Enamorados

Updates.  Work is pretty much what I described in my last post:  trying to help 8 to 13 year olds learn to read.  The school is horrendous, but people are generally very nice.  I could say that about a lot of things.  Politics make no sense and nothing functions, but people are unbelievably friendly.  So it goes.  I’m also working with girls groups on Saturdays – we just finished a few weeks of talking about sexual health and are moving on to nutrition this Saturday.  It’s actually fun – I’ve always liked working with youth.  And after spending the week playing games and repeating the letters and syllables with slow learners inside a barely functioning school, it’s refreshing to teach about something else for a few hours. 

Other than that, the story of my life is kind of going through a dramatic phase.  If you know me, you know that I hate drama.  Some people feed off of it, but it just stresses me out.  A friend once told me that if she had to describe me in only one word, it would be “pragmatic.”  I’m not sure I entirely agree with that either, but it’s definitely closer to the truth.  Just, you know, be real.

So, this drama.  It’s been coming for a while now, I guess.  I think Dominicans watch way too many telenovelas (when there’s electricity), and it contributes to their love of all things dramatic.  I am a 24 year-old American woman living alone in a rural town where girls usually get knocked up and shacked up with older men around age 16.  So… right off the bat, it’s kind of a weird position to be in.  Ask any female Peace Corps volunteer.  Add to that the fact that my house is across from one of the busiest colmados in town and my door is generally open if I’m inside (otherwise I’m sitting alone in a hot blue box), meaning I receive plenty of visitors, wanted and unwanted.  Meanwhile, lots of people sit across the street in plastic chairs for lack of anything better to do, and at this point it’s probably more entertaining to watch my house than it is to watch telenovelas anyway. 

What’s the Americana doing?!  Baking bread?  Playing with children?  Reading a book?  Playing guitar?  Receiving gentlemen callers?  Scintillating stuff.  But regarding that last one, there’s where the drama comes in, obviously.  Since day one, there have been some constants in my life here, a few things I can count on.  One is my host family and extended family, who just treat me like real family.  Another is the generally frustrating nature of work.  I do what I can.  But the overwhelming constant, the leaves-me-laughing-out-loud, can’t-believe-how-ridiculous-people-can-be, is-this-really-still-happening constant thing, is enamorados.  This level of persistence is just ridiculous.  I’ve lived in this house for eight months, and in Tabara Arriba for just about a year (!), and some of these men/boys are the same ones who have been bugging me since my arrival.  Seriously?  No, I don’t think I will marry you and bring you with me to my country.  Today, one of my ten-year old students passed me on a motorcycle as I walked home and blew me kisses, mouthing the words “I love you” in English.  Seriously.  One time a particularly persistent enamorado was attempting to chat me up on the side of the road and an old lady passed by, whacked him in the head with the back of her hand, and said, “No te enamores.”  Don’t fall in love.  Hilarious.  Every day there are at least a few encounters like these.  They aren’t men if they don’t try, apparently…

Well, all that is regarding the general crowd, most of whom I kick out the second they show up at my door.  Then there are the more specific few, the ones who slowly became real friends after months of visiting me, and these are the ones who are now turning my life into a drama.  Who will be sitting in Laura’s rocking chair tonight?  It’s anyone’s guess.  To me, we are sitting here and chatting.  Friends do that, and it beats sitting alone.  To them… well who knows.  I am being seriously courted, though they all have secret girlfriends anyway.  Call them on it and they’ll say, “No importa!  Puedo estar contigo también!” It doesn’t matter, I can be with you too!  Though one did offer to leave his pregnant 16 year-old girlfriend for me… Awesome.  Yeah, I’ll give that some serious consideration, thanks.  It’s really a shame – it’s nice to have company over the age of ten.  I like my “friends,” but I might have to start keeping my door closed and going elsewhere for my evening entertainment.