La llegada y mi familia

Wow…it’s only been three days and already I have way too much stuff to talk about. But let me begin by saying that I’M ALIVE AND WELL and am more than happy to be here in the DR. Had you all worried there for a second, didn’t I?

First of all, my flight was quite interesting. Despite all my successful airport ventures in the past, this time I somehow managed to forget two very important things. First, I forgot my leather jacket. If you know me well, you have probably seen me in this beast and know that it’s my pride and joy, made of only the finest dead Argentine cow. Well, I forgot that. So my mom took me back to go find it, then dropped me off at the airport and guess what else I forgot? None other than my wallet containing my ID, credit cards, money, international insurance, you name it. Not really important at all, but I felt like I should have it, you know, just in case I might need to board the plane or be able to pay for medical bills after getting cholera in the Caribbean. After no response to my telephone calls, I began to panic and forced one of my friends to search the house for me. This went on for a good fifteen to twenty minutes as I stood looking like a major security threat in the doorway of the Eastern Iowa Airport, whispering into my phone, “It’s gotta be somewhere in my purse! Did you look in the hidden place in the dresser that’s in my closet???” Definitely saw the American Airlines lady eying me a little bit. No worries…I’m not a smuggler J

So finally they were able to find my wallet and I got checked on through. I hadn’t eaten much that morning, or the day before, or the day before that. Not sure if my ill stomach was an effect of New Year’s Eve or pre-DR nerves. Either way, I was sick and felt really awful, but I made it through all my flights all right. Almost missed the one from Chicago to Miami, but I barely caught it and soon enough I was on a plane to Santiago, Dominican Republic. Another funny thing to mention is that somehow my plane tickets ended up being first class. I’m not entirely sure how this happened, but it did. And man did I enjoy it! I felt like such an outsider…the first thing the stewardess offered me was a hot moist towel. On a silver tray, of course. I sat there thinking, what in the hell am I supposed to do with a wet towel right now? Clean my ears? And then I looked around and saw people wiping off their hands and face with the towel. I guess it’s important to refresh before a two-hour plane flight. So I casually began to wipe my hands like I knew what I was doing and placed it back on the silver tray. First class flying, if you’ve never done it, is quite the experience. So I discovered three days ago, at least. I was offered all kinds of things, such as a china bowl of mixed nuts. For a split second (and I mean a split second) I wondered if I was supposed to do something special with the nuts, like throw them in the air to give me good luck. Nope. I ate them all, and they were delicious. I was served a three-course dinner on a real plate with real silverware. And was offered WHITE WINE with my meal. I was pretty happy with myself about that because it may have been the first time anyone has just assumed that I’m 21. Man did I feel important. Only thing that was missing was a cigar and brandy and a built-in fireplace on the airplane made for high-end people to talk about economics and fine wines. At this rate, I’m sure they’ll find a way somehow.

Toward the end of the flight to Santiago, it had turned dark outside and I could only see a few lights of the Dominican Republic. And I thought, wow. There sure isn’t a lot here, is there? And then…I saw it. A beautiful sight built for an Iowan. A gigantic ball park as big as Wrigley Field, all lit up in the night with fine Dominican men playing professional baseball. At that instant I felt immensely happy. Baseball is something that I have always grown up with. Even though I was never very good at it (or any sport that I attempted and failed, for that matter), I grew up playing catch, doing softball, watching my brothers play, going to the occasional Cedar Rapids Kernels game. It’s part of our way of life. To see a big baseball diamond in the middle of a country I had never been to was a huge comfort. I suppose another reason why I liked seeing the ball diamond so much was that all of the other Latin American countries I’ve visited are all big soccer countries, as is much of the rest of the world. I like soccer enough, but it was never a big part of my childhood and the US doesn’t take a big part in it like some other sports. Futbol futbol futbol. But here, things are different. There are ball diamonds everywhere and it’s a sport that everyone likes to play, an all-around topic of conversation. So even from the airplane, I knew I had come to the right place.

