Primera Mano: Peace Corps Experiences in the DR: A Year of Living Differently

In March of 2011, Jim and I sold our house in rural Oldham County. We traded in the 5 bedroom, 3 and 1/2 bath house with finished basement, 2 decks, and a shade garden frequented by deer, hawks, and the occasional turkey for a 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartment in a degenerate former mansion in the Highlands with a tiny, rickety deck overlooking an alley and the parking lot of a local nightspot.
How did we get here?
In June, 2011, we received an invitation to serve in the Peace Corps, Dominican Republic, Jim as an ICT (Information, Communication, and Technology) Specialist and me as an ICT Educator. We accepted.
How did we get there?
About 6 years ago, Jim and I started talking about what we'd like to do differently - after banking, after teaching. Somehow, and I'm not sure exactly how, we started talking about joining the Peace Corps. It kind of made sense for us - an adventure - really living in and assimilating another culture rather than just being tourists - becoming fluent in another language. After talking about it for 3 years, we submitted our applications in January of 2009.
In talking with our recruiter, we said we'd go anywhere and do anything - except not an isolated island in Micronesia, like Tonga -- too far away, too isolated, too much water, too....just too much. In the fall of that year, we received an invitation to serve.....IN TONGA. Really? Jim said, basically - it's a big world, try again. And besides, we have to sell the house.
At that point we got a little more serious and we put the house on the market. About 4 months later, we received another invitation -- this time to somewhere in Africa where the primary language was either Spanish or Portuguese (Peace Corps likes to keep you guessing). I determined through research that it would either be Cape Verde or Mozambique. We said YES, contingent upon selling our house in time. They wanted us to leave that summer - only a few months away. Needless to say, in that abysmal market, we did not sell the house and we couldn't go. We actually put our application on hold for 8 months while we tried to sell the house. We also decided I was so close to retirement that we should change our possible leave date to January 2012 -- my retirement date.
In January 2011, with a new realtor we put the house back on the market, called the Peace Corps in February to reactivate our applications and to let them know that our house had sold (Yes! In 3 weeks!) and on March 23 we moved into our new home.
After an initial settling in-- picture hanging and curtain making--we loved it. Everything we wanted or needed to get to -- doctor's office, store, bakery, hardware, wine shop -- was 1.6 miles - or less -- away, according to the iPhone GPS app. We were 1.2 miles from Cherokee Park and 20 minutes from our favorite hiking destinations. Life was good.
Jim and I both retired after Christmas, Jim for the 2nd time-1st time was 3 years earlier, from banking- this time from his job at Centro Latino in Shelby County, and me from teaching in Oldham County.
Our leave date for the DR is February 28th. And so, here we are, packing and unpacking, arranging and rearranging the 2 bags (4 between the two of us) that must carry the perfect assortment of material goods we are allowed to drag across the ocean, that must sustain us as we adjust to a new reality.

And so it has happened (to paraphrase a quote from the movie Iron Woman): our thoughts became words, our words became actions, our actions became new habits. Our new habits will eventually influence our characters, and maybe even our destinies. So be careful -- not about what you wish for, because wishing is idle --like my mom always says, "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride," but be careful of the narratives you create about your life-- they could actually become your destiny!