly the salt of the earth. super warm and welcoming and do everything they can to make you feel at home. My family lives on a little street where there are three other houses of family members in a little square. My Dona, or host mom, has an older daugther who lives above her and three sisters who have houses right next to each other. There are other family members that live in other parts of the city or country. She has lived in this house for 31 years. We have running water (well, sometimes, the water and electricity in the DR goes out frequently), but there is not enough pressure to take a shower. So you take bucket baths, which aren´t too bad. I honestly prefer them over showering with cold water. Everyone has a cute little front porch with four great rocking chairs, even if there are only two people who live in the house. You sit on your porch and neighbors, family, and friends come over and you chat, drink coffee, and play dominoes. Outside of training, sitting on the porch is essentially all I have done. There has been a good deal of rain and it has been super hot. My feet have swollen up like cantalopes from the heat and sitting so much. The heat probably isn´t that different from Alabama. However, the difference is that there is no escaping it without air conditioning. Fans are a life saver though!

Today is our first day off and we are to spen it with our families. I believe that mine is taking me and a few other volunteers who live closeby to the movies. I am pretty pumped!

Aug 21, 2008

I wrote this in the airport on August 21st

Staging is over and we are all camped out in the Miami airport waiting for our flight to the DR. It has been a whirlwind of new faces and names and first impressions. While everyone seems to be high quality and very genuine people, there are a particular few with whom I feel I have already connected. Tonight we will go to some sort of retreat and then the following night we will be staying with our host families.

Here are some fun facts about the Peace Corps…..

It began in 1961 and has been in the DR (without interruption) since 1962.

JFk said: "It is designed to permit our people to exercise more fully their responsibilities in the great common cause of world development"

The three goals of the Peace Corps (in Katie’s paraphrased version) are:

1. To meet the needs for trained manpower, particularly in meeting basic human needs of those living in the poorest areas

2. To help promote a better understanding of the American people on the part of people served

3. To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on part of the American people



Among the many prestigious Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCV), a few that were surprising to me were Bob Villa, the guy who started Netflix, and Jimmy Carter’s mom.
There are 157 Peace Corps volunteers in the DR, 3% are over 50, the oldest volunteer is 72, and the average age of volunteers is 26.

Pre AL Departure

The nephews

As most of you reading this know, I am heading to the Dominican Republic (DR) to serve for two years and three months with the Peace Corps. Though I know I will be working with a health project, most of the details surrounding it are still largely unknown. I am currently in Huntsville, AL spending time with my family, but will depart on Tuesday, August 19th, for Miami. There I will meet the other 44 Peace Corps volunteers who are beginning their service in the DR and we will have a two day pre-orientation, or staging. For the first three months we will be based in the capital city, Santo Domingo, for training. After this, we are placed in our permanent posts for the 2 year period.

Why? The question on every application and in every interview. It is the first question from Peace Corps staff and from friends and family. It is the easiest and the hardest question. Both easy and hard because there are so many reasons and so much passion that go with them.

I have long desired such an experience. Innate and somewhat unexplainable love and thrill to serve the most vulnerable, needy, and marginalized led me to social work and then to public health. An obsession for Spanish, need for diversity, and love for new cultures led me to want to practice these within a global spectrum. Through this Peace Corps experience I am hoping to gather information and simply better understand poverty, the abundant and immoral inequities, and effective development practices to reverse the increasing gaps in our world.

Thanks SO MUCH for reading and being interested in what I am doing. It really means the world to me! I am uncertain of how my access to the internet and other telecommunications will be. However, despite my periods of poor correspondence know that your thoughts, prayers, emails, and letters are always coveted!

My address for regular mail for the first three months of training will be:

Katie Massey, PCT

Cuerpo de Paz

Av Bolivar 451, Gazcue

Apartado Postal 1412

Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic