ding dong, the wicked witch.

friends, this is what i know of witches.

completely formed by hollywood and... most specifically, the wizard of oz.

in fact, this green lady helped my parents scare me into no longer sucking my thumb.

witches flying on brooms are frightening to small children.

but. i have never encountered people who really, truly believe in witches flying on broomsticks, doing curses and selling love potion number 9.

i'm familiar with voodoo. and i'm even familiar with the dominican brand of voodoo/santeria/brujeria/witchcraft. but maybe because i'm an outsider, or because i send off that "i don't believe in this" vibe, nobody has ever really approached me with witchcraft "problems".

until the other day.

i sat at my desk, going through some paperwork when a local woman came in "to talk." she wanted to close the door, and i thought that was odd, because i haven't really been in the neighborhood long enough to have gained this type of confidence - people ask for "stuff" all the time, but never actually giving me enough information to help. this woman was determined.

we sat down at the table and she asked if i knew a specific little child.
yes.

well, did i know that her aunt is not a christian? and that said little child lives with her aunt.

well. yes, we are a christian institution but we don't accept or deny anyone based on their religious preferences, i told her. she could believe that her children were the products of alien abduction and we'd still accept the children.

well. did i know that not only is she not a christian, but that she's a witch?

i've heard this. a few times, but like i said, no one has ever really approached me on the witchcraft beliefs, so i just brushed it off.

so i ask. is she a good witch or a bad witch? there's two words in spanish, cura or curandero that usually refers to a "witch" that works with natural medicines, or a bruja which is a witch who works with spells and such.

she's a bruja. and she flies.

friends, i almost lost it. i sucked up all i had inside so i wouldn't laugh in her face. she was so serious.

en que? en una escoba? on what? a broom?

of course. what else would a witch use to fly?

i stood up. she was serious. not a trace of sarcasm in her voice. witches obviously fly on brooms and i should know that. so, i politely explain that my knowledge of witches comes from movies, green witches who fly and melt when water touches them.

well. she says, i thought you should know that this woman is putting curses on the school. she's flying around in the middle of the night, sending down spells.

omg.

i asked. well, what were you doing awake in the middle of the night?

she woke us up. she was jumping from roof to roof to get a kick-start for flying.

that was it. i had to leave. really? i walked to the bathroom, laughed really hard and went back in.

i told her i wasn't really sure what provoked her to tell me this (though i'm pretty sure it's jealousy that the witch's family has received a lot of "help" from foreigners and she wants to prevent them from getting more) but that i would pray for them and hope that none of her spells stick.

 she left. i laughed. but i don't think we've heard the end of this one

because you speak english.

we got our tv fixed. (i wrote finally here three times before i decided that one week without a tv does not warrant a finally. it's not like we were completely tv free - we still have another tv - a 15 inch, 15 year old, no control, no volume control tv but it works)

a technician came to fix the cable this afternoon. i was doing laundry in the bathtub (remember the broken washer?), samil was in his underwear and amely was dancing like a ballelina to sexy and i know it (she is, and she does. and tells us frequently."mami, sexy and i know IT")

i was a little embarassed, a little flustered - i didn't expect the technician to arrive at all, let alone so quickly - we just reported the problem yesterday. that is an unheard of turn around in this country. he comes in, looks at the tv table in the living room and the empty cable hanging out, not plugged into anything.

"um, i came to fix the cable."
"yah, come on in. sorry for the uh, craziness"
"well, i'm here to fix the cable, but i don't think the cable is the problem, miss"
"oh no, really, it's not been working. we can't see any channels at all."

he looks again at the tv stand. i, completely oblivious to his confusion, explain away - the neighbors cut our wire so thin stealing borrowing our cable and when we fixed it, we obviously didn't do it right.

"miss, um, you know i uh, i'm not sure if the cable is the problem."
"well, what else would the problem be?"
"well, you don't have a tv."

ha!
i needed that today.
once i explained the broken tv (burned out lamps or something - a problem with the inconsistency of the electricity in the country) and that it was in the shop, and that yes, there is another that he can use to check the problem, he got down to work. he was a bit wary to drink my juice and kept looking at samil's ironman underoos. obviously, our whole interaction took place in spanish (i  speak really good spanish), but when he left he  says,

"uh, miss, i'm sorry that i couldn't communicate with you because you speak english. so if you have any problems, call customer service, they have an english line." what?

some days are just funny, i guess.

(on the tv front, for those of you living in similar electrical  situations - apparently the rise and fall of the voltage here is hard on LCD tvs - i mean obviously it's not healthy for any appliance but lcds really dislike it - and even if your tv is just in standby the difference can cause problems. so, the backlight on the tv burned out. after some research online i was discouraged because the best advice they had was "get a new tv" becuase the repair costs about $400 USD. welcome to  the dominican republic, $40 USD later we have a fixed tv and the wise words to unplug the thing at night to avoid further problems)

supermarket-selection overload.

have you been in the supermarket lately? have you seen the rows and rows and rows of the same thing for sale? 

seriously, who needs that big of a selection of milk or juice? or salt. or drinking water. really?
the supermarket isn't hard for me. after all, there are very nice, big, modern supermercados in the dominican republic. really nice ones. with a lot of selection. i mean, there are aisles of wine which is impressive in itself since most of the country just drinks brugal. 

there are some things, though, that just boggle my mind and sometimes throw me into sensory overload. 

i don't think our food is any more natural than north american food - but it looks a little, well, different. my brother bought an onion the other day. a big white ball of onion-y goodness (i l.o.v.e. onions). it was huge and perfect. like, unnaturally perfect. (i would have taken a picture, but remember how i didn't bring my tools for the cell phone camera?) it looked like a giant softball. pure and white and not a dimple on its skin.
i, admittedly, borrowed these pictures from the internet. however, they make my point. do you see the oranges over there? perfect and round and orange? i haven't seen an orange orange in the dominican republic, ever. i don't know why, i don't know how these things work - but when you're accustomed to this kind of "home-garden-y" type of fruits and vegetables, it is a little disturbing to see such aesthetic perfection.

on every visit to the states, the first trip to the grocery store is weird. this trip, though, i got thrown by the drug store. my mom sent me to get some cold medicine. luckily, she was kind of specific - she wanted mucinex. did you know how many different selections of mucinex there are? i stood, perplexed, for a few minutes looking for the one. they were all the same thing as far as i could tell. there were different milligrams, different types of pills, a syrup. had i been alone in the store i might have hyperventilated. good thing i had someone with me just as clueless to the medicine chest as i am (the joys of being 14 and having mom take care of that stuff!) 

i picked the box of meds that matched the price my mom told me - a syrup that was not on sale - and headed to the register. we walked past the aisles of everything in the world - 17 different kinds of cotton balls, 12 different brands of cotton swabs, perfume, makeup, 16 varieties of nail clippers. 

i paid quickly and got out. i haven't been back in the drugstore since, but i'm going to need to venture out before we head back to santiago - after all, there are some things i need to get.