Drama, Drama Everywhere

I’ll fill you in on the drama that’s been taking place in my town.

First: a 17 year-old friend of mine has a 40 something year-old man who has been writing her love letters. This man is the father of a 15 year-old close friend of the 17 year-old. When the girl finally told me about the situation, she confided that he’d written her 3 times. She showed me one of the letters, and it was sick and I told her so. I think Dominicans a lot of times tend to be more dramatic than most Americans, and this letter was no exception. He said things that I found revolting, coming from a man so much older than her. The age thing is such an issue for us Americans, and I still don’t have a good feel on if it’s an issue to Dominicans or not.

I tend to keep my stronger opinions to myself here, trying always to make friends and avoid making enemies. I’m hesitant to talk about religion or politics, though many of you know I adore talking about those topics back home. I also try not to make statements about people, unless they are flattering, and usually only to their faces (because you never know who you might offend by speaking well of someone else.) Sometimes it feels like I’m walking on eggshells, and perhaps I go above and beyond what’s really necessary, but it’s still what I do. Only twice have I ever really spoken out, once a few months ago when this same friend showed me a book that referred to homosexuality and masturbation as unnatural (I shook the book in my hands and told her it was “shit”) and the other time when I told her how wrong I thought this situation with this man was. She didn’t react much to hearing that, mostly just listened to what I said. I told her in situations like this, you’ve got to wonder why someone with so much more life experience wants to date someone so much younger than he is. She nodded. And it’s obvious that it’s wrong that he wants to date someone just 2 years older than his own son, whom he hadn’t seen in years, apparently.

In addition to all that, the man gets on my nerves! It’s tiring to listen to people here when they think they speak perfect English, and in fact they are very far from it. He’s one of those people. He constantly throws out these words, one at a time, trying to teach the kids or something, and he tries to get me to go along with the disjointed, haphazard education. But he doesn’t even clue them in on what he’s saying, and it is my personal belief that in a group where there are people who speak more than one language, you should always go with the majority unless you specifically announce that you’re going to switch over. The man never tells anyone, which leaves us all there, looking at him stupefied, them because he hasn’t told them what he’s saying and me because he’s not saying anything that makes any kind of sense, and because he never gave a warning that he was going to switch over! ANNOYING! So even if I could ever get behind 40 something year-olds dating minors, I could never rally behind someone who abandoned their family, and has no linguistic manners.

Second: a 15 year-old friend of mine, who has a lot of problems at home, also confided in me about those problems. I referred to him in another blog as Alfie. I believe he’s gay, but he told me he wants to marry one of the girls in town. I try to be supportive with him, no matter what the circumstance, but it is hard to know what to say and how to react when he’s almost a man and still get’s smacked around at home, and when he doesn’t get a lot of support from his peers because of his flamboyance. What he told me was that his parents aren’t his birth parents, which is common enough here. He told me that he hasn’t seen his birth father in over a year or his birth mother in over 5 years; that they, or one of them, left him, a tiny, under-weight infant in a plastic bag with a very dramatic case of diarrhea, on the doorstep of the home where he lives now. That is what he told me, and that the people raising him have never hugged him. He reminded me that a hug I gave him a few weeks ago was the second hug he’s ever gotten. So of course I hugged him again. But what else can I say but that? I’m hoping to get him into training next year to be a regional coordinator for Escojo (someone who travels around, supporting the Escojo groups in their area where the volunteers have left.) In the group of regional coordinators I’ve heard that a few of the males are gay, which is interesting. In high school choir I found out that a few kids felt like they had nothing going for them but choir and our choir director, that they felt saved by him. I wonder if Alfie will end up feeling that way about Escojo.

Finally: me. Sadly, I might be the topic of some of the drama, well, me and Escojo. Before I arrived, the kids in town had very little in their daily schedules: school and church. Now, with some of them attending First Aid and gardening, and up to3 Escojo meetings a week, they are a lot busier. This has created something of a conflict among the coordinators of the various church activities. A few weeks ago we’d had a trip to the beach planned for a Saturday. The priest told the Escojo kids that if they chose to go to the beach instead of coming to mass, he’d have to kick them out of their Catholic youth group. So, a bunch decided to go to mass, leaving us without enough money to pay for the truck. So we cancelled the trip. After we’d cancelled I found out that the priest hadn’t come to our town to give mass in over 3 weeks, so when he didn’t end up coming that Saturday either, I wasn’t surprised, but was very disappointed. I told the kids, and they agreed that in the future we would make our plans and not let them be changed at the last minute by outsiders. I told them that if they agreed a date could work (even if there was mass scheduled) we would go for it. Everyone agreed that that was a great plan.

Last Sunday we were scheduled to give our first Sunday session to the group we’re forming in the other town. The priest had specifically (if indirectly) asked us to move the date from Wednesdays to Sundays at 4PM so that we wouldn’t have problems keeping track of the kids in the dark. I wholeheartedly agreed with his reasons and was happy to change. On our way out of our town, the priest showed up and asked where we were headed. Apparently he couldn’t come to give mass the Saturday before and had changed it to Sunday, at the same time we were supposed to be in the other town. Because of that, a lot of kids from our group were not going with us.

Last night, I stumbled into a meeting with practically every member of my Escojo group and the priest. Alfie was crying/screaming at someone on the other side of the circle and then she cried/screamed back. When I need my Spanish understanding to be perfect, it rarely is, and last night was no exception. Their problem had something to do with saying he’d be at mass and help clean up beforehand and as a result of not having come, a rumor spread that he was going to get in trouble. I couldn’t decide whether the awkwardness of being there was better or worse than the awkwardness of leaving, and then someone said the word “Escojo,” so then it got personal, but not as personal as I thought it could; soon after someone said the word “Elizabeth.” Only half the group new I’d even walked up, so I felt really torn about leaving. All I could understand that they were saying was that Escojo takes up a lot of their time, but I still heard my name mentioned about 4 times and couldn’t figure out what people were saying about me and Escojo.

I ended up deciding that the priest was probably very discouraged that the kids who used to have very empty schedules are now a lot busier, and as a result, his schedule is now a lot harder to manage. But I couldn’t get over the fact that people were talking about Escojo and me and no one had asked me to come to the meeting. Obviously I’d be happy to talk to anyone about Escojo, our schedule or anything else, but I didn’t like that I’d stumbled into that situation.

When the meeting ended I asked 2 kids who were in it what was happening. They asked why I’d left and told me not to worry, that everything everyone said about Escojo was great, that everyone supports it and us, and me. I asked them what people had said about me, and they said that only good things were said about me and that I shouldn’t worry. I asked why no one had told me to come to the meeting, so I could talk about things with them. They said they hadn’t known they’d be talking about Escojo and that anyways, their youth group meetings are only for the youth group members, which is also why they told me they couldn’t tell me what else people were talking about. So, I guess I just sort of have to trust them.

As for the schedule conflicts, I haven’t the foggiest. We changed the meetings to Sundays, just as the priest wanted. If he wants that time open for mass I honestly don’t know what we’ll do because there are only so many hours in a day, and a week. Without being able to meet after dark, we’re down the weekends, and since no one wants to meet in the morning (because they have to do chores) we are left to 2 weekend afternoons a week, both of which at hours other than 4PM on Sundays, are filled with other church activities in the 2 towns. So, we’ll see. But don’t we just really wish that the priest would take it up with me directly?