Superstitions

Superstitions are dumb.

Granted, avoiding mirror breakages and the meaner looking black cats are essentially wise moves, but unlikely to affect your success in life.

Thing is, culturally we become oblivious to the silliness of our superstitions. I don't even notice that elevator manufacturers miss out floor 13. It's what's done. It doesn't make it less stupid, but it's not worthy of comment.

But this cultural callus on your awareness isn't there when you go somewhere new. For that reason, I was able to enjoy the ridiculousness of Dominican superstitions (and beliefs) when I first heard them.

Here's a small selection.

1) The dangers of excess heat.

It's hot here. The sun doesn't like to wear hats or to play. It likes to get up early, put on it's game face and do it's best to sunburn your kidneys (and anything else in the way).

Naturally then, many Dominican ideas are connected to avoiding certain things when you're hot

For example, if you are hot, you cannot:

• Eat bananas (and a few other "black listed" fruit)
• Open the freezer (You also can't do this after ironing)
• Have a cold shower

If you do any of these things, the ugly results range from general sickness to full on strokes. You have been warned.

Also worth noting is the extreme danger of hot seats. If you sit on a hot motorbike seat it (apparently) leads to infertility in men and women. The same result is achieved by using a laptop...wait for it...on your lap. Imagine.

2) The killer mobile triangle of three:

Despite sounding like a Sherlock Holmes novel, this superstition is the most deadly of all.

I was told of this belief in the gravest of tones and in complete seriousness by a good friend of mine. He did not appreciate my laughter as he tried fruitlessly to win me over.

Basically, it goes like this: if three people standing together all receive and answer a phone call at exactly the same time, they will be struck with lightning from the nearest phone tower. Apparently the concentration of mobile energy summons the wrath of the phone gods, who then strike down the unlucky trio. Don't see it happening myself, but apparently the phones must be answered simultaneously which is quite hard.

3) Dangerous pregnancy:

The same sort of rules that apply to excess heat seem to apply to pregnancy.

Again, women can't eat various foods for fear of sickness or death. The banana rears it's ugly head again, proving that it is obviously far more dangerous than we all thought.

Apparently eating bananas when pregnant is most risky, as is opening freezers, refrigerators or anything cooler than room temperature.

4) The unlimited healing power of Vicks Vaporub:

Vicks Vaporub, that menthol balm that we stupidly limit to rubbing on our chests when congested, is in actual fact, the single most powerful curative agent in the known universe.

I bet you didn't know that applying Vicks Vaporub to insect bites, wounds, rashes, aching joints and any other boo-boo will give you instant relief.

And it gets better. Apparently you can actually eat Vaporub, using it in teas and tonics to heal any internal ailments.

I've never seen such devotion to a medicine. It's like the silver bullet cure-all for anything, and I can only imagine the delight of whoever makes it. The manufacturer does nothing to discourage people from ingesting liberal quantities of their product. Of course, who are they to argue with the wisdom that your ol' granny (or some other crazy neighbour) has accumulated over her lifetime?


So there you go, a short selection of Dominican superstitions. Don't get me wrong, not everyone believes this stuff. Most people see these ideas for what they are, but a dogged few cling to them like a religion.

It makes you wonder what else we all "know" to be true is completely ridiculous?:)

English Assembly!!!

Our Open Air Assembly Hall

I will admit, there are some serious low points to living in the good ol'Caribbean:

I could list many things, but having to stop a study to fight off a horde of advancing baby tarantulas was a real low point - there were honestly about 200 of them...

Added to this are:

• Noise
• Ubiquitous trash*
• Quite unspeakably bad chocolate (an insult considering how many cocoa beans are produced here)
• Poor Drivers
• Noise
• Anything related to immigration#
• Migraine inducing bad customer service (everywhere)
• Smells: ranging from retch inducing to oddly unidentifiable
• Noise

But of course, It's easy to concentrate on the bad. There are some amazing benefits to living here, and for that very reason more people arrive every year to get in on the action.

To what do I refer? Well, there's the...

• Fantastic field service
• Unbelievable fried chicken (hang your head in shame colonel)
• Great weather
• The sheer joy of riding motorbikes
• Some of the nicest people you will ever meet
• Esponjitos (there's no greater pleasure for just 5 pesos)

And of course...

•  The English Assembly

The English Assembly is truly awesome. It used to be a smaller affair, but these days the attendance brushes the underside of 1000 due to the increased ranks of the English circuit.

Formerly the English Assembly was the solely for foreigners serving in this country (in Spanish, Haitian Creole, Sign Language and other language congregations). It was organised by the branch just to give those visiting pioneers a boost in their own language. That meant there was no baptism talk - this was replaced by a "need-greater" talk - basically an awesome spiritual pep talk. Almost 100% of the audience were pioneers or missionaries.

Of course, things have changed a little now, a few years ago an English circuit was formed and has steadily grown since then. To be honest though, things are still almost the same as before. I'd say at least 75% are still in full time service, and although there's no Need-Greater Talk, it's awesome to see people getting baptised every assembly.

The branch still does their absolute best to keep everyone encouraged. The sent a special letter to say "thanks to all the self-supporting missionaries". Nice.

They also announced some really interesting statistics for the work going on here:

• 29 new congregations were formed in the last service year
• This service year 24 new congregations have already been formed
• Lots of new Kingdom halls were built (They still need 87 more). There are already two full time construction groups building halls with a third one rumoured.

All assemblies are fun, but this one has a festive feel to it.

Only a few months until the next one!:)

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*Of course, this is a generalization, Dominicans are in fact possibly the cleanest people on the planet. You've never seen a house cleaned properly until you've seen the garden hose being used to wash down the walls inside the house - and that's not even spring cleaning, that's like the weekly vacuuming. Unfortunately a large swathe of society here seems to have some blind spot when it comes to putting trash in a garbage can, not the gutter/beach/street/field/river/sea.

#Immigration in the DR is one of those special joys that just keeps getting better. The "Migracion" office (as immigration is known) in the capital has actually been proved to be the basis for the pagan belief in hell, and going there certainly feels like a never ending torment. The statement "I'm going to do my residency" is synonymous with "I have an awful disease" - it will illicit cries of pained empathy from fellow foreigners due to the knowledge that you will look some years older before the process has run it's course. (Christine gets to go on Thursday!)