Dominican Republic: Night Of The Lights
By Dane Huckelbridge

For six days I sweated out a sickness under mosquito netting, but on the seventh day the fever broke. It is night now, very dark; but I still lie in bed, clutching a bottle of mamajuana rum and recovering my strength. Today also happened to be El Dia de San Juan, and the festivities have carried on into the evening. I can hear the drums, faint but constant, rising from the valley below. I know the villagers are all in the clapboard church, faces illuminated by torchlight, chanting with the drums in praise of their saint. I wanted to go, but Maria, holding a damp cloth to my head, insisted I rest.

"You stay here," she said. "It takes longer for Gringos to recover from these things." Then she left with the family to go to the festival, and to cleanse herself in the river water with the other campesinos.

I am restless now though, as those who only recently recovered from a sickness often are, and can no longer bear lying alone on my sweat-soaked bed. I climb from beneath the netting and walk out of my shack and into the Dominican night, surrounded by the songs of tree frogs, and the sour sweet, vaguely genital odor of drying cacao. In every direction stretch the endless mountains of the Cibao, shaggy with palms, stark black against an indigo sky.

I walk barefoot into the kitchen house with the thatched roof, and step onto the cool dirt floor. Abuelo, being too old to climb up and down the steep trails to the village, has stayed behind as well. He is sitting by the doorway in his straw hat and peasant sandals. I can barely make out his face, except when he sucks on the pipe in his toothless mouth, and the tobacco burns red for an instant. I don’t know exactly how old he is, and neither does he, although he remembers when the American soldiers came, and that was a long time ago. His face is always kind, but he seldom speaks. He is sitting next to an earthen water jug, and a machete, stained from cacao husks and chicken blood, that glints in the starlight.

"Good Evening, Abuelo," I say to him.

In the soft glow of his pipe I can see him smile. "Good evening," he says.

I offer him a drink from my bottle of mamajuana and he politely declines. I pull up a chair and sit next to him, taking a sip for myself. The rum, mixed with pungent roots that have steeped in it for days, has a medicinal taste, and helps to calm what lingers of my fever.

Abuelo stares out into the night, expecting but patient; and I think I know why. In addition to being the night of the festival, this will also be the night of the lights. For the past year, the villagers saved their extra crop money to bring electricity to the valley. They borrowed oxen from Sonador to haul trees for electric poles. They ordered great reels of cable to string along mountain roads and between their wood plank houses. They bought bulbs, nestled like duck eggs in straw-filled crates, to give to each family. And tonight, at midnight, the lights will go on.

Most of the local farmers have already discarded their oil lamps. Some have purchased second-hand television sets and radios as well, as the coming of electricity means evening entertainment will consist of more than simple dominos and quiet gossip by candlelight.

The excitement during the last few weeks has been almost palpable. Everyone talks about “the lights,” which have become synonymous with modernity and convenience. Men speak of walking home from the colmados along the packed-dirt paths without having to stumble blindly in the darkness. Women speak of soap operas broadcast from Santiago that they will be able to watch on their television sets. Young people speak of listening to popular music on radio stations instead of the local merengueros and their battered accordions. Maria even mentioned one day buying a washing machine, so she would no longer have to haul laundry down the mountainside and clean clothes in the river with the other women. After all, Blanco Arriba, the next village over, has had electricity for almost five years. They don’t stumble in the darkness. They don’t wash their clothes in the river. Life will change here as well, most agree for the better. Tonight, this valley, whose nights have been black as pitch since before time, will hum and shine with electricity. But for now, as I sit with Abuelo and his pipe, there is still only the inky blackness of rolling hills, and the multitudes of pinprick stars in the shrouded sky.

"Are you waiting for the lights?" I ask after a few minutes of comfortable silence.

"Yes," answers Abuelo. "I want to see the lights. Have you seen lights before?"

"Yes," I tell him. "Where I’m from, we have lots of lights. So many, you can’t even see the stars."

"There are no stars?"

"Yes, we have stars, only you can’t see them very well. The lights are too bright."

"Do the lights hurt your eyes?"

"No, they don’t. They aren’t that bright."

"Oh, I see," says Abuelo. "Once, when I was young," he says, "the moon covered the sun during the day, and nobody knew what was happening. It wasn’t as dark as night, but not as bright as day either. Will it be like that?"

"I think so," I reply, "but I’m not certain." I take another sip of the rum and try to enjoy the hint of a breeze that moves in through the valley and rustles the palms.

I notice quite suddenly that the distant drumming of the festival has ceased. It seems as if even the tree frogs have gone silent in anticipation. It must be time. Abuelo leans forward in his chair, not knowing what will come next. For a tense moment it appears that nothing will happen. Then a single spec of light, on its own no more significant than a firefly, flickers on at the base of a far off hill. Another sparks to life nearby, followed by another, and another, until a web of lights, in delicate beaded strings, spreads across the entire valley. It is odd to see, even for me, a relative stranger to these parts. I wonder what Abuelo must be thinking after seeing the same dark valley he has watched at night for the better part of a century suddenly crawling with illuminated tendrils of electric light. My ears can make out cheering from the villagers below, and the drums come back to life, slightly louder and faster than before.

Abuelo rises from his chair and puts his hand on my shoulder before shuffling out into the Dominican night, no longer quite as dark. He is probably going to bed. I stand in the doorway drinking my rum and quietly searching out the breeze from before, while the stars of the Cibao, no longer quite as bright, burn angrily overhead.

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