Christmas time

Merry Christmas everyone!  ¡Feliz Navidad a todos!

Here’s a little bit about the Christmas traditions of the Dominican Republic.  I know I’ve mentioned the decorations before, and here are some pictures from my house.  Almost all available surfaces are decked on in one way or another.  Our tree is gorgeous, although you will note the peacock feathers on top in place of a star or angel.  This is true of the trees in every house I have been in (I think it’s the style this year…). 

We also have lots of Santa’s scattered around our house.  This is one display of three: skier Santa, Noel Santa and accordion Santa.  There are also some small stuffed ones hanging between our Christmas lights and orchid plants on our balcony.

Our coffee table is covered in Christmas treasures.  We have our advent wreath, a snowman that plays music, candles and ornaments, sparkly green flowers and a wrapped up orchid.  The last one is my gift to my host mom- her favorite flower.

Yesterday (Christmas eve) went something like this: my friend and I spent an hour trying to even out the worst haircut I’ve probably ever gotten (seriously, I don’t know how I left with it looking like that).  My host family and I went to mass at 6pm on Campus, then over to my brother-in-law’s parent’s house to have supper.  It was low key for the most part (with the exception of a Santa sighting by my 6 year old host nephew) and the food was really good!  There was turkey and ham (part of a pig that was roasted over a pit- soooo good), pasta salad, green salad, an eggplant dish, lasagna, bread and casabe (sort of like a rice cake but made out of yucca).  And fruit for dessert.  Yum, yum!

From what I gather, yesterday was the big day.  Eduardo opened his presents from Santa this morning, but other than that it’s been pretty low key.  Alba reported to me earlier that our neighbor, my host uncle’s sister-in-law (just in case you were wondering), got in from her family party at 5am.  So maybe, for most people, Christmas is the recovery day. 

I hope you all had/are having a wonderful day!  

Dominoes

So I think I’ve mentioned this before but- my host uncle owns a weekend home outside the city.  This is a super sweet spot- big kitchen (especially by Dominican standards), pool, pool table and sleep area for about 12.

Every weekend my host grandma spends Saturday to Sunday night there.  She has confessed to me that she doesn’t really like it (she’s quite the home body) but, she says, she does it for her only son.  I’ve been out there several times over the semester, but yesterday was special: I finally learn to play dominoes.  Sort of.

Your basic domino table, via google.

If baseball is the Dominican sport of choice, dominoes is the game of choice.  Once or twice a week my neighbors (about 15 feet from my bedroom window) will hold domino parties until 10-11 at night.  Many families and businesses have special tables build just for playing- they are square with a groove cut into each side to prop up you pieces and holes cut into the corners for your drink. 

Dominoes here is a four player game.  I tried looking up the rules, but there are dozens of varieties.  For what I’ve gathered from watching and my time playing yesterday this is how people play it here:

You are partners with the person sitting across from you.  You want to go out first and if you do, your team gets points.  Points are scored by the value of the dominoes left in everyone’s hand when you have gone out.  To start, the person with the double sixes plays- after this, who ever went out in the last round starts.  You can only play off the two ends of the starter piece.  If you can’t play, you pass to the next person. 

And there are TON of score points.  For instance- if you go out and the last number on the piece you played is the same number on the other end, you get a bonus 20 points.  If you play a piece and no one else at the table can play, you get a bonus 50 points.  There are also some rules with 25 (like if the end piece add up to 25 or something) that I don’t know well enough to explain…

In any case, yesterday I got to play.  My three playing mates were all over 60 and veterans at the game.  About an hour into it we broke for lunch and afterwards my brain was a bit fried for trying to figure out the rules/a good strategy.  So I took a break.  But the veterans- right back to it.  They pretty much played straight for another 2+ hours.  Like I said, Dominican game of choice.  

A morning well spent

Yesterday I called a friend of a friend who lives in a campo about an hour outside of Santiago.  My friend has encouraged me to visit and stay in this small town and get to know the people almost since I got here, and winter break is the time to do it. 

So with hopeful feelings and positive thoughts I called the number.  But here’s the thing about me and talking on the phone in Spanish: I’m very intimidated by it.  I usually can’t hear people when they’re talking, so communicating becomes very difficult.  I usually don’t even answer my phone if I don’t recognize the number (it is almost never for me, and more than once when it’s a guy on the other end, he’s asked me if I was married/had a boyfriend before I hung up.  Sigh.)

But all went well.  Nestor, the guy who lives in the campo, told me he’d be in a closer town the next day, if I wanted to meet him.  Well, of course!  The conversation only lasted about 4 minutes, but from what I got, I was totally welcome to come and he would meet me.

So this morning I got up, packed my backpack and headed out.  I had to take a bus out of town I never had before, so I was a little nervous.  I think it is a testament to my growing comfort level here that I was willing to do this alone, without almost any idea of where I was going or who I was meeting.  Taking it on faith. 

Yes I did find a map of the Caribbean with Tamboril
picked out.

I lucked out and sat next to a really nice woman on the bus who told me where to get off.  “You want us to drop you at the police station?  Why?”  I had a little trouble getting across that I was only meeting someone there, not that I needed the police. 

