Your Nothing is Always Worth Something

Warning: this post is pretty long!

Have you ever had that feeling where it seemed like everything you ever wanted was right in front of you, but it didn’t feel how you imagined? I don’t know; it may be a career, university, car, soul mate, money, or maybe even just one of your unrealistic dreams. It’s that feeling where no matter how much you yearned for it, that one thing still felt like it wasn’t enough. You painted a picture in your head about how it would make your heart jump for joy, your spirit would leap with expression, your soul would flee with gratitude, your mind would burst with creativity, and your life would be bound with fulfilment… but it just didn’t turn out that way- or so you thought!

For me, it was Peace Corps. I wanted it sooo bad! Volunteering has been a major part of my life, so Peace Corps only made sense. Graduating college, I wanted nothing more than to serve as a volunteer in Africa and continue doing service work that brought value, pleasure, and meaning to my life. Yet, here I am 6 months later in the Dominican Republic standing in the presence of one my dreams with the willingness to walk away from it. It’s not how I anticipated: the feel, look, smell, and taste are all different. I imagined I’d be spending my free time listening to stories from the village matriarch and learning to play the drums; instead, I’m drinking piña coladas on the beach and playing dominoes. I had dreams of the way the dirt would feel; how I would never actually master a local language, but I’d feel right at home; dreams of the piercing West African sun burning my back; and how I’d smile while I’m sleeping because I had a rewarding day. But when your reality doesn’t match your vision, you feel unsatisfied.

People always ask me why I joined the Peace Corps and it’s such a hard thing to explain. At this age, there is nothing else I wanted to do. Of course, I could’ve gone to medical school and spent the next 7 years with sleepless nights or I could’ve joined my other friends doing Teach for America. That just wasn’t enough for me. I’m always on a quest for finding life enrichment through experiences and the service of others. The next question I get is: What do you do in the Peace Corps? To be honest, I thought that by this time I would have a more satisfying response. However, since I don’t- I just tell the truth: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! I walk around all day eating a ton of food, gaining an increasingly amount of weight, sipping loads of coffee, eating fruit, drinking diabetic shocked juice, learning a jacked up dialect of Spanish I could learn buying chips in a New York bodega, chilling under trees having the same conversations with women, and playing 100 hands of Uno with my 11 year old best friends. Sometimes there's a couple funerals in there, and I might be lucky to squeeze in a wedding- just to return home at night to poop my brains out in plastic bags. You can probably imagine the disappointment I felt.

6 days ago I was ready to quit! I had no expectations for serving as a volunteer in the DR because the Caribbean was never a part of my plans. My only hope for everything I embark on is that I find significance and passion in it. Last week Wednesday was my breaking point- every sense of meaning, desire, and happiness I found in my service suddenly escaped me. I felt as though I was wasting my life and that it would in fact be a disservice to my community by staying there to provide hopeless projects that don’t solve poverty and the spread of disease. I rambled about how I’m too creative to limit myself to futile and basic programs that 50 other people are doing. I was so over it! You know when you just get so frustrated with something you have no control over and the only thing you can do is cry for 15 seconds. Yup, that was me! I wanted to pack my bags and leave on the next plane, but somewhere deep down in the back of my mind, or maybe it was my heart, told me that I didn’t want to leave at all. I realized that I just needed to rediscover and reestablish purpose.

It would be so easy to look around and feel sorry, dirty, and disgusted by the poverty I live in or I can take a dump in a pringles can, laugh about it, and then have a story to tell later. It's about learning to live and experiencing life in a way I'd never have the opportunity to do so in another setting; and relishing in the culture and values of a country, even if that means walking around looking crazy all day. It's about saying and doing stupid things just to make yourself laugh when you feel like crying; and learning so much about yourself just from sitting in a room thinking or watching the way you respond to situations. It's literally about finding true contentment in who you are and not what you have while at the same time trying your hardest to positively contribute to someone's life even if it's only with your presence; yet, still reminding yourself that in giving you must receive and grow into a different person as well.

We all have those things that we want more than others, but I think it’s important to appreciate them how they are given. You may have your dream car, but it doesn’t drive as fast as you saw in the commercial; you may have the (wo)man of your dreams, but they don’t love you as much as you love them; you may be seated in the highest position of your dream career, but it still feels like something is missing. It seems like the “something” that you have is “nothing”. We can dream big, wild, gratifying dreams, but we are not in control of how life works out the details.

