Library...sigh...

I´ve just realized that assuming I head back to the states on June 3rd, I have exactly 100 days left here. I´ve lived to see the possibilities of one month (40 days) played out here. What does more than double that time offer?

Every day I am speaking more, better, and faster. Is that going to continue, or will I soon hit the rumored plateau where it feels like you stop learning?

Every day I am building stronger bonds with the people around me. Will that too continue? I certainly hope so.

These 3 months ahead of me will be different, and challenging. I believe I am going to accept a full time teaching job in the high school (giving the University job to a friend who needs it more.) and I will be planting my one terea (600 m2) garden next week, as well as helping with the corn and yucca crops in the main plot. I´ll be traveling more, (I´m going to visit the AIESECERs in the capital soon.) and the mosquitos are going to multiply along with the rains.

Along with the challenges, which are oftentimes a pleasure within themselves, I can look forward to moments of instant and guilt-free gratification. The month of May stands out in this regard. This is the month when the fruit trees bear full force. I am told that the land is covered in ripe mangoes, bananas, guanabanas, coconuts, avocadoes, cherries, grapefruits, and oranges. This will also be the time when both Kevin Doran, and fingers crossed, my garden produce, will arrive on the scene.

So, I´m happy today. I love knowing the waiting and the anxiety are behind me. I have 3 months packed full of adventure ahead of me. I don´t doubt that by the end I may wish it moved slower. As I´ve already told some of you, I am going to turn this island into ¨Camp Friendship.¨

I´m writing this on a benchlike desk in the municipal library, also set up by the foundation, as I´ve been finding writing and studying to be increasingly challenging in my house. The kids do not give me the time or space to write, and the constant sound of novellas and music pervades my thoughts. For awhile, which I still do from time to time, I was crossing the river to sit in a natural chair formed into a log. This idyllic setting, complete with the sights and sounds of bubbling water, platanoes being rustled in the wind, and the company of goats, has 2 weaknesses. The sun can be brutal, and the traffic of farmers walking by and puzzling over ¨that white thing doing something with a pen and a book¨is a bit too heavy.

That´s why I´ve started coming here. To the Madison students, at school or abroad, if you´re wondering how this library is, let me assure you, coastie count 0, bro count 1 (me). The tables and noise level are reminiscent of second floor Memorial past the computers. The atmosphere, complete with the natural lighting, the bright blue paint, warm breeze, and exotic bird calls, is all its own.

Thinking and reading back, I see that I´ve neglected to talk about my family here. This is especially important to me now, as I had a pretty awful experience yesterday that made me realize what I have here.

I hopped on the bus to Azua at 7 am to teach class at the colegio as usual. Things were going smoothly and I was thinking about how I was going to keep the kids on task as I tought them grammar. Coming out of the mountains and down to the highway for Azua, the route passes a checkpoint of sorts, full of national police and traffic officials. I´ve often thought about how I never see them do anything. Well yesterday happened to be the first day I saw some action. For no apparent reason, a big guy hopped on the bus and slowly walked down the aisle staring at me. I didn´t do anything, and was relieved when he passed me by, thinking he just had somewhere to go. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder and a voice saying, ¨give me your papers.¨ It took me a second to process this. ¨I don´t have any papers.¨¨Give me your identification.¨ ¨I don´t have any identification. I´m just going into the city to teach at the school.¨ ¨If you don´t have any identification, I can arrest you.¨ ¨I´m sorry I just don´t have anything on me.¨ So he stood there and looked down at me for another minute, speaking so fast I had no idea what was being said. Then he got off the bus. As soon as he was gone, every one else started yelling at me. ¨Do you know what would happen to me if I were in the US? I´d be in jail. You´re here in our country, and you think you can walk around like you belong here?¨¨You Americans are so arrogant. You think you own the world.¨ On and on for 10 minutes from all directions. I couldn´t get a word in, nor did I try to. I just stared out the window, focusing all of my strength on not breaking down, on not crying. I wanted to tell them that I don´t think I own the world. That I´m constantly wishing everyone was so lucky as I have been, and even more, actively trying to realize that wish. That I am saddened by the racism and hatred some people in my country show towards immigrants. That I am here to understand the struggles people are trying to escape. But instead I was in silence, being hit with words that hurt like rocks. Staring out the window didn´t really help though. It felt like being in jail and having a giant bay window in your cell that overlooks another jail. Through the window I saw more places where I didn´t feel that ever so important feeling. Belonging. I thought, this is something you can never have when you are traveling, the feeling that this is where you are supposed to be.

So I stumbled through the day at school with the conviction that I did not have belonging growing on me, and on my way back to Los Toros my head was swimming with thoughts. I need to go home. I need to stay away from that city. Then I realized something beautiful as I left the bus and walked down the road into my neighborhood. It felt like coming home. I was moving towards a place where I would be greeted with smiles and attention and conversation. Cups of coffee and plates of food. Offers to play baseball and questions about my wellbeing. If this isn´t belonging, then I don´t know what is. The hurt from the morning was slow to go away, but the friendliness of my family worked its magic. It also helped that my host mother´s brother, who is a judge, assured me that I cannot be arrested and that those people are wrong for having assumed all of those things about me.

That is why I will now give the family some blog attention, in recognition of the wonderful home they have provided me.

The head of the house is Idania. She is a short lady who walks around with a somber look on her face. This makes her intimidating, but I´ve come to know that this is just her relaxed face, and that she has a wonderful smile and laugh that she uses often enough. She is a science and spanish teacher at the school here and likes to read tiny romance novels at night while the tv plays novellas. She also has shown to be a skillful dancer and coffee drinker, easily outperforming me in both disciplines.

