The place where I grew up
“We do not remember days, we remember moments.” That was what the Italian poet, critic and novelist Cesare Pavese said in one of his quotations. It’s just like he said. In my case, I don’t even remember the day that I left my country, but I carry with me all those beautiful moments that I lived there.
The place where I grew up was in Dominican Republic, to be more specific I grew up in a dead-end street of San Isidro in the city of Santo Domingo. I’ve always called that street “the street where everybody knows each other.” That is the place where I spent wonderful and memorable moments.
The street was called “Calle Nueva”, which in English means “New Street.” It was never a new street like the name says. It was always old since I was born. Moreover, it was a dead street with holes everywhere, but for me it was the happiest street of the town where I lived 18 years. It was a poor town and some people did not pay for the electricity. As a result, the electricity company cut off our energy at certain times of the day. Every day, you could see many people talking, playing dominoes or just waiting until the electricity returned while others were sitting on the side of the street watching their children running everywhere. I remember that every night when there was no electricity at 9:45, every child including myself met in a corner of a grocery store called by the name “Colmado Moldan” where we shared stories or just talked until 11pm. That was the time to go back home, but we met again day after day. It was normal for a kid to stay late in the street. Most people had lived there since they were born, so everyone knew each other.
In the street called “Calle Nueva” there was a house painted with a weird yellow like mustard, and it was known it as #75. There was a little garden in front of that house and two small steps. That house painted with the weird yellow belongs to my grandmother, and it was the house where my mother raised me since I was born. It wasn’t a big house, but it was big enough for my mom, my aunt and me. My room was the first, which meant that whatever happened on the street, I heard it. I used to hear cats fighting in the middle of the night, dogs barking everywhere, or weird and scary sounds of my aunt’s snoring. Next to my room was my aunt’s room followed by the bathroom. I remember one night that I was trying to go to the bathroom. There was no electricity at that moment, and to go to the bathroom I had to go through my aunt’s room. That night, I heard a voice calling me from nowhere while I was walking. The voice was saying “ crio” “crio”. I stuck to the wall, where I got frozen for several seconds, then I realized it was my aunt talking in her sleep. My mother’s room was the last room and the biggest one. On the other side of my mother’s room was the kitchen followed by the dining room where every Sunday my friends and I used to meet to watch the WWE on a large television that my grandmother gave us, which she bought here in the United States. That house painted with a weird yellow was the house where I spent all my childhood.
In front of my weird yellow house, there was a house which terrified me and my friends. In that house lives an old lady who we thought was a witch. She was always doing weird stuff, like one day that I had to go the consulate, and we had no car. In order to be there at 7 am, we woke up around 3:30 am, and when we left home at 4 am, I saw the old lady sweeping the street in front of her house. Of course, I didn’t say anything to my mom because she saw her too, but we didn’t talk about that. I guess it was because my mom respected her, and I didn’t have the courage to say: “Mom, I think she is a witch. Look what she is doing. She is sweeping the street, it’s not even the sidewalk, that is not normal”. Believe me, part of me wanted to tell that to my mom, but the other part didn’t want to be punished. That day I was so desperate to tell my friends what I had seen. The rumor that she was a witch began when we realized that she didn’t like children very much, but she loved newborns and every time that someone gave birth, she was there days after to see the baby. That old lady is still alive. She is 101 years old.
Behind my grandmother’s yellow house was a forest which could be reached by arriving to the end of the street, or just jumping through yards of the houses that were close to the forest. I loved climbing the wall of my grandmother’s patio and looking at the forest. Sometimes you could see cows, goats, pigs or birds. The birds could be hear singing from everywhere and it was so relaxing to hear it. Sometimes on rainy nights, frogs jumped the wall and went into the house. My mother is very afraid of frogs, and she didn’t like the rainy days, I guess it was because the frogs. Every time that frogs jumped into the house, my mother went out until we took out the frogs. To be honest, I didn’t like frogs either, but I loved rainy days because you could smell the forest from the house, and you could see the rain wetting the forest. It was magical, that’s one of the many things I miss the most.
On the other side of the forest, there was a military area where my friends and I used to go every weekend. In order to go there, we had to walk about 13 to 15 minutes through the forest. That military area had a baseball field, a basketball field and a large space for cycling or running. We loved that place. During the summer, we used to go almost every day to play baseball. We used to organize baseball tournaments with kids from another street. It was fun. We also liked to go cycling, and when we got tired, we would lay in the grass for several hours. Sometimes we watched the military practicing.
The place where I grew up was very special for me. It was the place where I lived for 18 years. I spent wonderful moments there, moments that I will never forget. If there was another life and I could choose where to be born. Without a doubt I would choose the same country, the same city, the same street and the same house, but this time I would choose another color to paint it.
