[ORLANDO DE RECODO]
08/31/22
My godfather, Julio took us to the Rio Recodo today. It started raining so we didn’t go all the way up the mountain. We stopped by a small little settlement, apparently, that’s where one of Niño (my brother’s godfather) is from . Niño’s brother still lives there. I don’t know how Niño made it from there into La Ciudad to meet my father. I think he lived with his Haitian wife and half Haitian children (but towards the end of the trip I saw an older Dominican woman who could’ve been his actual wife). Most of the settlement was Haitian, in fact, I think the only Dominicans there were him, my godfather, and I. While we were at Niños brother’s camp the rain started to pour and soon three tall, dark, Haitian young men scurried into the camp, they had used inner tire tubes as swim rings. A Dominican kid about half their age and half their size was crying out to Niños brother. He was complaining about how they took his swim ring and wouldn’t give it back, I stopped paying much attention after that. Because of the rain, we decided to bathe near the settlement. There was a beautiful pocket of the river nearby where there was a section deep enough to cover me entirely.
I couldn’t put into words how beautiful the mountains were. Especially with the rain and the river. It was surreal. I couldn’t believe that I extended from this land.
After a while, the Dominican kid from earlier arrived at the riverside. He held a clear string in one hand and half an aguacate and bottle cap in the other. At a closer glance, I realized that he intended to fish using the aguacate as bait. I had never heard of people using aguacate as bait, never mind achieving any success with it. To my surprise, after a few tries he had caught a small river fish. The sight of a small, loud, Dominican kid river fishing in the rain was too good not to pull out my camera. I was nervous to ask but I didn’t let myself hesitate, I was already putting the lense on my camera when I asked “amigito, te pue tira una foto?”. I heard something of a “yes” and went for it. We got some sick shots. He couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that you couldn’t see the photos as we took them at first, but eventually I think he understood that it would take time for the photos to come out at least. He kept asking me if I would come back (to show him the photos), and I told him that I would send my godfather physical prints and have him go deliver them to him.
My godfather had gone back up to the settlement, and I didn’t want to keep swimming while my equipment was on the riverside. Finally, I decided to change into my dry clothes when the fishing kid (who had moved down the river for higher chances of success) asked me if I was leaving. When I told him I was changing to leave he said “no te vaya, vamo a bañano” and i thought “of course! This kid’s great!”. We did underwater swimming competitions and jumped from rocks. We even got some more shots of him in the water and even some of him in my clothes! He even took one of me, I’m excited to see how that one turns out. That might be the first photos he’s ever taken (if so I’d be honored).
He said his name was Orlando
But in my head, I dubbed him..
“Orlando de Recodo”
(SHOT BY ORLANDO)
He asked me for 25 pesos. He didn’t ask it as payment for the photos which felt nice (although it’d be fair if he did), I gave him 50 about 25 toothpicks (he REALLY liked my toothpicks). The fact that I didn’t bring my video camera gnaws at me, but it rained really hard and that would’ve been a ton of setup, so it was probably for the best. I do hope that Orlando does get to see the photos.
-TANAMA