Thursday, November 14, 2013

Things Happen Even When We Don't Want Them To

It’s been exactly 87 days since I've been living in the Dominican Republic as a Peace Corps volunteer. I have one hundred trillion stories I would like to tell, but I’ll spare you for the moment.

Let’s just say, when you’re living in a new country, there’s a lot you have to change, lie, or hide about yourself. Take a deep breath and give me a second while I reintroduce myself: I’m the Catholic-Christian, vegetarian who eats a little bit of chicken, cockroach killing, hair-braiding, helmet wearing, Dominicana look-alike that lives in the country New York (yes, the country!). I forgot to mention that I have 5 new names: Micha (most popular), Kamicha, La Morena (referring to my skin complexion), La Americana, and Amarra (comparing me to a singer that has natural hair). Now this new identity is not one that I created myself; it’s just a snippet of the things some community members affectionately call me…

The past three months of my life have been very different, interesting, eventful, exciting, sometimes depressing, often joyful, and always memorable. Remember those times when something happened to you and you wanted to cry, but when you reminisce, they bring you nothing but laughter? Yup, I've had a ton of “Cry-now, laugh-later moments” I think you would enjoy hearing:

I’ve trusted the wrong fart and let’s just say, I think the proper word is shart (use your imagination); I was sprinting one afternoon and a 10 year-old child got in the way and weeelllll, I didn't stop soon enough, I didn't realize cucarachas were trained so well until two of them attacked me- they fly and swim!; I wet my pants (just a little) the first time I saw a tarantula; when all you've been eating is rice and beans, you’ll do anything to mix up those taste buds- I walked in a rain storm for 40 minutes without an umbrella just to eat eggplant; I urinated in Gatorade bottles/shopping bags simply to find out the next day my host mom didn't burn them with the garbage, she washed and reused them; one night I was a little cold, so I decided to get under the covers- this led me to discover that for 5 days I unknowingly slept in a bed full of bugs; I had uncontrollable explosive diarrhea so bad once that I used the bathroom in a supermarket and all the women ran out (who cares if that’s TMI)…

I know, I know, sounds a little crazy. On the bright side, it added some entertainment to my life! It is all about attitude, the way you approach a situation. Yes, I've clearly done some crazy, nasty, and funny things, but trust me, none of them were planned. Hey, what can I say, things happen even when we don't want them to! You’re probably either laughing or judging me, as you should lol, but I’ll proceed to tell you 5 of the hundreds of lessons I have learned:

1.There’s no app for this: Trust me, as much as I’d like to think that I know everything, I find myself learning something new every day. I just turn on my laptop with unlimited internet and surf the web whenever I want to know something. Nope! I walk around like a creeper and ask people random questions to intrigue my inquisitive mind. Besides, there is no such thing as “unlimited” in this country (unless we’re talking rice, beans, plantain, and sugar) and let’s be real, I have the dumbest phone that Nokia creates. I learned that making mistakes is an inevitable way of life. I’m immersed in a new culture; speaking a new language- of course I’ll make mistakes. Since you asked, I’ll tell you two things I’ve done within the past 3 weeks: 1) I accidentally told my project partner (male, 24) “Estoy enamorada” instead of “Estoy emocionada”. Within 10 minutes of meeting the person I’ll be working with for the next two years, I managed to tell him I’m in love with him! I made a simple mistake as a result of being nervous. I merely wanted to say that I was excited, but he walked away thinking I wanted him to cheat on his girlfriend. 2) I told this Christian woman: “Yo  cómo manejar caballeros” instead of “Yo  cómo manejar caballos”. In a nutshell, I told this woman that I know how to ride men, but I meant to say that I know how to ride horses… So you see, there’s no app for this! It’s all about laughing at yourself, going for it even when you’re unsure, and being willing to learn.

2. Charades is definitely a good way to translate those words you don’t know: At least three times a week I find myself looking crazy! Whether it’s me crawling on all fours, making weird sounds in the middle of a conversation because I couldn't think of how to say Jaguar in Spanish or me falling down a dirt hill while attempting to depict how someone goes skiing… In the end, they understand exactly what I want to say... Even Halle Berry can take a hint from my acting skills.

3. You know that thing called privacy- doesn't exist: No seriously, people will invade your life and expect you to go along with it. For example, I have about 5 locks, each with a security code. I've had about 7 people ask me for the code to the locks, then they looked at me in confusion when I said “No” lol. There are even times when I have my room door closed and locked, but I open the windows. To most people this means “Don’t enter right now”. To the children where I live, this is just another way of saying “Oooh, Micha wants me to climb in through the window”.

4. Natural hair is not in: Coming to the DR, I thought I would see women walking around with their beautiful, naturally curly hair. Falso! 99.9% of Dominican women have relaxed hair. They roller set their hair once a week just to put it in a ponytail two days later. Whenever I wear my fro, someone asks me if they can give me “rollos” (rollers) or “un tratamiento” (hair treatment). As much as they want to fry, dye, and lay my hair to the side, they've gotten accustomed to my natural hair.

5. Every man that walks pass you with a machete doesn't want to kill you: The first time I saw a man walking towards me with a machete in his hands, I silently said a prayer. Living in a really rural community, it is not unusual to see even young kids walking around with machetes. I guess watching so much Law & Order: SVU and Criminal Minds had me a bit paranoid. No worries, they are just cutting sugar cane, or slicing and dicing a few fruits off the trees.  

Please, don’t flatter me; I know it took the expert to lay down the lessons of the land. Now, I bet you’re probably wondering “Sooo, when does this girl actually work?” Don’t fret; we’ll get to that later. I did not want to bore you too much.

Until next time: “Things may happen and often do to people as brainy and footsy as you”  Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!