I was thirty-five years old and I was in Santo Domingo with my parents. I’d booked us rooms at the Sofitel, which was in Gazcue, a neighborhood located in the heart of the city.
My father had grown up in Gazcue. It was, and still is, an upscale area with beautiful homes. He was the second oldest of three children- two boys and a girl, born to a civil servant and a stay-at-home mother. The family lived in a big building filled with business professionals and embassy employees. Their apartment had four bedrooms and a huge balcony overlooking a tree-lined street. It all sounds idyllic, but from the little I’ve been able to pry out of him, my father really had a rough time of it. He was a merit scholarship student at one of the city’s top private schools and it was not a good experience. He bailed to New York at the first possible opportunity and never looked back, really.
On the other hand, I’d made a conscious choice to attend university in Santo Domingo and it was an experience that truly expanded my horizons.
So, that was the duality we were dealing with on this trip. It’s part of the reason I’d wanted to start out in Santo Domingo. The D.R. most definitely had a stronger overall infrastructure than Haiti (translation: it was easier to get basic shit done there), but it was more psychologically loaded for my Pops. I figured if he got that out of the way at the top of the visit, we’d all be able to relax by the time we got to Port au Prince.
And don’t get me wrong- Haiti is beautiful and fun and relaxing, especially if you’re a moun dyaspora. It’s just that basic, fundamental things have to be planned out farther in advance, which my insane logistics-coded brain enjoyed, but I figured it made sense to let my parents ease into that mindset.
Anyway, that’s the backstory on my father.
We’d already been in the D.R. for three days by the time we hit my birthday. The first two days were spent visiting with the handful of family and friends who still lived in the city, along with a quick stop to my alma mater, Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra. We purposely made no plans for the day of my birth, choosing to wing it.
“Y qué tú quieres hacer hoy?” my father asked me, first thing in the morning. I’d stopped by my parents’ room to see if they were ready to go downstairs for breakfast.
“Don’t laugh, but I’d love to go to a waterfall,” I said. I felt like, to honor the start of my crossroads year, I needed to do something spiritually cleansing yet fun for the whole family. “I remember when I was in university, we used to road trip it to Salto Alto de Bayaguana.”
“Well, mijo, we have a car. Let me go tell your mother. We can hit the road as soon as we finish breakfast.”
Once we’d eaten, I ran back to my room to change clothes and grab my swim trunks and a towel. Then I headed back down to meet my parents in the lobby.
As soon as my mother saw what I was wearing she lowered her sunglasses and looked me up and down.
“Really, Pierre?” she asked. “Are you getting baptized today?”
I was wearing white basketball shorts, a white t-shirt, white Nikes and a white baseball hat.
My mom knew what was up.
Without being too dramatic about it, I wanted to stand at the crossroads clean and cleansed.
