Genarina is still flitting about South America with her lady friends and I miss her very much. Her niece, Cesarina, is staying with me and we've been able to go out a few times with her friends. Its been nice to get to know Regina better too as we are usually the only two people in the house. Its really starting to bother me though that she showers out of bucket and I don't. She sleeps in the utility room and I sleep upstairs. I feel really helpless sometimes, so I make coffee for both of us in the morning and bring it to her. I ask her about her family and her poor health and try to be a friend.
This past weekend I went to the countryside with several other students to volunteer at a rural school. The school is run by a French-Canadian woman named Paulina, who moved to the DR in 1985. She adopted two Dominican children, word spread, and suddenly she was presented with several more kids that needed homes. She has adopted and raised 31 Dominicans since then and there are thirteen children and young adults living with her right now. Legal adoption is almost unheard of in the Republic; it is however normal for children to be taken in by friends and relatives when their parents cannot afford them. Paulina felt that it was important for these children to legally be part of her family, although they don’t call he Mama and they often visit their biological parents in the neighborhood. I still don’t really understand their family dynamic. The community school is next to their home and the surrounding area is dotted with brightly colored shacks that Paulina’s older married kids live in.
It was all very surreal and my mind can only reflect on it in snapshots. As you will see, these are as random and lacking in continuity as the photos I did or did not remember to take. Children run around barefoot yelling in French and Spanish. Boys shimmy up coconut trees, machetes clenched between their teeth, and use a pulley system to lower clusters safely to the ground. The kids are lean and muscular, the kind of muscle you get from living outside from sunup till sundown. There are latrines, kerosene lamps, dirty feet, broken skin, pigs the size of small horses, babies with big black eyes. Five children squeeze on the back of a small donkey and make their way up the muddy hillside to Paulina’s, hoping to find some lunch--they found it. Baseball games in the dirt where I learned to “pitchear la bala” and “eswing la bata.” Chores are divided into neatly gendered categories with all girls in the kitchen and all boys beyond. Swimming is never premeditated, it just happens.
I was able to climb to the top of this giant hill above the main jungle base, where the vegetation was smaller and the views were stunning. Our goal: to pick wild avocados and oranges! The boys moved fast. On this three hour hike, I got to know Tonitino. He was in need of some encouragement because he just failed his entrance exam for high school and will have to repeat 8th grade. He wants to be a taxi driver when he grows up. The panoramic shots below are all thanks to him, he showed me all the best spots to take pictures.
God is good, love you all.
Dominican art in our home
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