A Small School You've Never Heard Of

             “I go to Huntington University in northern Indiana; most people have never heard of it. It’s really small, up by Ft. Wayne.”
            “Oh, OK, sure,” he says and throws the next expected question at me, “And what are you studying?”
            I give him my rehearsed, seldom varying, word for word answer, “I’m majoring in English, and then double minoring in Spanish and ESL. Do you know ESL?”
            He gives the usual answer, “I think I’ve heard of it, but remind me again what it is.”
            “It stands for English as a Second Language. So, basically, I plan to teach English to Spanish speakers.”
            “OK, cool,” he says and nods his head. Normally, the conversation would end at this point with more head nodding and smiling, but since I’ve been in the Dominican, I’ve tacked on one more sentence.
            “And maybe,” I say, “I could end up teaching here or in some other country. I don’t really know.”
            “OK, very cool,” he says. And now we end the conversation in earnest with head nodding and smiling. But there is nothing else going on, so he looks for something else to talk about. He begins to tell me about how he recently went to Ft. Wayne to get a special breed of rabbit for his daughter. I half listen, but I’m distracted by a group of women standing close by.
            “How old do you think she is?” They keep their voices low.
            “Well, she’s in college, so not too young.”
            “But still, to be here on her own for six weeks?”
            There is more whispering and a general disapproval that I am here alone at my age. My parents should have kept me safe in America where the streets are clean and the dogs well fed. Maybe when I’m older. Maybe after I finish my college degree, or after I’m married or after I’ve had my babies in America. And surely, only after I’ve been settled in a suburb. Maybe I can live in the Dominican Republic after my golden retriever has passed on, and my two and a half children have families of their own.

~~~

            “Oh, I go to Huntington University in northern Indiana; most people have never heard of it. It’s really small, up by Ft. Wayne.”
            “Oh, OK, sure,” he says and throws the next expected question at me, “And what are you studying?”
            I give him my rehearsed, seldom varying, word for word answer, “I’m majoring in English, and then double minoring in Spanish and ESL. Do you know ESL?” He doesn’t, and so I tell him. I’ve had this same conversation hundreds of times. In the States, this conversation drove me crazy.
            “I don’t want to have to go to this thing because people will just ask me how college is.”
            My mom rolls her eyes at me, “They are just showing that they’re interested.”
            “But they are not interested! It’s only a formality; they have to ask me how college is, and I have to tell them, but neither of us really want to.”
            “You are just too cynical,” my mom tells me, but of course she knows I’m right.  

            On Tuesday, a new team from the United States flies in. Their plane is usually supposed to arrive at 8 or 9, and it is always late. I wait in the church where they stay; I’ve made sure the water is cold and the tables wiped off. When the team finally does role in, it is 10:30 or 11, and they sit in their plastic chairs looking blinkingly around them as they listen to a member of the G.O. staff go over rules. “Don’t drink the water. Put the toilet paper in the trash can next to the toilet. Don’t give out things to the kids. The food we have prepared for you is safe. Please help us wash the dishes after each meal. Let me introduce you to some people. These are some interns who will be helping out this week: Anthony, Reece, and Leah.” Everyone looks my way, and I view the next set of people who will ask where Huntington University is.

            But I want to get to the end of the week. I want to sit in those plastic chairs next to those same people who looked at me blinkingly wondering what my major is who now know that I like to put about an inch of mayonnaise on my sandwiches. These people who know I’m pretty good at the card game Egyptian Rat Screw. Who know I have relatively large feet.

            But what I really want to do is sit next to the people from home, at least for a little while. The people who know that I hit a car while parking the first day driving with my license. The people who know how I got the scar on the shin of my right leg. The people who know that all it takes to make me furious is to pinch my nose. The people who had to tell me I had a birthmark on the back of my leg because I had never noticed it before. The people who know that I’m not ticklish. And the people who know I have two hairs on each of my big toes.

            Those are the people I hope will be around to hear the story behind my next scar. And those are the people whose numbers I hope are added to by a few of the people who looked at me blinkingly as I was introduced to them as an intern.