Upon a rainy October morning, I vented my woes into the receiver of a pay phone in Nagua. I had spent more than a month out of the capital and away from volunteer company for the first time in selective memory, and I had just begun to feel the bite. On the other end of the line was my friend Eric, listening patiently as he finished his breakfast in Windsor, Vermont. Ever the pragmatist, he heard my tale of banishment – painted in dramatic hues of anger and melancholy – and when I paused for a reaction replied, “So . . . basically it sounds like you’re in the Peace Corps now.” This brought a suitable end to my whining.
So it goes. With a special nod to my hardworking publicity committee, I must nonetheless reiterate the obvious: I screwed up. That stormy day in early September, I had not entirely expected to return to Santo Domingo and be immediately summoned to the office of Genghis Garza. I was burned out from an illegal jaunt up the tentpole known as Pico Duarte the day before, and I was a bit surprised to find myself immediately subject to the harshest disciplinary action available this side of tossing me into the nearest JetBlue with a one-way ticket to Newark and ignominy. My surprise may have been a tad unjustified.
But I do martyrdom well. I was pleased to wallow in self-pity for a little while. The strictures of my punishment left little maneuvering room: no capital visits, no travel beyond Nagua, no parties, no surfing, no . . . well . . . no spending all my money on Cuba Libres and El Pequeño Refugio, I guess. I was determined to cast myself as Bill Kurtz, buried upriver in the darkest jungle and conducting the requisite rites of progressive insanity. (That analogy fell apart when I realized that my neighbors couldn’t really be impelled to worship me, even if I bought them a few handles of Brughal. So much for Heart of Darkness II: Vuelta Larga.)
The sentence has passed by pretty quickly. Really, there’s been too much to do – between aqueduct completion and grad school applications – and there were few moments in which I was able to contemplate my lot. But the duration of such time in relative solitude (special thanks to Joe, Jill and Josh for making it “relative”) is ultimately nothing compared to the hours, days, years put it by our fellow volunteers in Malawi . . . hell, in Haiti for that matter. While I can make the case that the infrastructure and social life available in the DR have made me a more effective volunteer, it’s worth noting that we’ve got it pretty good here; it’s not without justification that PCDR has the lowest ET rate in Peace Corps. That October morning, Eric managed to remind me that the Peace Corps image in the States is embodied by isolation from civilization. Interestingly enough, it took disciplinary action to make me live up to that.
The moral – if one is to be taken from all this silliness – is the same one that failed to break its way into my skull through three months of training: The rules aren’t worth ignoring. Consequently, I have scrapped my plans for an amphibious invasion of Jamaica, a takeover of the Punta Cana cocaine cartel, and for the new brothel I was going to build on the Nagua waterfront. The rest of my service may be boring, but it’ll be within boundaries.
So it goes. With a special nod to my hardworking publicity committee, I must nonetheless reiterate the obvious: I screwed up. That stormy day in early September, I had not entirely expected to return to Santo Domingo and be immediately summoned to the office of Genghis Garza. I was burned out from an illegal jaunt up the tentpole known as Pico Duarte the day before, and I was a bit surprised to find myself immediately subject to the harshest disciplinary action available this side of tossing me into the nearest JetBlue with a one-way ticket to Newark and ignominy. My surprise may have been a tad unjustified.
But I do martyrdom well. I was pleased to wallow in self-pity for a little while. The strictures of my punishment left little maneuvering room: no capital visits, no travel beyond Nagua, no parties, no surfing, no . . . well . . . no spending all my money on Cuba Libres and El Pequeño Refugio, I guess. I was determined to cast myself as Bill Kurtz, buried upriver in the darkest jungle and conducting the requisite rites of progressive insanity. (That analogy fell apart when I realized that my neighbors couldn’t really be impelled to worship me, even if I bought them a few handles of Brughal. So much for Heart of Darkness II: Vuelta Larga.)
The sentence has passed by pretty quickly. Really, there’s been too much to do – between aqueduct completion and grad school applications – and there were few moments in which I was able to contemplate my lot. But the duration of such time in relative solitude (special thanks to Joe, Jill and Josh for making it “relative”) is ultimately nothing compared to the hours, days, years put it by our fellow volunteers in Malawi . . . hell, in Haiti for that matter. While I can make the case that the infrastructure and social life available in the DR have made me a more effective volunteer, it’s worth noting that we’ve got it pretty good here; it’s not without justification that PCDR has the lowest ET rate in Peace Corps. That October morning, Eric managed to remind me that the Peace Corps image in the States is embodied by isolation from civilization. Interestingly enough, it took disciplinary action to make me live up to that.
The moral – if one is to be taken from all this silliness – is the same one that failed to break its way into my skull through three months of training: The rules aren’t worth ignoring. Consequently, I have scrapped my plans for an amphibious invasion of Jamaica, a takeover of the Punta Cana cocaine cartel, and for the new brothel I was going to build on the Nagua waterfront. The rest of my service may be boring, but it’ll be within boundaries.
