Semana Santa

Holy Week has begun. Last year, I believe I mentioned the various drunken beach parties that “holy week” is known for here in the Dominican Republic. However since the majority of the country is Catholic, there are of course various religious services during this week as well, so I’ll focus on those these year.

Last Sunday was Palm Sunday, or Dia de los Ramos. Everyone took some sort of tree branch (not necessarily a palm, although mine was) to the baseball field at 6:30 in the morning. We all crowded in a circle around the priest, holding our branches high in the air. The priest then came and sprayed (noticed the verb term is not sprinkled, but sprayed) holy water on us and the tree branches. Then we sang and walked to the church, and started the normal Sunday mass. We’re all supposed to save our branches since they are now holy, but I have no idea what I’m saving it for.

I was looking forward to the Maundy Thursday service because Concord Presbyterian back in Statesville usually does a drama of the last supper and since Dominicans LOVE acting in dramas, I assumed they would do the same thing. They didn’t. It was just a normal Catholic mass (scheduled to start at 8 p.m., but the priest arrived at 8:45), with one exception. The church reserved the first two pews for all the men in attendance, and then the priest washed their feet just as Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. I thought it was just a little gender-inappropriate that only the men were allowed to participate in this part of the service when the majority of the people in attendance were women (I’d say the men-to-women ration was 1-to-5), but no one else seemed to notice.

Holy Friday was an interesting day. The national laws on this day are that: 1) people are not allowed to eat meat (but they can eat fish); the big food tradition is to make habichuelas con dulces (or sweetened red beans). In my refrigerator, there is about four pounds of sweet beans that all the various neighbors have given me. 2) No music is allowed to be played (the police can confiscate the radios if they hear it), and 3) there is not to be a Catholic mass. The congregation did meet at the church in the afternoon, where they had informal prayers and then walked around Baoba visiting the sick and elderly.

Apparently the Saturday before Resurrection Sunday is the big church service here in the Dominican Republic. There were probably 100 people (which is about double the normal attendance) who participated in the service. We all met in the basketball court and lit candles. Then walked to the church, blew out the candles and had a 2 hour Catholic mass. The service was pretty basic – the priest read the bible, we prayed, the choir sang, and communion was passed – except for one thing: the blessing of the water. Everyone had brought 2-liter plastic bottles filled with basic (amoebic) water and placed the bottles on the alter in the front of the sanctuary. The priest then blessed the water, converting it into holy water, and then he walked around and sprinkled the congregation with holy water as well. After the service, everyone rushed up to grab their bottle of water (and like with my blessed palm branch), I have no idea what people do with their own personal bottle of holy water.

The Easter Sunday service turnout was surprisingly pitiful. The mass was at the normal hour (7:15 a.m.), and I was about one of twenty people who went. I guess the congregation figured that if they went to church the night before, why go the following morning?

La Jefa

Yo soy la jefa.

I am the chief, the boss, the head honcho in my youth group of 30 preteens and teenagers. And unfortunately, that also makes me the disciplinarian when my orders and mandates go unheeded.

With my youth group, I have been lucky in that they know me and respect me, so I can get away with punishing them by simply telling them how disappointed I am in their behavior (the technique more commonly known as the guilt trip) or by making them write apology letters or defining respect and responsibility. I can glare at them and they know to stop whatever bad behavior in which they are currently involved.

But these “alternative” disciplinary methods don’t usually work in the Dominican Republic. This is a culture where the teachers are still allowed to take off their belt in the middle of class to hit a student who is “too stupid” to learn the material. This is a culture where the older siblings are sent to pluck a splintering branch from the closest tree to hit the toddler who is throwing a temper tantrum. Therefore my non-violent disciplinarian techniques often lack the necessary “uuumph” to get the job done.

I realized this today during the town’s celebration of International Youth Day. We loaded up the pickup truck (20 of us total) and headed to the church in the closest large pueblo, Payitas. They had invited youth groups from all over region, so there were about 200 kids total. And 4 adults. Including me. I have no idea how all of the other kids got to Payitas, but it seemed as if their parents threw them all in trucks and told the drivers just to let them off wherever.

The event, which lasted for 4 hours, started off well. We sang a few songs, I did a few silly games and Montreat-like energizers, and then each group gave a little presentation. Some of the kids from my group did a 1 minute drama on how we shouldn’t discriminate against senior citizens; other groups sang, read poetry, and told jokes.

After about 2 hours the kids started getting antsy. And they started leaving the church to play outside, so I had to stand guard. I spent the next two hours interrogating everyone who wanted to leave, then letting them leave one-by-one to go to the bathroom, and then chasing the ones who escaped, leaving through the other 6 doors in the sanctuary. It was a nightmare (and the most annoying part was when of the other adults came over to me after about an hour of me chasing around the little rugrats and said in a sickeningly sweet voice “it would really help us out if didn’t let the kids leave the church.” Um yeah, maybe if she would’ve helped me stand guard, instead of her staying seated, drinking her glass of orange soda, the kids would be under a little more control.) Luckily my group was well-behaved enough that I didn’t have to worry about them. I just had to worry about the other 180 rambunctious kids.

Parlez-Vous Francais?

I (along with seven other community members) was invited to the high school the other day as an honored guest and judge of Franco-Phonía, a festival where the kids celebrated “all” of the countries that speak French. Why does Baoba choose to celebrate France and its language?? I have absolutely no idea.

Various groups of students presented a country, telling about its culture and food, native dress, geography and politics. The countries represented were France, Luxembourg, Vietnam, Italy, Switzerland, Canada, and Africa (apparently I’m the only judge who seemed to notice that Africa is not a country). And surprisingly, the one country that I naturally assumed would be represented – Haiti – was not even mentioned.

As a judge, it was my job to choose the country that was best represented in the various presentations. It was hard to choose a winner – mainly because every presentation blurred together. I learned that in France, Africa, Luxembourg, Italy, and Canada, the national food dishes are white rice, fish, and spaghetti (I think because these foods were easy for the kids to bring to class). As a judge I was supposed to try the foods, but by the time I got to the table to get my taste, all of the kids had already eaten everything. Although I did get to drink some wine with the high school students, since every country’s national beverage is a cheap red wine called “La Fuerza,” meaning “the strength” and on the bottle is a picture of a muscle builder flexing his biceps…mmm classy.

The native dress in all of the countries was jeans and sunglasses. Although the group from Switzerland added a jacket because of the cold weather. Most of the countries just did a basic model runway walk to show the clothes, but the group from Vietnam added three reggaeton dances so that the models could show how well the clothes fit when they booty-danced.

And the winner??? France. I actually liked Africa’s presentation best, but I just couldn’t announce them the winner since Africa is in fact a continent full of various countries, each with their own unique culture and geography. Apparently the kids are going to do the same thing in about a month or so, but they’re going to celebrate the countries that speak English, and I’m very much looking forward to those presentations.