Things that go bump, thump and poop in the night

I didn’t sleep very well on my recent trip to the capital. Two nights there, on business and modest pleasure, I struggled through restless nights at both La Pensión, the designated Peace Corps plop spot, and my old host family’s house. Returning to my site Friday, I enjoyed what I’ve come to consider decent sleep on my dilapidated mattress. Up at 830 Saturday, I’d spend about nine hours cloistered in my project site, immersed in its computers.

So Saturday night I get home, and I’m ready for bed. At around 1100, as I settle in under my mosquito net, laptop poised for some last-minute computer action, I catch a faint smell of urine. Looking around, I notice something brown and circular, about the thickness and diameter of a nickel. I flick it off my bed, onto the floor. Smell my fingertips. Yep, that’s definitely animal excrement. Of what animal, I don’t know. A bird maybe? I’ve seen one or two flying through the house. My scatology skills being unfit for the task of identification, I duly wipe it up, telling host mom that I found caca de pájaro on my bed. You know, just an FYI.

Maybe 15 minutes later, I’m killing mosquitos that have infiltrated my mosquito net. Not uncommon, since they have infested this house and this barrio—hence the Dengue. It´s unhelpful that I also don’t fully tuck my mosquito net in. Host mom sees me clapping and smashing, and starts tucking in the mosquito net on the side opposite the wall, where it hangs loosely on the floor. Sleep-deprived and upset at a living situation that only deteriorates, I brusquely tell her off, that it’s okay, whatever, the hunt is more for sport than self-protection, that the mosquitos that don’t fall victim to my palms of fury cower in fear instead of biting me.

Lights out, and sleep remains illusory. Cooling breezes had coursed through Las Maras all day long; tonight they’ve died, leaving a suffocating heat in their wake. Now my mind agitates with thoughts of the animal kingdom: who could have left that bit of fecal detritus? Is it still hanging around?

After a few hours of tense sleep, I feel something big and damp on my knee. I scream, barrel-roll off my bed and scramble out from under the net. What the hell was that? The electricity is out, my camera battery is discharged, the flashlight on my to-buy list remains there, so I reach back in to my violated sanctuary and snatch my cell phone, my only light source. A cursory—inadequate—examination of the area reveals nothing suspect: no sloths, no worms, no wet birds. I keep a plastic bag for earplugs on my bed; was I rub up against it, and did that cause me to shriek like Freddy or Jason’s next victim?

Casting fear aside—nothing should get in the way of sleep—I cautiously climb back into bed, cursing the bastards that make the lights go out at night. Ear on my cotton-ball-stuffed pillow, I try to think of rainbows, unicorns, pizza…then I hear a light boom, like something falling on the mattress. I don’t move. Ten seconds later, again. The third time, it lands square on my leg. I scurry out of bed—silently.

I go to flip the light switch and voilà, light. And there I see it, near the top of the net: a…something. Before I can identify the creature, it promptly falls again onto the mattress. I yank the net out from underneath the mattress to facilitate its departure. Grabbing my camera, I take the series of pictures below.







The origin of the excrement remains unknown, though later on I did find more evidence of it on my nylon refuge. Unknown too is how Kermit managed to undermine the only really fortified side. On second thought, maybe he came through the open end and crossed over me to the wall, in which case I should’ve heeded host mom and tucked it in.

In the days since, I’ve come to notice more evidence of animality in this house: the five wasp nests hanging from the roof (you can see the biggest of them in that last photo); the line of bustling ants crawling up and down the wall next to the front door; the spider web that spans the length of the kitchen, no more than a few inches above my head. Though the American tightwad in me wants to eradicate these flagrant violations of my domestic sovereignty, PCV-me can only consider them part of the adventure. Ditto for the frog business. Here in the DR, you don’t have to embrace nature’s intrusions, but you won’t get far fighting them.

Buzzed and defuzzed

In my first days in La Vega, I met Rafelito. The son of one of my project partners, he had grand aspirations for “Dominicanizing” my style, with the express purpose of facilitating my obtainment of premium Dominicana, naturally. For the record, Rafelito is 30, single, unemployed, living with his mom, with a 7 year-old son; during our time together, he bought a lottery ticket, saying he had to win big so he could pay off a $100 loan which he had backed with his motorcycle. He had taken out the loan to pay for his kid’s health care. I hoped he would Dominicanize me only in style.

Maybe a month later, Rafe pulled up one afternoon in the motorcycle, told me it was haircut/party time. Any good PCV knows you don’t turn down such an invitation, so out we went. First stop: the hair man. As you can see, the barber shop has the most of the fixtures of one in the States—disinfectant not being one of them. Note that Jonathan the barber is a kid around my age, hence the Scarface poster and babe calendar.

A little back story: During our 2.5 months of training, Dominicans would ask me, “So it’s been a while since you got your hair cut, ¿no?” : “You don’t get your hair cut very often, ¿do you?” : “¿Why don’t you get your hair cut?” And every time I would think, “It’s been only a month or two since I shaved my head. What’s the big deal?” When I found out that my host brother here in La Vega, in this family of very modest means, gets a trim every week or two, I realized that my “long” hair indicated a lack of personal upkeep. Coupled with an untrimmed beard, which was indeed just that even by my own admission, I probably came off as something of a slob. Ouch.

