Cabarete, Puerto Plata, DR

I am swimming in stories. I am going to try to take you along for the ride while offering an explicit update on my where-and-what-abouts.

Where am I?

I am in a northern province of the Dominican Republic. It’s called Puerto Plata, and I am currently in a small town called Cabarete. This peculiar town I find myself in is tiny in comparison to the cities I came from. So, I arrived from Tokyo (population 13.5 million) to Santo Domingo (population 2,908,607) to Cabarete (population 14,000) on Monday. After time spent in the largest metropolitan area in the world, and then reentering the Caribbean’s largest city, I craved small. In fact, after attempting to navigate baseball in these metropolises, I craved tiny, and possibly navigable by foot. As I told my mentor Lorn Foster, despite the fact that I enjoy trying to be, “I am not a city girl!”

The history of where I am is fascinating and I was entirely unaware of most of it before today. Local taino indians lived here when the books declare the provinces’ formal founding. So, in the year 1835, Zephaniah Kingsley rowed to (what was) the Haitian shores that I now stand on from Jacksonville, Florida. Kingsley, a planter, slave trader, and merchant, fled Florida and relocated to Puerto Plata after a failed attempt to drastically affect the status of black slaves in Florida.Kingsley left a lot in Florida, and damn this year of wandering has got my engines revved, because I didn’t know I’d say it, but now I am eager to go to Florida. There, Kingsley’s old plantation is preserved as part of a larger ecological area by the National Parks Service.

Kingsley, who entered American politics when the United States acquired Florida from the Spanish, thought slaves should have the potential to earn freedom. His argument, stated in a treatise entitled, A Treatise on the Patriarchal System of Society , advocated for human treatment of slaves and liberal emancipation policies. His political goals failed, thus endangering his polygamous mixed-race family.

And, that’s where Kingsley and I meet. I’m in the province his family founded.

So, back to me in 2016 in Cabarete.

Cabarete is peculiar. Of the 14,000 people who live here, about 2,000 or so are Europeans that began to live here in the 1990s spurring and starting this coast’s small but lively tourism industry. Now, there is a one block town of a few restaurants, a few bars, and a few odd hotels. There are no franchise establishments, other than the Dominican cell phone providers and Bon (the ice cream company). Even the grocery stores (which Dominicans do really well) are no-name local establishments.That’s where I am.

How do I spend my days?

I wake up at 7AM and go to the beach. I either walk or take a surf lesson because my brother is going to come visit me, and he told me it would be awesome to surf together. He said that, and I thought, well damn, I have to do it. I want to share an activity with my brother in the way that we once shared baseball. What my father, brother, and I shared in baseball brought me to this experience. I want to share another thing since it’s not feasible for us to play one-on-one baseball into the coming years.

At around 10 or 11AM I come back home, I have a second half of my breakfast, and settle into writing. At 4 or 5PM when I am totally frazzled and over sitting at a computer or with a pad of paper, I walk to the baseball field and I try to play with the boys.

That’s where I met Scarlet, Violet, and Genesis. I think they are going to be integral to my time here.

Do I have friends or community?

Yes.

First of all, there is my family here, who is back in the capital (for now). Pablo, Jaime, Orlando, and the gang have more love for this world without motive or purpose other than to share than anybody I have ever met. These are the people that picked my parents up at the airport 10 months ago and allowed us to all share multiple meals together. These are the fellas I watch baseball (and some NBA playoffs) with every day of the week at the colmado. My birthday fast approaches as does Pablo’s, so we had the fantastic idea that the crew come up here to disfrutar juntos. So, that may happen next weekend. Godwillingly.

I have Francesco, my Airbnb host. He’s an Italian that has lived here for three years. He is more forceful when it comes to trying to put food in my belly than my own jewish mother. For the record, I am highly capable of putting food in my own belly. I enjoy the process of fixing both myself and Francesco food.  But, I can’t match the vigor with which Francesco insists I eat his food. I, with the jewish mother bubbling in me, can’t match it. I am still blown away by that fact.

I have Scarlet, Violet, and Genesis who live in houses that neighbor the local baseball field. As soon as I approached the field on my very first day, they trotted and skipped on up to me and asked me something about my hat or hair. So they showed me their cartwheels and I ooo’ed and awe’d and told them “Vamos a ver la pelota y los peloteros!” They told me, “bailamos! y ven aqui necesito presentarte a mi abuela.”

I have Erik. Erik was a professional baseball player. He grew up in Santo Domingo and played in the Blue Jays organization until AA. When I told him I was here to study ‘la pelota’ he had a small seizure. Most people he meets that look like me are here to kite surf or chill. “We may be best friends,” were some of the first words to exit his mouth. Dominicans are so friendly it is peculiar and alarming at times. I am remaining super alert and careful.

I hope to convince Scarlet, Violet, and Genesis to play baseball with both me and the boys.

 

Health

 

I’ve been blessed with good health throughout my travels. But, for the next two months, for my own health, I think it is no vegetables or canned vegetables. Suck it up, cali girl. It’s definitely no more salad. Whenever I eat salad, and sometimes when I eat vegetables, my stomach begins to rumble, roll, and crank like a roller-coaster. It’s painful when it goes on for hours (and days). I could explore products to correctly wash these vegetables. Yet, I’d also have to wash them with bottled water, which is too troublesome and a step I skip. Then, the roller-coaster comes rolling in. So, it’s just peel-able fruits, eggs, arroz, habicheuela, and the sorts from here on out. And, canned veggies. I have always loved a can peas. That’s the healthy decision I feel I have to make to not feel awful. I leave you with the following: SAY NO TO VEGGIES.

I would have loved to include more photos in this update. I want to share photos of the adorable Valerie, Scarlet, and Genesis, and well as what their pueblo and the baseball field looks like. The challenge is that my small Nikon-hand-me-down digital camera that my Dad lent me this year could buy food for Valerie’s, Scarlet’s, and Genesis’ families for about three months. I thus have not felt comfortable taking it out of my backpack while I’m at the diamond.