I have everything I wanted, and it still felt worthless! I’m here to tell you, that’s a lie! Everything has a purpose, even if you pause for a second and can’t remember it. Nothing you do is valueless when you’ve invested your life in something that outlasts you. Things may appear trivial and insignificant, but that’s only because you’ve experienced or hoped for better. Nevertheless, if you take another glance at it, you’ll see that it has purpose and if it doesn’t benefit you, it can surely help someone else. Whenever you find yourself in that space between your dream and your reality and you have a moment or feeling of nothingness, remember that your nothing is always worth something!

Cockroach Chronicles

First, let me say HHAAAPPPPPYYYYY NNEEEWWWW YYYEEEAARRRRR! I pray this year brings you peace, love, prosperity, and growth!... Okay, now on to the good stuff J

Lately I’ve been trying to find something to write about, but I’ve been blank. There’s a certain feeling I must get from my writing and if that’s lacking, I just can’t post it. Things changed last night when I entered the Cockroach Chronicles!

Usually, I dread cockroaches; they make my skin crawl, attack me when I least expect it, and they draw on the weakness that I’m afraid to kill them. Last night as I sat in church, I watched a cockroach for about an hour. Most times in church I feel like a mute because I barely know any of the songs and by the time I find a scripture (Spanish Bible problems), it’s already been read. So, now I just sit there looking around and following the gestures of the congregation. Instead of looking around counting small paint chunks on the wall, I centered all of my attention on a cockroach that appeared to be fighting for its life.

The cockroach lied on its back and forcefully kicked its feet in order to catapult its body right side up. There were a few times when the cockroach would almost flip over, but 2 seconds later it turned on its back kicking its way through yet again. About 5 times it landed firmly on its feet, but something unbeknownst to me kept forcing it to turn over. I’m not going to lie- I HATE COCKROACHES, but I felt bad. It was really struggling. After about an hour of kicking and failed attempts to correctly position itself, the cockroach gave up. It stopped kicking. I don’t know the science behind it, but not long after the cockroach stopped fighting to stand confidently on its feet, it died. Just like that. Dead. On its back, feet in the air, dead. As afraid as I am of cockroaches, I silently cheered for it. I wanted it to win; I wanted it to keep fighting and see itself through.

I probably sound crazy, but here me out! I promise I was not this weird 5 months ago; Peace Corps made me this way! When you have a bunch of time to think about random things, it’s easy to find inspiration, even in your fears…

As I watched the cockroach struggle, I thought about myself and you all. I asked myself, how many times have I stopped kicking? How many times have I just given up? How many times will it take for me to get knocked down and not find the strength to stand up again? We can’t always be the one flying! Life comes with some knocking down, flipping over, and tossing aside, but the strength is in what we do to get back up!...

My hopes for the cockroach made me realize that silent cheering is just as good as not cheering at all! We all need to be encouraged, to know that someone is there rooting for us until we get to the finish line. When you see someone is down, help them up. Let them know that no matter how much you may hate them, you still want them to win; you want them to know their full potential; and you want them to fight even when they feel like there’s no fight left!... Look at the Cockroach Chronicles and ask yourself when was the last time you did some cheering ;-)

Standards?... Lower them!

You know you’re in Peace Corps when all of your friends are half your age! It sounds sad, I know. Just hear me out a little bit lol. 98% of the women my age in my community have children and are married. Of course I spend time with them, but no matter the conversation, it always ends up with an interrogation about why I am not married. I pretty much told a lie to everyone in my community and they think I have a boyfriend. What! I had to tell them something so they could stop hounding me. Did it work? Not exactly- they call me an “Abusadora (Abuser)” because I left him in the states to wait 2 years for me. Some people even proceed to tell me that he’ll cheat on me, so I should just find a Dominican husband. I just laugh at them and their shenanigans. Being a wife where I live entails staying in the kitchen for half the day, scrubbing floors that always seem to be dirty again within an hour, and hand-washing tons of clothes… just to do it all over the next day. So yeah, I’ll pass on that one!

Children on the other hand are chill. I like them because they’ll pretty much do whatever I tell them to. They make store runs, help me mop my floor (they think Americans don’t know how to mop, fine with me!), correct my Spanish when I pronounce something wrong, they’ll walk around with me when no one else wants to, they tell me ALL of the gossip, they do room checks (for rats that is), and they even clear my room of dead rats… gotta love ‘em! Believe me when I tell you, they get really annoying! But, they’re good company to keep around.