Upon arriving I was introduced to Jonathon (yon-a-ton), one of the coordinators of the program. He was very nice and pleasant and seems to know a professor at every university in the United States. Talked a bit about Decorah and Luther and how there was a Dominican professor there. We got along right away and now he teases me and calls me Butz (boots), as do many people. I got on the bus with the other students, three of which were from the same university back home! Small world, eh? I was dropped off at my new home in a part of Santiago called the Reparto Universitario, which is very close to my university PUCMM and is a very nice middle-class neighborhood. My host mom, Lourdes, came out straight away to give me a hug and to welcome me to her home. The house is awesome, and I have a room all to myself with two full-sized beds. And yes, there are palm trees in my backyard. And yes, I drink real passion fruit juice for breakfast in the morning. My host mami Lourdes is a homemaker and cooks very good food. She is extremely hospitable and has been working for the program for some eight years or so, so she has a lot of experience with exotic and pale blond girls like me J Every day she makes food for us and has visitors over in the evening time. My host father is a lovely man, and a very hard worker who likes to make jokes (kinda like my own dad.) He works in agriculture, and although I have yet to find out what he does exactly, he told me that he spent some time in Wisconsin, so we got to talking straight away about farming and the Midwest. Nothing like talking about crops to make people bond! I also have a host brother Moiseis who is fifteen. He’s like a lot of fifteen-year old boys. He’s a bit shy and spends time in his room, but every time I see him I make sure to joke around with him so that he feels comfortable having me around his house. I totally get it…if I had foreign boys living with me at the age of fifteen I probably would have acted the same way. Today he ate with us for the first time since I arrived, and I think little by little we are getting there. Having three brothers myself, I know a little bit about teenage boys. I think we’ll end up being good friends, and one of these days I’m gonna have to pop the big question: “Wanna play some ball?” Can’t wait!

Finally, I have a bit of a sister. I share the family with another girl from the program named Katie, who is from South Carolina. I honestly could not have asked for a better person to house with. Katie is what I would call DePauwsome, and we already get along really well and have a lot in common. It’s so nice to have someone else to share the experience with, and I don’t feel so solita with her in the house with me. She is an only child who goes to Clemson University, and this is her first visit to Latin America, so I’m really happy to share the semester with her. We do a lot together and talk about anything and everything. The best part about our relationship is that we made a rule not to speak English to each other, and we have barely broken it. We are speakin’ Spanish 24/7, and it’s absolutely fantastic. Every day I’m learning more and more about other people in this language, and it’s a completely different way of getting to know someone. She has been kind enough to lend me her computer when my Dell fails to comply with my demands, and it’s because of her that I’ve been able to communicate at all, so I’m grateful. All in all, my host family is all I could ask for and I’m very happy that I’m living here with all of them.

One would think that the hardest thing about this semester would be transitioning from English to Spanish. To be honest, for me this isn’t the hardest thing. I went a whole year speaking Spanish in high school, and it’s all coming back to me now and gets easier every day. The hardest thing is not speaking Spanish like a Chilean! Man is it hard…anyone who knows about Chilean Spanish knows that it’s a whole different deal and the chilenismos make up most of the day-to-day language. Well, I have to get out of that habit. That habit of saying, “Como tay po? Aonde vai? Me cachai, weon?” needs to absolutely stop. I’ve caught myself a few times when I talk to someone and they start looking at me and wondering where that gringa learned her Spanish. The simplest words are the hardest, like going back to saying “dinero” instead of “plata”, “chulo” instead of “bacan”, things like that. What’s interesting is that a lot of the words that are used as slang in Chile are also used as slang in the Dominican Republic. In fact, some slang words even cross over and mean something different. Probably the most entertaining example is the word “guagua”. In Chile, this is another word for baby. In the DR, it means bus. So here when someone says “I took the guagua”, I have to remember that they are talking about taking the bus, not stealing a baby. Jesus. It’s gonna be a fun semester! More to come…