El Cuerpo de Cuentos

This is the final episode of El Cuerpo de Cuentos. Kevin and I discuss our Close of Service experiences, reflect on our time with the United States Peace Corps, and talk a bit about what's in store for our immediate future.

I want to thank all my listeners and supporters, especially my fellow Peace Corps Volunteers and my friends and family. I couldn't have done any of this without you, and I wouldn't have wanted to.

Pic: A Peace Corps lapel pin, featuring the US and Dominican flags, a little memento of service.

For this episode, I’m handing the mic over to Jordan, who's currently serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Monte Plata region of the Dominican Republic.

This is a recording of Jordan reading her poem that perfectly captures the Peace Corps experience in the Dominican Republic. I imagine that much of it also rings true for anyone that's lived outside of their home country and culture for a few years.

You can read more of Jordan’s writing on her blog Development of Self: A Peace Corps Story: https://jordanmathewspeacecorps.wordpress.com/

It’s been difficult being away from our friends, family, and our home culture for nearly 2 years, and the holidays can be especially challenging. Kevin and I spent Christmas 2016 and Christmas 2017 in our community, and I’m not going to lie: They were both disappointing.

This episode is my conversation with Kevin about what it was like being in site for Christmas and New Year's this past year

The pic: Neutral Santa, made by an amiguita of PCV Sarah Cook.

Buses, horses, motorcycles, and more! This episode is about all the ways to get from point A to point B in the Dominican Republic. A few fellow Peace Corps Volunteers also share their stories of (mis)adventures on public transportation in-country.

The pic: A well-maintained guagua in my local big city.

Like me, Dave's official title as a Peace Corps Volunteer is Primary Literacy Promoter. But unlike me, Dave's actually a professional teacher.

In this episode, Dave and I talk about the public education system in the Dominican Republic and what it's like being an Education Volunteer here.

The pic: A student follows the ABCaterpillar PCV Sarah Cook painted in her school's courtyard.

Within about an hour on the island of Hispaniola, you can drive from a high elevation pine forest, through a semi-desert arid plain, and into an ocean mangrove forest. This range of geodiversity allows for a high rate of biodiversity.

To learn about the ecology and environmental situation, I talked to Tim. Tim’s been on the island and affiliated with the Peace Corps for over 30 years. He first came to the Dominican Republic as an Environment Volunteer and is now the Peace Corps In-country Training Director. In this conversation, we talk about the increasingly delicate ecosystems of Hispaniola and speculate about future environmental threats here. Tim also shares a story about how a grassroots campaign that started with a Peace Corps project helped stop a mining operation that had potential for large scale contamination here in the Dominican Republic.

There’s not a lot of religious diversity in the Dominican Republic, and this can affect us as volunteers, especially those of us who don’t identify as Christian.

In this episode, a Jew, a Buddhist, and an atheist talk about what life is like serving as a religious minority in the Dominican Republic.

This episode also features a song in a language called Ladino (aka Judeo-Spanish) and music from a Gaga ceremony (aka Voodoo) that I witnessed here in the Dominican Republic. The pic: A bit of a mural from a temple in a batey.

Health care in the Dominican Republic has improved so much in recent years that the Peace Corps is phasing out all health programming.

Abby's one of the few remaining health volunteers in Peace Corps, Dominican Republic. In this episode, we talk about the state of health care and access to health care in her community. Abby also debunks for me a few myths that she's encountered in the campo about health and the human body.

Partners in Rural Health is a medical relief and service learning organization based in Portland, Maine. They've been working in the Dominican Republic for 22 years, serving in communities in the greatest of need and with the least access to medical care.

This episode is a conversation I had with Whitney Lutz, a pediatric nurse practitioner who's been involved in medical relief work for 30 years, 14 of them with Partners in Rural Health.

Visit www.prhdr.org to learn more about Partners in Rural Health.

One year down, one to go! In May 2017, we celebrated the halfway mark. This episode is a conversation Kevin and I had about what it feels like to literally be in the middle of it.

The pic: Kevin and I hanging out in the kitchen at a friend's house.