Party Rockin'

First weekend in Jarabacoa was an interesting one, but I survived it. So Friday after class got out and after everyone had dinner with their host fams, the lot of us decided to go out and experience the night life a little. We decided to go as a whole group the first night, to acclimate ourselves to the area. We met at what’s known as “el Parque,” the park, where there is a bunch of benches and a giant tree in the middle. So we’re gathering and there’s about twenty Americans chatting it up in English in the middle of town, so of course we attract some attention. The first guy was with his friends and decide to take a lap around the park to check us out (did I mention there’s only one male student on this trip). Then a little while later he decided he needed more exercise and took another lap. Then he said, oh I need to cool down from all that exercise, let me take another slow lap to loosen up some more. Needless to say, we were pretty creeped out. But finally Jacob, one of our facilitators, comes and whisks us away, all the way across the street to a little bar. Half of us are confused because we decided on going to a discoteca, which is a dance club, and they had us at a little bar on the corner without exterior walls, but we later realized that it was too early yet to go there.

The bar was fine, I was enjoying my purified ice chips, and watching people bachata and merengue in the middle of cramped tables. One by one, we were learning how to do the local dances, that night I learned the bachata, and I must say that I’m even more of a natural at the bachata than I am at merengue.  Ok, so it wasn’t my first time learning the bachata, but still. The locals were very fascinated by the sudden influx of Americans on one street corner, and we became their own personal reality tv show. Some were even so fascinated to ask us to dance, asked to teach us the dances, and, of course, bought some of the girls HUGE bottles of rum. It was hilarious to watch all the Dominicans, men and women, gawk from their motorcycles, shout out broken English phrases they had learned from songs or movies, my favorites being “it is beautiful” and “I love you forever!”

When we finally made our way to Venue discoteca, we were still the first ones there, and some of the more bold tigueres from the bar made their way to Venue as well. The music was so loud, the moment you stepped inside you went deaf from the shock (the doors were impressively sound proof). They also had a fog machine and strobe light going, kind of like what you’d see in a movie, but much smaller. The DJ started off with some local hits, and then he treated us to a Party Rock Anthem mix, in which everyone proceeded to the dance floor for some raving fist-pumping action, where, once again, we became a live reality tv show. I will admit that I was glad to hear familiar music, even though they play songs in English all the time here, for some reason in that moment I was really appreciative. The rest of the night was almost anticlimactic except for the part where Jacob had to walk all of us home because he was afraid some of us would get lost due to being directionally challenged and less than sober. I was really frustrated that I couldn’t just go home when I was ready to go, but because I was one of 2 people who hadn’t had anything to drink that night, I was outnumbered by loud, stumbling American college students,  living it up on a Friday night. So instead of taking 10 minutes to walk back to my house in a decent hour, it took us an hour and a half because we literally went to everyone’s house, one by one, and we had to back track twice because we went to the wrong place. It was a long night, to say the least.

Me and alcohol do NOT get along, for this very reason…