The owner of the house is Adela, Idiania´s mother. Her working name is ¨La vieja¨(the old one). She has an eye problem that means she wears giant sunglasses. She also has a lot of jewelry, and sports two platinum teeth. Her top speed is about 2 miles per hour and she is bad around corners. She is nearly impossible for me to understand. We have a daily cup of coffee, where through bits and pieces I´ve come to understand that, among other things, she has 5-8 children, a lot of cousins, is the aunt of Polibio the crazy guy, her husband died 28 years ago, and her mother 50 years ago, electricity first came to the village in 1977, and that she prefers horses to the horribly loud motorcycles. She also has a nice laugh that usually results in her having a coughing attack.

Domingo is Idania´s husband. He has no kids and loves baseball. It is rumored that he would have gone pro had he not hurt his shoulder. (I´ve heard this about 20 different guys. Funny thing is they never say it about themselves. There is one pro from the village, Pedro Feliz. Right now I can see the back of his Mother´s house, which looks something like a Tuscan Villa surrounded by prison walls topped with curled barbed wire. It´s about the size of 20 normal houses here, and has the only shower that is not a river or a bucket of water.) Back to Domingo, he has a lot of brothers, one of whom owns a drinking establishment that Domingo faithfully frequents. He is hardworking by day, and cleans up nicely. He and Idania are far from lovey-dovey, but sometimes I can hear them laughing at night. Also, Domingo is very hard to understand due to his raspy and rapid voice. I have gathered from him that he likes Alex Rodriguez and was an army sniper, recieving training in the US while learning no English.

Josi is my roomate. He is 15 years old and is more commonly referred to as Gordo (fatty). He and I have good conversations at nught, and I´ve come to know that he likes motorcycles, Hummers, women, guns, and the music of Omega, who is a street merengue artist. Also, he is going to ask Stefanue on a date soon. He is the household goofball and lightens up every moment with jokes and his smile. Sadly he has no idea who his father is, and instead refers to Idania´s brother (the judge, landowner, and very smart guy) as his Papi.

Leonasi is Josi´s cousin. I do not know how old she is, but I would guess 16 or 17. She is very beautiful and very narcissitic. (She along with her sister Priscilla are responsible for draining my camera with self portraits.) I believe she has asked me to be her boyfriend around 3 times. A nice girl.

Rocio is also a niece of Idania´s. She works harder than anyone I have ever met, cooking and cleaning all day, every day, except when she is in school. She makes wonderful meals for me, yet hardly speaks. The family refers to her as Meme, and I had been doing the same until one day she told me she would prefer that I call her Rocio. When cleaning she loves to put on Enrique Iglesias and other similar artists. I hope to get to know her better.

Priscilla is Leonasi´s younger sister. Her real name is Radhaisa. She is about 11 years old and is constantly with her best friend Ivanna. (I thought Ivanna was a part of the family for 2 weeks.) Her mother lives in the capital, coming home every now and then to visit her family, which includes another daughter down the street who has a baby and no boyfriend at age 21. She is like Idania but without the smiles or the niceness, and showed no interest in talking to me.

Lastly there are the animals. A cat and a dog, both flea ridden and unfixed males. There are a number of chickens and cocks, (Josi´s fighting cocks) as well as a few goats, a sow, and 3 piglets. The livestock are tied up along the path down to the river, and everytime I pass by I am greeted with their calls for food. I´ve taken to petting one piglet in particular, and have discovered a remarkable thing. She enjoys scratching in general, but if I take it to a new level and scratch her along his side just above her soft underbelly, she will flop over and fall asleep in a matter of 10 seconds without fail. I am yet to try this on the sow. (Can someone explain this to me? I was thinking it might be some mechanism related to nursing. As the spot where I scratch is near the nipples, and nursing sows usually serve dinner laying on their sides.)

I forgot one person, Idania´s brother who lives in one half of the stand alone kitchen. He has never spoken to me, or smiled in my presence, which made the part where everyone hugs at mass particularly awkward when I went with the family.

As to the house itself, I would put it at around 20 feet by 30 feet. It is a single story constructed of cement walls on a cement platform. There is one long room with the table, tv, fridge, and plastic chairs, and 3 small bedrooms. The cieling is peaked, so each bedroom is really just a partitioned part of one room. In one of the bedrooms la vieja and Priscilla share a bed, in another Idania and Domingo, and in the middle Josi and I. Normally Priscilla and Leonasi share my bed, and Leo, Idanias oldest girl who is studying medicine in the capital, sleeps with la vieja. Leonasi and Rocio are now sharing a bed in a relatives house down the street.

The set apart kitchen is really just a tiny room with pots, pans, and a camp stove. Food is not refridgerated here (the fridge is for water and juice) instead being kept under a cloth on the table. Behind the kitchen is the outhouse, which is exactly what an outhouse is supposed to be, only that sometimes the dog feels the need to prevent me from accessing it by threatening to bite me if I come near his territory. This also doubles as the shower for the women, who are left out of bathing in the river.

We are lucky in that we have a car battery energy storage device that takes in energy when the grid is up and running and supplies it when the power is cut. Even so, we live in the alledgedly poorer part of the village, which is termed Haiti, in reference to the poverty in that country.

I don´t see poverty as being too bad here. I for one, am eating more food than I ever have, and may be gaining weight. Rocio stack those plates of rice and beans high, and throws in extra pork and tomatoes too.

In fact, two of the biggest problems I percieve here are not what you would expect. Novellas and cockfighting. I´ll tell you more another time, as this blog is far too long.

Love,

T