You probably were expecting some great, life changing post… I could tell you how people prepare 3 months in advance for Christmas, but the celebration sucks; I could tell you about how a gecko was on the roof and it’s poop fell in my bra; you’d probably want to hear how I vomited watching a pig get slaughtered or maybe how I was tricked into almost eating pig intestines and drinking some strong, black-out worthy alcohol… but nope, this is it! Just wanted to tell you how I’ve lowered my social standards and have 10 year old best friends J

Maybe next time I’ll give you something more enlightening.

"I Won't Complain"

I always wondered how women could carry those huge buckets of water on their heads without dropping it or how they could walk for miles holding massive bags of rice… It’s because they have to! When the quality of your life depends on “that” one thing, you’ll dust your shoes off, put on your big girl panties, and grab the superwoman cape. We are strong because we have to be, not necessarily because we want to. We never truly actualize our full strength because there’s always something that stumbles along our journey to push us just a little bit further…

It’s been almost a week since we ran out of water and the water from the hose hasn’t come yet to fill up the tanks. Every now and again when this happens, I’d buy a bottle of water to use for my bucket bath when I don’t feel clean after using a baby wipe. I have even given up exercise for the past 12 days in order that I might sweat less. Still, I told myself “I won’t complain.” I remind myself of the 102 families in my neighboring community that never have “agua de la llave (faucet water),” and are forced to make one of two decisions every week: walk a few miles to find water or use the brown contaminated water from a local pond.   

Today was different; I ran out of baby wipes and I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my drinking water to bathe. Not to mention, my host mom was not home today to treat me like a princess as she always does when she feels bad and apologizes for uncontrollable happenings, like this water situation. So I sat on my porch, sweating and playing Uno with my host sister. I watched as two elder women walked slowly with that slight forward lean and arched back some of us get after life happens to us. They each carried two empty recycled bottles and a bucket. About 40 minutes later, they returned with the buckets on their heads and one bottle in each hand, all full of water.

Seconds later, I looked down at my dirty hands, then at my 10 year old sister and said “It’s time to put my big girl panties on”. She gave me that scrunched eyebrow and raised lip look we do when we don’t understand someone.  After all, I did say it in English. She smiled as she saw me pick up the two empty oil bottles our mom uses when she goes to find water. As I walked down the hill during the hottest part of the day, I said to myself “I won’t complain, I won’t complain!”… I continued on to fill up the bottles, then I returned home only to realize that these two bottles of water only filled up one of the six buckets. Since I haven’t mastered the head method of transportation, I walked up and down the hills 5 more times carrying water. Every now and again, I’d stop to take to a breather when my arms felt as though they were about to fall off. Women and children sat on their porches saying “Adios, Micha!… Dios te bendiga!” as I passed by. By the third trip, I even had a group of children following me. My muscles ached and my fingers were cramped, but I walked along and smiled…

Today taught me two lessons: 1.) You know the value of every drop of water when you’re the one carrying it. 2.) For almost every situation in life, we have 2 choices- we can either allow our situations to overcome us, or we can get up, wipe the sweat off our foreheads and do something about it.

Is there something in your life worthy of your super(wo)man cape? You may not think your strong enough, but trust me, you have a ball of strength somewhere deep down in your core that you haven’t used yet. Get up and go for it! Yes, there may be stops and hiccups and you may even be hurt along the way, but choose to continue on. A try beats a fail. Whatever is, once you attain it, you’ll value it that much more when you have worked for it. Through it all, remember “I won’t complain”… Until next time my friends J

Reality of my Blackness

Hey! I’m black in case you haven’t realized. Always have been, always will be… When I first came to the Dominican Republic, I blended in perfectly with my red lipstick, freshly flat-ironed hair, caramel skin, and curved hips. Some Dominicans would even attempt to argue with me when I told them I am not a Dominicana. Now here I am: a couple shades darker, with kinks a bit too hard to comb for the common person, and an afro too large for cultural acceptance. If it wasn’t for Obama, whose presence makes it slightly easier to explain how I am a black American, I don’t know what I’d do. Before starting my service in the DR, I thought being black would be the least of my concerns. While it is not something very daunting and I don’t have these problems daily, it is something that exists and I thought it was worth sharing.

