Climbing trees and exorcising demons

It was reunion time two weekends ago, when several of us from our group came together in the capital to share stories and check mail! Yes, we are like campers, eagerly anticipating any mail that might have happened to come our way in the last month. My favorites this time were some crossword puzzles cut out of newspapers and sesame sticks. . . although I’m certainly not lacking for anything here at all! (Well, besides clothes that don’t stretch out and get holes in the wash, but nothing a trip to a border market can’t fix.) In the news of everyone, it turns out that one of our friends that had been sick during our swearing-in weekend had been sick with dengue, a rough and not-so-preventable illness you get from mosquitoes.

En route to Santo Domingo, our guagua got a flat tire. We all piled out for the driver and cobrador (money-taker) to fix it. We were on the side of the highway, far from any town and only close to a bunch of trees. Ambrosia, the volunteer really close to me, had had something explode in her bag, and was trying to wash it off with her water bottle, when somebody pointed her to a little path in the woods that led to a llave (faucet of water). How did they know it was there? Other people immediately began to climb trees to get little fruits called limoncillos that they shared with everybody on the bus, and I think some other people found a mango tree that had a couple ripe ones on it. It’s mango season right now; only the beginning here in the north with the little stringy mangos beginning to drop, but going strong in the south with big red sweet mangos already ripening. My friends in the south get presents of huge bags of mangos almost daily! Ambrosia and I from the north bought a couple of the good mangos in the capital, and right now I’m wishing that I had brought a bunch back for the family.

A small group of us headed out the next day to Bayahibe, a small little beach town near La Romana, and found a great hotel for about 300 pesos each – about $10US. That’s more than we wanted to pay, but it was really nice and included towels to use at the beach, an air conditioning unit, and hot water! I took my first heated shower in four months while we were there, which was pretty nice. The beach was beautiful and there were more waves than some other beaches we’ve visited. We met an Italian at a gelato place, and it turns out that in the next little town over, there’s a big Italian and European population that has settled there. We danced the night away in a disco nearby, and didn’t get home until almost 5 in the morning – later than I’ve stayed out in a long time! And there really were a lot of Europeans there, including a Serbian who tried to talk to me for a while since he didn’t speak any Spanish at all. The weekend was fabulous and a good little break from our sites and going to bed at 10 or earlier every night.

Back in La Joya, school is out for the summer, and everyone got their grades this Friday. This past Thursday was a holiday – Corpus Christi – that we celebrated with a walk at 5:00 am up to the church on the hill, a couple miles worth of walking. I was surprised at how many people showed up.

One of our chickens has decided that she really likes my room, and if I don’t shut my door, I invariably find either her or her egg laid in my zip-up little closet. Even if I almost zip my closet up all the way, she flies onto my bed and from there can sort of undo the closet. She isn’t afraid of me, either, when I shoo her out. Eggs in my clothes are a surprise that I could do without!

Oh, and a week or so ago, a girl was supposedly possessed by demons or the devil. Luckily a big group prayed over her in a little ceremony in her house so the demons have been exorcised. Some have theorized that it could have something to do with the girl’s recent marriage (she’s 14). I asked how everybody knew she was possessed, and everybody sort of skirted my question, saying she was acting weird. It’s just one of those mysteries, I suppose.