So Hard to Say Goodbye

Time is really flying by. It seems like just a few days ago that I arrived in Jarabacoa, with my blue tie dye dress on, sitting in a preschool room waiting to be matched up with my host family. The last week in Jarabacoa was extremely eventful and fun, a very bittersweet memory. In order to celebrate surviving the first half of our program, we went to dinner at this super fancy restaurant on top of a mountain. It took us twenty minutes to get there, 16 of which were just us climbing up a very steep, very curvy mountain side. We could see all the buildings and houses below us get smaller and smaller the higher we got. Once we reached the restaurant, we were in awe at how much of the town below us we could see. The sun was setting and left a pale blue streak across the sky highlighted by a bright burnt orange that just kissed the horizon. Naturally we took a lot of photos…for about an hour. Once our table was ready we sat down and attempted to order our food.

This was by far the absolute longest dinner I have ever had. We left at 7, were seated at 8:30, ordered our food at 9, and got our food at 9:43. The place closed at 10pm. We finished eating at around 10:30 or so, well maybe a little later as we were taking our time. Then it took us forever to get our checks. Once they came, it took them forever to pick them up. The bills were wrong, probably because they had two guys taking orders together, trying to take them in English, even though we were giving it to them in Spanish. One side of the table to the other took about thirty minutes to get orders in. It was ridiculous. It took so long that our taxi drivers were getting mad because it was taking us so long (although I’m not sure why they were mad because they ate at the restaurant too, and saw firsthand how long it was taking, but…). They had an issue with giving people who paid in cash their change back. On one bill it was all in cash except for one card, and the waiter thought all the cash that was in the book was a tip and charged the whole bill on this one girls card…that was about to get ugly, but they finally fixed it. Once we got bills settled, we finally left at like 11pm. Nobody went out that night, arguing with waiters takes a lot of energy out of you.

That week I also had a lot of interviews to do around the community. Having people sit down and answer a lot of personal questions is an extremely hard thing to do in the United States, and you usually have to spend a lot of time pleading your case with people to get them to care even a little bit about what you’re researching. The upside to doing research in the States, however, is that you can do a lot of work online, that way surveys are done when it’s convenient for the participant to complete it, it doesn’t seem as invasive because you’re not staring directly at the person who is giving you the information, and it gives a lot of people a better sense of privacy and anonymity. So naturally, without access to these online resources, I was extremely nervous and anxious about going into people’s houses and asking them, in my less than perfect Spanish, a billion questions about themselves.

Now my research is on the differences in breastfeeding practices between urban and rural Dominican Republic…basically. In the United States, if I were to walk up to a person’s house and say “hi, I’m a student, I need to know how you breastfed your children” that would be a little awkward, right? Yeah, well, apparently not. Here in the DR, nobody looked me weird like I had an extra head growing out of my left ear and a hand protruding from my nose. Everyone was very open to sharing. Actually the hard part of my data collection was keeping people’s answers brief and to the point (Dominican women really like to talk and share stories). But even though the people here are very open, old habits die hard and I still felt extremely awkward approaching people.

That Wednesday was the 4^th of July, the great American holiday; just another day in the DR. Being the super Americans that we are, we all wore some form of red white and blue to class that day. It wasn’t until then that we really noticed that those are the same colors of the Dominican flag. On our walk to school that morning, feeling deprived of the smell of barbeques firing up, and fresh fruit being chopped, we serenaded ourselves with the Preamble from School House Rock. “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice and ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and…..Do or ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America!” We couldn’t remember the fifth line…and still can’t remember… so we just hummed around it (if you know the words, please comment them!). We had been discussing for a while how we should go about celebrating our Independence, and settled on a trip to the river and burgers from Carlos at Mi Tio Café.  Because of being so behind in collecting data, I skipped the swimming and met up with everyone later.

Thursday was pretty regular until about 8 pm. Josue, the tostada guy in the cafeteria that’s attached to our house, was playing some music and had a game of chess going with his friends. The music got a little louder when me and the other Americanas showed up. Soon enough it was a full on party going on in the street. We had all the kids in the neighborhood laughing and dancing in the street. It was pretty dark out, but nobody seemed to notice. After a while, we switched up iPods and played some songs from the US (which the Dominicans already knew, so it wasn’t that novel). I had to leave mid party to get some dinner, but the party was alive and well by the time I came back.

Friday we had a despedida, where we had a formal farewell to all our families at the school. It was nice and brief. Some people gave some speeches, so parents told some funny stories, we ate some cake, drank some punch and called it a night. Afterward, my neighborhood had a block party at a bomba, which is a gas station. One of the girls in my program, her dad was hosting the party, and was playing the accordion in our live merengue band. His brother owned the hotdog stand that was on the property. We danced a little, chatted a little, laughed a lot, and then went home. I still had to pack my bags.

The next morning was a very sad day. I didn’t want to leave my new family. I was just getting close with them, and now I had to go my separate ways. It was very tragic. I told my host mom I wasn’t going to cry, but as soon as I got in the car, it was over. I don’t know what the campo has to offer me, but I know it has some very, very large shoes to fill. The car ride will be long, so hopefully by the time I get there I will be more open minded about leaving Jarabacoa.