My mother met me at the pier, and we took a chartered taxi, which, in the absence of a railroad, carried the better class of passengers across country. My mother, who had not seen me in two years, sat looking at me while I looked out of the window not liking this new country where I was going to live. The mountainous areas seemed brash and new, lacking in composition; the plains were sunburned and monotonous except for the miserable palm-leaf shacks and occasional bursts of gross, oversized vegetation. Over all stood the unrelieved, unlovely white heat of the sky. At every crossroads, we stopped at the little inspection posts. The soldiers joked with the driver and the three chatty Dominicans in the back seat, who were putting up good-naturedly with the heat, the noisy merengue on the car radio, and the road rattling beneath us. I was feeling sick and I leaned out of the window, but even the breeze raised by our motion felt secondhand and warmed-over. I thought there would be relief when we stopped for lunch in one of the small, hot, towns, but the taxi-driver led us into a flyblown restaurant where a crippled Chinaman served us hot fried chicken, rice, and warm Coca-Cola.
