ay mi madre.

Oh culture shock...does it ever truly end? I really don’t think I’ll ever get used to the Dominican style of communication. It's characterized by a bluntness that takes me by surprise every time. Tonight I was talking with a Dominican girl I’d just met who observed aloud to several other people that my accent was bad. Which was a wee bit discouraging seeing as I have been pouring BLOOD SWEAT AND TEARS into learning this !@#$ language! As I’ve mentioned before, Dominicans say anything and everything that may pop into their heads. They rarely deem it necessary to stop themselves from saying what they’re thinking, and sometimes when they’re talking I just wish there was some way to install a filter in there. (Especially as a girl from the South; where I’m from, even if you’re thinking something offensive it is never ever ever acceptable to say it to someone’s face.) At least I’m not the only one; a girl I know is regularly asked what she’s doing about her acne. And here’s a funny/slightly saddening one: there was this guy I was actually friends with. We’d spent a decent amount of time together, and I thought I had found the one Dominican guy who was okay with just being friends. Until one day, that is. We were talking over ice cream and I had just asked him about his plans post-graduation. “I want to find an American woman to marry me so I can get a visa,” he said matter-of-factly. I started choking a little. The conversation was in Spanish, so I looked over at my American friend to make sure I’d heard him right. Although she succeeded in keeping her food down, she looked just as shocked as I was. I looked back at him to see if he was joking. Not even a little bit. His face was as serious as any. It’s been a little awkward since then.

This can be observed not only in conversations like this one but the fact that men publicly utter whatever lewd thoughts they’re having about a woman’s body. And while I’m ranting making objective observations about Dominican society as a whole, I have got to say that being here has made me so disillusioned with relationships. Everywhere I go, I see and hear women being objectified. I am seen here not as Erin but as an anonymous American woman. I’m not valued for who I am but as a means to an end. Men look at us and it’s like those cartoons where dollar signs show up in the characters’ eyes, because they see us as their chance at a US visa. Sadly, it’s not just American women that are objectified, it’s women in general. Millions of Latin American women grow up with this mentality that they are valuable only for what they can offer a man. But that’s not even the worst part about gender relationships that I’ve observed here. Fidelity is practically unheard of.  A sociology professor at my university here said recently that “99.9% of Dominican men cheat on their wives”. The mentality is that cheating is inevitable; women expect it and men excuse it.

Sometimes I just wake up and want to come home. Spanish is still coming very slowly, and a lot of times I don’t feel like I’m making much improvement. But I’ve been learning a lot from the book of James. James tells us to “Count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect in complete, lacking in nothing” (James 1:2-4). If there’s anything I’ve learned about myself the past few months, it is that I’m imperfect and lacking in all kinds of things. Which gives me all the more reason to count my trials as pure joy, knowing that they will provide me with much-needed steadfastness in my faith.  All my Spanish language woes? My deep disappointment and frustration with Dominican society? I consider them all joy.  

And if that’s not enough, then there’s the irony of all ironies, that of the cross. That Jesus, being perfect, without ever having committed a single error, having been the one person to ever have loved another flawlessly, allowed himself to die in order to take on the full weight of every sin. And because of that, someone like me is purged of that black mark, that scarlet letter, and can spend not only this life but eternity with God in all his holiness.

That is a lot to rejoice about. Despite everything from annoyance to agony, there is Jesus. There is hope. Not only for tomorrow but for forever. And it doesn’t get better than that.