Mango Season

Rocks crash against the zinc roof, one after the other, followed by children’s shouts, and then an older voice, “Pero, deja eso!”  (But, leave that be!).   No matter how much we all yell at the kids, they won’t listen for long.   The rocks keep coming – an attempt to knock mangos out of the big tree in my yard.   It’s easier when a muchacho just climbs the tree and shakes the branches, or knocks at them with a stick – one, two, three shakes and small mangos rain down like candy from a piñata.  They all come running, looking for the ripe yellow ones, but settling for hard green mangos too.  Lacking such a muchacho, kids never seem to tire of throwing rocks, small sticks, other mangos they found rotting on the ground – all a weak attempt to walk away with arms full of fruit.  They leave my yard a mess of fallen leaves, branches, rocks, trash, mango carcasses…  I’ve learned to tolerate it and sweep up once a week. 

My price for this invasion is mangos.  I do none of the work – they deliver mangos to my kitchen table, ripe, green, doesn’t matter.  We eat the ripe ones like candy, ripping them open with our teeth and spitting out the peels, biting satisfying chunks of mango flesh from around the large seed.  The green ones we cut into slices and eat with salt and vinegar, passing the bowl around until everyone’s fingers are sour and delicious.  I’ve made mango bread, mango salsa, mango spritzers… the tree is still full of mangos, so I predict I’ve got about another month or two for more inventions. 

I lay in my purple hammock, strung between the mango tree and the sweet orange tree, and wince every time a random fruit falls, crashing through the leaves and against the roof.  I haven’t been hit in the head with a mango yet, but it’s likely only a matter of time.  And I’ve become shameless about asking for help.  My neighbor climbs the mango tree and next I want him to climb the impossibly tall coco tree too:  Hey, I’m pretty enough for you to risk your life so I can eat some coconut, aren’t I?   Yes.  He struggles up the branchless palm tree, clutching with arms and legs like a monkey, and throws down coconuts, which I will then ask him to break open with a machete.  It’s really a process to get to the meat of a coconut, but thankfully everyone’s a la orden.  (At your service!)  I’ll really miss that about this country.  That and the fruit.  My fridge it stocked.

Reflections

I’ve never really believed in magic – things like premonitions, the evil eye, reading tealeaves.  I guess I’ve always been unsure, but my neighbor recently “read my cards,” and the things that came up were shockingly true.  I can’t speak for what she predicted just yet, but the characters and the situations involved were all completely accurate... I’m reassessing my thoughts on tarot cards.  Actually, I’ve had her do it twice already.  I was feeling a little lost last week.  Now she tells me she’s going to read the dregs at the bottom of my coffee cup because that’s more accurate… we’ll see. 

Dad – among many other things, it was predicted that a man outside of this country wants to come see me, and that a boy is preparing papers and medical things to come see me now (Steve!).   So get on that!  Didn’t say anything about a woman, sorry mom, maybe you were implied.  I also apparently have money coming my way… not sure about that one, but it sounds nice.

In other news, I arrived in Tabara Arriba, Azua a year ago!  One year in this town – long enough for a lot of the community to become like family.  I’ve got Dominican “parents,” sisters, a niece (and another on the way!), cousins, friends, confidants, co-workers, students, neighbors… Despite the sometimes desperate need to get out of town, I am already sad at the prospect of leaving a year from now.  I know I’ll never really be able to come back – visiting isn’t the same thing.  You really can’t enter back into an old life once you leave it.  This is the hard part of throwing yourself entirely into whatever world you are living in – you make relationships and grow to really love people, but it isn’t your real world, and you could never stay (and you wouldn’t seriously want to).  Bittersweet.  Well, anyway, I’ve still got a year of frustrations and dramas and things to drive me crazy.  Maybe I’ll be saying “Hasta la vista!” with gusto as I ride out of town on a motorcycle a year from now… 

So, how have I changed over the last year?  It’s not that the changes are so drastic, or that I ever would have noticed them as they were happening.  I’ve just become sort of Dominican… I think I’m a little too integrated:

•       I send children to do things for me (ie. “Get me an egg from the colmado”; “Go knock some mangos out of the tree”; “Help me sweep my yard”; “Give so-and-so this message”).  It’s really quite convenient.
•       I automatically offer people some of whatever I’m eating or drinking, and have no problem sharing plates, utensils, glasses, etc.
•       I usually bathe twice a day… sometimes three times, if it’s hot enough.
•       My definition of “bathroom” is pretty flexible.
•       I am capable of sitting in a plastic chair by the side of the road for extended periods of time, as long as I’ve got company.  My definition of “company” is also pretty flexible.  (Four year-olds count.)
•       Instead going over to talk to someone, I might just yell to them down the street… or even better, call them over by making a snatching movement in the air with my hand. 
•       If it’s raining, I feel no obligation to leave my house.  No one else will.  (ie.  Hardly anyone goes to school when it’s raining, or drizzling, or just kind of looks cloudy… which makes for a super productive educational system during the rainy season.)
•       I am not surprised or alarmed when people enter my house uninvited.   I also enter other people’s homes a lot…
•       I know that if I wait around long enough, someone will bring me a gift of fruit.
•       I don’t really worry about too much, in terms of work at least.  If things work out, they do.  If they don’t, oh well, we tried.   This also means that I kind of expect everything to fail, which probably isn’t a good thing.
•       I am patient, and I expect everyone to be late.  Always.  (Despite this, I still can’t shake my American habit of being on time.)
•       I’ve probably become a little too accustomed to being worshipped…

Last week I had the very cool experience of meeting the last volunteer who lived in Tabara Arriba.  She lived here ten years ago, her name is also Laura, and she married someone from Tabara.  So, you can imagine that since my arrival I’ve been hearing, “Pero la otra Laura se casó aquí!  Tu tienes que casarte con un Dominicano!”  But the other Laura got married here!  You need to marry a Dominican!   You know… the usual.  But it was really interesting to talk to someone who has basically lived my life before me, who experienced Tabara Arriba in the same way, just ten years ago.  She said not much has really changed, except that we now have paved roads and a library, and a lot of the people she was close to have moved to the capital, or Spain, or have died…

So good to know, when I come back ten years from now, Tabara will still be here... probably not much different than it is now.