Graduation

I finished my credits up in the Spring, but I wanted to walk in Graduation. So I packed my bags and went to Washington, DC where my dad was doing a fellowship at the Office of Environmental Policy at the Old Executive Office under Bill Clinton. While I was in DC I worked for a couple of temp agencies. One was for law offices. One was Hogan and Hartson , which is where John Roberts worked before the Supreme Court. I took some classes and had a professor Robert Donihi who had been an attorney during the Nuremberg trials. He was older, but I found his class fascinating.

We didn’t actually live in DC but in Bowie, Maryland. Each day my dad and I traveled on Route 50 to get to DC. It was densely crowded traffic and was not the most scenic route to the Nation’s Capital. Each day we would pass a homeless man on the side of the road with a leaf in his mouth and we would pass by a shuttered African restaurant called NKWOBI. We would sometimes take the rail, our closest stop to the house was New Carolton, near the IRS building. I was working with a few others who quickly became friends. One of my favorite new friends was Catrice. She was always up to exploring with me, and we would go for empanadas or other delicious food in DC. She had a necklace that said ‘African Queen’ and was still in touch with her Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sisters.

I stayed in touch with Kico, and he flew to visit me in DC. My mother plowed him with food to the point he almost popped. I can remember picking him up at Reagan National Airport and my heart raced as I saw him come down from the plane. He was exactly as I had remembered him: clean cut, smelling good and all smiles. He stayed for a few weeks and we made plans for me to go to the Dominican.

My father took me to the airport on the day I flew to the Dominican Republic. The man checking us in had the last name Holder, and my father said “Any relation to Eric Holder?” The man seemed impressed and said yes. I firmly believe that was why I got to fly first class to the Dominican Republc. We landed and the whole plane clapped. Kico picked me up from the airport and we went to his mother’s house. Much like my mother, his mother plied me with food: habiquelas, arroz, avocado in slices and platanos Fritos. I met his sister and her children and he lived in Villa Juana, and there were always people who would come up to visit and say hello while we sat outdoors on the covered patio. A few days into our trip, we went to stay at a hotel. It was there that I had Mangú for the first time. I was an immediate convert. I was reading a Laura Van Wormer book during the time he had to go to work. We went to Boca Chica the whole time listening to Janet Jackson’s CD. We also went to Puerto Plata. Kico was disappointed with the hotel arrangements, but I couldn’t complain. I was in paradise.When it came time to leave, I told Kico I didn’t want to go, and he said “so don’t go” I could not stay in a place where I had no job, no house, and no idea how to navigate where to go, could I? Crying, I boarded the plane back to DC. This time in COACH….