John's Next Step

I spent the last couple of months paying very close attention to Dominica and the rapid recovery they have made since Maria.  Still – a lot of work ahead, but great progress.  I had been planning to see how I could improve my resiliency and that of my local community Tete Morne for energy, communication, food, and water.  I have about 50 lbs of supplies that I was going to test and demonstrate. The bigger bag to be heading to Dominica while the red bag will be consolidated with my recovered stuff. When I fly from St. Lucia to Grenada I’ll have rather strict weight limits, My personal stuff – clothes, shoes, electronics, and kitchen stuff will likely be near the weight limit without those supplies.   Most will go on to Dominica – but I will take one of the solar panels and one of the solar lights to Grenada.   I’ll still work on disaster preparedness and resiliency. After being told my new assignment I added Grenada as a topic to my Google news feed and...

Grenada Peace Corps offered and I accepted a position on the island of Grenada.  Grenada is another great island in need of Peace Corps volunteers.  It is smaller, but more populated than Dominica.  I look forward to catching up with other volunteers and “getting back in the game". Peace Corps found me another site away from the beach.  I tend to be a site rat and stay  – working and living in the community most of the time.  Not every Peace Corps volunteer follows that option, and I tend to be rather on the far end of the scale.  Because of this I can do better in remote sites than people who need to spend more time with other volunteers or away from site.  Everyone is different.  Still, on a small island nothing it really that remote although bus travel might require more planning and patience than those sites on more heavily traveled roads. As I’ve said before all sites are difficult and although I actually would like a site near...

Peace Corps decided to open Dominica to a few volunteers with easy access to the capital city of Roseau.   My damaged and rather remote village was not included at this time.   That is the decision.   I said I would trust the process and I do. I was ready, willing, and able to return to Dominica and face the challenges of service to help the people in my community and on the island.  I am disappointed that I will not, at this time, be able to fulfill my pledge.  I had been paying close attention to the ongoing situation on the island so I understand the difficulties and challenges.  My background in teaching as well as disaster services and other skills could have been utilized to help the school children as well as the greater community and the island nation as a whole during this critical time.  I realized my return was a long shot - but the email received on Thursday that I would not be invited back to Dominica still took the wind out of my s...

Administrative hold The Friday email update from the amazing Eastern Caribbean country director gave me hope, but not assurance, that I will be able to return to Dominica as a Peace Corps volunteer.  There is still some final analysis to be performed and then experts in Washington D.C. will decide after a meeting next Thursday. The plan is to tell us the decision about continuing our service by next Friday.   Peace Corps might not reopen Dominica now, but I hope that the decision will be to offer the evacuated volunteers a choice to go back to Dominica or to serve on another island in the Eastern Caribbean.   We will also have the option to end our service.    Dominica has the greatest need and where I pledged my Peace Corps service so that is where I want to go back if at all possible.  Regardless, I want to continue my Peace Corps service if at all possible.    The Peace Corps will ship personal items back to home of record for any...