Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Saturday Night Bingo

Saturday evening, I accompanied my host family on a visit to their neighbor’s house. These neighbors live in the capital city of Santo Domingo and have a vacation home here in Jarabacoa. They come out for the weekends.


At this home were the 2 gentlemen who own it, along with several members of their family, all older- mostly women. We were given some hot tea that they were brewing and after sitting to talk for a while, we were invited to play Bingo with them. When we sat down to play, we were informed that they were playing for money. One of the men paid our poker chips- 10 pesos per chip, 10 chips total.


These ladies were very serious about this game. They wanted to make sure that everyone paid for their games and the chips were carefully counted at the start of each game. They also wanted to make sure that nobody was cheating. Every number had to be checked when someone called Bingo.


In the middle of the game, we lost power for about 5 minutes, but this did not stop them from playing. They just brought out candles and kept going.


We played with them for about an hour and a half before calling it a night and heading back home. What an interesting neighborhood visit we had.

No comments: