The Place Where I Grew Up
If I would have the change to be born again, I would choose the place where I grew up. “Los Guaricanos” is the name of the place where I was born and raised. It is located at the north side of the capital of the Dominican Republic, where the people are so nice and friendly. Anyone who visits there would fall in love with such a beautiful and irreplaceable small town, with tropical weather.
Our community was well together, I remember that for Christmas every year, the community gathered money to decorate, paint and clean the streets. All adults and children were working. We painted the sidewalks of green and red. we bought red and blue plastic bags and cut them to paste them into the trees. We also purchased paint color white, green and red, to draw a large Christmas tree in the middle of the street. it was so fun because we all enjoyed this experience.
My mother’s house was very small, it only had two rooms and one bathroom. The house was made of zinc on the top and bricks on the sides. In that small house lived my mother and my two sisters. The house was full of portraits of my sisters and me. Also, my mother’s family lived next door to us. Since it was a property that my grandmother had bought and distributed to the brothers of my mother in equal parts, each one made his home there. It was practically a remote area since was a little far from the city, but I loved that place.
I remember that each day were so special because when I used to wake up in the mornings the first thing I would hear was the sound of the birds and the sunlight touching my face, giving me the energy I would need to get ready for going to school. When I got out of bed, there was my mother making a delicious breakfast, hot chocolate with a sandwich for my sisters and I every single day. Then after, my sister, who’s name is Elizabeth and I together with my younger sister who is called Rubelainy, used to walk to school. That was like a 15 minute. The school where I used to go was yellow and blue. it is big. Usually we started the day at school by singing the national anthem around 8:00 am. Then after that, classes began till 1:45 pm.
Later when we got home, my lovely mother would have our food already prepared and served on the table. My sister and I just threw away our book bags into the room and started eating. My Mom loved to cook rice, beans and meat for lunch. When finished eating, we had to clean our bedroom. Following that, we had to take a shower so we could do the homework.
When we were done doing with our homework, Mom would let us go in play to the backyard. But my grandmother didn’t let us play with boys, she used to say that girls should play with girls. We never paid attention to her, since we have like 3 boy cousins next door. Once some boys were playing with my sister and I, when we listen our grandma yelling at us because we were playing with boys and she though that they were flattering with us. We decided to ignore her. Later my grandma called the boys, she told them that before you come to fall in love with my granddaughters, you need to learn how to clean your ass first. After that, the boys never come back.
Our backyard was so big, beautiful, and peaceful; it had a lot trees such as guava, cherries, lemons, avocados, and passion fruits. That is the main reason we loved playing there with some friends, because we used to climb on the trees and grab the fruits.
Around 6 o’ clock, my Mom would call us to go to buy groceries for dinner in the minimarket. Then we had to wash our hands to have dinner. And then when we were done, we could watch some Tv shows for a couple of hours in family ,until 10:00 pm because that was the time we had to go to brush our teeth to go to sleep. My sister and I only had one bed in that time, but we slept happy and together.
In short, “Los Guaricanos City’’ is the most important and beautiful place to me, since I have a lot of memories from there. As I mentioned before, if I would have the chance to be born again, I would have chosen this place. My town is one of those places where you want to stay forever. I will never forget my childhood over there.
