Sunday, August 10, 197.5

  By DONALD C. DRAKE
      li"`lLir~~i' MpulCrll IV)'?ter
SAN JOSE de OCOA, Dominican
Republic - "MariLIN!' MariLIN!"
the grandmother yelled to the g-year-
old girl with the sad, beautiful face.
"We have visitors. They have come
to see the twins. Go quickly. Prepare
them at once."

The girl disappeared, and soon the
room was filled with people running
in and out of doorways with wet
washcloths and baby clothes. Neigh-
bors crowded outside the house and
peered tnrough the open windows and
doorways. They wanted to know who
these foreigners were who had come
down tneir street in a new car with
Sister Cecilia.

It was 1 p.m., midway through the

nnd Clara Rotiri::uez - were separated in un operation that-made
medical history Se[?t. 18, 197-1, at Phiiudelphia's Childrc.<s Hosp&al.
They are cclebrntiq tlreir second birthday, which is?k~xfhy, lw#z a
small party today in their nutiue Dominican Republic. Inquirer medical
writer Donuld Drake, who began covering the twins with the operation,
went to the Don~i : can Republic to see how they were doing. This is
the first of two TQ : :s.

tlro-hour siesta wt.<. sreryone in the  apparently was becoming nervous
Dominican Reptiblic escapes from the  about keeping the visitors \!aiting, 50
sun for shade, food and sleep, and  she invited everyone into the bed-
the iwins were asleep. But that did  room even though the twins were
not matter. The visitors were very  still napping.
important. They came from Philadel-   It !vas a small, airy corner room
phia, which has pecome almost a  with cross-ventilation from the two,
holy place for these people in the  g!ass!ess windows with aluminum jal-
mountains. The twins should be  ousies. Haif of the small room was
awakened.                 filled with an old bureau and double
The grandmother, a thin old  bed where the twins' mother sleeps;
woman with a weather beaten face,

2, Ceik

  TWINS, F&m 1-A
the other half contained the two
cribs.

And there they were, the now
world-famous t&s, eyes closed, obli-
vious to the excitement, but dressed
as if they were ready for a party.
iMost Dominican children this age-
especially the poorer ones in the
campo-which is what people call +he
rugged, beautiful countryside here-
wear simple clothes that frequently
aren't clean. But the twins are al-
ways clad in immaculate, frilly
dresses.

The twins, approaching their sec-
ond birthday, looked a little bigger,
perhaps slightly more pensive than
they did in Philadelphia, but they
were the same adorable babies who
had captured the _attention of every
nurse in Children's Hospital.

The most significant change since
they returned sever, months ago was
symbolized by the big, specially
made orthopedic shoes that they
wore even while sleeping in their
cribs.

They can walk now. And though
short on endurance and speed, they
can even run a little. But they don't
do it exactlv the same way as other
children the& age.

Because of the way they were
joined at the pelvis, surgeons had to
reshape the bony structure. But na-
ture couldn't be reproduced exactly.
Thus Clara w&s with a wide gait,
almost as if straddling an invisible
fat dog. And Alta, who must wear a
corset because she has no abdominal
muscles, walks with her left foot
pointed out.

But they get around, and it takes a
close look to notice that something is
wrong. Everyone is still very excited
about their walking because it's been
only a few weeks since they retutrned
from the Rehabilitation Center in
Santo Domingo,  where specialists
spent two months developing strength
in their legs and abdomen and teach-
ing them to walk.

Settifig

A New Role

Farida Rodriguez is the mother of
the twins and as such has achieved
fame, a new self-image and essen-
tially a supervisory position in the
family. It is for the grandmother and
Marilin Guerrero, the twins' cousin,
to take care of the mundane matters
while Farida contemplates more im-
portant and international affairs-
like returning to Philadelphia, to hold
a Mass of Thanksgiving.

The twins will return next month to
the United States to be examined by
Dr. C. Everett Koop, who preformed
the operation separating the babies.

When the visitors arrived, Farida
Rodriguez was with her husband in
the small village of Las Auyamas
taking care of matters there, un-
aware of all that was happening
the other house. Otherwise she would
have been there herself to handle
protocol.


Marilin, always on call in the
household, is as close to the twins as
a sister. Her mother lives with her
eight other children in a shack in
Santo Domingo and is too poor to
care for her, so Farida brought her
into her home.

If the twins need something, Far-
ida immediately barks out the order
"MariLIN." If someone should want
water, the name is heard again:
MariLIN!" She is generally stand-
ing silently near the adults, ready to
do their bidding. In San Jose, they
say that Marilin is the twins' mother.

Fame's Rewards

The twins were moved from their
native village in Campq,, because it
has no electricity, running water or
medical facilities. They haven't slept
overnight in their old home in Las
Auyamas since their separation. But
Salvador, their father, still runs his
store there.

