Mas Cuentos

Neighborly Bonding

In this culture, if you walk by someone’s house and stop at the door for more than 0.5 seconds, they begin to insist that you come in and sit. God forbid you come in and stand, it makes them very uncomfortable. They often feel obliged as well to offer you some sort of snack, coffee, or refreshment. While this all sounds very nice, sometimes these situations are terribly irritating. To the less experienced volunteer, a situation such as this can lead to hour long delays in arriving where you were actually going and doing what you were actually going to do. You see, when someone invites you in and tells you to wait for juice that is “almost ready”, this could very well mean that the fruit used to make the juice is still hanging on the tree outside. While the host is off preparing juice, you are stuck sitting in a chair for 20 minutes, perhaps in silence, or perhaps making pointless smalltalk with another family member. You eventually receive your juice and you drink it, but while all you can think about is the thing you really needed to do, you feel bad about leaving right away, so you sit and make more small talk until you can figure out how to leave without being rude. You then try to leave, and they say, “don’t go” (no te vayas) or “but it’s still early”, (pero todavia esta temprano). So you decide to appease your host and stay a bit longer. In the end, the trip you took to buy eggs at the corner store took 1 hour instead of 5 minutes. On unlucky days, you can fall into this trap at several houses along the route between your house and your destination, turning a simple task into full-day’s event energized by 7 cups of coffee. I suppose this is why Peace Corps service is 2 years.

Fortunately, I have by observation of Dominicans, figured out that there are a few ways to avoid such situations. The key is to give very vague excuses. To an invitation such as this…

Inviting Host: Hey, come in, sit, sit down, let me get you some coffee…

My favorite responses are as follows:

Busy or Uninterested Passerbyer:

No, I have to arrive.

No, I’m going that way.

No, I can’t.

No.

Now that I have figured out how the system works, I can pick and choose when and whom I visit, making for very pleasant experiences.

Dr. Read

My Dominican Dentist, Dr. Read, or more appropriately called Dr. Klutz, has his office in the capital, a 10 hour round trip from my site. Let’s just briefly go over my last few visits with Dr. Read…

1^st visit: The Dr. takes out my mangled tooth (from “the incident”), and as he is filing it down with an electric sander, the tooth goes flying across the room. I take note that the Dr. says things like “oops” quite frequently, which makes me slightly uneasy.

2^nd visit: As the Dr. is shaving down my new retainer tooth thingy inside my mouth, the electric sander gets wrapped up in his rubber glove and he spends 5 minutes unsticking it. The Dr. then takes an impression of my teeth, and while removing the mold, he opens the stitches I had from surgery. As he notices blood on the mold, he says “whoops”.

3^rd visit: The Dr. informs me that he accidentally dropped my mouth impression on the ground and needs to take another impression. I’m not given the fixed tooth that I travelled 10 hours from my site receive.

4^th visit: The Dr. informs my friend, who had an appointment just before me, that I wasn’t going to like my new fixed tooth. I ponder for a second why the doctor says things like that. I enter his office with low expectations. He offers to show me the new tooth, and in doing so he drops it on the floor. He picks it up and hands it to me, and I notice that it has the color that resembles the tooth of someone who drank way too much coffee, a typical Dominican tooth I suppose. He suggests that I wait for him to request a better color from the lab. I agree. He then tells me of a trip to Disney World he’s planning for his family, and shows me a picture of the sports car he is bidding for on ebay. At least he’s getting paid well. I leave empty handed once again.

Si Dios Quiere

Si Dios Quiere…a phrase you here atleast 100 times a day, normally at the end of most statement. The English translation: If God wants it. There are some situations, however, that I find peculiar when this phrase is added at the end of a conversation.

For example…

Me: I’m going to the capital, I’ll be back tomorrow.

Dominican: If God wants it.

My after thoughts: Why wouldn’t God want me to come back? Am I going to die within the next two days? Is God mad at me, what did I do?

Another example…

Me: I’ll see you later for that very important meeting at 3:00pm

Dominican: If God wants it.

My after thoughts: Why wouldn’t God want you to go to the meeting!?!? I already told you that it’s very important!!! God loves important things and would never let anything get in the way of their realization!!! And if it rains that doesn’t count as a sign that God doesn’t want you to attend the meeting!!!

Watch this video!!!