In Which I Love The Loma

Ahhh the loma!!

This is the code word for Kate´s Official Site, Las Aguas Negras, i.e. the mountain top farming village to which Kate was assigned. And it´s not so much code word as to how people affectionately refer to their mountain top home as they commute back and forth between the bustling town of Pedernales and the small community of Las Aguas Negras. Kate began her PC service living exclusively up the mountain, and then as her work and projects brought her down the mountain more and more she eventually moved her base of operation to Pedernales. She now spends the majority of the week down here and one to three nights up top. We just returned yesterday from our last stint up there before my imminent departure (oh the sadness), and it only served to remind me of just how wonderful life up there truly is.

For instance, up on the loma, we eat chocolate soup for dinner. It´s considered delicious and nutritious and is a completely acceptable dining choice. Staying true to the Dominican Philosophy of Food, chocolate soup contains: 1. water 2. flour 3. block of hot chocolate mix (i.e. one part chocolate to two parts sugar) 4. sugar 5. Carnation sweetened condensed milk 6. nutmeg. After stirring together until fully mixed and hot, one then ladles out generous portions to be eaten with hot dog rolls, the Dominican equivalent of ¨bread¨.

So basically, I´m coming home 25 pounds heavier as well as diabetic.

The loma, being a small community of approximately 45 houses occupied full-time, is also a tightly knit community, where everyone knows everyone else (as well as everyone elses business). One of the main loma activities is porch hopping. Kate and I spent a good portion of our days on the loma going a-visiting, walking around to different houses, where inevitably we were invited to sit down for a bit, and then coffee was inevitably offered (shockingly, the coffee here is made with a LOT of tasty sugar), and we would sit and chat until our coffee was finished and then we´d go to the next house over and do it all again! In this way I got to hear some of the good town gossip, for instance the identification of the town drunk, as well as witness such sights as a small boy fall off a horse, get back on in exactly the same way, and fall off three seconds later, ¨just like an avocado¨ (he was fine, so it was okay that it was really, really funny).

What is also possible in the fashion of porch hopping for coffee: Kate has perfected the art of showing up at ¨un buen tiempo,¨ or at ¨a good time¨ (Future PCVs, take note! This is an essential survival method of all volunteers). It being meal time, and Kate and I having little of our own resources on the loma, we would go visiting one of her favorite doñas when the afternoon meal was conveniently on the stove. As Kate called hello, said doña would emerge, all smiles, to throw her arms around Kate and to tell us that we had arrived at ¨un buen tiempo¨ and that we should sit down and have something to eat. Soon, our bellies would be full of the loma staple of rice and beans, usually with a bit of fried salami or chicken just for fun. Wonderful.

This recourse was only necessary, however, when Kate´s host family´s house was empty of all domestically inclined members, i.e. the wimmens. Apparently, her host family´s house went from being one of the most popular hangouts on the loma to a fairly empty house with the departure of her host mom to Spain and her host sister to University. Now it´s only the dad there, and when Wilma (her amazing host sister, who is also one of Kate´s best friends here, who is also coming to the States for a bit this summer) isn´t around, the visiting method is induced. However, this last weekend Wilma was home as classes don´t start until next week, and the house was full of laughter, music, good cheer, and fooooooood. Another plus of Wilma being home: Kate and I sleep in the house. Because otherwise we sleep cold and alone in the street. No no just for joke!! But maybe only half-joke. If it´s just the dad at home, it´s a little bit weird for Kate to sleep there, so instead she was given a room in the family´s extra storage house. It´s a house just like all the others in the town, except there´s no furniture, no latrine, no electricity, and the only occupied room is Kate´s bedroom. When we first got back, we had to do a bit of cleaning as the room hadn´t been touched in the month and a half Kate had been gone, and in the process we found a bitty little dead scorpion on the mosquito net (but on the outside! so the net works!!!) and a large dead cockroach who chose to die under the fitted sheet (so the net almost works!!). Sleeping is a bit scary in the very, very empty house, save for the old chicken cages in the room next door, and apparently it´s even worse when Kate´s there all by her lonesome. On her to-do list: find better sleeping arrangements.

Scary house aside, sleeping in the loma is a lovely thing. Being up the mountain, everything there is decidedly cooler than in Pedernales, and I actually had to utilize a sweatshirt now and again. It also rains with greater frequency, leaving everything a little bit fresher and the light filtering in soft focus. And oooh oooh!! Now that it´s winter, the loma is basically considered freezing by its inhabitants, and shivering under long sleeved shirts and such is a common occurance. The most novel method to stay warm I have seen so far, however, has been the young man Kate and I saw whilst out walking one day - fully done up in one too-small women´s snow suit that seemed to be pulling at all the wrong places. When Kate came upon this marvelous sight, her eyes got huge, she stopped in her tracks, and as soon as she could wheeze out the question through gales of laughter she asked her buddy what exactly he was wearing, at which point he responded it was a suit for the cold, and didn´t he look damn good. What else could we say but dang, do you ever.

Hens, roosters, pigs, horses, mules, goats, and pigs run amock on the mountain top. Men adopt favorite fighting roosters, and carry the little devils around like pets. Apparently the cure-all for a sick rooster, by the way, is an injection of chlorine, or when that isn´t available, dish soap does in a pinch. I just have no idea if this is scientifically sound, but I guess it does the trick (unless they overdose it, in which case the rooster just dies).

And now, I must say good-bye to the loma. Ah porch sitting, ah chocolate soup, ah wonderful little mountain community with whom I built latrines and painted libraries, I will miss you.