Happy 2011! Here in Antonci we celebrated with style…well, we celebrated it like they usually do. My host sister (13) and her friend (15) and some other girls dressed me up as dominican as I could get, which means skinny jeans, Dominican sandals, a colorful top with a belt. They even did my makeup and were pleasantly surprised that they didn’t need to use a lot because I am so pale. I walked around with them a little bit and then I meet up with my adult friends who were going to be my chaperons that night to make sure that nothing happened to me. Had some beer, Presidente, and danced pretty much all night. When it was midnight everyone greets happy New Year, sprays beer, then the music starts up again and the dancing continues. We stayed out until 3 when I found my host mom and family and we all went home together.
On New Year’s Day there is more celebrating. Maria and Pedro came for the day, so I went to visit them at Maria’s mother’s house. When I got there I was told that Pedro was taking a nap, so I was put down for a nap too. Literally. I was told that I was tired and that I should take a nap. I insisted that I wasn’t and that I didn’t need a nap. But I was led to a bed and was sat down to nap.
On January 2nd was there was something like a wake that is usually held 9 days after a person dies. On the 23rd of December a man passed away in our community, so the party was held more than 9 days after. Anyway, friends and family and all the people from the next towns over come and start drinking around noon or before. For most of the afternoon I was sitting with neighbors and relatives watching them finish bottles of rum. As I was going back to my house to get a sweater (yes I was cold), I ran into Zach’s host mom. And she told me that she was going to make Zach come over here to visit with me – she promptly sent a boy on a moto to pick him up. We talked a bit then danced 1 bachata song and after that I was ambushed by drunken men wanting to dance with me. But that wasn’t going to happen. Shortly after Zach left and some of the girls were walking me back to my house to make sure I got home ok. The pickup truck that Zach and the other men from El Caño were getting a bola in pulled up alongside of us and the men were yelling at us to get in and they will take us to El Caño and bring us back…right…Then a random guy on a moto tried to get me to go with him, but that wasn’t going to happen. We finally escaped and safely got back to the house. Then a little bit later, I was playing Uno with my host sister and one of her brothers showed up to ask me why I left the party and was going to bed so early. I obviously wasn’t it was only about 8pm. So he said that he would ask his mom if he could bring his sister and I to dance. It was a wild goose chase to find Luisa and ask her, but finally we did and we went back to the discoteca to dance. By the time we got there almost everyone had left, this was maybe around 9pm. (it was also another host brother’s birthday).
My boys here finally followed through on their promises to find me a horse to ride. So one day when we were at the pley (baseball field), I got to get on this little horse and ride through town. Everyone thought it was great to see the Americana on a horse. So for the next 4 days when we were at the pley they would bring me different horses to ride around on. (now these are little mixed breed horses, who some of them are too young to be ridden and aren’t trained in any particular way…so it is fun figuring out their buttons. Don’t worry they only put me on safe, calm horses because they don’t want anything to happen to me)
January 9th El Caño came over to play baseball. Like normal it was a mess of trying to figure out who was playing and everything else. It was a good time though, because Zach and Angela came. My friends here, Felix, Griselda and Miledi, decided that that night we all were going to go to El Caño to dance. So we picked up Angela and met up with Zach at the Discoteca by his house – it was about 5pm and no one was there. We danced a bit and the discotec had a microphone and would randomly give shout outs to the “Americana from Antonci.” It was a good time hanging out with them.
The next day, my same 3 friends told me that they were going to take me fishing in the laguna (which is a small pond over grown with weeds). They found 4 horses and we had 1 moto – it was 2 people per horse and 3 on the moto. We got to the fishing spot and the men and children went to look for the fish, but there weren’t any. So next we had to figure out which river to go to so that they could clean off the mud and everything. So we rode through some random fields and past El Caño to the river there. It smelled like cow poop…because it ran through a cow field. At first I wasn’t going to go in because I just had my normal clothes on, but I gave in. We had a good time playing games and burying people in the sand.
School was supposed to start back up on the 11th. So my host sister and I had to literally drag my host brother out of bed and throw water on him to wake him up. Then I walked him to school to make sure that he went. There were about 12 children there in total. I had been waiting for a month for this day, but still not many kids went.
Then on the 13th another man passed away around midnight or 2 am. So no one slept that night and throughout the day people came from all over to pay their respects. You would think that the men would have some respect for the dead, but they are sin verguenza (without shame) and were hitting on me worse than normal. Sarayu explained to me that it was because they realized that one day they too will die, so they better try to magar (to get) their visa to the USA as soon as possible.
I was supposed to have community meetings to finish up my diagnostic process on the 14th and 15th, but that didn’t happen because of the funeral and everything else. So we will see what happens now.
January 16th, my friends found 6 horses and the moto again to have us all go to the river. We picked up Angela and Zach met up with us there. We cooked food, played games, and swam. It took forever for us to get to the river because there was a 7th horse following us that should have been and people were trying to figure out who was coming and when and how they would get to the river. We rode up to Guazumita to pick up Angela and she got on my horse with me. It was a sight to see. Then that night we went to Guazumita to hang out there for a couple hours. Next weekend Zach and Angela are coming here to Antonci.