Their new home here in San Jose,
a town of 13,ooO people, is a white,
cinder-block building that the family
rents for $50 a month. The govern-

4 ment has promised to build them a
$10,000 house soon.

By Dominican standards the twins'
family is doing exceptionally well.. As
a small businessman, Salvador Ro-
driguez makes more than the poor
peasants who are his customers. A
$150~a-month allotment, granted the
famous babies until they are 18 by
President Joaquin Balaguer, takes
care of most problems. It is a lot of
money in a country where the aver-
age working man makes $2 a day if
he is lucky enough to have a job.
Unfortunately for Salvador, who
must tend his little mountain store,
fame has turned him into a com-
muter who sees his daughters only on
weekends.

Although Las Auyamas is only 10
milt- away, it is a long 10 miles be-
,.   the twisting road is narrow
.m<. .:r:~p and a peso ($1) is a lot to
pa.:? for the Land Rover bus that
makes the trip each day.

So the growing crowd in the twins'
small bedroom was startled by Sister
Cecilia's suggestion.

"Oh, I have an idea," she an-
nounced cheerfully. "Let's surprise
Farida and Salvador and take the
twins to Las Auyamas."

Take the twins to Las Auyamas! It
was a shocking idea. The last time
Clara and Alta went back to their' na-
tive village was in April when Di.
Koop visited. But that was a very
important day. No one is more im-
portant than "Papa" Koop. Could
such a trip be justified now? Could
they dare expose the twins to the
heat and dust of the road between
here and there? Would Farida be
angry?

Then. It's All Right .

"If Sister Cecilia says it is all
right," the grandmother said to the
expectant crowd of upturned little
faces, "then it is all right with Far-
ida."

Pandemonium! Everyone ran to
prepare for the trip. Alta's corset
was made ready. Marilin prepared
two nursing bottles. The grandmother
ruled that she and Yuderki, who is 16
and also a cousin, would be the ones
to make the trip with the twins.
The group bundled into the small
Japanese car, two adults in the front,
five people in the back, including the
twins. The heavily ladened car made
its way down the dusty road, the air
conditioner useless in the heat. Ther-
mometers in the sun read 150 de-
grees. In the shade it was 106.
Struggling against the steep grade
of the boulder-strewn road, the car
climbed farther into the mountains.
The countryside was green : -with
majestic royal palm trees, but the
rivers were almost dry.
The area was going through the

worst drought in memory and the pea
pie were suffering. Malnutritioll
which is always bad here, had wor
sened. Sister Cecilia's hospital wa
filled with babies with bloated bellie
and gaunt eyes.
The twins were quiet, as they us11
ally are when visitors are presen!
during the hour long trip. Alta was i.
Yuderki's lap and Clara in Marilin'5
They looked at each other, dozed an
drank from the plastic nursing bol
th!s.

A Rare Nourishment

Most children in the campo don't
drink milk because it costs too much
and malnutrition dries up the milk in
their mothers' breasts. Instead they
dring sugared water. The more fortu-
nate drink unpasteurized cows' milk.
The twins, however, get special
dried milk provided, for a year, by
the Nestle Co. Though Marilin is
charged with preparing the milk and
feed the babies, the girl drinks none
of it herself, getting unpasteurized
milk instead.. Why not drink the better
milk that the twins get?
"Because it is theirs," she says
simply. The twins are special. Every-
one knows that. And special people
are entitled to special privileges.
Non-special people don't even ques-
tion such things.

Making way for an oncoming Land
Rover bus, the car edged precari-
ously close to the rim of the road,
I,000 feet straight up from the val-
ley's floor. It bumped through a rock-
strewn section of the road and then
started down toward Las Auyamas.

The incredible beauty of the
campo, even in the aftermath of the
deadly drought, clashed with the
shacks and `buildings, topped with
thatched or corrugated roofs.
Women in dirty dresses and chil-
dren in brown school uniforms gazed
at the car, a strange sight on a re-
mote road usually traveled only by
the Land Rover bus.

Home Again

Two girls saw Marilin, their long-
lost friend, and waved. Taking an
arm from around the twin, she smiled
proudly and waved back. As villagers
recognized the twins, the apprehen-
sion on their faces turned to delight.
Divining in some way that a car
was coming down the road, people
were already waiting in their door-
ways. Chickens scurried from the
road and hags sluggishly moved
aside.

The twins were really home now.
Not the new, cinderblock home that
fame brought them, but the building
made from raw bamboo planks with
a corrugated tin roof.
It was quiet. Suppertime was still a

few hours off, so the children with
food pails and coins tied in handker-
chiefs hadn't begun to arrive at Sal-
vador's store to buy food for the eve-
ning meal.
Food is bought on a daily basis be-
cause the money for the evening
meal comes from the work done dur-
ing the day.

Farida came out of the house at-
tached to the little one-room store.
She could not believe what she saw.
She hugged Sister Cecilia and her
twins and the reporter from Philadel-
phia, whom she recognized from ear-.
lier encounters.


