My friend and fellow Peace Corps Volunteer, Alanna, has been visiting me since Wednesday. We've had quite the good and relaxing week, going to my classes at my center, walking and running around my lagoon and town and attending different functions happening in my town.
Most weekends here in La Caya are quite sleepy. They are a great time for me to just catch up on the week, read, relax, try not to melt in the heat, spend four or five hours (not exaggerating) just sitting on a porch saying maybe 30 words to my Dominican family during that time. It's what people do here and I am "integrating," as the Peace Corps preaches to us as our number one goal for our service, especially in the beginning.
Anyway, yesterday the last day of October, Halloween, Nevada Day (Happy Nevada Day!), there were two separate functions in my town. The first was the inauguration of the new basketball court (concha) my town built and the second was a political rally on one of the corners for Eddy.
Yes, my town is that small, a specific corner is the happening place and where all kinds of social functions occur: political rallies, birthday parties, wedding receptions, or just hanging out on a Saturday night.
Alanna and I went to the inauguration first. We were 45 minutes late and right on time for the actual inauguration to begin. It was the typical Dominican style event, with a head table filled with important people, a small pick-up holding 4 over-sized speakers, the crowd not really paying attention with cell phones ringing and people talking...
The most annoying thing about Dominican style meetings is the formality. First, all the important people at the table have to be introduced with their title, and then whenever a person comes to speak, each speaker has to acknowledge every person at the table. So every time a different speaker comes to the microphone, he/she has to first say "Buenos tardes A Senior Felix, "Good afternoon Pablo Cruz, Mayor of La Caya." etc, etc. Every single person! Like we haven't figured out who the heck is sitting at the table by now. Drives me crazy.
After the formal speeches, where each person talked about how great the new court is and how great they are for making it happen, everyone went to the middle of the court where a ribbon was hanging from a volleyball net (the basketball court will double as a volleyball court). At this point, I am taking pictures of everything and Juan Ramon, the President of my center, calls my name to hold the other end of the ribbon so the mayor can cut it. I get pushed through the crowd where I hold the red, white and blue ribbon (coincidentally the Dominican flag colors as well), the mayor cuts it and gives Alanna and I both a piece of it. Later, another man brought me the center bow of the ribbon, which I in turn gave to my "grandma" here, who gave me a big hug and a kiss for bringing her something so pretty.
Soon after the ribbon cutting, someone brought out the obligatory "refrescos," or small plastic cups of soda for the entire crowd. I'm always amazed when this happens, because it seems like no matter how many people are there, everyone will have a refresco. And everyone will, disappointingly, most likely, throw their plastic cup on the ground instead of in a trash can.
After the inauguration, Alanna and I went to my family's house to wait for Angi and Yulisia (my Dominican cousins, I guess you could call them). Alanna and I were slightly dressed up for the occasion. I mean, the event was happening on the corner- we couldn't just wear rags out of the house. But we were in no way near dressed up to Angi and Yulisia. Sometimes I just have to laugh at how different cultures are, and also how the people here must think my clothes are so strange and casual.
Eventually, we drove up to the corner, even though it's a five minute walk, and waited. The event was for Eddy's campaign, and he too also had the obligatory small pick-up with 4 over-sized speakers which successfully accomplish, "Dominican loud," which in comparison is like standing next to a giant speaker at some kind of sporting event and having the announcer yell into the microphone and play all the music at full-blast through the speakers.
Angi and Yulisia are part of the purple party, the PLD, and Eddy belongs to the White Party, the PRD, and so they were just there to make appearances, not to support any festivities. We hung out for a while, listening once more to men talk about how great they are, were eventually fed some more of that infamous "Dominican spaghetti," Eddy gave away 100 free bottles of beer to whoever could get one first, and then everything seemed to be over as quickly as it started.
Dona Francia was at the event and Alanna and I caught a ride home with her once everything was dying down. When we got back to the house, there was a huge frog jumping around in the kitchen, one of the biggest butterflies I've ever seen resting on a lampshade, three dogs following Francia and the two cats wanting to see the commotion. Francia, Alanna and I all screamed when we first saw the frog high on the ceiling. "Tenemos un zoológico aquí!" Francia said. -We have a zoo here! As we all screamed a few more times, as it jumped from the floor to the ceiling, back to the floor, back to the ceiling and eventually out an open door (Gracias A Dios). We decided to wait until morning to get the butterfly out.
An hour later or so when Alanna and I were calling it a night, we saw the mouse that has been living in the cupboard scuttle across the floor. And even though normally, I would scream and jump on a chair out of disgust and fear, last night I just sort of shrugged and thought- well if we really have a zoo here, we might as well add a mouse.
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