Being African American in the DR has its perks: I can get on public transportation and not have the fear of getting robbed because people think I’m from here; I can buy something on the street and not be over charged because my skin color saves me; yes, I can even be stopped and ID-ed by military forces due to confusion because my complexion may be considered too dark for a Dominican and too light for a Haitian. None of these examples account for the fact that my nationality is neither Dominican nor Haitian, but American seems to be the last thing that comes to mind. I find myself having conversations about the fact that I am American by default because my ancestors were stolen from Africa… This leads to different discussions where I try to force people to understand their identity and how they were socially conditioned to hate their blackness.

I find it frustrating here when I have conversations with Dominicans and they deny being black. Many of them try so hard to distinguish themselves from Haitians that they inadvertently condemn their own identity and roots. I try to make people understand that they are descendants of the African Diaspora, but African descent in this country is correlated with Haitian ancestry. Instead of standing in solidarity, I guess it’s easier for Dominicans to erase their history in hopes of gaining superiority over Haitians; thus, they unconsciously repeat the cycle with which they’ve convinced themselves to have no connection. So while I find myself defending my blackness amongst a group of people whose ancestry is inextricably linked to mine, I also defend the blackness of the Dominican Republic.

My black has always been full of boldness, pride, strength, love, and roots. I was black even when people told me not to be. If you’re the adventurous type like me who does it all from cocktail events with former presidents to rock climbing with my “sistah-girls,” then I know you’ve been told at least once- “Try not to act black when you go in here…” How is it that someone can ask me to hide behind my own skin whose color dominates the classification of my identity? I’m that girl that thought about going to a predominantly white institution for one second, simply because I wanted to be the President of a Black Student Union. Thus, instead of “trying not to be black,” I make sure that you remember my blackness! So, when you see a photo of a thousand faces, you’ll know that one black dot is me; when you hear of “that” black girl that competed in an interview against “those” white men, you’ll know it was me; when you’re child tells you about that amazing black woman they want to be like, yup- you’ll know it’s me! Many people have a negative connotation of what it means to be black. Hence, rather than conforming to society’s boxed idea and succumbing to societal barriers, I made the conscious decision to redefine blackness and black character, attitude, and capabilities.

I tell you all these things because no matter what we do, where we live, who we know, or how much money we make, being black is one of the only things we can’t change even if we wanted to. People fought and died for us to take pride in who we are, so never be sorry for being black. I won’t apologize if you hate me when I tell you that Jesus was black or if you don’t believe me when I tell you that Africans were the first to accomplish almost every “first”. I won’t apologize if my hair is too thick to fit under your baseball cap, if my hips can’t fit into your pencil skirt, if my existence intimidates you or my strength frightens you. My blackness is not worthy of an apology, it deserves a defense. In all that I do, I want my black presence to bring a heightened visibility to the fact that black is beautiful and not disdainful, powerful and not meager, accomplished and not a scar of failure… This was just one of my many experiences here in the DR during my Peace Corps journey. I know it was kind of a debbie downer, but it's also my reality. Until next time, stay black!

Things Happen Even When We Don't Want Them To

It’s been exactly 87 days since I've been living in the Dominican Republic as a Peace Corps volunteer. I have one hundred trillion stories I would like to tell, but I’ll spare you for the moment.

Let’s just say, when you’re living in a new country, there’s a lot you have to change, lie, or hide about yourself. Take a deep breath and give me a second while I reintroduce myself: I’m the Catholic-Christian, vegetarian who eats a little bit of chicken, cockroach killing, hair-braiding, helmet wearing, Dominicana look-alike that lives in the country New York (yes, the country!). I forgot to mention that I have 5 new names: Micha (most popular), Kamicha, La Morena (referring to my skin complexion), La Americana, and Amarra (comparing me to a singer that has natural hair). Now this new identity is not one that I created myself; it’s just a snippet of the things some community members affectionately call me…

The past three months of my life have been very different, interesting, eventful, exciting, sometimes depressing, often joyful, and always memorable. Remember those times when something happened to you and you wanted to cry, but when you reminisce, they bring you nothing but laughter? Yup, I've had a ton of “Cry-now, laugh-later moments” I think you would enjoy hearing:

