Thanks for your support!

Now that the countdown to Spain has reached the single digits, I’m afraid it’s time to wrap up the Domini-blog. I have more stories to tell about my adventures in the Caribbean, but pretty soon there are going to be some European escapades to chronicle. So although RD in the DR doesn’t quite translate to Spain, I’m not about to give up writing.

I’ll let this blog float around on the intrawebs and I’ve transferred most of these posts to my new site, but this will be my final update here. Thanks for secretly blog stalking reading and supporting me for these two years. Now, gente, update your bookmarks and subscriptions and read what a gringa writes. Nos vemos allá.

My source of nightmares

I used to be afraid of a lot of things when I was a kid – bugs, large dogs, answering the telephone when my parents were gone (there were so many things to remember to say or not say so the caller wouldn’t figure out I was home alone!). Most of my phobias, interestingly enough, were instigated by a book my class read in kindergarten called I Used to be Afraid. This book was about a kid overcoming his fears, but it actually taught me about all kinds of fears I hadn’t even considered – ghosts that fly out of the bathtub drain (oh wait, that was from Ghostbusters), child-eating escalators, and, most traumatically, the Closet Monster.

It had never dawned on me that there might be a monster in my closet, but I have always been highly influenced by the books I read (whether for good or for evil), and the Closet Monster of I Used to Be Afraid affected my family for at least three years. I say it affected my family because one of my parents had to lay down with me to sleep every night to protect me from my Closet Monster. I’m not sure how there was any room in the bed, because I also arranged a legion of stuffed animals on either side of me to serve the same purpose.

The road to recovery was a combination of rational and imaginational techniques. I tried my mom’s suggestions of praying or quoting scripture and I attempted to appeal to my intellect by taking a good look inside my monsterless closet. However, the most successful strategy seemed to be battling my imagination with my imagination: overcoming my fear by confronting my monster himself. Reading books about friendly and likeable monsters, like The Monster at the End of this Book, There’s a Nightmare in my Closet, and Where the Wild Things Are, was one major step. Then, after reading one of these books in first grade, we were given the assignment of writing a letter to our Closet Monster.  I don’t remember the exact contents of my letter, but I’m sure it included things like “Let’s just be friends,” and probably a “Jesus loves you” for good measure. I left my letter amidst my clothes and started having less trouble falling asleep at night. My parents eventually didn’t have to spend half the night in my bed. The members of my Stuffed Animal National Guard were cut in half. (Numerically, not literally. Apalling! I would never dismember a stuffed animal! They have feelings, you know.) I guess this was the first time I realized I could find some amount of healing and freedom through writing. (Joking. Sort of.)

Somewhere along the way of growing up I lost a lot of fear, or at least developed a distaste for being crippled by them. I can stay calm enough to find a shovel and decapitate a snake if I encounter one, I’ve never been nervous about flying (I actually love looking at the world from above) or flying creatures, I’m all about steep rollercoasters (and that bungee-like flying thing they have at Six Flags), I don’t really get stage fright, and I don’t mind moving to foreign places without knowing a soul.

I have admitted that guns and fire make me nervous, so I don’t want to be around when my dad grabs his gun to shoot the armadillo digging up his yard and I will always prefer an electric stove to a gas one.

There’s really only one thing that gets me hyperventilating.

Escalators.

Metal Beast of Doom; photo by Spatial Mongrel via Flickr

I’m not even joking. I’m not scared of being caught or sucked in one, and I’m generally okay with riding up; I’m just afraid of falling down one. Would that not be the most painful fall in the world? Clunking into all those razor-sharp metal edges over and over? I get all skittish whenever I step onto an escalator; red flags and warnings flash through my head. Which step? This one! No, wait! The next one! Avoid the crack avoid the cracks avoid the cracks! Now! Go go go! Grab the bar grab the bar! Balance, balance, breathe. Needless to say, I will never be one of those germophobes that refuse to touch the rail. I will always hold on.

