A couple of weeks ago, David and I spent most of the day with some of Julio’s family fishing. That was an experience!!! One of the things that we had to learn very quickly down here is “Americans have watches, Dominicans have time”. They are the worse in planning anything. Basically, there whole life is living for the moment and they don’t know how to plan.
We invited another American couple, Joe and Wanell to join us. They arrived at our place at 9:30. Julio said he would come get us between 9:30 and 10:00. He arrived at 10:15. We then went by his neighborhood to pick up his wife, Anna; two daughters; his brother and uncle. That was another 20 minutes rounding everyone up. We got to the river “La Boca” (The mouth), around 11:00.
His uncle wasn’t at his house and left word that he would meet us at La Boca. Another 15 minutes of waiting and he arrived, only to discover the night watchman; who had the key to his shed where is motor was stored, had left for the day. Another 25 minutes of waiting for them to go and find him and get the key. The motor is on the boat, but oh wait(!!!), there is no gas. You guessed it, we had to wait for them to get gas. Poor Joe and David didn’t get out on the river until around 12:30. Of course, by then, it was too late in the day to hope to get any fish. They didn’t even have a nibble.
Meanwhile, Wanell and I were having a great time visiting with Anna and the girls. Anna speaks no English and has the patience of a saint with me speaking Spanish….plus, she corrects me, which I so appreciate. The river, La Boca is another Dominican experience. The mouth of this river empties into the ocean. La Boca is right at that point. I have written about this area before. It is a Dominican hangout on Sundays. There is a small restaurant which is a thatched palm-leaf roof, crudely built table and chairs on a dirt floor. The food is wonderful! They serve fish, shrimp, crabs, lobster with rice and beans, salad and platanos (it is a fruit from the banana family, looks like a large green banana but not as sweet).
On Sundays, these mammoth speakers are brought in and the music is loud, heavy bass so one hears “boom, boom, boom” and not much music. Although, I have to say yesterday the music wasn’t too bad. They played some merengue, salsa and bachata. Bachata is a mixture of Latino/Caribbean that is more romantic and smoother…it doesn’t have the constant beat of merengue or salsa. I really like bachata and for me, it is much more tolerable to listen to.
The Dominicans come to La Boca to listen to the music, eat, play in the river, play baseball and socialize. That is mostly what we all did while the men were fishing. The original plan was to have them go fishing, we would play in the river or go to the other side of the beach and play in the ocean. Once they were back from fishing, we would all eat lunch at the restaurant. Since they got such a late start, we women ate lunch without the men!!!
The men returned just as Julio’s daughters were getting ready to go swimming. After a quick dip in the river, we left La Boca around 2:30. It was another one of those “Dominican experiences” and a fun day!!!!