The insects bite incessantly,

penetrating the shield of bug spray,

sucking sweet blood from veins.

Red welts appear on skin.

 

You breathe in the Dominican air,

unknowingly becoming part of the culture through your exhale.

 

As one day in the country stretches into two, three, four...

the stinging discomfort of itching triggers a sensation.

 

You feel it 

in eyes of children who hold your hand, smile at you, ask you for food.

You hear it 

in wavering voices of the elderly inquiring about medicine.

You see it 

in grueling physical labor workers complete.

You taste it 

in bitter morning coffee.

You smell it 

in burning sugar cane.

 

While examining your skin, you notice five more mosquito bites.

 

Within the thick green fields of sugar cane

lies something sweet.

Sweeter than pan dulce.

Sweeter than trés leches.

This sweetness sustains.

 

Much like the pain of your bites.

 

Stop scratching for a moment.

Notice the people.

Dehydrated, malnourished, impoverished, broken in many ways

but with spirits impenetrable as rocks yet light as sunshine.

 

The itching of your bites seems to have subdued.

 

I walk over to an older man; shake his broken hand; say in broken Spanish,

“Hola. Me llamo Anita. Cómo está usted?”

 

He smiles a full-mouthed smile, revealing a shiny gold tooth. 

As my own eyes meet his illustrious ones,

I know the secret.

 

His eyes, his hand, his smile,

have jointly shared the secret which has been here all along.

The secret the Dominicans and Haitians practice intrinsically from birth.

 

The secret the mosquitos help transmit.

 

I now feel it as powerfully as the first bite itched. 

I now live it with more vigor than I once scratched the red gifts of mosquitos.

 

When you begin to live the secret, you can’t imagine life without it.

 

The renewed passion for everything,

The radiance emanating from the soul, 

The love for all beings,

es solo un secreto Dominicano.

 

A secret they are willing to tell.