During my last semester of college a new campus bookstore opened. It was a giant two-story Barnes and Noble monstrosity with all the textbooks on the top floor. (I don’t mean to cast B&N in a negative light. I have a special place in my heart for large bookstores; I merely prefer them to be one level.) I was forced, as always, to spend an insane amount on quite a collection of never-to-be-used textbooks, but that wasn’t what troubled me. My arms were full of 80 pounds of useless tomes and I felt like I could drop them or lose my equilibrium at any moment. On top of this, I had to go downstairs. On an escalator. Without hands to hold on. Feeling very unstable. I peered over the edge and evaluated the steep descent and the brand-new, metal-toothed, mechanized Monster determined to pull me down. I might as well have been trapped at a precarious position on the rim of the Grand Canyon because I had the biggest internal freak-out moment since my Closet Monster days. I could have used one of those brown paper bags to breathe into. The hyperventilating probably only lasted about five seconds before I pulled myself together, stepped on, and arrived downstairs on my feet, without a tumble or a trip. It was a miracle.

Now that we have had a good laugh at my expense, I would like to argue that, unlike my Closet Monster, this is a rather rational phobia. I’m sure that there is a surprisingly high statistic about the number of escalator incidents, particularly in the very young and elderly populations. Considering the fact that I apparently share the balance, coordination, and fall history of said populations, I have a justifiable reason to be concerned for my safety. I am simply predisposed to unlikely accidents, increasing my odds for facing escalator doom.

Nonetheless, I’m pursuing phobia recovery. Since writing proved cathartic with my last major source of terror, maybe it will again. In fact, I may just write my Escalator Monster a letter. One day, I’ll be able to add a chapter to my own book of silly old fears and proclaim:

I used to be afraid of escalators.

I always gave my teachers some sort of baked item- banana bread or something tied with a pretty ribbon that my mom sent with me to school to deliver. I probably made a card to go along with it, as I was the CEO of the Fortune 500 greeting card business, Rachel’s Card Making Company. (This was in the ’90s, and I was 8 years old, so I didn’t know all we know today about effective branding.)

Anyway, I never received an apple from my students in the Dominican Republic, or a lame ceramic plastered with an inspirational teacher quote. I was, however, given some rather unique and creative gifts. As you decide what to send with little Johnny this school year to butter up express appreciation to his new teacher, I encourage you to consider these thoughtful and unconventional Domini-gifts:

1. A mango
Apples are imported, mangoes are local. And absolutely delicious. Makes sense.

Image via Wikipedia

2. Jewelry
Dominicans like to wear big, bright, plastic accessories. I’m not going to elaborate with further adjectives for said jewelry, because it’s the thought that counts.

3. Cacao
My students know I love chocolate. They gave me M&Ms and Hersheys on occasion, but nothing topped the actual chocolate plant. I tried to take out the beans to dry and roast them, but the ants attacked during the drying process. It was a fun home science experiment anyway, making this the most education present ever received from a student.

Image via Wikipedia

4. Cards
I got some really sweet drawings and notes, but my absolute favorite assured me, “Even though it was hard, you did your best.” Yikes, I’m not quite sure how to interpret that honest appraisal. Were my struggles that obvious?

5. Surprise Fiestas
A group of my 8th grade girls planned a surprise party at my house for my birthday. I quasi-spoiled it when I didn’t leave the house to go for a run like they expected, but my roommate shuffled them into my room and explained the situation to me as we sat outside. When I turned on the light in my room they jumped out of the closet (more like trampled each other) and our dance party began. While they didn’t surprise me in the moment, I had no idea that they had planned the event, baked treats, and brought little presents. I had to shoo them off so I could hurry and get ready for my real fiesta, but it made for a memorable day.

During the last week of school, I knew they were up to something again. But that’s a whole other post itself, so I’m going to let the suspense build up while you wait.

Photo by Adam Jones, Ph.D. via Flickr

There aren’t many (enforced) driving laws in the DR, but every now and then the AMET, the traffic police, makes an appearance. They camp out on certain streets to capture every motorcyle driver without a casco (helmet), and check to make sure every motorist has their papers (proof of ownership and insurance).

