feliz 2008

Feliz dos mil ocho, so they say here. Its been quite a ride these past few weeks, with many a fun event to share.

One of these things was go to a concert, to which they all referred as a fiesta. I now understand why. The artist, Zacarias Ferreira, a bachatero, has his music played pretty much all the time. The “Top 40” if you will, of this country is really like a “Top 5” and my amigo Zach is in the top three. So lets say late-90s Britney Spears, Jay-Z and Aerosmith, in one. This concert took place in a car wash. Here, car washes serve in the traditional sense during the day, and magically at night turn into raging discos, with crowds spilling out into the sud-filled parking lot, bumping and grinding against pickups and beaten-up four-doors. Zach decided to show up at 12:15 while the ticket said 10PM; this was no big surprise. The surprise was that the place was not full at all. I attribute this to the high ticket price – 500 pesos ($15 ish), which here is an exorbitant sum as an average monthly salary is, educated guess, around 4000 pesos. What I found fascinating is that the people there danced for those two hours on the dance floor to the DJ before Zach showed, then continued to dance while he played, and continued to the DJ when he left. There was no opener, curtain call, rows of seats. Just a dance floor, rum and speakers. I thought he was great, I think he should get more credit as a live performer.

Anyway, there were a couple more exciting things since I last wrote; namely, Christmas and New Years. Christmas here is something else. Pretty much the whole day I got trashed on rum with my host family’s massive extended family, and watched my host dad impale a 300 lb. pig with a 15 foot long, 4-in diameter branch, right from the anus through the mouth. Mmm. Lets start at the beginning. At around 8AM, I awoke to one of the worst noises known to man – the piercing, soul-shattering death squeals of a pig being slaughtered, preferably by hand. In this way, I knew Christmas had begun. Christmas here, by the way, means Dec 24, not the 25. The 25th is pretty unimportant. Being a Member of the Tribe, I know little about such things, but this I did find a bit odd. Thus awake, I went to the pig-killing site. When I arrived, my host dad, the death master, was pouring boiling water over the pig to more easily scrape off the pig’s mottled hair, which he did with the back of a machete. My host brother got the stuff host dad missed with a razor. This went on for quite awhile, until the pig was ready to be mounted on the spit above the fire pit, made in the backyard next to the coconut tree on which the goats are tethered. Host dad (named Aladino, but sadly lacking a magic carpet) then sliced open the gut, emptying the pig of its entrails. These were given to the women, who then dutifully washed and prepared this good stuff for later consumption. As I mentioned above, host dad, along with his brother, took this massive branch and shoved it clear through the pig, now consisting of just meat. This took a good deal of shoving, cursing (“carajo!” “Coño!” etc) and giggling from the visiting city cousins. My host dad has 10 siblings, so there were a lot of cousins. Two of the ones of my generation, 17 and 18, brought their infants, giving grandma great-grandkids.

Anyway, the pig was on the spit by 11, which signaled the commencement of the drinking. This meant purchasing a ridiculous amount of rum, to be drunk through the day. The pig sat on the spit, rotated by hand, for the rest of the day. In the afternoon, the skin getting nice and crispy, family members would walk by and tear off a piece of pig, chomping and grinning. I found this hysterical and disturbing, realized I was a bit tipsy, and decided to take a nice little rum nap before dinner. The rest of the day proved less eventful, save for a fight between a couple drunken uncles, which included such thrown projectiles as hard-boiled eggs, soggy vegetables from soup and boiled plantains. This, too, was hysterical and disturbing.

New Years was no less eventful, but certainly less culturally shocking. I went to Cabarete, a tourist town on the north coast, with about 60 other Peace Corps Volunteers. We spent the four days there pretending we were sophomores on spring break. I need not spell this out for anyone. Perhaps the highlight was the New Years’ midnight group skinny dip in the ocean, which apparently is illegal (who knew?). The police decided the best course of action was to take our clothes. Luckily, some more sober souls talked them out of permanently denuding the drunk Americans. The clothes got all mixed up in the process, however, and people ended up with all sorts of things that weren’t theirs. After about a half hour, I managed to find everything I wore to the beach, except for my boxers. These were apparently picked up and worn by a fellow volunteer’s boyfriend visiting from the states, who was so embarrassed that he avoided me the rest of the night once we figured it out. I swear, dude, we don’t do this all the time, and thanks for giving them back.

Until next time, si Dios quiere.