The Oughts

Navidad has come and gone. Actually, I’m told Christmas is celebrated up through the New Year so there are still a few more days left. Christmas Eve, Noche Buena, and not Christmas Day is the day with the most significance here. The Dominicans cook a large meal (what would normally serve as a week’s worth of food), spend time with family and walk the streets sporting their Christmas best. They also dip into some traditional alcoholic beverages, which turned the ordinarily pious evangelicals into inexperienced inebriates. Humor ensued. All passed by well and I got to spend part of Christmas Day at the beach with a couple of other volunteers. Not exactly a traditional Christmas, but who could complain about a day at the beach?

With that it is time to usher in the New Year. The new decade. This marks the end of what I consider to be my first complete decade. I lived through the 90’s, but was 4 when they began so I didn’t become mindful and aware of that decade until Grunge was out and Presidential indiscretions were in. With this past decade, which I’m told we are referring to as the Oughts, I was between the ages of 14 and 24. I came of age in the Oughts. These were my most formative years. The years of high school, college and early adulthood. The years that put me on a roundabout path to the DR.

I spent most of the decade in school and since then I have done a lot of wandering; taking one calculated step after the next to see the world while avoiding adulthood. I don’t know whether or not I should be concerned that the wandering will take me into a new decade and my late twenties. I’m comforted by Tolkien, who said, “Not all those who wander are lost”. I’m still wandering in a way, but don’t feel lost. I’m right where I need to be and don’t have to worry about the next step for another 23 months. The ‘Real World’ will catch up with me eventually, and I’ll have some great stories to tell it.

¡Feliz Año Nuevo!