If you’re caught, they take your motorcycle or car to the police station until you can wrangle the paperwork and pesos to retrieve it again. You get to walk around on foot in the meantime. This is a real hassle, which is why it’s important to take certain precautions during AMET season:

1. Carry your helmet on your handlebars, just in case they appear in an instant.

2. Watch for motos pulled to the side of the road waiting or people making unexpected U-turns.

3. Look for olive green uniforms.

4. Keep an eye out for a parade of people walking a motorcycle in the direction of the police station.

5. If you spot a trap, pass the word along like a true Domincano. Call out, “AMET!” and signal a turn-around for everyone else.

6. Pretend to be a dumb American and keep going. No one believes you actually know Spanish. Saying, “No fumo Español*” with a really bad gringo accent will clench it. (*Credit for this ingenious phrase goes to mis amigas Casco and Hot Dog.)

7. Remember it’s all in who you know. Be best friends with the police guy or síndico or the guy that has some special get-out-of-jail-free card because he did a military training class. Whatever you do, don’t brave the police station without a Dominicano by your side or they’ll robar extra dinero on account of you being a rich and naive gringo.

8. The safest bet, of course, is to follow the rules – wear your casco, keep your papers with you, and don’t put more than two on a moto, even if you see families of four (or more) piled on all the time.

Questionable legality yet definite reality; photo by Adam Jones, Ph.D.

Filed under: A Gringo's Guide, Life in the DR, Random-ish ]]> http://rdinthedr.wordpress.com/2011/08/05/how-to-avoid-the-amet/feed/ 3 RD in the DR AMET Moto http://rdinthedr.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/a-gringos-guide-to-spanglish-part-two/ http://rdinthedr.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/a-gringos-guide-to-spanglish-part-two/#comments Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:13:36 +0000 Rachel http://rdinthedr.wordpress.com/?p=913 ]]> It comes that time of year where I become increasingly aware of my habit of speaking Spanglish. I don’t even realize I’m doing it, and instead of people scrunching their noses to let me know they don’t understand (as I’m accustomed to) they give me these funny eyebrows. In lieu of having to translate myself all the time, let’s compromise by reviewing my favorite words that I tend to throw around and learn some new ones:

AMET (noun) – the traffic police
Turn around! The AMET’s up there!

Agarrate (command from the verb agarrarse) - Hold on! A very important term to know on moto trips.
Agarrate! This road is loco!

Bola (noun) – A free ride
Hey, the AMET took my moto. Can you give me a bola to my house?

Buen provecho (Que aproveche) (saying) – Bon appetit; enjoy your meal
[Upon serving a meal:] Buen provecho!
[Upon passing someone eating:] Buen provecho!
[After someone has eaten:] Buen provecho!

Buen tiempo (saying) – Perfect timing
[When someone arrives where a meal is being served:] Buen tiempo!

Bulla (noun)- Noise
I can’t sleep with all the bulla coming from the colmado. Why are they partying at this hour?

Cuarto (noun) – Money; coins
I would give you a tip, but I don’t have cuarto.

Cuidao (exclamation from the command, ten cuidado) – Careful
Cuidao! The AMET‘s up there!

Demasiado (adj) - Too much
[Upon receiving a heaping plate of rice and beans:] Woah, that’s demasiado arroz y habichuelas!

Dique (from the verb decir que)- Supposedly; they say; verbal version of air quotation marks
“What time’s the party?”
“Dique seven thirty, pero tú sabes they’re always late.”

Fisty-fisty (Fifty-fifty) (adj) – High-class, high-maintenance
It took her an hour to get ready for the party! Ay, que fisty-fisty!

Pana (noun) – Friend
What’s up mi pana?

Pa’lla (from the prepositional phrase para allá) - Over there
“Where does your sister live?” “Towards the river pa’llá.”

Payaso (noun) – Clown
You and your jokes. You’re such a payaso.

Mira mi pinta, mira mi flow (saying) – Check out my style
Wow, you got new shoes. Mira tu pinta, mira tu flow.

Si Dios quiere (saying) – If God wills/allows
I’ll see you at the party tonight si Dios quiere.

Tiguere (noun) – A player; lady’s man; low-life that’s up to know good; or, in a positive light, someone that’s street smart
The tigueres at the colmado are always hissing at the gringas.
Wow, that tiguera knows how to drive a motorcycle!

