novios

Being white, American and female in the Dominican Republic can be quite interesting. Walking down the street, riding a bus, visiting a government office, passing through a security gate, attending a meeting, or just sitting in front of my house exposes me to never-ending piropos, or pick up lines, blown kisses, requests to be my novio, or boyfriend, and marriage proposals.

I have days where the constant come-ons are entertaining. The piropos can be quite clever: Cuantos curves y yo sin frenas. -- How many curves and I´m without brakes. But most often they are simply hisses, ¨hola mami¨, and ¨I love you.¨

I do my best to ignore the hissing and calling. But there are the days where the guy trying for my attention receives an earful of my grammatically incorrect angry Spanish where I try to convey that I think he is obnoxious, that I have no idea why I would ever consider dating a rude guy who hangs out on the street calling to women, that being white is not better, and that he is the 65th guy to want me that day.

All that said, I would like to introduce you to a few of my suitors:

Gabriel -- A neighbor of mine, and in fact one of my first friends.
Gabby lives with his mom and brother and attends a primary school. He has told me various ages for himself, always older than he is, but I finally found out that he just turned 14. (!) Gabby used to take me around to introduce me to people, we´d go jogging together or watch Spanish movies. Several times Gabby has asked me to be is girlfriend and argues with me when I reject him. He explains that he is very mature for his age and it doesn´t matter how old I am. He apparently told his family that he WILL marry me one day.

Novio -- Old creepy guy from the corner store whose name I don´t know.
I cannot avoid passing the little colmado on the corner of my street. I pass it at least four times a day and am there almost daily to buy something. The owner of the place has a younger guy to do most of the work, but he sits out there from about 7:30 a.m. til 9:00 p.m. For my first few weeks in my house I cringed every time I had to go near him. He always had a piropo for me and constantly spoke of marrying me, getting himself a visa to America. Although maybe it seems silly, I found myself constantly upset by this man. He bothered me and I felt like I couldn´t fix the situation. That is until one day I found a solution. Anytime I passed him I would say ¨Good morning, afternoon, evening NOVIO¨. I simply call him my boyfriend, he calls me his girlfriend, and that´s that. I think he is so amused with the whole thing, as well as the reactions of others, that he doesn´t have time to make rude comments to me. We laugh together, I buy my egg or bread, and all is well in the world.

Travis – best friend of mine who has been living in Jacksonville
(Travis will be joining me in the Dominican Republic on September 9 to work as an English teacher, learn Spanish, and adventure together.)
On my very brief visit home, he took me to a place that we had been once before—about 4 and half years ago. At that place over 4 years ago we talked for hours and my life was never the same. I had fallen in love. And this time on our visit, after a picnic lunch and much reminiscing, Travis read me a beautiful letter, presented me with my Grandmother´s engagement ring, and asked me to join him in marriage. (I said yes)!!

Hurricane Dean

My brother flew into Santo Domingo and we began our jam packed 7-day itinerary, which included a visit to my CBT host family in Los Cocos, the climbing of all 27 charcos (waterfalls) in Imbert and visiting Nuna´s cigar factory for lessons. I had heard that there was a hurricane brewing in the Caribbean and that Peace Corps had asked that we tend our cell phones carefully so as to receive any urgent messages. On that same day, Rob and I passed through Santo Domingo on our way back to my site. On a whim, we popped into the Peace Corps office to check email and the hurricane. After walking in the door I learned that Peace Corps had decided that if you happened to be in the Capital on that day, you must stay because they were probably going to consolidate the next day (which they did). Consolidation entails calling in all volunteers from various regions to a safe house, in case of the hurricane. So, frustrated that we were ¨stuck¨ in Sto Dgo, and with bottles of rum in tow, we headed to the designated safe house.
This safe house turned out to be a 4 Star hotel, complete with casino and white terry cloth robes. Although we were not happy to be without the freedom to travel and see things (more so Rob than me), we made the best of 3 days in the hotel… buffet meals, hot showers and cable. Unaccustomed to air conditioning, many of us were cold and so wandered the hotel in our robes! We watched the Illinois Democratic Debates and applauded when Sen. Chris Dodd mentioned Peace Corps affect on his life (Dodd served in the Dominican Republic).
The category 4 hurricane that passed directly near the island left hardly any evidence of its passing. We saw drizzles and a tiny bit of wind. Apparently it was a ¨dry¨ hurricane, meaning that its bands hardly had power or rain. All joking aside about the hotel and our hurricane party, I am so glad that Dean didn´t do much damage. I have been working on a Disaster Mitigation Committee in my community, and it is quite obvious that in the case of something strong, the results would be terrible. When I finally made it back to my site, I found how many friends of mine had prepared for the hurricane--they had used rope to tie their wood & zinc roof down, just hoping it wouldn´t fly away.