Warning:this post contains unredacted sexual material from my personal journal.
16 October (was written over several days-- 15, 16, 17th) 2001 House of Francisco and Francesca Aguacate
We arrived yesterday in the community we’re going to stay in for our training as health volunteers. Yesterday, I woke up at 7AM or so back at Doña Ondina’s outside Santo Domingo. I sat for about thirty minutes and then I started to write. It’s been one of those days that make me wonder what the hell I was thinking coming here, probably the first of many.
First, the noise in my head would not go away even when I meditated. Then the noise around me also started. After this, Ondina served me pancakes, which was definitely not what I wanted; they were really eggy and soggy too, not even the sort of pancakes I would eat in the States.
Gradually, I worked myself into a state of paralysis and frustration. At least I had to pack, so that gave me an excuse to do something. Doña Ondina didn’t understand some things I said, and this frustrated me further. I called my parents but just like has been the case for the last two weeks, only the answering machine answered.
To top all this off, I kept on having a really detailed sexual daydream, like a movie, that replayed over and over in my head. In the daydream, I’m having a conversation with a particular volunteer, B, who is midway through her service, and whom we’re visiting for training.
We’re talking about how she hasn’t been laid in months because of living in the Dominican Republic and Peace Corps and whatever. I say to her “I’m not sure if it’s the relationship you’re missing or the sex, but if it’s the sex, maybe I can help you. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to, but what I really want to do is to lick your pussy. I don’t want to fuck necessarily, but I bet I can totally satisfy you with my mouth.”
She hesitantly agrees. I pull down her jeans and tease at her inner thigh. I grab the crotch of her panties with my teeth and then let them snap back. I bite the elastic waistband of her panties, and pull them off, exposing bare pussy. I put my tongue on the top part of her labia where the inner labia come together.
She sighs and becomes noticeably aroused. I start to lick. She lays down on her bed and I stick my tongue inside her. I nibble at her clit. She’s begging for more, so I ask if I can use my fingers. She says yes. So I put my two fingers inside her and keep even pressure opposite where I’m sucking on her clit.
I move harder and harder. She cums and begs me to stop. She asks if I have a condom, and I remind her we’d agreed to no fucking, only sucking. She tells me that she wants me inside her.
The movie reel in my mind ends with me fucking her doggie style, reaching forward to play with her breasts.
Then the daydream starts again.
After packing– distractedly– I
- Talked with Ondina about how all my CDs are missing and how, along with mine, there are several CDs that her next-door neighbor loaned me. She promised to talk to the neighbor in a soothing, nondirect way on my behalf;
- packed some more;
- called a taxi;
- went to wait in the park across from the cancha.
The taxi arrived almost immediately. It was a clean air-conditioned white Honda. The driver asked me where I was from, and I told him I was from the States. He asked me if I could hook him up with a pretty American girl so he could marry and live in the States. I told him I knew lots of female US citizens, but as far as marriage was concerned, he’d have to ask them directly.
He persisted, so I told him how much I’ve wanted EU citizenship, and how much of a bad time it is right now to choose to live in the US, given war, anthrax, a monkey who is playing President, and the like.
He took me very slowly down the Autopista Duarte. He explained that he liked being a private taxi driver more than a carro público driver because a taxi privado chofer has a future, earns more, and stresses less.
He seemed to be taking his time as if he was trying to build a relationship with his possible link to a US bride. he stopped at the turnaround at KM9 and bought two natural sodas from a roadside stand, assuring me that the water was clean. I was unconvinced, but drank anyway. We idled there for two or three minutes, drinking the soda, while the proprietor waited to collect his bottles and money.
“They are four apiece,” asserted the seller.
“No! Four is robbery! Three!”
But the driver gave the proprietor six pesos, two came back, and the proprietor merely said “can you pay for the other one, please?”
The taxi driver dropped me off at Transporte Espinal bus station. I paid him RD$60d– fifty plus a ten-dollar tip– for his time.
In the bus terminal, several of my companions were already waiting. I’m getting friendly enough with some of the people to give hugs in greeting, especially to N, my good friend.
We hung out in the bus station. If the first bus, the noon bus, had space for us and our luggage, we’d take it. If not, we’d wait for the 12:30 bus.
As it turned out, I ended up in the bus station for an hour or so, chatting it up with several people. I was ready to leave the moment I arrived. The TV was on full blast to WWF wrestling, the bus station is made like a concrete bunker, and the acoustics were horrible.
