Ponche, Russian Tea, and Jengibre

Our very generous coconut tree

I type "Christmas decor ideas," and my screen fills up with images of evergreens in the snow, cozy cabins with fireplaces, and snowflakes. I look out the window, and I see the grass in our backyard full of coconuts that have sadly gone bad, because we're still not able to keep up with the amount produced by our tree. The passion fruit vine in our garden is loaded. Our neighbors are plowing their land to start planting in the next week. The thermometer inside my house says it's 74 degrees outside - such a cool day; I might even wear a scarf.

Things certainly do look a little bit different on the island. Since the husband is the more aplatano (literally plaintain-ified) in the house, he is the one who makes jengibre every night. Jengibre has become my favorite Dominican drink. It's a tea made of fresh sliced ginger and cinnamon.
However, as a true Guatemalan, what I really crave during this time is a little bit of ponche.  The quintessential Christmas drink, it's made of pineapple, apple, and other fruits brought to a boil with some spices and sugar. The husband doesn't really go for it. What he would have on any given afternoon during this season is Russian tea.

All three drinks will be available on Christmas day.

And so, our little multicultural family is learning how to pay attention to both old traditions and new. We now have three different cultures intertwining every single day. It's a complicated dance. And it is hard to keep up the pace of that dance. The husband has lived outside of his home country for eighteen years now, split between two countries. I have lived outside of my home country during 12 years, split between three different countries. The boys have been born in a country that is their own but not their parents'. It would be so much simpler to just pick one. We could choose to just keep one language at home, and focus on living out of just one culture. Yes, it would be a lot easier, specially because we would actually fit in somewhere.

Yet, if we chose the easy way, we would go unchanged. Our cultures would go unchallenged. I love Guatemalan culture. It is rich, and it is beautiful. However, I would be deceiving myself if I said it did not have its weak spots. Same goes for the other two cultures in this household. So, we are constantly pushed to think about what we say and do. Yes, we crack jokes in this house about each others' countries. We say our peace. We also ask tough questions. We enter deep conversations asking, 'why do they do this or that in the U.S. or in Guatemala?' 'Why do you think they do this or that here?' And the most beautiful part of the whole deal is that it will never be done. This tension will never be resolved. We will never arrived at an 'aha' moment or at a moment where we said we equally integrated the three or we came at a moment of comfort.

I have yet to learn a lot about island living. I am by no means an expert on Dominican culture or its history yet. I only hope that I will be able to walk within these cultures with honor and love.