Who knew Valentines Day was so important? Well, to begin, Valentines Day in the Dominican Republic is called “the day of love and friendship”. Is it called that in the US? I don’t think so. At least in our community, Valentines Day emphasizes neighborly love and friendship.
Everyone in the community greeted each other with well-wishes, happiness and compliments throughout the day. Everyone wore red. You would have thought it was Christmas/the new year or something. While no couples went on dates or had special dinners (1. because there is no place to go, 2. we are poor, 3. I just don’t think it’s a tradition here), we also had a large celebration in the community center (like, as large as the Christmas celebration) that consisted of a secret-santa type gift giving, jokes, reflections on love, and opportunities for husbands/wives/friends to profess their love for one another. A lot of the bible was tied in with the reflections on love. We finished off the celebration with empanadas and soda. Overall a great celebration.

However, I did not find this emphasis on love to be out of place in the Dominican culture. The more time I have spent here, the more I’ve realized that my community (if not Dominican culture in general) is obsessed with love. People LOVE weddings and boyfriends/girlfriends and they use the word “enamorarse” (to fall in love/to be in love) daily in contexts that Americans would not. It is not unusual for young Dominicans to get married within a few months of dating. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been told at least 20 times that I should be married/will be getting married soon. So, I probably should have guessed that the Valentines Day celebration would be big.

Other Updates:
• Turns out, the rat poison worked! I came home one day to a bunch of dead flies around my bed. I confused, since I hadn’t sprayed any RAID. My host mother, being very intelligent, pulled my bed away from the wall, and there, decomposing under my bed was a huge 8” rat. The flies had eaten the poisoned rat and died. Weirdly enough, the rat didn’t smell (thank god). My boyfriend buried the rat and we mopped thoroughly. Alls well that ends well (except for the nightmares the following night about rats in my bed).