I am writing this as I enjoy the silence of my first night alone in my new house. After four months of searching, I’ve finally found a place to live in Tabara, and there is a definite sense of peace that comes with some personal space… though of course it isn’t really silent. The ever-present children are yelling about something outside, the occasional moto drives by, some men are slapping down dominos across the street, and I saw a rooster strutting past my back door earlier, so he’s sure to make his voice heard sometime soon.
Everyone thinks it’s crazy that I want to live alone. They offer to send their children to come sleep with me. “But… Laura… aren’t you going to sleep with a muchachita?” Um, no thanks? In this culture of constant sharing and togetherness, no one is ever alone. They thought it was weird that I didn’t want to sleep with a child in my host family’s house, but I nipped that one in the bud, and now they just go with it. Still, my independence is probably one of the most confusing things about me to them. They ask, “Pero, por que tu andas sola?” But why do you walk alone? As though I should have an escort with me… not for issues of safety, really just cause Dominicans seem to like the buddy system.
This line of questioning became even more frequent after my friend Nikki, another volunteer, came to visit. She spent two days here and forever after that everyone was like: “Donde esta tu amiga? Cuando ella viene? Por que no vive aquí contigo? Estas triste? Estabas tan contenta cuando ella estaba aquí!” Where is your friend? When will she come back? Why doesn’t she live here with you? Are you sad? You were so happy when she was here! Nikki tells me that her community does the same to her ever since I went to visit… As though we don’t smile and laugh and compartir constantly when we are “alone” in our communities. Oh, Dominicanos. I think they just thought it was cool to see us chattering away in English and laughing about all the ridiculous situations that we are presented with daily. It’s like a secret code…
Compartir means “to share,” which basically covers all social interactions, aka. hanging out. When you are sitting in silence in a plastic chair beside another silent person in their plastic chair, you are compartiring (or, in actual Spanish instead of Spanglish, compartiendo). Congratulations, you have integrated a little bit more today. Spend enough time compartiring with the doñas in the community, and they will all tell everyone else how great you are, and protect you from any potentially bad chisme (gossip). If it came down to it, I know that many women in this community would have my back. Not that I anticipate problems, but you never know. It’s good to get the doñas on your side.
Confianza literally means “confidence,” in both senses of the word: to be confident, but also to trust. Here, it is used more often to talk about trust. You have confianza with people when you know them well, when you trust them and they become “your people,” as my host parents say. Tu gente. In general, having confianza in the community is one of the privileges of living here for an extended period of time, and of pushing yourself to compartir even when you don’t really want to. People do become like family, and friendships are real, though not based on the same things as in the States. My best friends here all happen to be women with small children. They are around my age or younger, but they live in a different world than mine. My host dad said the other day, “Aquí, la gente piensan que el futuro es tener niños, pero allá el futuro es estudiar y trabajar.” “Here, the people think that the future is to have kids, but over there (in the United States) the future is to study and work.” While many people here do not seem aware of this distinction (and I suspect that it only became apparent to him after living with me for four months), it’s a pretty accurate statement. Not that having children isn’t “the future” in the U.S. too… It’s just a future that we usually don’t begin during our teenage years. I explain this to people daily, when they ask me how many kids I have back in the States and are shocked by the answer. And yes, people are more surprised that I don't have any children than they would be if I had children and had left them behind in the U.S. for two years. No biggie.
Well… so much for solitude. In the time it has taken me to write this, I’ve had three sets of visitors. They bang on the door and yell, “Laura, are you already sleeping?!” “Laura, open the door!” “Policia!” That third one was my “cousin” who thinks he’s really funny. My host parents stopped by to tell me things like, “Blow out that candle before you go to sleep,” and “You know you need to shut the gas tank,” and “Make sure you lock your door.” I try to explain to them that I know how to take care of myself, that of course the gas tank was already shut, and OBVIOUSLY I’m going to blow out the candle and lock my door. I just have to take a deep breath and remind myself that it comes from a place of love. It’s like when I first arrived and they were shocked that I knew how to wash dishes… Have you heard that all Americans have a maid at home?
In conclusion, I feel loved, even though it’s often an oppressive love that makes me wish I could just hide out for a while.
I'll try to post pictures of my new house soon!
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