I’ve trusted the wrong fart and let’s just say, I think the proper word is shart (use your imagination); I was sprinting one afternoon and a 10 year-old child got in the way and weeelllll, I didn't stop soon enough, I didn't realize cucarachas were trained so well until two of them attacked me- they fly and swim!; I wet my pants (just a little) the first time I saw a tarantula; when all you've been eating is rice and beans, you’ll do anything to mix up those taste buds- I walked in a rain storm for 40 minutes without an umbrella just to eat eggplant; I urinated in Gatorade bottles/shopping bags simply to find out the next day my host mom didn't burn them with the garbage, she washed and reused them; one night I was a little cold, so I decided to get under the covers- this led me to discover that for 5 days I unknowingly slept in a bed full of bugs; I had uncontrollable explosive diarrhea so bad once that I used the bathroom in a supermarket and all the women ran out (who cares if that’s TMI)…

I know, I know, sounds a little crazy. On the bright side, it added some entertainment to my life! It is all about attitude, the way you approach a situation. Yes, I've clearly done some crazy, nasty, and funny things, but trust me, none of them were planned. Hey, what can I say, things happen even when we don't want them to! You’re probably either laughing or judging me, as you should lol, but I’ll proceed to tell you 5 of the hundreds of lessons I have learned:

1.There’s no app for this: Trust me, as much as I’d like to think that I know everything, I find myself learning something new every day. I just turn on my laptop with unlimited internet and surf the web whenever I want to know something. Nope! I walk around like a creeper and ask people random questions to intrigue my inquisitive mind. Besides, there is no such thing as “unlimited” in this country (unless we’re talking rice, beans, plantain, and sugar) and let’s be real, I have the dumbest phone that Nokia creates. I learned that making mistakes is an inevitable way of life. I’m immersed in a new culture; speaking a new language- of course I’ll make mistakes. Since you asked, I’ll tell you two things I’ve done within the past 3 weeks: 1) I accidentally told my project partner (male, 24) “Estoy enamorada” instead of “Estoy emocionada”. Within 10 minutes of meeting the person I’ll be working with for the next two years, I managed to tell him I’m in love with him! I made a simple mistake as a result of being nervous. I merely wanted to say that I was excited, but he walked away thinking I wanted him to cheat on his girlfriend. 2) I told this Christian woman: “Yo sé cómo manejar caballeros” instead of “Yo sé cómo manejar caballos”. In a nutshell, I told this woman that I know how to ride men, but I meant to say that I know how to ride horses… So you see, there’s no app for this! It’s all about laughing at yourself, going for it even when you’re unsure, and being willing to learn.

2. Charades is definitely a good way to translate those words you don’t know: At least three times a week I find myself looking crazy! Whether it’s me crawling on all fours, making weird sounds in the middle of a conversation because I couldn't think of how to say Jaguar in Spanish or me falling down a dirt hill while attempting to depict how someone goes skiing… In the end, they understand exactly what I want to say... Even Halle Berry can take a hint from my acting skills.

3. You know that thing called privacy- doesn't exist: No seriously, people will invade your life and expect you to go along with it. For example, I have about 5 locks, each with a security code. I've had about 7 people ask me for the code to the locks, then they looked at me in confusion when I said “No” lol. There are even times when I have my room door closed and locked, but I open the windows. To most people this means “Don’t enter right now”. To the children where I live, this is just another way of saying “Oooh, Micha wants me to climb in through the window”.

4. Natural hair is not in: Coming to the DR, I thought I would see women walking around with their beautiful, naturally curly hair. Falso! 99.9% of Dominican women have relaxed hair. They roller set their hair once a week just to put it in a ponytail two days later. Whenever I wear my fro, someone asks me if they can give me “rollos” (rollers) or “un tratamiento” (hair treatment). As much as they want to fry, dye, and lay my hair to the side, they've gotten accustomed to my natural hair.

5. Every man that walks pass you with a machete doesn't want to kill you: The first time I saw a man walking towards me with a machete in his hands, I silently said a prayer. Living in a really rural community, it is not unusual to see even young kids walking around with machetes. I guess watching so much Law & Order: SVU and Criminal Minds had me a bit paranoid. No worries, they are just cutting sugar cane, or slicing and dicing a few fruits off the trees.  

Please, don’t flatter me; I know it took the expert to lay down the lessons of the land. Now, I bet you’re probably wondering “Sooo, when does this girl actually work?” Don’t fret; we’ll get to that later. I did not want to bore you too much.

Until next time: “Things may happen and often do to people as brainy and footsy as you” ― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!