Tú sabe (verb) – You know; a common filler expression; (should be tú sabes, but we’re learning Dominican Spanglish here and s’s are excessive)
Hey, sorry I’m late, but tú sabe it was raining and I didn’t want to get my hair wet since I just went to the salon.

Vacano (noun) – a cool dude
You look like a vacano with those sunglasses!

Vaina (noun) – a thing, what’s-it-called
Hey, pass me that vaina. 

Ven acá (verb) – Come here
Ven acá; I want to show you something.

Bonus
How to turn any Spanish word into “English”: add -ation
Lo sientation, pero no puedation hablaration inglesation.
Lo siento, pero no puedo hablar inglés.
I’m sorry, but I can’t speak English.

Luz with her daughter and niece

It’s Monday, and as I sit in air conditioning thousands of miles away I can’t help but think of Luz. If I were in Jarabacoa I’d be adding my 125 pesos to the pile on the dining table, because Luz is coming today. Luz is coming to clean our house.

It always felt kind of wrong to have a maid. Although it’s incredibly cheap by American standards, most of the people I knew in Jarabacoa didn’t have the money to hire a maid. The majority of women I knew were single moms that worked hard five days a week, spent their evenings and a good part of their weekend going to college classes, and then dedicated half of their weekends to cleaning their homes. Dominicans value cleanliness- nonworking housewives clean every morning, daughters are enlisted to help when they’re very young, and it’s not uncommon to see people outside washing their sidewalks.

Considering that the women are well-practiced in limpiar, it shouldn’t be any surprise that many of our students’ moms are housekeepers. That’s how we met Luz. Two of her kids go to Doulos.

On top of being rico enough to afford a maid, we have a really big house by Dominican standards. I’m reminded of that any time I’m invited into someone’s home in a barrio. The main room is crowded with a few chairs and little room to move. If there’s a dining table it’s shoved up against a wall. Rooms are curtained off instead of separated by doors. Yet I am always invited in- sientate- and offered a beverage, often a refresco that someone sends a family member to the neighborhood colmado for upon my arrival. I don’t even like soft drinks. I feel like an intruder in their tiny tin-roofed home. But as they apologize for the size of the house and serve me a drink I know it would be rude to refuse such hospitality.

Luz makes 600 pesos for cleaning our house. She arrives every Monday around noon, greets us when we return from school, and finishes her work around five. She scrubs our bathrooms, mops the entire tiled house, washes our dishes, places fresh flowers in our vases. Our house is a palace. And we have hired help to clean it for only $15.

Luz is a hard worker. She’s faithful. She’s always smiling. She cares about how we’re doing. She always asks for us to tell her if we need her to do anything else. Half a day’s work for $15.

Once, Luz invited us to her house one evening. Her precious kids, Esdras and Pricilla wanted us to come chat and share some fruit. Her house was the same story- cramped and small, barely enough room for three of us to sit in her living room. She brought out a giant platter of fruit and set it on the small coffee table. Enough fruit for about eight people. Papaya, mango, pineapple, banana… She could have spent a third of what we pay her on the huge mound. We ate and talked and let Esdras and Pricilla entertain us with their games and jokes.

I didn’t have to have a maid. My roommates and I could have kept our house clean- I certainly knew plenty of very busy mothers who still managed to do so on their own. Sometimes I felt guilty, and I justified by telling myself that it was okay because it gave Luz a job. But that’s not the real reason I look back and appreciate hiring our maid.

Luz means light, like her smile that lights up her face. And when I got home on Monday afternoons, it always lit up mine as well.

Morir soñando

To die dreaming. That’s the translation of its name. The ingredients don’t seem to suggest it could be that rico, especially considering there’s no dark chocolate involved. But on a toasty Caribbean afternoon, this creamy orange juice proves to be a sueña come true.

Home of the best Morir Soñando

The best morir soñandos are found in Bayacanes, a little town just a 20 minute moto ride down the mountain from Jarabacoa. Moto ride and morir soñando? Yes, please.

