Week 16

Just in case there is a 2011 Buffalo Bills season I made sure to turn my Bills Backers International Chapter Registration Form now that I have an enthusiastic member list full of die-hard Buffalo Bills fans.

We’ve been working hard at our Buffalo Bills spirit. Thus far we’re having a little trouble with “the Bills make me want to shout” which comes out more as “da bills” and with a calypso beat (the calypso beat is probably my fault as singing was never my forte). But we’re doing great with “yous guys”, “Squish the Fish”, and “We’re not scared of the Patriots, Tom Brady has long girly hair!”

My hopefully soon-to-be (when I get up the nerve to ask him) mentor was singing “A few of my favorite things” while cooking the other day. It made me think of some of my favorite Dominican things:

1. There is a bar right next to my bus stop in town. Sometimes while waiting in the bus for it to fill up someone on the bus will offer to buy the bus driver a beer. The bus driver usually accepts the offer.

2. Dominicans don’t use voicemail. They answer their phones all the time. If you are leading a meeting and in the middle of a sentence your phone rings you answer your phone and say “I’m in a meeting, can I call you back” and continue on. If you don’t answer your phone and it is important the caller keeps calling until you answer your phone (sometimes he/she keeps calling even when it is not important). When I’m in the shower I always know if it is another Peace Corps because he/she only calls once.

3. Lots of trucks have writing on the front windshield. My favorite one in Salisbury says, “Bad names don’t kill rats.” Your guess is as good as mine.

4. There is a big difference between a store and a shop. A shop sells food, booze and toilet paper a store sells anything else. This lead to grave confusion when I wrote that my address was above Ma Clem’s store, Upper Salisbury; there are no stores in Upper Salisbury, only shops.

5. I spent this morning making fresh passion fruit juice and peeling sugar cane to make homemade mints.

6. Guys ask me where I live all the time. Because of “Stranger Danger” (a curriculum in elementary school that taught us not to wear clothing with our names on it because then a bad stranger would call us by our name and we would be confused about whether we knew this person and would get into a scary van with him/her and end up with our face on a milk carton) I try to be coy and say “Upper Salisbury” instead of my exact location. They usually respond with “Upstairs from Ma Clem’s shop, right?” Then the gentleman will probably ask, “Do you live alone?” I’m never sure what to say- he clearly already knows, as he knows exactly where I live, but the last time I answered that “I live alone” the guy told me to not tell anyone that because they will get the wrong idea. Stranger Danger did not prepare me for the Peace Corps.

I don’t know quite how I would fit those into a song but perhaps during the rainy season I’ll get a chance to work on it.

All my best!

Erin

P.S. For those of you who know John Sozanski- this Thursday I will be conducting a class on table manners for the Beauty Pageant contestants. I will be immortalizing Mr. Sozanski’s “elbows off the table”, “sit up straight”, “don’t talk with your mouth full” in Dominica. I’m not sure how to approach the rules about answering your phone at the dinner table (never ever do it) and answering your phone “Sozanski residence, Erin speaking.”