It took Nestor about 60 seconds to find me.  As pretty much the only gringa around I stood out.  We walked down the street a ways and sat in a park across from the church.  We chatted about his family, my family, the whether, our mutual friend.  Then he asked me when I thought I’d be able to come and stay at his house. 

“Well,” I responded, “I guess I thought, I mean, I can do it any time.  Today, if that works for you.”  I was a bit thrown.  Perhaps we had gotten our wires crossed somewhere. 

Yep, we had.

“Ah, well,” he said, “It’s just that I have a lot of work in the next week.  It being Christmas and all.”

“Yes!  Yes, of course.  We can totally do it another time.  I have so much free time in the next 2 weeks.  Any time that will work for you!”  This had the potential to be pretty awkward, but only if we’d let it.  Which we didn’t.

So we made plans for after Christmas (a better time), he walked me across the street where I caught another bus and that was that.  Three hours of my morning and less than US$2 and I now know a little bit more of the area around Santiago and one more person’s name.  I call that a success.

On saying goodbye

Well the last week and a half has been tough in a lot of ways.  The vast majority of our group is returning to the US, some for good, other just for Christmas.

I have certainly had lots of mixed feelings.  On the one hand, I'm really and truly happy for those returning to the US.  They are so genuinely excited to see their families/have the comforts of home it's hard not to feel a little thrilled, just by osmosis.  On the other, I'm bummed I wont be packing up and going home too.

Don't get me wrong, I love my host family here and I am happy (most days) that I will be spending another semester in the DR.  Honestly it took me the better part of the last four months to get relatively comfortable with the language, the transportation system, the culture.  I feel like I'll better be able to enjoy myself in the next 5 months because I wont be constantly adjusting and readjusting to life here.

That being said- it's Christmas!  It was tough for many people to spend Thanksgiving away from home for the first time (something that doesn't bother me having done it twice already), but Christmas will be new.  Sigh.  I'll keep you posted on how that goes.

Back to the goodbyes though... I helped a friend pack up last night.  She actually only lives about 30 minutes from me in the US, so we'll almost certainly be seeing each other again, but not so for the rest of us.  Our group this semester consisted of people from Washington to New York to Florida.  We were all thrown together four months ago, friends by necessity, and now over half that group is leaving.  I really miss/am going to miss most of those people.  I did move to the DR to meet new people and experience something different, and I guess this is just another step in that process- saying goodbye.

So with that- goodbye and good luck to everyone returning to the States!  ¡Ojala que tengan un navidad fantastico y que vayan bien!  ¡Cuidate!

The last supper

Last night was our cena despedida, or goodbye dinner.  All the remaining students in our program (some have gone home already), our program directors and 3 visitors from the program office in the US met at a restaurant for one last hoorah. 

My first hamburger in 4 months and a yummy
passion fruit juice!

We walked over, so of course were sweaty by the time we arrived, but 10 minutes in a highly air-conditioned room cured that pretty quickly.  About half of us got dolled up for the event.  Dresses, hair done, the works.  I do love a good excuse to dress up. 

Talk, surprisingly, did not center around people’s going home.  (I think we’ve all hashed that topic out enough in the past month, sheesh).  Nor did we dwell on memories of our time here.  This was also nice- none of us really got sappy.  I think the people returning to the US are just too excited to be completely bummed, and those of us who are staying are already starting to look towards the arrival of the next bunch of students.  

The topics of dinner conversation included: how excited we were to eat, Lady Gaga (of course), picture taking (everyone wanted a group shot), mail (thanks mom and dad!), borrowing clothes from parents, and jokes.  Here’s one I read on FB: ‘Why does the ocean roar?’  ‘Well, if you had crabs crawling all over your bottom, you’d roar too!’  Hehe. 

Picture/shadow fun on the way home.

On the whole, good food and good company.  Am I bummed that many of these people are leaving?  Yes.  Am I excited for next semester?  Yes!  Especially getting to see my family in less than a month?  Heck yes! 

Goodbye and good luck to those who are returning to the States!  

Smokin' Dominicans

Last week we took a little trip to the oldest cigar factory in the DR.  I don’t remember exactly what I was expecting- maybe something along the lines of a huge warehouse and rows and rows machines- but this was not it. 

The factory itself is in a small, brightly painted building with two, room long rows of desks for the cigar makers to sit at.  At the front was an elevated platform with a desk.  I imagine this is where the boss sat 100+ years ago, keeping a watchful eye on all the employees.  The cigar maker’s desks were divided into about 10 parts each, giving the person who sat there a designated space to work. 

The day we went there were only four people rolling cigars, and one guy to give us a tour.  While we watched, our guide explained how the tobacco is aged for at least two years before being rolled (it’s aged longer for the higher end cigars).  This brings out the flavor.  There are also several different sizes of cigars: long and fat (for those who want to smoke one for hours), short and thin (almost like cigarettes), and everything in between.  There are different flavors too.  Not just the strong vs. mild cigar, but vanilla and honey as well. 

All I can say is the cigar making is truly and art.  As we watched, this guy rolled several perfectly equal, beautiful cigars.  Like any art, cigar rolling takes years of practice- I think the demonstrator has been working there for over twenty years. 

 

As for smoking them- I haven’t yet, but I want to.  Dominican cigars rival Cuban’s on the world market in terms of quality and I want to at least try one just to say I did.