Dominoes y Rosarios

Sunday morning I headed to Limonal. I’d been calling Maridalia but we couldn’t seem to get in touch until that morning. She sent Juarez—her son—to come get me at the Caribe Tours station. I’m starting to warm up to Juarez. He doesn’t talk much, but he was really nice to me. Anyway I got there sometime bfore noon and first Juarez and I stopped at Milagro and Yunina’s houses so I could say hi. I think Wendy was at work or something.

Then Juarez dropped me at Mari’s house. I had lunch—I remember thinking, man, I forgot how good Maridalia’s cooking is!—and played dominoes for a good bit of the day with all the kids who came over, and Juarez too. People kept showing up throughout the afternoon and I eventually figured out there was some kind of prayer-hour event that day in Mari’s house. When I

went in the house, all the furniture was rearranged so people cold sit in a big circle. Mark and Andrew’s host mom’s were there—maybe some others, I don’t quite remember. Everyone wanted to know how all the Americans were doing! Yunina came too can I sat next to her. All the women sat in a circle in the main part of the house, and there was one man who was sittign in the kitchen just outside the circle.

Basically we stood up and said the rosary, interspersed with a few extra hymns and prayers. Each decat was said by a different woman, as wel as the extra prayers. I followed along in my head, but it was a little tough in Spanish since everyone spoke at a different rate and it sounded all jumbled up. At some point I’ll have to find the rosary in Spanish so I can learn the words.

I didn’t stay too long after this, as it was getting late. It was really a fascinating experience though—I couldn’t help thinking of the prayer group Patria Mirabal was part of in In the Time of the Butterflies, and wondered if that’s what it would have been like. Oh yeah, and when we finished praying, Yunina and someone else I don’t know came around with coke and biscuits, and we sat and talked a while. I left Maridalia a little bit of money for the food, and when we ran out of gas on the home on Juarez’s motorcycle, I insistend on paying for it. They both yelled at me for doing that, but were really sweet about it—they kept saying, “this is your family now!”