I Love the Dominican Republic

The next several entries aren’t mainly reflections, just observations and memories that remind me why I love the Dominican Republic. You’ll also get some of the details of the trip – what we did, who was there, what a day looked like, and more.

I’ll start out with my observations and perceptions of the DR itself and its culture, which of course is still quite limited because I’ve mainly only seen on tiny piece of the country and have only been there one month, mainly around a lot of other Americanos.

Picking a random place to begin, the traffic in the DR is crazy, and it’s seems like there’s always a lot of traffic, at least in Santo Domingo. There are certain traffic signals which are basically optional (like one stoplight in particular and most stop signs), staying in the lanes (if they are marked) is optional, and the horn is used liberally for a variety of reasons. These reasons include telling someone to get a move on when they wait a split second too long after a light changes, and alerting someone to your presence so they don’t just decide to change lanes right on top of you. There is no such thing as defensive driving – you would never get anywhere. You just have to turn out in front of oncoming traffic to turn left most of the time, assuming they will slow down instead of hitting you. At many stoplights, men walk up and down the rows of cars trying to sell bananas or necklaces or cell phones or whatever else. Lots of people ride motorcycles, zipping in between lanes of traffic and through the middle of intersections. Sometimes they get amazing numbers of people on these small bikes, too, like 4 people and some other stuff. It’s partly due to these motorcyclists that all roads off of the highway are riddled with the largest speed bumps you’ve ever seen, which require an almost complete stop to drive over. Fortunately, however, we have awesome and very experienced Dominican drivers, starting with the amazing Rodolfo (aka Rodo Baggins), who drives their main bus and Bienvenido (or Bienvo) who drives the staff van and has a wonderful personality at all hours of the day. With all those loud Americans, these drivers put up with a lot!

The weather in the DR doesn’t ever change much, unless it decides to pour rain, as it did often during our last week. I can almost guarantee you that today the highs are in the upper 80s with lows in the upper 70s and consistent humidity in the 80-95% range. Even the Dominicans sweat all the time.

Besides the traffic, most everything else is more chaotic than the United States, including school and the grocery store. In fact, going in the grocery store when it’s busy is about like driving, except you have a cart instead of a car. Nothing generally happens really efficiently, except for the Haitian workers doing construction. The inefficiency is seen especially well at the hotel where we stay, as we tell them to have the group’s rooms ready about an hour early so we’ll have them on time. The power flickers on and off randomly at the hotel, and goes out for hours at a time at the Mission. The water is, of course, very unsafe to drink. Trash isn’t collected very consistently, so many open spaces and gutters are littered with trash (vile plastic!), and the village of Cielo has its own dump site right off the side of the hill in front of the Mission. Cows wander around the neighborhood (I guess everyone know whose they are), along with chickens, dogs, cats, and sometimes ducks. In general, everything is a little bit dirtier and older and more well-used than in the United States, except in the select American-ish places like fast food places, some stores, our hotel, and Jumbo, the DR equivalent of a Walmart Supercenter and a mall put together. Almost all advertisements and business signs are hand painted (very well) onto walls or storefronts rather than having nice logos and manufactured signs.

I say none of this to talk down upon the Dominicans. In fact, I feel almost like Americans are a little too obsessed with everything looking perfectly clean and nice on the outside, and everything being orderly and controlled. While that’s good sometimes, we can carry it a little far. No matter what, though, there are many other things that make me love the Dominican Republic. First of all, at least in the villages where we work, people are very welcoming. They often invite you into their homes then make you sit down, even if the only sit they have is an overturned bucket. They are very giving people, too – we went into one of the poorest houses in the neighborhood and they gave each of us mangos, likely just about the only food they had because they grew on a tree outside. And the children are the best. I don’t think there is a small child in the entire DR who is not cute and playful and loving. I’ll tell more about them later. In general, when you get to know people they are just so loving, humble, and thankful. And while you can really see evidence of the oppression of poverty in so many pairs of eyes, the Dominicans I know are still people of energy and laughter and hope, especially the young ones. It’s really not hard to love them.

In writing all of this, I find that it’s very difficult for me to describe why I grew to love this place and its people so much, and I haven’t done a very good job. I think it will be easier as I describe some more specific things. It's also true that I only know a tiny bit about the culture compared to all their is to know. Now all I can say is that Dominicans are people like you and me – they laugh, play, work, have birthdays, sing, dance, succeed, fail, and feel happy, sad, sick, forlorn, encouraged, grateful, depressed, and triumphant. And I love them not for any rational reason, not for any characteristic they possess. I didn’t try to love them; it just happened. I love them because my God loves me, so much that it overflows into them. God does the loving, not me (fortunately!).