“Jaime, podriamos prender la musica? Podriamos bailar?” “Claro que si!”

So I think you may remember a recent blog title regarding an inordinate quantity of spaghetti? Well that dinner happened.

I agreed to host it in my house since I just moved, everyone wants to visit my house and what harm come from a spaghetti dinner right? We had divided up the ingredients of the dinner so that everyone could participate. I agreed to cover the most expensive part, the salad, but I was okay with that because it meant I could make the salad how I wanted to (read: with vegetables in it rather than just cabbage and peeled tomatoes).

I cleaned my house, talked with my neighbors, made the salad, danced a little bit to music from my laptop with one of my younger vecinos and then relaxed and waiting for the arrival of my jovenes.

We began cooking using the fogon of Ricarda. We agreed to only cook 8 lbs of spaghetti, for no more than 10 people. That seems like a good amount, right? Ridiculous. So much spaghetti! But it came out well. Now this spaghetti is more like a mac & cheese since it’s cooked with milk, cheese, and corn. It is so so so good, but so bad for you. So obviously we all at a ton…but I get ahead of myself.

Before actually eating dinner we had planned a program for our dinner. The firs item on the evening’s agenda? Free-time for dancing. One of my jovenes brought in his car’s soundsystem so we were blasting merengue, bachata and reaggaeton. We did lots of dancing, I tried not to be too shocked by some of the more scandalous dancing that occurred in my living room.

Next on the agenda: Bienvenidos. Yanelys, as president of Escojo Mi Vida: La Culata, welcomed everyone and then turned the floor over to me. As PCV it was my job to provide the educational portion of the evening (and I told that group that each fun activity we do has to include something educational). I read a short story called “The Lottery” and we discussed what happened. I was extremely pleased by the discussion that occurred afterwards as we got into a solid 30 minute debate about discrimination in general and more specifically gender/sexuality discrimination ere in the Dominican Republic. I felt like I was doing a very nice job of actually promoting healthy lifestyles…since that’s my job and all. It also felt really nice to facilitate a great discussion about homophobia in the DR, a subject that looks to be very topical for me over the next year and a half.

After our themed discussion came “La Sorpresa” (The Surprise). This Dominican Tradition is adorable, and people of all ages get into it. Basically what happens is that one person has a “surprise” which is usually a mint or candy-bar. This person narrates “La Sorpresa”. It starts off, “Hello, I’m the surprise. Give me to the boy who is the most beautiful in the room.” Then this person passes along “La Sorpresa” to a boy that she thinks is the most beautiful (along with a kiss on the cheek). The narrator continues with something like, “Now, Mr. Beautiful, pass me along to the girl who always brightens a room when she enters it.” And he gives “La Sorpresa” and a kiss on the cheek to whomever he pleases. We did about 25 passes of “La Sorpresa” before it finally ended on, “Now, chica, pass me to the most gracious host who has opened up his house to us.” So of course I ended up with “La Sorpresa”. It was fun.

We had a moment of silence for Las Aguilas, the baseball team that lost the championship that night, said a prayer for our meal, and then proceeded to eat so much food while listening to some more music, followed by more dancing and of course the obligatory Dominican photo shoot. I now have about 100 awkwardly posed pictures of La Culata’s jovenes on my camera.

Before I knew it, the group had completely cleaned me house, mopped, washed the dishes, divvied up all of the leftovers and were heading out. Our dinner ended by about 10:30 since it was a school night and I was left a little overwhelmed at how successful the meal was. Everyone seemed to have fun, we included some Escojo Curriculum and we ate a delicious meal. Also, I was left with enough food to feed me for the next week (but it will probably be gone within 24 hours since I’ll have to give some to anyone who visits my house).

This slideshow requires JavaScript.