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
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 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
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
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
The first time I asked for a vegetarian option in Santo Domingo I nearly caused a kitchen revolt. It was a sweltering Saturday at a
I was standing in the breezy courtyard of a restored colonial house in Santiago de los Caballeros when the sommelier offered me a glass of
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
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.
The Morning It All Started Late I should have known the day would unravel the moment my alarm surrendered to the Caribbean heat. The fan