A culture of giving

A rather wordy blog post by Adam.

We needed to get home from the Zona Colonial and we vaguely knew the way. Our host mother told us to catch a bus to the University and from there we could find a bus home. How hard could it be?

After a few false starts we found a bus driver who confirmed that his route passed the University. We hopped on and hoped for the best. Shortly after we sat down a middle age man holding a stack of books and a bag of fruit stumbled onto the bus and sat next to Melissa and me.  I commented about his large Dominican history book, and that was all he needed to jump full force into conversation. 

After chatting a bit about his books, he pulled out a large greenish, beat-up fruit from his bag, and asked, "Do you know what this is?" We had no idea. Was it an unknown fruit? Or was it a fruit so manhandled that its distinctive traits were indiscernible?  As it turns out, it was a guanabana. We had heard of it. We had even drunk a Guanabana smoothie the last time we were in the Dominican Republic. This, however, was our first meeting in the flesh.

Our new friend proceeded to tell us how to turn it from green blob into a delectable white drink. You ripped the skin of with your bare hands, then used your fingers to pull the black seeds from the white pulp.  When the seeds were gone, you threw what was left in a blender, added some yogurt, milk and/or water, blended and drank. After his detailed explanation, he handed us the fruit, and told us to try it out at home.  We were speechless. We didn't know what to do. The woman sitting next to him nodded, "If he's offering you the fruit you should take it.  Don't worry, he wants you to have it."  We thanked him and the discussion proceeded with a rant against Neoliberalism and an additional gift of four mangoes.  

We were so engrossed in conversation and gift receiving, that we had lost track of the bus's route.  We turned to our companion and asked him where we were. Honduras. We were pretty sure we had not yet reached Central America, but we were also pretty sure Honduras was nowhere near the University.  We asked.  The University?  We passed that miles ago exclaimed several people on the bus. The bus screeched to halt, we grabbed our fruit and hurriedly jumped off, not even taking the time to thank our friend for the gifts.

From here we caught a public car (a shared car with a specific route) to the subway station, took the subway several stops and changed lines, came out of the subway, caught another public car, walked 10 minutes and made it home.

It was time to make a guanabana shake.  I quickly got to work, ripping off the skin and removing the seeds from the very slimy interior...

Removing guanabana seeds with belly protruding.  Is this a sign of stomach aches to come?

Removing seeds (from a different angle).  Why is my belly still sticking out?

I then threw the pulp in the blender with some yogurt, milk, and water and started blending. Problem was I wasn't so good at getting all of the seeds out. As the blender revved, a few seeds came to the top, but it felt like one escaped my grasp and had become part of the shake.  Melissa quickly ran to the internet to find numerous articles of dubious origin stating that the seeds were toxic.  She wasn't going to touch the stuff.  I myself wasn't so fearful of the seeds, but the finished product didn't seem right.  It was so thick and lumpy. I blended it some more and then gave up.  I had worked long enough and it was time to drink...

Gulping guanabana.

Problem was, with Melissa out of the drinking picture, and our host mother nowhere to be seen, I had a lot of thick guanabana beverage on my hands.  I couldn't waste it, so instead I gulped down about five glasses.  I couldn't force myself to drink a final sixth glass.  I saved that for breakfast the next morning.

Sure, in the end the drink was so thick, I actually had to used a spoon for the final two glasses.  And yes, it did give me a bit of a stomach ache and a lot of gas.  But mostly I was just blown away by how a stranger we met on the bus - a man who loved the Dominican Republic, but only had enough money to visit every so many years - had given us his only guanabana and half of his mangoes.  People had been incredibly generous to us in Israel, but this felt over the top. It was incredible.

And yet, it isn't the only generosity we've experienced in our short time here in the Dominican Republic. At Shabbat services we got invited to someone's house for dinner (we had already eaten dinner, but we graciously accepted the invitation, and somehow managed to put down a second dinner).  And our host mother prepares extra food at each meal for the old man who lives downstairs and has no family and a limited income.  I was impressed the first time I saw her bring him breakfast.  Now that I've seen her take him food daily I'm overwhelmed by her generosity.  We've learned much on our trip and had many inspiring experiences, but few things are more impressive than the generosity of every day Dominicans and the guanabana it brings.