So this was my chance to shape up. It took maybe 10 minutes to establish what kind of cut I’d get. They kept asking whether I wanted it towards the back or the front; I didn’t know what that meant, so I just kept saying that it’s hot as balls in this country and that I wanted it short, a request which, by itself, wasn’t, um, cutting it. In the end we settled on something. I’m not sure what that was, but I guess the result pleased me. It’s a little more Jean-Claude Van Damme then I’m used to, but nothing: the kid worked long (half hour maybe) and diligently on it, with a keen attention to detail. Same with the shave—all facial hair dispatched with, and not a scratch. I’d never had another shave my face, but I might make a habit out of it now. Total cost: about $3.70.

Nothing much happened after that: a beer with his cousin which I paid for, back to mom’s house for video games, then a perilous trip home on the country’s main highway, perilous to begin with. Evidently the motorcycle no longer has a headlight, so we drove in the shoulder with a flashing turn signal to guide our way, splashing through pothole puddles. I’ve never been so happy to be wearing a helmet.

I haven’t hung out with Rafe since. Though he didn’t ask me to pay off his loan, I’m sure any future engagement with him would be a me-pay-everything affair. Besides, I simply have cooler people to spend time with. As for the trim, it was the first instance of quality workmanship I witnessed in this country; most everything is done so half-assed, with no sense of pride or perfection. I can only call it an inspiring event, and consoling, to know there are Dominicans who take their occupation seriously. And best of all, all the moms back in the ‘hood pinched my cheeks and said I had some premium Dominicana in my future.

Illness

During one of our profoundly frivolous discussions, one of my trainee buddies broached the burning question: Would you rather get Dengue, or do a lap in an Olympic-sized pool full of feces? Having only a vague idea of the former—we’d had a lecture or two about it, sure, but you can really only know so much—but a very vivid one of the latter, I emphatically chose the Dengue.

Flash-forward a month or so. It’s Sunday night, and I’m suffering from a consumptive, devastating fever, measured at 103.3º. As the rain clatters against the tin roof, I lay writhing in the dark under my mosquito net feeling my mind detaching from current preoccupations and delving into the past. I relive experiences of all types from all ages in rapid succession, maybe 10 seconds dedicated to each. Some of these memories are the classics, the sort we revel in on occasion for years afterwards—memories from college graduation, for example. Others, the majority, are obscure reflections on moments mundane, of little consequence in the great progression of my life but novel and unexamined for that very reason. They evidently stuck around in the distant recesses of my mind, so maybe they’re of greater value than I realize. In the end it is a profound state of retrospection, but without any grand revelations: just long-lost memories reclaimed, and more proximate ones recapitulated. Next time I get feverish like that hopefully I can summon the energy to record what I’m thinking, for posterior evaluation.

Anyways, I continue in that state for another day or two, without appetite or energy, Ibuprofen being my only salvation and a tenuous one at that. On Wednesday the incomparable Doctora Lisette, who cares for all of us so well, picks me up and takes me to Clínica Abreu, where the real adventure begins. I had been under the impression that this was a place to relax, to recuperate, to be pampered, where you didn’t have to always be thinking, strategizing. Not so much, it turns out.

Blame it on the nurses, some of the most disagreeable and difficult people I’ve ever encountered. I’ve never felt so deprived of information, or so impotent to extract it. I wasn’t particularly interested in what they had hooked up to the IV. But how to turn on the TV—you have to turn on the cable box first—that’s important to know, right? Or how to get a hold of one of these elusive nurses—you can try dialing 375 on that phone over there, but more effective to just yell ‘¡enfermera!’ as loud as your debilitated lungs will allow you. It isn’t until night three of five that they give me one of those pee buckets, so I don’t have to haul the IV machine 10 times a day to the bathroom. And it’s strange, because Dominican women tend to be so warm and doting. So you’d think Dominican nurses would be even more so, ¿no? Maybe they were at the beginning, and serving all these ricos and foreigners, many of whom I’m sure aren’t so friendly either, just sucked the love out of them. To be fair, one or two, out of eight let’s say, performed like nurses should perform, and for that I thank them. I would also like to commend the doctors and their assistants: they were competent, and most importantly for me at the time, friendly. And the females among them: beautiful. I forget her name, but she was Japanese-Dominican, had an adorable accent when she spoke English, and that smile—it could melt icebergs and cause warring factions to trade guns for tulips. Drop me a line gurl.

On Friday I receive my first visitors. Luck would have it that an inordinate amount of Volunteers are in the capital for the weekend, and they’re all dropping by Abreu to see me and another Volunteer. The food there is mostly inedible—lots of tasteless potato puree, the one Dominican staple I just can’t dig—but my friends are totally clutch and bring me chocolate and bread, which quickly turns to diarrhea, but that’s fine. Most of all they—and all the other PCVs that stopped in over the weekend, especially Amanda Meng who tended to me most of Sunday and into Monday— remind me that Peace Corps is family, and this is how family members support one another. Sappy it may be, but when you’re ill it counts for a lot.

During this time I can’t help but think about my blood family as well. They are all in Montreal for Whitney’s graduation, which I had loathed to miss. On the other hand, if I had gone I would have spent a legendary family week in one of my favorite cities in bed, either in the hotel or the hospital. So in the end, in some tragic way, it worked out.

Two weeks since that fateful Sunday I’m feeling almost totally recovered. After numerous tests, the doctors decided it was, in the end, the dreaded Dengue. And they informed me that I had caught the Dengue at some previous point in my life, whether here or on one of my other journeys. What do you know.

As for the burning question, I guess at this point I’d rather swim in that pool of refuse. Life is all about new experiences after all, and now that I’ve had the Dengue one (again), I can only choose to take a poo dip.