The Dominicans

The past ten years of my life I have had over twenty different guys, varying from Dominican to American, live with me. Pretty weird right? When I was about 7 years old my brother saw an add in the newspaper about being a host family for minor league baseball players for the summer season. My brother was a huge baseball fan, so he begged my parents to answer the add. My parents thought it would be a good experience, so they agreed. 

The first two players that stayed with us were both from the Dominican Republic, and spoke very little English. My mother told them she would make dinner for them every night so they wouldn't have to worry about shopping or preparing a meal for themselves. My mom usually makes something new for dinner every night, but with the players it was completely opposite. The only thing the two baseball players wanted for dinner each night was chicken and rice. They also refused to drink any water from the tap. It had to be bottled. They drank either bottled water or their new found love of Kool-Aid, which I thought was weird. Every single day for four months straight, the only thing the players ate was the same chicken and rice. 

My family and I later realized it was because the only thing they ate back in the Dominican was chicken and rice. We also realized that they only drank bottled water because tap water from their home towns was unclean and could make a person sick. 

A few years later my family and I opened up our home to not just a baseball player, but a baseball player and his wife. Again, both of them were from the Dominican Republic. Unlike the previous years of housing players cooked for her husband, and made him things other than chicken and rice. The weirdest thing I can remember her cooking was fried plantains. They were like bananas, except not. Each time she fried them she made our kitchen smell horrendous. The wife tried to get me to eat them, but I hated it. She also like to eat unripened oranges from the tree in the backyard.  I thought that was completely bizarre. 

In the end, my parents were right. Housing baseball players was a good experience for me and my siblings, especially food wise. The only downside is that it has made me despise chicken and rice, and I've made sure to stay away from plantaines.