A and I talked about my negativity, how I was not enjoying my mental environment. We rapped about Zen and she told me about The Forum. It’s hard to have a deep and meaningful conversation with just one person. First, there is the tendency to be greedy, to want to absorb the other person like one might do with a glass of water on a hot day. I have to pause, look away, be careful not to stare, try to look nonchalant about how cool this other person is.
In the case of A, I had to make up an excuse so as not to appear just too interested. “Hey, I have to use the restroom, but we’ll talk.” If I hadn’t done this, I would have wanted to stay there, looking at the face that looks like Eleanor Roosevelt’s and at the eyes that look like the sea, and then I wouldn’t have been able to get on the bus at all.
I don’t desire A as a lover or girlfriend, but I think I could spend years with her, talking about things that matter to both of us. It’s not everyone who is such pleasant company to me, especially among my fellow Peace Corps Trainees.
Anyway, when I went to the bathroom– for this was a true need in addition to a needed excuse– I took the gum out of my mouth and wrapped it in the receipt from paying my fare and put it in the trash. When the bus came, I had to retrieve this paper as proof of payment. The cobrador gave me what must have been the nastiest look I’ve ever been given, and I can’t say I blame him much.
My guitar fit on one of the racks above the seats and the cobrador put my big backpack under the coach of the bus.
The bus was not as nice as the Caribe Tours bus, and the ride was a lot more cramped than the relaxed, nearly-empty voyage of the guagua I took the first time I went to Santiago. However, the merengue on the radio wasn’t so bad. The driver did try to play some “soft rock hits in English of the 70s and 80s”; I forgave him.
A woman next to me was traveling with her two teenage daughters. I waited until we got almost all the way to the Santiago terminal to chat with her. It was a relief to hear her say that she prohibited her daughters to leave unaccompanied after dark. I hadn’t been sure if the restrictions on our freedom that Entrena [the training contractor for Peace Corps DR at the time this was written] communicated to our hosts in the capital was for genuine concern or because they had a poor opinion of our ability to look out for ourselves.
When she got off the bus, I said “que vaya con Dios.” I think she thought I was a missionary or something– I’m not sure. After the bus arrived in the terminal in Santiago, we got out. It was raining, and there were two trucks waiting for us alongside to PCV hosts.
One truck was on its way to Aguacate and the other Navarette. These are the two communities where the trainees are to do CBT; I’m in Aguacate as I write this.
The two host PCVs were S and B. I had met these at the despidida back on 9 October. We hugged the sort of awkward hugs one shares when one is not sure how much affection would be appropriate.
I got in the back of a red truck with a Japanese brand. B, E, L, J, and E, the last two being PCTs, joined me. The luggage fit well and provided seating. It was useful that the truck had rails running above the truck bed-sides, being something to grab ahold of.
It was a pleasure to see B again. I was pleased that E would be my technical trainer and L, my new Spanish teacher. But I dreaded, and am still unsure about, having to deal with this other odd combination of women. I’m not sure that this threesome of PCTs– me, J, and E– is the best idea. I’m sarcastic and a loner. E is awkwardly self-conscious and a conformist. J is a self-righteous embodiment of indignation who never opens her mouth except to complain.
At the village of Los Cocos, the driver had us get out and asked his brother, also a chofer, to take us in brother’s truck. Driver #1 said his truck would not make it up the road to Aguacate given that it had just rained.
The road was steep– and muddy! At one point, the driver had to stop to let the engine cool. J, well, I think she started a pre-emptive whine about how we were going to have to push.
We did arrive, though. We went around and dropped everyone off, each with a different family that B had found for us. One of the families had promised to host a man, but refused when we arrived. I ended up with the family that was originally going to house trainer L, and L ended up in the rural clinic across the street.
Note to readers: This is a review of my personal journal from my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic more than a decade ago. I have done my best not to change what I wrote, even if I feel differently now or found out later that I what I wrote was factually incorrect. Part of the joy of reading old journals is seeing a story arc where I’ve learned new things.
In this entry and others, names have been shortened to initials to provide some privacy. Those who were there will recognize the characters, but my journaling is not about other people or their experience.
- The next entry in this series is Imma kill a gringa
- The previous entry in this series is Is there any escape– from noise?
- You can see the journal entries as I post them here.
- If you’re just starting, here’s the first entry.
