Stories Beneath the Surface.

The breeze smelled like fried fish and sunscreen when I strolled onto Playa Alicia in Sosúa, clutching a half-melted limoncillo paleta. A vendor in a Red Sox cap shouted, “¡Sombrillas, manito!”—umbrellas, bro!—and waved me toward a forest of blue canopies. I’d lived in the Dominican Republic nearly ten years, but my beach-rental script was rusty. […]

I realized my phone was more powerful than my wallet while juggling a coconut paleta, a dripping credit card, and a line of impatient shoppers at a Santo Domingo colmado. The cashier, sliding her own phone across a QR pedestal, winked: “Páguelo con Yape, manito, y nos ahorramos el vuelto.” I blinked, still fishing for […]

I learned the hard way that plastic paradise can turn into fee purgatory. One Friday in Santo Domingo’s Zona Colonial, I treated visiting friends to chicharrón de pollo and passion-fruit mojitos. My U.S. card chirped approval, and I strutted out into the Caribbean night—until Monday’s statement slapped me with a “non-domestic usage” charge big enough […]

The December heat in Santo Domingo wraps you like a flannel you never asked for. I was stringing blinking lights around our mango tree when my Colombian friend Marcela video-called from Medellín’s brisk evening. Behind her, neighbors lugged bundles of candles and paper lanterns—Alumbrado season had begun. She laughed at my sweaty forehead, I shivered […]

The morning my Dominican neighbor Doña Milagros turned seventy, I woke to a brass banda and half the barrio huddled beneath her balcony, waving papaya-colored balloons. Someone handed me a lyrics sheet and whispered, “Sigue el coro, manito.” I garbled the first stanza of Las Mañanitas, botched the second, and finally surrendered to the percussion […]

The ceiling fan whirred like a lazy helicopter as late-afternoon light spilled through my Santiago de los Caballeros balcony. I was wrist-deep in mashed mangú—those ripe plantains stain your fingernails yellow for days—when my phone pinged with a voice note from Julián in Medellín: “Parce, alista la olla grande que llevo un ajiaco con el […]

A drizzle drummed the zinc roof of Escuela Primaria Juan Bosch when my son’s teacher, Profesora Mercedes, waved me into a pastel-green classroom that smelled of chalk dust and guava candy. I had rehearsed my questions during the motoconcho ride, but the moment I sat on the tiny plastic chair my brain turned into scrambled […]

I first realized my Spanish Vocabulary for senior health was laughably thin on a humid Tuesday in Santo Domingo. The ceiling fan in my mother-in-law’s living room spun like a lazy propeller while Doña Clara, her part-time caregiver, asked if I’d already “cambiado la sonda.” I blinked, picturing a satellite dish instead of a urinary […]

The first time I tried to organize a playdate in Santo Domingo, my daughter sprinted through the colmado aisle brandishing a plantain like a lightsaber. I was busy WhatsApp-typing “2 p.m. sharp” when Martina’s Dominican mom chuckled, “Ay, James, aquí la hora es orientativa.” An hour later—plantain bruised, patience thinner than mangú—the family finally rolled […]

I still remember the first time I tried to host a “proper” dinner party in the Dominican Republic. I’d only been on the island a few months, my Spanish felt shaky, and my grocery list was a Spanglish disaster. The night before, I texted a Colombian friend in Medellín for advice and accidentally swapped ají […]

I was halfway through a foam-splattered conga line in Santiago de los Caballeros when the memory of Valencia’s “La Cremà” suddenly flashed across my mind. One moment I was dodging spark-spitting “diablos cojuelos” on the Dominican parade route; the next, I could almost smell the gunpowder and fresh paella from that March night in Spain […]