Sunday, April 28, 2013

Just some random DR tidbits... And dating in the DR

I was going to go to bed, but then my doña put on the Sundance Channel as a way of being nice to me. A weird movie is on, but it's in English, so I know it's for me. Entonces.. I'm going to watch it. (Update: it's called Rectify and it's apparently a television show. This should be a movie.)

As some of you know I never really had a dentist until December. I mean I've been to the dentist, but since I saw Dr. H close to 6 times in December I feel like I can really call him MY dentist. Well, one of my teeth was hurting a bit tonight and I kept thinking I wanted to go see MY dentist. (No, it's not for the reason some of you may be thinking. Really, I simply trust MY dentist with my teeth over the rest of the yay-hoos). Basically, I'm going to pay attention to my teeth for the next few days to see if I need to give the Medical Staff a call.

Dominoes. I was at Courtney's house tonight. We wanted to play Dominoes and asked her host doña to join us. The doña said yes and hollered down the street for a 4th. That's how you do things here. "Someone come play Dominoes!" That's all you need. Also, why didn't I ever know how to play Dominoes? It's so easy...

So, I may have mentioned, but if I didn't, I will now, in the DR men cheat and it is basically known and accepted as a fact. I don't approve, but whatever. Men are constantly sending "piropoes" to the girls here. That means they shout out things about their appearance or asking them to love them or whatever. They aren't exactly serious. Sometimes they shout at us in English... The only English they know. "What your name? I love you baby. What your phone number. I love you." A good thing for me is that this only happens when I walk with a white person. Good because it will almost never happen to me when I'm alone and therefore it won't be scary. At 11:00 at night, on empty streets with Courtney, this was said... "I love you baby. Hey, rubia, I love you. What... They told you not to talk to strangers?" When that one happened I let out the biggest chuckle. That cracked them up too. Then they told us that we better be careful. The streets are peligroso at night... Which I guess is kind of true, though I think MOST Dominican men are all bark and no bite. They just like to spit lyrics at you. Basically women here have verguenza if they walk alone. Usually this is only at night, but some say it references the day time as well.

It is assumed here that if you are alone with a man in your house that you are having sex with him. Relationships are weird. If a man spends the night in your house you are "campo married". Not everyone here who says they are married are legally married. They may live together and have kids and not even have a legal marriage. That may also not be the only marriage or family a man has. This is accepted often as truth. Also, a mujer I know has two children, two daddies. Not weird, actually common to me... But then there is the question of her relationships with the fathers. Both of them are around a lot, but seem to have little relationship with the children. I haven't quite found a grasp of if men so in fact have relationships with children. She calls the youngest's father her novio, and he sleeps in her house sometimes, but when we went to the Bomba a few weeks ago he danced with every rubia there, even me, but not her. Dancing here is kind of a sport. Everyone dances with everyone and people don't necessarily stick to their partner, but I question the idea of partners anyway. All the doñas want to hook their sons up with the rubias. If you tell them you have a boyfriend, they always default to either he's not here, I /my son am/is better, or you can have more than one. That last part is what I think it comes down to in the DR... And maybe it's more "natural". Men dating around and women raising children. I think the word is childish. Dominican dating is like dating for children. Now, that is not to say I think Americans have it right. We've screwed a lot of people up with our system of relationships. I just hope I can learn things from both styles and apply it to my life, now and in the future. Also, I think I do know that if/when I do get married I think I'll put more thought in it than falling asleep at a guys house.

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