The Reunion

Bare chested, Salvador came to the
doorway, smiling also. Everyone was
invited into the small, dark living
room with the shiny concrete floors.
The twins played under a photograph
of  "Papa"  Koop while Marilin
pushed the chickens away.
"Marilin" Farida barked, order-
ing the little girl to wash and change
the twins' soiled clothes. Marilin and
Yuderky disappeared, each with a
twin in her arms.

People gathered in the oper? door-
way to see what was happening now
with their famous neighbors. Salva-
dor put on a shirt, and Farida sat
down in an old, plank-wood rocking
chair to sew the border on a dish
towel with the words "Balaguer 74
78" written on it. It was material left
in the house she had rented, and out
here cloth is never thrown away.
Out+le in the crowd of people was
Ad&$id Zuceno Soto, a 9-year-old girl
w~tk \ovcly unafraid brown eyes and
a r&v smile. She is the onlv g-irl of
eight dbildren. A ninth child died a
few months ago. They do not know
what she died of, but her mother,
who watched the goings-on from her
doorwav across the road, is sure that
it was kitchcraft.

There was Bievenido Rodrigues Ro-
dricuez, Salvador's cousin, a thin but
handsome man who speaks little.
The drought wiped out his beans and
peanuts, and he has no food for his
family of seven children. What will
he do? "What God decides," he said
with resignation.

A Woman of Means

And there was also Ida Cg!rlaron
Subero, a stylishly dressed woman
with matching ton and pants, whr,
sneaked a look into the room as she
goes bv but did not stop because it
would not be fitting for a woman of
her means, even thollyh a relative,
to stop at this moment. She runs the
single pool table in Las Auyamas, a
sad, broken-down old table for which
the men pay 5 cents a game. Her
husband owns one of the Land Rover
buses, making, him a man of consid-

erable substance.

Rocking in her chair and sewing on
the dish towel while the twins were
freshened, Farida said she wanted to
thank the people of Philadelphia for
all :::cy have done. She explained
tbrl s?e had not written because she
kr\om &y Spanish, but that she was
very thankful.

Farida said she enjoyed the fame
that her twins had brought her. Peo-
ple come up and talk to her in San
Jose and Santo Domingo, and she
makes new friends.

As she spoke, a laborer worked on
`an addition to the house. A modest
room made of bamboo, it would be
just big enough to provide space for
the twins to sleep with their small
court of attendants when they come
for visits.

Soon, thick Dominican coffee was
served with a very sweet milk cake.
Sitting there in the chair, sewing and
talking every now and then whepever
a question is asked, Farida looked
like a simple, country woman content
to be in her home with her family.
America's Temptation

But she is more compley than that,
and she has been tempted by what
America has to offer the privileged
people of the world.
Her husband, a good-natured man
who is forever smiling and combing
the gray hair that tops a handsome
face framed by huge sideburns, goes
along with whatever Farida decides.
Farida said she was eager to come
back to Philadelphia, where the peo-
ple have been so kind. She was too
careful to say she wanted to live per-
manently in Philadelphia, `but heir
friends in America think she does.
They have warned her that she
knows,only what it is like to be a fa-
mous person in the United States.
America treats its average people -
especially if they speak only Spanish
- with less generosity, they say.

Farida spoke of sending a teenage

son to school in the United States.
And she complained about the
house she now rents in San Jose,
which she said uses up $85 of the $150
each month when utilities are in-
cluded. Also she doesn't like the new
house, she said, even though it has
five rooms, - because the rooms are
sma!l and have no screens, a fact
verified by the many mosquito bites
on the twins' arms and legs. There
are no trees for shade, and the house
is hot.

Selling Their Storp

The family received $lOfOOO from
the Ladies' Home Journal magazine
for the exclusive rights to their story.
Farida did not makee it dear where
the money went, but she said she:
spent $1,900 for the land where the
government is supposed to build the
house it promised and $1,200 for the
furniture in the house she now rents.

Farida recently told the writer for
the Ladies' Home Journal that she
was sarisfied with the arrangement
and instructed her to tell her boss iq
the United States that she wanted tc
renew the magazine contract for nexl
year.

After the cakes were eaten and the
coffee drunk, Farida got up, piled
many belongings into a carton and
packed them into the car that
brought the twins. There was no dis-
cussion. She had decided to return
home that night and, of course, there
was room for her in the car, because
in Lrls Auyamas there is always
room for one more. It is not unusual
for 10 to 15 people to crowd into a
Land Rover or a Chevrolet t&.
While everyone else got into the
car, Farida marched off with the
twins to show them to the apprecia-
tive neighbors. It was not every day
that the twins visited Las Auyamas,
and everyone was waiting outside for
the chance to see them.

NEXT: How the twins are faring
under Dominican medical care.