Bayacanes bound

The sad reality is that soon I will no longer be able to make the trip to Bayacanes; thankfully a Dominican demonstrated how to make the drink myself:

1. Squeeze a million oranges into a large bowl. Add sugar to taste. (It’s actually better to start with sour oranges.)

2. Dump a tray or two of ice cubes in the bowl. It is important that the juice be really cold before the next step.

3. Pour in a can of evaporated milk and stir well.

4. Use a ladel to fill each glass and add an orange slice to each rim.

5. Die dreaming.

Disfrutaring the morir soñandos

Mexican Style Roomies

We also had a piñata and, being the birthday girl, I was first up to bat. I was rather disoriented from being tossed around in circles and, being a perfectionist, did not want to embarrass myself with a nothing-but-air swing. So I did what is only natural for a competitive player tramposa- I flailed my arm around trying to find sign of the piñata before I resorted to lifting my blindfold. Some referees swarmed in to prevent me, but they didn’t flee fast enough because when I got back to the business of swinging I nearly took off two of my friends’ heads.

Oops.

That really got the audience worked up. They spun me again for a second turn and, thanks to the laughter that cheered me on amidst my dizzy dark hole of blindfolded oblivion, this time I was spot on. I whacked that piñata so good… it sort of ended the game. I felt a little bad. Especially since a couple of guests barely escaped decapitation in the process.

Piñata fun

As my two years in the Dominican Republic comes to a close, I’m feeling dizzy and psyched up about all the fun and memories. But as the reality hits me that the date of my departure is approaching, I’m realizing I’m not going to be able to escape decapitation goodbyes. Although all my gringo friends have known about my move to Spain, I’ve slowly begun breaking the bad news to my Dominican friends and my students. It’s an awkward thing to bring up and the announcement generally doesn’t end with cheering and dancing (which would actually be more depressing, so I guess I’m okay with that). I’m dreading the final adioses as much as I am looking forward to my future plans.

When I weighed the pro’s and con’s of moving to a foreign country there were plenty of things on the list. I knew what sacrifices to expect (mostly). Yet somehow the thought that I’d develop deep, significant friendships and eventually have to leave them behind never occurred to me.

It leaves me simultaneously demanding, “Why in the world did you let these friendships happen?” and regretting, “Why in the world did you not pour more into them?” Bueno, I don’t really lament forming these meaningful relationships. As dangerous as it is to risk your heart on making friends, when it comes time to part I’d rather it be marked by mourning. I can talk all day about how I fell in love with the flowers and mountains and chinola juice of this island, about how I lived for motorcycle rides and waterfall hikes, but if I erase the people that I shared these experiences with, they would lose all meaning.

Festive gringos

By the time the last guest left, my friends had already cleaned up the majority of the fiesta mess and I was still wound up with party giddiness. I had spent the day in one of my favorite places in the world, doing some of my favorite things in the world, with some of my favorite people in the world. I was both grateful for the two years I’d spent doing life with them and apprehensive about how I’d fare without them.

In merely three weeks I’m going to get on a lonely airplane and watch through the window as I speed up and over palm trees and the Caribbean Sea. I’ll probably occupy myself with lame American Way articles and Sudoku until they announce, “You are now free to use electronic devices.” Then I’ll put on Juan Luis Guerra and reflect on the best and most difficult two years of my life as I scroll through the photos that only minimally captured the memories of my biggest birthday bash. I’m probably going to sob.

In Houston, Texas, a bunch of folks gathered in a giant public park for an event called Dance Your Shoes Off in celebration of Christ’s resurrection. In Jarabacoa, Dominican Republic, my Texan roommates and I discovered the video of the dance. After playing it on repeat about a million times, it became obvious that the dance should be brought to Doulos.

Every other Friday we have a school-wide pep-rally-esque gathering called Revolution. One segment of Revolution, called Five Minutes of Fame, offers one grade the opportunity to perform a skit, song or dance. Since second grade’s turn to perform was approaching, my roommate Meredith decided to teach her students the Rise Up dance. Robyn, being the dancing queen that she is, knew that it was the Internationl Day of Dance and decided to integrate more students into the performance to create a flash mob.

The surprise was supposed to be that after second grade’s solo performance, half of the audience would pop up and start dancing along. The surprise was actually that when students started to join in the dance, everybody – the non-dancers, the too-cool-for-school kids, everybody - stood and started jumping around.

I’ve never experienced a more joyous celebration of the King of Glory. It was true worship. Check it out: