"I settled into this strange place, it seemed, as much as Lorenzo did, almost immediately that first summer. We quickly grew accustomed to our new home. We had constant running water and electricity, and we had a color television that could pick up twelve channels, and even had our very own bedroom, which we shared with bunk beds. We lived on a quiet street in New Domangue where there weren't too many other people like us, but this didn't bother Lorenzo and me because we had each other wherever we went. Father, who often spoke about New Domangue being our new home in the same breath that he reminded us of Santo Domingo, would sometimes point to the things in our home and say that one day we will have these things back in La Republica. As soon as the country gets better, he would say, we will go back and live like wealthy people. But the old world back home disappeared to Lorenzo and me very quickly, and the old neighborhood and our old friends faded into sketchy snapshots that we barely bothered to look over. We were busy exploring every new discovery that came our way .""